I Refuse To Be Your Luna (Flourish and Harold) novel Chapter 140

Chapter 140 A Mother’s Plan

Lydia’s POV

21

Finished

The apartment Garret had installed us in was serviceable, I’d grant it that much clean lines, decent light, a balcony that caught the evening sun.

But no matter how carefully the realtor had staged it, four walls and a rented kitchen could never replace the particular, bone-deep comfort of a proper pack villa, the kind with enough land around it that a wolf could actually run without tripping over a neighbor’s fence.

Selene had never learned to hide her frustration well. She paced the length of the living room now, arms crossed, her wolf clearly as restless as the rest of her, pacing an invisible groove into the carpet with every turn.

“Mom, do you think Dad’s lost his mind? He knows everything that happened wasn’t really my fault, so why hasn’t he told us to move back yet?”

I set my tea down carefully, considering how much of the truth she actually needed right now. “We’re not moving back anytime soon, Selene. You’d better prepare yourself for that.”

I’d made peace with it the day the movers finished unloading our things into this apartment. There was no version of events where Garret reversed that decision quickly, not with the council still watching every move this family made, not with Flourish’s growing influence making it politically inconvenient for him to look like he was rewarding either of us too soon.

“Flourish must have made some kind of arrangement with your father that we don’t know about,” I said, turning the thought over carefully as I spoke it aloud. “That sharp tongue of hers is her greatest weapon. All we need to do is be patient. Wait for her to overreach, the way girls like her always eventually do.”

The reassurance visibly settled something in Selene’s shoulders. “Yeah. You’re right. She’s all talk anyway.”

I allowed myself a small smile at that, though privately I wasn’t nearly as certain as I let her believe.

Flourish hadn’t struck me as a woman prone to overreaching. If anything, she calculated every move with the same cold precision I’d once prided myself on before motherhood softened certain edges I probably should have kept sharper.

I remembered being young enough to believe ambition alone could carry a wolf all the way to the top of a pack hierarchy that had never once been built to let outsiders climb it easily. I’d married into what standing I had.

Flourish had simply been born with better instincts than I’d ever managed to teach my own

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11:49 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 140 4 Mother’s Plan

ล

21

Finished

daughter, and some nights, that particular unfairness still kept me awake longer than I cared to admit.

“Now.” I set my cup aside entirely, turning my full attention toward my daughter. “You need to seize this wedding for everything it’s worth. Whether you manage any kind of real comeback depends entirely on your performance that day.”

Selene perked up immediately, hope flickering back into her expression like I’d flipped a switch. “Do you have a plan?”

I didn’t, not yet, not a full one. But admitting that now would only deflate the fragile confidence I’d just spent the last several minutes carefully rebuilding.

“For the bridesmaid dress,” I said instead, “speak with Amber directly. Make sure she understands you have no intention of stealing the spotlight from her. Let her feel secure enough to give you creative control over your own look.”

It was a delicate needle to thread, flattering the bride enough to earn goodwill, while quietly ensuring Selene stood out as clearly second in importance to no one else in that bridal party. My daughter wasn’t unattractive. She simply lacked the effortless, composed elegance that seemed to radiate naturally off women like Flourish, the kind no amount of styling could fully manufacture.

We had a month to work with. A month to smooth away the sharper, more grating edges of her personality, polish whatever remained into something presentable enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with pack nobility without immediately giving away exactly how far we’d already fallen.

Whether a leopard could truly change its spots remained, admittedly, an open question.

But I intended to find out, whatever it cost either of us to get there.

I observed my daughter as she settled onto the couch, already pulling out her phone to draft a message to Amber, her earlier restlessness replaced with something closer to purpose.

It was the most animated I’d seen her since the scandal broke, and some old, protective part of me, the part that still remembered holding her as an infant, long before ambition had reshaped either of us into something harder softened at the sight of it.

Whatever else I’d failed to give her, I could still give her this much: a chance, however narrow, to prove she was worth more than the family had decided to believe.

“Mom,” Selene said without looking up from her phone, “what if Amber says no?”

“She won’t,” I said, with far more certainty than I actually felt. “Brides always want their wedding remembered as generous. Let her have that satisfaction. We’ll take the rest.”

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