Novels by Onyinye Obinabo

The numbers make sense in a way nothing else does.I've been in the library for eight hours straight. Papers cover every surface. My notebook is filled with calculations, arrows connecting one idea to another. Coffee rings stain the margins where I've set my mug down without thinking.The Pacific division keeps bleeding money, and for seven hours I couldn't figure out why. Revenue is steady. Labor costs are normal. But something's draining capital like a wound that won't close.Then I see it in the shipping manifests.They're routing everything through Singapore. Every single container from their Taiwan factory goes to Singapore first, then to Los Angeles. It adds three days and forty thousand dollars per shipment. But there's a direct route. Taiwan to LA, straight shot across the Pacific. Half the cost, half the time.I grab my pen and start calculating. Twelve shipments per month. Forty thousand per shipment. That's almost six million dollars a year in unnecessary costs. Just on shi

I sleep for maybe two hours.Every time I close my eyes, I see Dominic's face in the kitchen. The way his thumb brushed my lip. The heat of his hand on my waist. The challenge in his voice. *Three days.*By seven-thirty, I give up on sleep entirely.Felicity's clothes hang in the closet like accusations. Everything is designer, expensive, and at least one size too small. I squeeze into a cream-colored dress that pinches at the waist and shows more leg than I'm comfortable with. The shoes are worse. Heels that make me feel like I'm walking on stilts.I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. The makeup is gone, washed off last night, and without it I look more like myself. But the dress, the shoes, the wedding ring on my finger, they all scream *wrong*.I don't belong here.But I have three days to pretend I do.The house is a maze of glass and marble. I take two wrong turns before I find the dining room. Morning light pours through floor-to-ceiling windows, turning everything gold. Th

The Laurent Estate looks like it's made of moonlight and glass.We drive for two hours in silence. Dominic spends most of it on his phone, typing emails with his jaw clenched. I watch the city lights fade into darkness, then reappear as we hit the Hamptons coastline.The house sits on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflect the stars. Everything is sharp angles and clean lines, more museum than home.A woman in her fifties meets us at the door. She has kind eyes and gray hair pulled into a neat bun."Mrs. Chen," Dominic says. "This is my wife."The word sounds foreign in his mouth. Wrong."Welcome, Mrs. Laurent." Mrs. Chen's smile is warm. "I've prepared the master suite and the guest room next door."My stomach twists. Guest room?Dominic catches my expression. "I thought you'd prefer your own space. At least initially.""Oh." Relief floods through me, followed by something else. Something that feels uncomfortably like disappointment. "Thank you."He nods once

He's taller than I expected.That's my first coherent thought as I reach the altar. Dominic Laurent stands there like he was carved from marble, all sharp angles and cold perfection. His hair is dark, styled back from his face. His eyes are gray, the color of winter storms, and they're fixed on me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.He doesn't smile when I reach him. Doesn't offer any reassurance. Just studies my face like he's trying to solve an equation that doesn't add up.The priest begins speaking. I don't hear most of it. My pulse is too loud in my ears, drowning out everything except the feeling of Dominic's stare boring into me."Do you, Felicity Ann Hartley, take this man..."The name sits wrong in my mouth. I've practiced it a dozen times in the last hour, but actually saying it out loud, in front of two hundred witnesses, feels like stepping off a cliff."I do."My voice doesn't shake. Small mercy.Dominic's turn. His voice is deep, controlled, each word measured.

I've always been the spare daughter, but I never thought they'd actually use me as a replacement part.The wedding dress hangs on my closet door like a ghost. White silk, imported lace, probably worth more than everything I own combined. I didn't put it there. I wouldn't touch Felicity's things even if someone paid me."Iris!" Mother's voice cuts through the brownstone like a knife through butter. "Iris, get in here. Now."Seventeen steps from my bedroom to Felicity's. I count them without meaning to, the way I count everything. Numbers make sense. Numbers don't lie or disappear two hours before their own wedding.Felicity's room looks like a hurricane hit a department store. Makeup scattered across her vanity, shoes everywhere, her actual wedding dress crumpled on the floor. The window's wide open, curtains billowing in the October wind.Mother stands in the center of the chaos, still in her dressing gown, a champagne flute dangling from her fingers. Eleanor Hartley doesn't do panic.