Chapter 79: Lillian’s Line in the Sand

The shop remained dim after his words.

Neither of them moved.

The folder lay unopened on the worktable, its presence louder than any argument. Lillian did not look at it again. She looked at Nathaniel instead, as if weighing not the offer, but the man who believed it could contain her.

“You speak as if the decision is already made,” she said.

Nathaniel did not deny it. “The conditions are moving whether you act or not.”

“That does not make them mine,” Lillian replied.

She stepped past him, cros