Switched Bride, True Luna - Chapter 59: Chapter 59

Emily
Julian knocked once on the edge of the open door before stepping into my office, already smiling like we were old friends rather than colleagues with entirely different agendas.
“You’ve been busy,” he said lightly, nodding toward the half-open folders scattered across my desk. “Press tours, sanctuary visits… You’re practically Titanfang’s new favorite figurehead.”
I didn’t look up from the page I was reviewing. “Careful, Julian. That sounds dangerously close to flattery.”
He laughed, stepping further in without being invited. “I’m not buttering you up. I’m just impressed. After everything with the press, you handled the optics well. Even the Luna’s are talking about it.”
That made me look at him. “Are they?”
He hesitated just long enough to confirm it wasn’t a casual comment. “Unofficially. But yes. Your Sanctuary appearance did more than just smooth over bad headlines.”
I didn’t answer, letting the silence stretch between us while I capped my pen and slid the open folder aside.
Julian shifted on his feet. “That’s actually part of why I stopped by. I wanted to… give you a heads-up.”
“About what?”
He pulled a folded printout from his back pocket and placed it on the edge of my desk like it might explode.
“I overheard that the internal auditors are moving up their quarterly sweep. Logistics, finance, the whole kitchen sink. A few of your reports are part of the sample pull.”
My jaw stayed set. “That’s standard.”
“It is.” He scratched the back of his neck, glancing toward the hallway like he was about to be caught. “But I’ve seen how these things get framed. A single discrepancy in a line item becomes a scandal if the timing’s bad enough.”
My stomach tightened.
Julian leaned in slightly, voice dropping. “You’ve already had a target on your back for weeks. You don’t need someone turning an error into a weapon.”
I nodded slowly. “I’ve triple-checked every outgoing report.”
“I’m sure you have,” he said, his tone oddly warm. “You’re meticulous. But not everyone playing this game wants to play fair.”
There it was again, that over-rehearsed quality to his voice. Too smooth. It wasn’t the words that put me on edge. It was the way he said them, just a little too perfectly.
“Thank you for the warning,” I said carefully. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
He hesitated a moment longer, as if waiting for something. Maybe gratitude. Instead, I turned back to my work. He took the hint and started to leave.
At the door, he paused again. “I mean it, Emily. You deserve better than this constant scrutiny.”
He left before I could respond. The silence that followed had my questioning why he was warning me about this.
I stared at the printout he’d left. My name circled on the audit notice like a target. He was right: the timing was suspicious.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized: Julian shouldn’t have had access to this document at all.
I opened my laptop and pulled up the access logs for the finance system. My fingers moved without hesitation, typing in my clearance credentials and filtering for Julian’s activity.
Nothing jumped out immediately. But that didn’t mean much.
I clicked open a blank document. Began noting times. Files. Logins. Just a shadow trail, but enough to tell me if I was imagining things or not.
Part of me still wanted to believe he was being kind. That he was just another assistant trying to make his way in a palace full of predators.
But I’d been wrong before. About Iris and where that could have gone. This time, I would keep receipts. Every single one.
As it turned out, Julian wasn’t wrong. The audit came faster than expected.
By the end of the week, internal memos were circulating, document requests were being submitted, and staff had begun walking on metaphorical eggshells.
It was like someone had set off a silent alarm, and everyone was waiting to see whose name would echo back through the halls.
I didn’t panic. Not outwardly. Not even when Carla “accidentally” forwarded me a list of flagged discrepancies that mysteriously hadn’t been flagged the day before.
She played it off as a glitch, but I made a quiet note of the file path, the timestamp, and where the edits had originated.
Julian passed me in the hallway twice that day. Once with a concerned smile, and once with a tight nod when he noticed I was deep in conversation with a junior advisor about fund allocations.
The second time, Logan was there. I felt him before I saw him, his presence always preceded him, warm and unyielding like gravity.
He stepped out from the corridor near the records room, his eyes skimming over the hallway before landing on me.
And on Julian. I watched his gaze sharpen just a little.
“Emily,” he said evenly. “Busy afternoon?”
“Only mildly torturous,” I said, closing the folder in my hand. “Half the office is panicking over the audit.”
Julian chuckled. “Good thing Emily thrives under pressure.”
“Does she?” Logan asked, voice deceptively light.
There was a pause that said everything.
Julian cleared his throat. “If you need help filtering those documents, let me know. I can coordinate with the review team directly.”
“That’s not your role,” Logan said before I could answer. His tone didn’t change, but the edge beneath it could cut marble.
Julian straightened a little. “I was just trying to help.”
“I’m sure,” Logan said. “But the finance department has its own chain of command.”
I felt the temperature shift. Julian gave a polite nod and excused himself, disappearing down the hall with the efficiency of someone who knew better than to challenge an Alpha.
Logan turned to me. “He’s been around you a lot lately.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” I lied.
His brow arched. “Emily.”
I looked away. “He told me about the audit before it was officially announced. Warned me I might be targeted.”
Logan exhaled, slow and deep. “And you believed him?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But I’m not ignoring it, either.”
We walked side by side down the hall, our pace in sync. Logan didn’t speak again until we reached the outer courtyard, where late light spilled over the marble fountains and rustled through the hedges.
“I don’t like the idea of you feeling cornered,” Logan said finally.
“I don’t feel cornered,” I replied.
He stopped walking. I did too.
“You don’t have to handle everything on your own,” he said, softer this time. “Even if that’s how it’s always been.”
The words landed somewhere behind my ribs.
“I’m not used to having anyone in my corner,” I said, surprising myself with the honesty.
We stood there for a long moment. A breeze passed between us, catching loose strands of my hair and tugging them gently across my cheek.
“I’ve been… keeping track of him,” I said eventually. “If Julian’s playing me like Iris… I need to know for sure.”
Logan nodded. “Don’t trust him more than you have to.”
I looked at him then, really looked. There was a question behind his eyes, but he didn’t ask it. Didn’t demand answers I wasn’t ready to give. He just stood there, a steady presence in a shifting landscape.
“Thank you,” I said.
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. A quiet gesture that said more than a dozen headlines ever would.
“You shouldn’t have to thank me for that,” he murmured. But I did. And I would again because nothing came without cost. Not even kindness. Not even him.