Novels by Liliy.S

The AccountNatalie's POVThe card declined twice before the cashier gave me that look — polite, apologetic, faintly embarrassed on my behalf, the particular expression reserved for women who'd clearly been caught by surprise by their own finances — and asked if I had another method of payment.I did. A small emergency stash tucked into the zippered pocket of my wallet, a habit I'd carried so long I'd never once stopped to examine it, and I counted out crumpled bills in the checkout line while the woman behind me shifted her weight and studied the tabloid rack with sudden, elaborate interest.I called Daniel before I'd even pulled out of the parking lot, my hands still faintly unsteady on the wheel."My card got declined. In front of an entire line of people.""Oh." A pause, unbothered, the sound of a man reviewing something in his head and finding it perfectly reasonable. "Yeah, I moved some things around this week. Consolidated a few accounts.""You didn't think to mention that to m

The Way He Looked at the Work Natalie’s POV Marcus showed up at the satellite branch at 10:17 a.m. I saw him the second he stepped out of the elevator. The whole floor shifted in that subtle way it always did when the CEO appeared — spines straightening, conversations dropping half a volume, people suddenly very interested in their screens. He was here for a quarterly review with Gordon and the senior account leads. I knew because the calendar invite had gone out two days ago and Daniel had mentioned it at breakfast like it was nothing more than another meeting on the schedule. I stayed at my desk and kept my eyes on the revised Larkspur file. The one that no longer looked like mine. Twenty minutes later, Lena appeared at the edge of my cubicle with a tablet hugged to her chest. “Mr. Whitmore asked if the original design files for the Harbor concept are still in the shared drive,” she said quietly. “The ones from last year.” My hands went still on the keyboard. The Harbor con

Macaroni DiplomacyNatalie's POVBy the time Natalie got Noah fed, bathed, and settled at the kitchen table with a coloring book he'd long outgrown but still reached for on hard days, the apartment had gone quiet in the particular way it did most evenings — Daniel's absence a kind of ambient noise all its own, a silence with a shape to it.She stood at the sink rinsing the same pot twice, not because it needed it but because her hands needed something to do that wasn't checking her phone.It rang anyway, right on cue, the screen lighting up with a name that made something in her chest loosen for the first time all day."Hey," she said, phone wedged between shoulder and ear, hands still deep in dishwater."Don't 'hey' me." Maya's voice came through fierce and immediate, no preamble at all, which was exactly the kind of directness Natalie had needed since roughly nine that morning. "I've called you four times today. Four, Nat.""I know. I'm sorry. It's been — " Natalie glanced toward th

The Conversation He Didn’t WantMarcus’s POVI waited until the office had emptied.Most of the executive floor left by six-thirty. Daniel stayed later when he wanted people to notice how hard he worked. Tonight he was still in his glass office with the lights on, phone pressed to his ear, laughing at something that probably wasn’t funny.I stood in the hallway for a moment and watched him through the glass. The same easy posture. The same practiced charm. Four years of watching him move through the company like the rules were suggestions had taught me exactly when the performance was for show.Tonight it was for himself.I didn’t knock.He looked up when the door opened, the laugh cutting off mid-breath. For half a second his face showed the calculation — how much did I know, how angry was I, how carefully did he need to play this.Then the easy smile slid back into place.“Marcus. Didn’t expect you down here.”I closed the door behind me and didn’t sit.“We need to talk about the ph

The Room That Forgot HerNatalie’s POVThe Larkspur deck was due at two. I had the slides finished by eleven-forty.I sat at my desk with the file open, cursor blinking at the end of a sentence I had already rewritten three times, and told myself the work was the only thing I could control today. The numbers were clean. The projections were realistic. The visual hierarchy on the mock-ups was better than anything the satellite branch had produced in months.None of it would matter if the room decided it belonged to someone else.Gordon called the review for one-fifteen in the glass conference room. The same one Daniel had pulled me into yesterday. I walked in with my laptop under my arm and took the seat farthest from the head of the table, the place I had trained myself to occupy so no one would have to ask me to move.Daniel arrived four minutes late, phone still in his hand, the easy smile he used for clients already in place. He didn’t look at me when he sat down. He looked at Gor

The PatternNatalie’s POVDaniel was standing three feet from my desk.I ended the call with Marcus without saying goodbye. My phone suddenly felt heavy in my hand, like it had become evidence of something I shouldn’t have been doing.Daniel’s eyes flicked to the screen, then back to my face. His expression was the one he used in meetings when someone had disappointed him—calm, slightly disappointed, already deciding how much of the blame belonged to me.“What are you doing on the phone with my brother?”The open floor had gone quiet again. I could feel the weight of people not looking at us.“He called to check on me,” I said. My voice came out flatter than I expected. “After the pictures.”Something tightened around Daniel’s mouth. He glanced around the desks, then lowered his voice.“We’re not doing this here.”He didn’t wait for me to agree. He turned and walked toward the small conference room at the end of the row, the one with the frosted glass that never quite blocked the outl