Ten Thousand Reasons I Refuse To Be Your Luna

CHAPTER 3: Reason #3

“Chairman… what exactly are you hiding from me?”

The question slipped out before I could stop it.

Lucien Blackwood looked at me for a long moment, then slowly sank back into his chair. Whatever serious expression had crossed his face a second ago vanished just as fast.

“I have frightened you,” he said, almost teasing. “You changed the subject,” I said flatly. “I simply remembered an urgent matter,” he replied. I narrowed my eyes at him. “You never interrupt our meetings.”

He smiled, gentle and infuriating at the same time. “And that is exactly why you noticed.” I wanted to keep pushing. I wanted actual answers. Instead, he slid a folder across the table toward me. “The Aurora Luxury contract,” he said simply. And just like that, the conversation was over.

I hated when he did that. Whenever Lucien did not want to answer something, he redirected me with work, every single time, and most of the time it actually worked.

Today it did not. But I let it go anyway, because I already knew pushing him would get me nowhere.

By the afternoon I was standing inside Star Global Entertainment’s executive boardroom, a twenty-foot screen behind me lit up with charts, market reports, and expansion plans. Around the table sat department directors, lawyers, financial advisors, a few international partners flown in for the occasion. Everyone was waiting on me to start.

I took a slow breath. “Let’s begin.” The presentation ran almost two hours. “Our fashion division hit its annual target three months early,” I said, and the room broke into applause.

“Our next target is Europe,” I continued, clicking to the next slide. “If Aurora Luxury signs with us, Star Global opens permanent offices in Paris, Milan, and London.”

Excited murmurs spread around the table. “Cosmetics launches next quarter. Jewelry follows the year after. Then hotels.” I paused, letting that land. “And eventually, film production.”

The board members traded impressed glances. One of them, an older man near the end of the table, raised his hand. “Isn’t expanding this fast risky?”

“It is,” I replied him instantly. “So why now?” he asks. I looked past him, out through the glass wall at the city stretched below us. “Because opportunities do not wait around for anyone.”

The room went quiet. Only I knew the other reason. If I stopped moving, even for a second, I would start remembering things I had spent years trying to bury. Work kept my mind occupied. Success kept the nightmares somewhere far enough away that I could pretend they did not exist.

The meeting ended in congratulations from everyone at the table. The second the last director walked out, I locked my office door and let my hands finally shake the way they had been threatening to for the last twenty minutes.

I dug through my handbag and pulled out the familiar silver case. One tablet. A sip of water from the glass on my desk. Five minutes later my breathing had leveled out enough that I could think straight again. A knock broke the silence. “Come in,” I called. Clara stepped inside carefully. “Miss Star.”

“Yes?” I answered. She hesitated in a way that immediately put me on edge. “There is someone downstairs asking to see you.” I became surprised because I didn’t plan for this. “I do not have appointments today.”

“He does not have one either,” she said. “Then have security send him away,” I told her without hesitation. “I already tried that,” she mumbled, making it sound like it actually needed my attention. “And?” I ask.

“He said…” Clara looked genuinely confused by her own sentence. “He said he is only here because you owe him a motorcycle.” I froze immediately. It is him again. Morrette, isn’t it?

I walked to the window overlooking the entrance, and sure enough, there he was, leaning against another beat-up motorcycle, still wearing that same worn mechanic’s jacket, looking completely out of place among all the luxury cars parked out front.

He was not even looking at the building. He was crouched down feeding half his sandwich to a stray dog, whose tail was going a mile a minute.

My lips almost curved into a smile. Almost. I caught myself and looked away. “What does he want?” I asked. Clara smiled a little too knowingly. “I think he wants his motorcycle.”

Five minutes later I was outside, employees watching from behind the lobby glass, a few of them not even bothering to hide that they were taking pictures.

Morrette looked up when he heard my heels on the pavement. “You came.” I frowned at him with a cold look. “You caused a scene,” I said. “I have been standing here quietly this whole time,” he answered.

“You showed up at my office,” I said, stopping a mile away from him. “You never answered your phone,” he said. “I was working, and I don’t remember asking to be called,” I told him.

“So was I, got your contact anyway,” he said, completely unbothered. I crossed my arms. “Let’s just finish this. I will transfer enough money to cover the repairs.”

“No,” he replied immediately. “I will buy you a better motorcycle.,” I added. “No,” he said again. “I will buy the entire garage, if that is what it takes,” I concluded this time with a sure offer he won’t be able to refuse.

He rubbed his forehead like I was giving him a headache. “There you go again.” I sniffed, “What?” He turns around and just looked around for a bit, before replying. “Trying to fix everything by throwing money at it.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” I asked him. He studied me for a few seconds, walked closer to me slowly, and looked at me in the eyes with a sharp gaze, finally he asked, quiet and almost gentle, “Have you ever just apologized?”

The question caught me completely off guard. “I…” The words would not come. Not because I was not sorry. Because I honestly could not remember the last time somebody wanted an actual apology from me instead of a check.

“I am sorry,” I finally said. He smiled. “There. That was not so hard, was it?” I stared at him, genuinely thrown. Why did those two words feel harder to say than signing a contract worth a billion dollars?

“I still owe you,” I said. “You do,” he agreed easily. “So what do you want?” I asked him. He glanced at his damaged motorcycle. “Come with me.” I frowned shocked. “Where?”

“My garage,” he said. I almost fell for it. “Why?” I asked him. “So you can actually see what you wrecked,” he replied. “That seems unnecessary,” I exclaimed.

“It is not,” he interrupts, wiggling his fingers at me. “I have another meeting,” I tried to come up with an excuse, but he literally is starting to irritate me. “You can spare an hour,” he said. “I do not even know you,” I sniffed again, like it was funny.

“You hit me with your car,” he said, like that settled the matter entirely. I sighed. “Fine, I will send someone.”

“No,” he said, looking straight at me. “You.” For reasons I still cannot fully explain, I agreed.

His garage was nothing like I expected. No expensive machines, no showroom floor, no polished marble anywhere. Just tools, engines, oil stains, and the smell of actual hard work.

A few mechanics called out the second we walked in.

“Boss! You made it back!”

“Who is the beautiful lady?”

Morrette ignored the teasing completely. “This is Melissa.” The whole garage went dead quiet. One young mechanic nearly dropped the wrench out of his hand. “The Melissa Star?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” I said. Laughter rolled through the place. And for the first time in weeks, nobody asked me for a photo. Nobody asked for an autograph. One older mechanic just handed me a clean rag without a second thought. “Careful where you stand,” he said. “Fresh oil.”

I looked at the rag, then at him. He was treating me like anyone else who had walked through that door. It felt strange. It also felt kind of nice.

As the afternoon dragged on, I found myself just watching Morrette work. His hands moved over the busted motorcycle like he had done this a thousand times, focused and patient, barely speaking. And yet every time he did say something, the other mechanics actually listened.

They respected him. Not because he had money. Not because anyone recognized his name on the street. Because he had earned every ounce of it with his own hands.

I quietly pulled out my notebook and wrote on a fresh page: *Reason #3 — He makes me question things I do not want to question.* I stared at that sentence for a second, then crossed it out. “No,” I muttered to myself.

I grabbed the pen again. *Reason #3 — He refuses to let me fix things my own way.* That sounded better. Safer. Didn’t it? Right then the television bolted to the corner of the garage cut through the noise.

**BREAKING NEWS.** “A businessman was found dead this afternoon inside an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city,” the anchor said, as the screen cut to police cars swarming a scene.

The reporter kept going. “Authorities have declined to comment on unusual marks discovered near the victim’s body—” The camera caught a flash of the ground before an officer stepped in front of the lens and blocked it.

My heart lurched. Deep, claw-like gouges. Exactly like the ones I had seen on the road the night of my accident. I turned slowly toward Morrette.

Whatever relaxed expression he had a second ago was gone completely. And every single mechanic in that garage had gone silent at the same moment, trading looks with each other like they all understood something I clearly did not.

Nobody said a word. And for the first time since I met Morrette Mitchell, I realized that hitting his motorcycle with my car might have been the least dangerous thing that happened to me that night.