MY FIANCÉ MADE HER LUNA AMBASSADOR AND MY BROTHER GAVE HER MY PROJECT—THEN THEY FOUND OUT I OWNED THE COMPANY THEY NEEDED

By nine the next morning, I had stopped counting notifications.

#SilvercrestEngagementCrisis was trending in three countries. Someone had clipped the livestream so the ring sat between the microphones for a full eight seconds, set to a sad piano track. It had eleven million views.

Silvercrest's stock didn't crash. It actually ticked up half a point, because apparently investors loved a scandal as long as the hotels stayed open. The pack didn't riot either. Most wolves just shared the clip and picked a side.

Most of them picked Serena's.

She's jealous. Serena was born for the Luna role, and Elara knows it.

Imagine throwing a tantrum on livestream because another woman is better at your job.

Serena's fans had found my old charity gala photos and were circling my face in red, comparing my "forced smile" to Serena's "natural grace." I read every comment with my coffee going cold on the kitchen counter.

Then a gossip site called The Den posted an exclusive.

The headline loaded slowly, line by line.

ELARA HART ADMITTED SHE WAS INSECURE MONTHS AGO.

Below it was a screenshot. My text bubble. My timestamp from last March, 1:47 a.m.

Sometimes I feel like Rowan wants a Luna more than he wants me.

I remembered that night. Rowan had canceled dinner for the third time that week, and I'd sat in my car outside his building, unable to make myself go home. I'd typed that sentence to the one person who had always told me I wasn't crazy.

I didn't need to ask where they'd gotten it.

Only Julian had it.

---

Silvercrest's communications floor went silent when I stepped off the elevator. Six people suddenly found their monitors fascinating.

Julian's office door was half open. He was on the phone, pacing, and he stopped mid-sentence when he saw me.

"I'll call you back," he said, and hung up.

I held my phone up so he could see the screen. I didn't say anything. I just waited.

He closed the door behind me before he spoke. "I didn't send them that one specifically."

"So you sent them others."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "PR needed context. The narrative was getting away from us last night. Everyone was saying Serena came between you and Rowan, that she was the other woman. We had to show this wasn't sudden. That there were problems before her."

"We." I laughed, and it came out wrong. "You gave them screenshots of my private messages."

"A few. Cropped. I told them to be careful with anything personal."

"Julian, it was all personal. I was texting you at two in the morning from a parking garage."

His face tightened. "I know."

"So you protected her by handing the press the worst night I had last year."

"That's not what I was doing. I was never trying to hurt you." He stepped closer, lowering his voice like the walls had ears, and maybe they did. "My job is to protect Silvercrest's image. If the story becomes Rowan cheated with the new Luna Ambassador, the international launch dies. Investors pull out. People lose jobs."

"And what am I?"

He blinked. "What?"

"To Silvercrest." I kept my voice even. "You protect its image. You protect Rowan. You protect Serena. So what am I to Silvercrest, Julian? Tell me, because I'd really like to know."

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Ten years of friendship, and he couldn't find one word. I watched him try, watched him glance at the phone on his desk like the answer might be in his inbox.

"That's what I thought," I said, and walked out.

My phone buzzed before the elevator doors had even closed. Kieran.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"Leaving Julian's office."

"Good. Go home. Don't come to the strategy meeting this afternoon, or any meeting this week. There are reporters camped at both entrances, and every time you show your face, it becomes the story."

"Fine."

"One more thing." He paused, and I recognized the pause. It was the one he used right before asking for something he knew I'd hate. "I need you to send Serena the full MOONHOUSE file. Every partnership document, the term sheets, the contact list, your notes on the founder. All of it by tonight."

The elevator dinged. I didn't get out.

"No."

"Elara."

"MOONHOUSE took eight months. Nobody else at Hart Holdings could even get them to answer an email. I'm not packaging that up so Serena can walk into the final meeting and read my notes out loud."

"She's the public lead now. She needs the materials."

"Then she can do the work to earn them."

The silence on the line changed. When Kieran spoke again, his voice was low and flat, the voice he'd never once used on me.

"Don't bring your personal feelings into business."

The elevator doors started to close. I stuck my hand out to stop them, and they slid back open with a rattle.

"You put another woman into my project," I said. "That's business. But if I refuse to do her job for her, that's personal feelings?"

"You're twisting this."

"No, Kieran. I'm just saying it out loud."

"You have until tonight," he said, and hung up.

---

I didn't send the file.

By ten that night, I was curled on the couch in my hotel suite in an old Silvercrest hoodie I should have thrown out, the TV muted on a news anchor mouthing my name. My phone rang again.

Asher.

I almost let it go to voicemail. Then I thought about the summer we spent on his parents' porch, a laptop between us, him arguing with me about margins until we both fell asleep. If anyone was going to hear me out, it was him.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey. How are you holding up?"

The softness in his voice made my throat sting. "Honestly? Julian gave the press my texts. Kieran wants me to hand Serena everything I built. I feel like I'm losing my mind."

"I saw." He hesitated. "El, can I say something without you getting upset?"

My grip on the phone tightened. "That's usually a bad start."

"You've always done this."

I sat up. "Done what?"

"Cut people off. In college, every time you felt ignored, you'd just disappear. No warning. One day we were fine, and the next you'd stopped answering my calls." He exhaled. "I get that last night hurt. But taking off the ring on livestream, refusing to cooperate with Kieran... maybe don't burn everything down because you're hurt."

For a second, I couldn't hear anything but the hum of my refrigerator.

Six years ago, I had waited outside his dorm for two hours on my birthday while he was at a party with his lab group, the same week he forgot our anniversary and canceled our trip home. I'd ended things in a calm, careful conversation that I'd rehearsed for days so I wouldn't cry.

And all this time, he'd remembered it as me being too sensitive.

"Is that what you think happened with us?" I asked.

"I think you get scared and you run. And I don't want to watch you do it to your whole life."

I didn't argue. There was no point explaining a wound to the person who still couldn't see he'd made it.

"Goodnight, Asher."

"El, wait..."

I ended the call and set the phone face down on the cushion.

Then I pulled my laptop onto my knees.

There was a login page I had bookmarked a year ago and never once opened. The account had been set up by my lawyer, the password sealed in an envelope at the back of my desk drawer. I'd told myself I'd use it when the time was right.

I typed it from memory.

The screen loaded slowly, a dark blue dashboard with a crescent-moon logo in the corner.

MOONHOUSE. Founder Access.

Hart's general counsel knew I was the founder and had kept me out of Hart's pricing and approval decisions from the start. My identity stayed confidential under the founder NDA.

There was only one unread item in the inbox, flagged urgent, sent that afternoon.

SILVERCREST HOTEL GROUP: REQUESTING FINAL FOUNDER MEETING.

Underneath it, in the contact field, they'd listed their new representative.

Serena Vale, Luna Ambassador.

I stared at her name for a long moment. Then I moved the cursor to the bottom of the message, past the polite paragraphs Julian had probably written for her, and clicked.

DECLINE.