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

My engagement party hadn't even started when my phone lit up with a push notification from Silvercrest's official account.

SILVERCREST WELCOMES SERENA VALE AS ITS NEW LUNA AMBASSADOR.

I was standing in the hotel hallway in a champagne silk dress, one heel half on, a makeup artist still dabbing powder along my jaw. I almost swiped it away.

Then I saw the photo.

Rowan, my fiancé and the future Alpha of Silvercrest, wore a black suit I had helped him pick out. Serena Vale stood at his side, her hand resting lightly on his arm, both of them smiling under a floral arch of white roses.

My floral arch. The exact spot where Rowan and I were supposed to take our engagement photos tonight.

"Is something wrong?" the makeup artist asked.

"PR made a mistake," I said, and I honestly believed it. Someone had uploaded the wrong file. Someone had confused a rehearsal shot with a real post. Someone was about to get fired.

I shoved my foot into the other heel and headed for the ballroom.

The doors were already open. Inside, the Grand Hall of the Silvercrest Hotel glowed gold and white, and three livestream cameras sat on tripods near the stage, their red lights blinking. A small interview table had been set up beneath the arch, microphones lined across it like silver teeth.

My brother Kieran stood near the bar with two investors from the Hart family's board, laughing at something one of them said. Across the room, Asher Lane, my first love and the man who once spent an entire summer helping me draft my first business plan, was speaking to a reporter with a camera on his shoulder. Julian Moore, Silvercrest's head of communications and the friend I'd trusted with every press statement I'd ever made, waited by the stage with a clipboard tucked against his chest.

Not one of them looked surprised.

Not one of them looked at the screen above the stage, where the same announcement was playing on loop, and flinched.

They'd known.

All four of them had known, and I was the only one walking in with my phone in my hand like an idiot.

Rowan found me before I reached the stage. His fingers closed around my elbow, gentle but firm, and he steered me toward an alcove behind a column, out of range of the cameras.

"Elara, I was going to tell you."

"When?" I held up my phone. "After the toast?"

He exhaled through his nose, the way he did in board meetings when someone asked a question he considered beneath him. "Silvercrest is expanding into international hotels. You know that. The investors want a public face for the launch. Someone who can handle events, galas, press tours."

"And that's Serena."

"She comes from a strong Alpha bloodline. She has four million followers. People already know her." He said it like he was reading from a slide. "Until our mate ceremony is official, Serena will act as Public Luna Ambassador. It's temporary."

I stared at him. Six years together, and I was suddenly looking at a stranger who happened to have Rowan's face.

"Our mate ceremony is in one month."

"This is business."

"You put her in my photo spot, Rowan."

His jaw flexed. "Don't make this personal."

"It's my engagement party." My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated it. "How exactly is it not personal?"

He didn't answer. He looked over my shoulder toward the cameras instead, checking whether anyone had noticed us.

I pulled my arm free and walked straight to the bar.

Kieran saw me coming and excused himself from the investors with an easy smile. He was my older brother, the CEO of Hart Holdings, and the man who had personally assigned me the international hotel project a year ago. Hart Holdings was Silvercrest Hotel Group's lead development partner on the expansion, which was why Kieran's board had a vote on the launch.

"Hey, El. You look beautiful."

"Did you know?"

He didn't even pretend. "The board voted last week."

"The board." I set my phone face down on the bar so I wouldn't throw it. "I spent a year on that brand. The positioning, the partner list, the name. That project is mine."

"And it still is, internally." He lowered his voice. "But Serena's going to be the public lead. She'll front the launch."

I waited for him to laugh. He didn't.

"You hate cameras anyway," Kieran said. "Let Serena handle the public side. You can still do what you're good at."

What I was good at. Working until two in the morning so someone else could cut the ribbon.

It was the same logic Rowan had just used, word for word in a different voice. Serena got the title. I got the work.

"You didn't think to ask me?"

"I didn't think you'd care this much." He actually looked confused. "Come on. Since when do you want to be on stage?"

Since I built the stage, I thought. But I turned away before I said it out loud.

Asher had finished his interview, and the reporter was already moving on to a second question when I stopped beside them. Asher glanced at me, and something guilty flickered across his face before he smoothed it away.

"Mr. Lane," the reporter said, "some people are speculating Elara Hart might be upset about the announcement. You've known her a long time. Thoughts?"

Asher smiled, warm and reassuring, the smile I used to wait all day for.

"Elara's never liked public competition," he said. "She'll probably be relieved."

The reporter laughed. The camera swung toward me.

I kept my face still, because I'd been raised in a pack where you didn't bleed in front of strangers. But Asher knew me. He'd been the one person who understood I didn't avoid competition, I just refused to fight dirty. He knew how badly I wanted that project to carry my name.

He'd just told the whole livestream I didn't.

"Elara," he started.

I walked past him.

Julian was the last one. He saw me coming and shifted his clipboard like he could hide it, but I held out my hand and waited until he gave it to me.

The first page was titled TONIGHT'S PRESS Q&A. Clean formatting, bolded questions, approved responses underneath.

Halfway down, I found my name.

Q: Does this mean Rowan Grey and Elara Hart's engagement is in trouble?

A: No. Elara fully supports Serena's appointment.

I read it twice. The ballroom noise blurred, glasses clinking, a string quartet tuning somewhere behind me.

I looked up. "When did I support this?"

Julian was quiet for two full seconds. He couldn't quite meet my eyes.

"We needed a unified message," he said.

"Without me in it."

"Elara, it's just a line. It protects you."

"It protects Rowan." I tapped the page. "You wrote words for me, Julian. You put them in my mouth and printed them."

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

Four men. The four men I trusted most in the world.

One had found my fiancé a better Luna to stand next to. One had handed my project to someone else. One had spoken for me on camera. And one had written down, in black and white, that I didn't mind.

Not one of them had asked me.

I took the pen clipped to the board. I drew a single line through Elara fully supports, slow enough that Julian could watch every inch of it. Then I wrote beneath it in clear block letters.

Elara was never asked.

I handed the clipboard back to him. He stared at the page like it might bite him.

When I turned toward the exit, Rowan was already there, blocking my path. He caught my wrist, his grip tighter this time.

"Don't leave tonight," he said under his breath. "The media's all here."

I looked at my fiancé. At the cufflinks I'd bought him, at the arch behind him where Serena was now posing for a photographer, at the red lights blinking on every camera in the room.

"Then you should have thought about that sooner."

I twisted the engagement ring off my finger. It caught on my knuckle for a second, and Rowan's eyes widened as he realized what I was doing.

I didn't give it back to him.

I walked to the livestream interview table, set the ring down between the microphones, and let every camera in Silvercrest watch it sit there alone.