Updated Apr 16, 2026 • ~17 min read
Chapter 3: The Reunion
Matthias
Matthias doesn’t usually oversee small acquisitions personally—that’s what he has a team for, department heads and integration specialists who handle the due diligence and transition logistics for the dozens of companies Wolfe Industries acquires every year—but there’s something about Innovate Solutions that interests him, specifically their data analytics platform that could integrate beautifully with three other portfolio companies he’s been building toward a larger tech ecosystem, and besides, he’s been restless lately, needing something to focus on besides the endless board meetings and investment committees that fill his calendar with obligations that feel increasingly meaningless.
The Innovate Solutions acquisition is small by his company’s standards, barely worth the paperwork, just twenty-three employees and modest revenue in a nondescript Midtown office building—but Matthias has always believed that the best investments are the ones where you can see the potential that others miss, where you can build something greater than the sum of its parts, and this company has that spark of innovation that makes his analytical mind light up with possibilities even if the financials aren’t impressive yet.
He arrives at ten o’clock exactly, his driver dropping him at the building entrance while Matthias mentally reviews the transition plan he’s spent the past week refining—introduce himself to the team, assess the key talent he wants to retain, meet with the founders to reassure them that Wolfe Industries isn’t here to gut their company but to help it scale, and then return to his own office to deal with the seventeen other fires currently demanding his attention across his portfolio.
The elevator ride to the twelfth floor is quick and silent, just Matthias and his reflection in the polished steel doors, and he uses the thirty seconds to straighten his tie and shift into the version of himself that people expect—Matthias Wolfe, CEO, controlled and commanding, the man who built a venture capital empire by the age of thirty-four through ruthless intelligence and an unwillingness to accept failure in any form.
The office is smaller than he expected when he steps through the glass doors, just an open floor plan with maybe two dozen desks and a conference room visible through interior windows, the kind of startup aesthetic that values collaboration over hierarchy—and Matthias can already see ways to optimize the space, to make it more efficient, though he knows better than to start rearranging furniture on day one because employees get nervous when new ownership comes in making immediate changes.
Jeremy Chen, one of the co-founders, is waiting for him just inside the entrance, practically vibrating with nervous energy that Matthias recognizes from hundreds of other acquisition meetings—the anxiety of a founder who’s just sold his baby to a stranger and is terrified about what comes next, whether his team will keep their jobs, whether the culture he’s built will survive, whether he made the right decision or just sold out for a quick payday.
“Mr. Wolfe, welcome,” Jeremy says, extending his hand with a smile that’s trying too hard to look confident. “We’re excited to have you here. Let me introduce you to the team—”
Matthias shakes his hand with the kind of firm grip that conveys authority without aggression, already cataloging Jeremy’s tells—the slight tremor in his fingers, the too-bright enthusiasm in his voice, the way his eyes keep darting to his employees like he’s checking to make sure they’re all still at their desks—and makes a mental note to schedule a private meeting later to address whatever specific anxieties Jeremy is trying to hide.
“I’m looking forward to meeting everyone,” Matthias says smoothly, his slight German accent wrapping around the English words in a way that’s taken him years to modulate into something that sounds sophisticated rather than foreign. “Innovate Solutions has impressive technology. I’m here to help you scale it, not to disrupt what’s already working.”
Jeremy visibly relaxes at that, his shoulders dropping from their defensive position near his ears, and Matthias knows he’s said the right thing because founders always need reassurance that their life’s work isn’t about to be dismantled by some corporate raider who doesn’t understand or care about their vision.
They move through the office with Jeremy providing a running commentary about team structure and current projects, introducing Matthias to engineers and analysts and marketing people whose names he files away with the kind of near-photographic memory that’s served him well in business—but Matthias is only half-listening, his attention caught by something else, someone else, a presence he can feel before he even sees her.
“And this is Luna Vega,” Jeremy is saying, stopping in front of a desk near the conference room where a woman is typing rapidly on her computer, her dark hair falling forward to hide her face. “She’s our executive assistant, she’ll be supporting you directly during the transition—”
Matthias’s brain stops processing Jeremy’s words the instant the woman looks up from her screen, the instant their eyes meet, the instant the entire world narrows to the devastating recognition that slams into him with the force of a physical blow.
Luna.
Luna, who he met four years ago at a charity gala and couldn’t stop thinking about for months afterward, whose laugh made him feel lighter than he’d felt in years, whose body fit against his like she was made for him, who gave him one perfect night and then vanished from his life like smoke.
Luna, who he tried desperately to find after Berlin, who he called and texted dozens of times only to discover her number had somehow been corrupted in his phone’s memory, who he hired a private investigator to track down using only her first name and the catering company she worked for—except the company said they’d never heard of her, and the investigator came back with nothing, and eventually Matthias had to accept that either she’d given him a fake name or she simply didn’t want to be found.
Luna, who is apparently sitting three feet away from him in an office he now owns, staring at him with an expression of absolute horror that matches the shock currently freezing every muscle in his body.
Time stops.
Matthias stops breathing.
The entire universe condenses to this single impossible moment, to Luna’s wide dark eyes and parted lips and the way her hands have gone completely still on her keyboard, to the recognition and panic and something that might be anger flickering across her face in rapid succession.
“Luna?” Matthias hears himself say, and his voice comes out rougher than intended, stripped of its usual controlled polish, because he’s been looking for this woman for four years and she’s been here the whole time, working in a company he just acquired, close enough to find if he’d only known where to look.
She stands up slowly, mechanically, like a defendant rising for a judge’s verdict, and Matthias can see the exact moment she decides how to play this—her expression smoothing into professional neutrality, her shoulders straightening into perfect corporate posture, every trace of emotion disappearing behind a mask of polite distance that feels like a slap.
“Mr. Wolfe,” she says, and her voice is cold, formal, nothing like the warm laugh he remembers from that night four years ago, nothing like the breathy gasps she made in his bed when he learned every inch of her body. “It’s nice to meet you.”
It’s nice to meet you.
Like they’re strangers.
Like that night never happened.
Like he didn’t spend months trying to find her, like he didn’t drive himself half-crazy wondering what he’d done wrong to make her disappear, like she didn’t matter to him at all.
“You… work here?” Matthias asks, because it’s the only thing his shocked brain can formulate, the only question that makes sense in this completely senseless situation—and he’s aware that Jeremy is looking between them with growing confusion, probably wondering why his new CEO and his executive assistant are having some kind of silent breakdown in the middle of the office.
“I’m your new assistant, apparently,” Luna says, and there’s the slightest edge to her words, something sharp and bitter that Matthias doesn’t understand because he’s not the one who disappeared, he’s not the one who gave a fake number or hid for four years—except clearly he’s missing something, clearly there’s a story here that he doesn’t know, and he needs to understand what happened, needs to fix whatever went wrong between them.
But not here, not now, not with Jeremy and half the office watching their interaction with varying degrees of curiosity and confusion.
“We should talk—” Matthias starts, taking a step toward her desk because he can’t help himself, because every instinct in his body is screaming at him to close the distance between them, to touch her and confirm she’s real and not some stress-induced hallucination.
“Professionally, I’m happy to assist,” Luna interrupts, her voice coming out sharper than before, colder, and Matthias sees her hands clench briefly at her sides before she forces them to relax. “Personally, there’s nothing to discuss.”
The words land like punches, each one driving the air from Matthias’s lungs, because how can she say there’s nothing to discuss when he spent months obsessing over her, when that one night changed something fundamental in him, when he’s been comparing every woman he’s dated since to a memory he thought he’d never see again?
But he can’t say any of that, not here, not with Jeremy hovering anxiously and the rest of the team pretending not to watch while obviously watching everything, so Matthias does what he’s best at—he compartmentalizes, shoves his emotions into a box he’ll deal with later, and slips back into his CEO persona like armor.
“Of course,” Matthias says smoothly, and if his voice is slightly strained, slightly off, hopefully no one notices except the woman currently staring at him with barely concealed hostility. “I’ll need those acquisition reports by end of day.”
“They’ll be on your desk by noon,” Luna replies with perfect professional courtesy that feels more insulting than outright rudeness, and then she sits back down at her computer and returns to her typing like he’s been dismissed, like he’s nothing more than her boss and she’s eager to get back to work.
Jeremy is saying something about conference rooms and integration schedules, leading Matthias away to meet the rest of the team, but Matthias can barely focus on anything except the woman sitting at that desk, the familiar curve of her neck and the way her fingers fly across her keyboard and the complete wrongness of her being this close after four years of absence.
The rest of the morning passes in a blur of introductions and presentations and strategic discussions that Matthias navigates on autopilot, his conscious mind still stuck on that moment of recognition, on Luna’s cold dismissal, on the growing certainty that something is very, very wrong here—because her reaction doesn’t make sense, because she’s treating him like the villain when he’s the one who got ghosted, when he’s the one who spent a month calling a dead number before finally accepting that she was gone.
By the time Jeremy finishes the office tour and deposits Matthias in the CEO’s private office—a modest space compared to his own top-floor suite at Wolfe Industries headquarters, but functional enough for the days he’ll need to spend here during the transition—Matthias’s carefully controlled exterior is starting to crack, confusion and frustration and residual shock warring for dominance in his chest.
He stands at the window looking out over Midtown Manhattan, the city sprawling below him in its usual chaotic glory, and tries to make sense of what just happened, tries to reconcile the warm, funny, captivating woman he met four years ago with the ice queen who just treated him like a stranger she’s being forced to tolerate for professional reasons.
What did he do wrong?
That’s the question that’s been haunting Matthias for four years, the question he’s never been able to answer—because that night was perfect, he knows it was perfect, he felt the connection between them like electricity, like recognition, like coming home after a lifetime of searching.
He’d had to leave for Berlin that morning, his phone ringing at six a.m. with his CFO in a panic about a major investment going sideways, and Matthias had been in crisis management mode for the next month—flying between Berlin and Frankfurt and Munich, sleeping in hotels and conference rooms, barely remembering to eat let alone maintain his personal relationships.
But he’d tried to call Luna, had pulled up her number in his contacts a dozen times during those first chaotic days, only to discover that something had corrupted the entry—the number showing up as a string of nonsense characters instead of actual digits, her name there but the way to reach her mysteriously gone.
He’d been devastated, had immediately tried to find her through the catering company she’d mentioned working for, but they claimed to have no record of anyone named Luna on their staff—and Matthias had wondered if she’d been working off the books, if she’d been lying about the company, if she’d given him a fake name entirely because she regretted sleeping with him and wanted to disappear.
Eventually, after the private investigator came back with nothing and his own searches turned up empty, Matthias had to accept that Luna either didn’t want to be found or had actively taken steps to hide from him—and as much as it hurt, as much as he’d spent months replaying that night and wondering what he could’ve done differently, he’d forced himself to move on because what else could he do?
Except she hadn’t disappeared.
She’d been here, in New York, working under her real name at a company he would eventually acquire, living a life that was apparently perfectly fine without him in it.
The thought makes something ugly twist in Matthias’s chest, something that tastes like betrayal even though he has no claim on her, no right to feel hurt that she didn’t seek him out when she clearly didn’t want him to find her.
But the way she looked at him—like he was the one who did something wrong, like she was the wronged party in whatever this situation is—that doesn’t make sense, and Matthias needs answers because he’s spent four years thinking he was the one who got rejected, and he’s not willing to accept that narrative anymore when she’s standing right there, close enough to ask.
A knock on his office door interrupts his spiraling thoughts, and Matthias turns to find Luna standing in the doorway holding a stack of folders, her expression perfectly neutral and professional, like their earlier confrontation never happened.
“The acquisition reports you requested,” she says, crossing the room to place them on his desk with efficient movements that keep her at maximum distance from him. “Financials are on top, HR documentation beneath, legal compliance at the bottom. Is there anything else you need?”
Yes, Matthias wants to say. I need you to tell me what happened. I need you to explain why you’re looking at me like I’m the enemy. I need to know if that night meant anything to you or if I’ve been torturing myself for four years over a woman who never thought about me twice.
But what comes out instead is, “Why didn’t you tell me you worked here?”
It’s the wrong question—he knows it the instant the words leave his mouth—because of course she didn’t tell him she worked here, they haven’t spoken in four years, she had no way to tell him anything.
But Luna’s jaw tightens at the question, something flashing in her dark eyes that might be anger or might be pain or might be both.
“How exactly would I have done that, Mr. Wolfe?” she asks, her tone perfectly polite and absolutely scathing. “Should I have sent a message through your company’s PR department? Perhaps taken out a billboard in Times Square? Or maybe I could’ve hired the private investigator I’m sure you have on retainer to track you down since you’re apparently impossible to reach for normal people.”
The words are sharp enough to draw blood, and Matthias feels his own temper starting to rise in response because that’s not fair, because he tried to reach her, because she’s the one who vanished.
“I called you,” Matthias says, and he can hear his accent getting stronger the way it always does when he’s emotional, the German inflection wrapping more heavily around his English. “Dozens of times. Your number didn’t work.”
“I gave you my real number,” Luna counters, and now there’s definitely anger in her voice, barely controlled fury that she’s trying to keep professional and failing. “The same number I’ve had for six years. The number that works perfectly fine for everyone else who’s ever wanted to reach me.”
“Then why—” Matthias starts, but Luna cuts him off.
“Is there anything else you need?” she asks again, her tone making it clear that this conversation is over whether he wants it to be or not. “Professionally?”
And Matthias knows he should let it go, knows he should maintain professional boundaries and deal with this personal situation later, privately, away from the office where anyone could walk by and overhear—but he’s spent four years with unanswered questions, and now the woman who holds all the answers is standing in front of him, and he can’t just let her walk away again.
“Luna, please—” he tries, and he hates how his voice comes out almost pleading, hates that he’s lost his usual control, but he needs her to understand that he didn’t ghost her, that whatever she thinks happened isn’t what actually happened.
“Mr. Wolfe,” she says firmly, emphasizing his title like a warning. “We should keep this professional. You’re my boss now. What happened four years ago is irrelevant to our working relationship.”
Irrelevant.
She’s calling that night—the best night of his life, the night he’s measured every other experience against for four years—irrelevant.
“It’s not irrelevant to me,” Matthias says quietly, and he sees something flicker across Luna’s face, something that might be regret or might be longing before she shuts it down, locks it away behind her professional mask.
“Well, it is to me,” she lies, because Matthias can see the tension in her shoulders, can see the way her hands are gripping those folders like they’re the only thing keeping her grounded. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
And then she’s gone, walking out of his office with her head high and her spine straight, leaving Matthias standing alone by his desk with more questions than he had before and the sinking certainty that whatever happened four years ago, whatever miscommunication or misunderstanding destroyed what they could’ve had—it’s not over.
It’s not over because Luna is here, working for him, unavoidable and undeniable and still affecting him the way no woman has before or since.
It’s not over because when their eyes met this morning, Matthias felt the same electric connection he felt four years ago, the same recognition, the same certainty that she matters in a way he can’t fully explain.
And it’s not over because Luna’s hostility, her anger, her determination to keep him at arm’s length—that’s not indifference.
That’s hurt.
Someone hurt her, and she thinks it was him, and Matthias needs to understand why, needs to figure out what went wrong so he can fix it, because walking away from Luna Vega a second time isn’t an option he’s willing to consider.
He just has to convince her to give him a chance to explain.
And based on the way she just stormed out of his office, that’s going to be significantly harder than acquiring her company was.
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