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“Sir… may I have lunch with you?” the barefoot girl asked timidly, addressing the millionaire. Her voice was quiet and shaky, but in the serene atmosphere of the elite restaurant it sounded like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky. Richard Evans, a well-known Chicago real-estate tycoon, a gray-haired man of about sixty, … Read more

For a long time I lied to myself. I acted as if life were still ticking along in its usual groove—same routines, nothing changing, just a bad dream I’d eventually wake from. I refused to accept that Sergey had really betrayed me. And not some careless fling, either—he was involved. With her. The woman who … Read more

Polina studied the new curtains with a careful eye. Powder-blue, sprinkled with tiny flowers—exactly what she’d pictured for the living room. She fussed with the pleats, stepped back a few paces, and allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. “Sergey, what do you think?” she called to her husband, who was slouched in the armchair, face … Read more

Lidia had put her daughter Elsa to bed just a couple of minutes ago. She was about to lie down herself and enjoy the quiet of the cozy apartment.   But at that moment the doorbell rang. A melodious chime announced a visitor. “Well, so much for that,” the young woman said wryly and went … Read more

“Ksenia! Where have you disappeared to? The guests have been waiting half an hour for coffee! And cut the cake into larger pieces—Vasily Timofeyevich has a sweet tooth!” Her mother-in-law’s voice, Elena Petrovna’s, ricocheted through the apartment. Ksenia inhaled slowly, swallowing her irritation. A crowd of about ten had taken over the living room—every one … Read more

When her husband walked out, Priya was only twenty-five. He said he was leaving for work overseas—and then vanished from her life as if he’d stepped off the edge of the earth. Priya cried until her ribs ached. Even so, with swollen eyes and hands that wouldn’t stop trembling, she stood by the stove and … Read more

Elena opened her eyes at the sound of the alarm and reached for the nightstand, where a white envelope with a bank card lay. Every morning she checked that it was there—a habit she’d formed over two years of painstaking saving. Five hundred thousand rubles in a separate account were earmarked for the down payment … Read more

The morning began like so many others for Adrian Cole—magnate of glass towers and velvet-lobbied residences—yet a faint, unfamiliar stir unsettled his routine. His calendar was jammed until nightfall, a gauntlet of negotiations and signatures. Still, a quiet insistence tugged at him, a whisper beneath the rational hum of his day: go home. Adrian wasn’t … Read more

Nina was folding the freshly washed laundry into the wardrobe when the doorbell rang. The October evening was raw and damp, and after a workday she only wanted quiet at home. But as soon as Nina opened the door, Valentina Sergeyevna barged into the hallway without so much as a greeting. “Nina, good thing I … Read more

Andrey sat at the kitchen table, shuffling through the printed paperwork from the Zdravnitsa sanatorium. The evening sun slanted through the window, lighting his tired face. He knew Lena would be home any minute and the conversation wouldn’t be easy. But he hoped she would understand. Two weeks earlier his mother had called him at … Read more