Hi guys!

I want to thank all of you who have followed this series to this point. I appreciate your support. To those dropping comments, thank you so much as well. I see everything.

I have a little announcement to make. Don’t panic. I’m not ending the series. I’m just letting you know that this story, like Fanasiba, introduces a world of new characters, far away from the ones in my other stories. I had to bring Abuja in for this one. After Barrett & Barrett, we’ll have books coming out of this universe. So, all of my lovers, be prepared with your pockets. They’re all going to be paperbacks and two will be dropping next year, by God’s grace. Characters like Sody, Nabil, Zulu and Fana, and others will take the spotlight.

For now, enjoy King and Deze, whose story, is about to get heated after this chapter. Yes, the slow burn is over. They’re my Christmas gifts to you. So, share the love.

Chapter 14: King

The office has that Monday morning energy, a low-frequency vibration of keyboard clicks and murmured greetings. My second cup of coffee sits cooling on the desk. I’m scanning the week’s projections. My phone vibrates. The screen flashes with a number I know too well.

I answer. “Morning, sir.”

“King! My guy!” The voice is booming and cheerful with entitlement, smoothed by a lifetime of never being told no. “Hope Abuja is not suffocating you with all that serious air.”

I chuckle. “First Son!”

“That’s my name!”

“To what do I owe the pleasure, sir?” My tone is cordial, as I maintain the balance between respect and the slight familiarity required. We are not friends. 

“The pleasure is all yours today, my brother, because I’m stealing your Christmas.”

“Talk to me.”

“I’m hosting a little something-something for the holiday weekend in Lagos. Actually, four little something-somethings. Luncheon, dinner, brunch, then an all-nighter. You know how we roll nau.”

“Yes, sir.”

“My usual event people in Lagos have gotten on my nerves, as usual, and I’m about done. I want that special flavor of yours, you understand?”

I smile to myself. The man is lying. I heard the gist about him having an affair with his Lagos events planner, getting her pregnant and sending her out of the country to have their baby, ultimately crippling her company. But I respect his need to lie.

“Wait… You mean this Christmas?”

The scope of what he’s asking of me hits me instantly. Four major events in Lagos, with four weeks to plan during the busiest season of the year. Logistical insanity.

“First Son, the timeline is—”

“Tight. I know! That’s why I’m calling you, the chaos maestro.” He laughs in unburdened glee. “Don’t worry, I’m not sorry. I’ll make it worth your pain. Private jet to Lasgidi and back for you and your core team. Plus, an extra team here, should you need them. And the money, King. The kind of budget that makes you feel like you can wipe your ass with bundles of thousand-naira notes and not blink.”

I laugh.

“My Special Assistant on Eventful Enjoyment will be your point of contact.”

Special Assistant on Eventful Enjoyment. I close my eyes for a fraction of a second. I’m not elated by the thought of putting with his carnival of cronies, all feeding from the same bottomless trough.

“It’s a heavy undertaking.” My voice doesn’t betray any frantic readjustment happening in my head. “I’ll need to mobilize my entire team.”

“Mobilize! Yes! That’s the spirit! The S.A.E.E. will reach out to you. Later, man.”

The line goes dead. No request for a quote. No discussion of details. Just an imperial decree followed by the promise of obscene money and a private jet. I place the phone down slowly. The weight of the next four weeks settles on my shoulders.

I stand, folding my sleeves. I walk to my office door and open it. Marian, talking to a new staff, looks up from his desk.

“Marian, conference room. Now. Everyone.”

She doesn’t ask. She moves.

I take a moment, watching through the glass wall as the hive stirs. I see Adaeze. She’s at her desk, head bent over a fabric swatch, holding it up to the morning light. She’s in a cream-colored sweater today, cashmere by the look of it, and her smooth weave runs down her shoulders. There’s a new perfume. Something different from last week’s sharp citrus. It had drifted into my office earlier, when she poked her head in to say hi.

She looks up and her eyes meet mine through the glass. I give a slight nod toward the conference room. She puts the swatch down, picks up her leather notebook, and leaves her office.

By the time I enter the conference room, the space is full. 

“Good morning. We’ve just been commissioned by the First Son’s office,” I begin. “Four events in Lagos over the Christmas weekend. Luncheon, formal dinner, brunch, and an all-night party. High security, highest budget, zero room for error. Timeline: four weeks.”

A stunned silence, then a low whistle from Nkechi, my head planner. She knows what that means.

“This becomes our only priority. Everything else is reprioritized or gracefully handed off.” My voice is calm, leaving no room for debate. “Nkechi, you and I have been on the Shonola-Abbas wedding. I’ll need you to take lead now. Remember that the wedding is special to me, so it remains critical. You report to me daily.”

Nkechi nods. “Understood. I’ll need to reassign the Dalyop anniversary.”

“Do it. Logistics and security will be handled by a dedicated team from the villa, but we will need extra security from a trusted firm in Lagos. Marian, you will be our primary liaison. You will be their shadow. Every vendor, every staff member, gets vetted twice.”

Marian gives an efficient nod, already making a note.

My gaze sweeps the table. I assign and delegate under this impossible weight. I take chaos and make it into a checklist.

Then I look to my right. “Adaeze.”

Her eyes are on me. The soft perfume seems to reach me even here.

“The Okon twins’ birthday. It remains yours and becomes even more critical. It’s our anchor event in Abuja. Your mandate is to make that party the only thing people will talk about in this city for a while.” 

“Flawless and unforgettable.”

“I will lead the Lagos team personally,” I conclude, closing my own notebook. The delegation is complete. “From now until January, consider this a lockdown. Overtime is approved by the accountant, so is your annual thirteenth month salary, plus the usual Christmas packages. So, cancel all—”

There’s an eruption of applause and cheers. I wait for the interruption to die down.

“Cancel all personal plans. We’re building a fortress of perfection in four weeks. Any questions?”

Silence. They know the drill. They’ve seen me do this before. It’s why they’re here.

“Move.”

Chairs scrape back. The room empties in less than a minute. I remain standing. Adaeze is one of the last to leave. I see her brows furrowed, already running calculations in her head. As she passes my chair, the scent of vanilla and something else wraps around me.

For a split second, I don’t see the senior partner. I see the woman from the shower, steam on her skin, laughing at something I tell her. 

I watch her walk away, and I am left with the brutal clarity of my two realities: the king of this boardroom, and the man who desperately wants to be the king of her heart. Only one can lead right now.

***

The air in the office has transformed from the high-strung energy of the day to the quietness of late night. It’s past eight. The only light comes from the glass-walled conference room where Deze sits, backlit by her laptop screen.

We are in the trenches of a proposal for a new luxury hotel client. A last-minute, make-or-break Request For Proposal that landed on my lap after the First Son’s call. Nkene’s birthday concept is finally buttoned up, but this is another beast because the client is foreign. It requires precision, poetry in the pitch, and it’s due at 9 AM.

I save my final edits, send them to Deze, and push back from my desk. My neck is a knot of tension. I need a drink.

Walking toward the kitchen, I see her through the open conference room door. Head in her hands, fingers massaging her temples. “Hit a wall?” I ask.

She looks up, her eyes tired but still sharp. “The wall hit me. Repeatedly. I need fuel.”

“Kitchen. Now.”

We move in the same direction in silence. The kitchen is a large space of stainless steel and soft under-cabinet lighting. I go straight for a jar of fine instant coffee I keep for emergencies. 

“You take yours black, right?” I ask.

“Please. At this point, I’d take it intravenously.”

I smile at the joke. She’s taken a seat on a stool, elbows on the kitchen island while I prepare a cold brew of martini espresso. When she tastes it, she smiles in appreciation. The shared fatigue is a kind of intimacy that is stripping away the layers of CEO and partner.

“Big weekend,” I say, facing her. “The Shonola-Abbas wedding. You’ll be there?”

A real smile touches her lips for the first time all night. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“You always go to the weddings you plan?”

“I don’t go because I plan them. I just… love weddings.”

The simple confession catches me off guard. In our world, weddings are high-stress productions, logistical nightmares, and client-ego minefields. 

“Why?” I ask. “After seeing the underbelly, why love them?”

She’s quiet for a moment, then she looks at me. “You want the truth?”

I nod.

“A wedding is a live trade show and a goldmine of data. The guest list is a client database. The other planner’s work is my competitive intelligence report, and every vendor is either on my blacklist or gold list.”

“Wow.” I am impressed and proud of myself for going into business with a partner that understands my business language. However, I ask, “Have you ever, even once, attended for the fairytale of it? The romance?”

She lets out a dry laugh, sips her drink, and locks eyes with me. “Romance is the product we sell, King. It’s the packaging. I go to weddings to see how well the box is wrapped. The fairytale happens before the invoice gets paid. After that, it’s just logistics and damage control.”

It’s my turn to sip my drink to drown the dryness in my throat. There’s something quite cold about Deze, and I’m not sure why I’m presently turned on by it.

“But if you’re asking if I’ve ever believed in the packaging?” she continues, softening her tone a little. “Let’s just say I’m much of a better planner now.”

I’m staring. I can’t help it. In the dim light, with her guard down from exhaustion, I’m seeing a part of her I’ve only glimpsed in fragments. Before I can respond, we hear a sound and both turn.

Marian stands frozen in the kitchen doorway, a stack of thick client folders clutched to her chest. Her eyes are wide. She looks genuinely startled to see us.

“Marian,” I call. “You’re here late.”

“I… I was… working at home,” she stammers as her gaze darts from me to Deze and back to the folders. “I needed these for the First Son’s events, and so I rushed here to get them.”

Marian is diligent, often the first in and last out. But her manner is all wrong right now. She’s never flustered. Well, except it has to do with Don getting on her nerves. Otherwise, she’s a stone of efficiency. 

“This late?” I keep my tone mild, but my eyes are on the folders. They aren’t our standard client binders. They are plain, dark gray, thicker.

“Yes. I… I wanted to get a head start. It’s a lot of work.” She takes a step back, adjusting her grip on the files. “I’ll just… I’ll head home.”

She scurries off as if being chased.

“That was strange,” Deze murmurs.

“Quite.”

We drink in silence for a minute.

“The packaging can be misleading,” I say, resurrecting our discussion on weddings. “The fanciest ones, in my experience, hold the ugliest secrets.”

“I agree.”

“So, I planned the craziest wedding ever. I think this was two years ago. The bride was the groom’s father’s sidechick. Present sidechick at the time.”

“No way! How did you find out?”

“You won’t believe who told me.”

“The groom?”

“The groom’s mother.”

“What?”

“I don’t know her motive, but she opened up to me, said the bride was pregnant, and she was sure it belonged to her husband. But I should make sure her son had the best wedding in Abuja.”

Deze’s eyes widen, and I laugh. 

“But that wasn’t the craziest part. On the day of the wedding, this same woman came to me and said I should tell the photographer to get good shots of a certain man wherever he sat. Seemed to be in his sixties. She showed me his picture on her phone, and I asked her, playfully, who he was.”

“Who?”

“The groom’s biological father.”

“What!” Deze screams.

“She told me this with no iota of remorse.”

“Wait. Let me process this,” Deze says, eyes searching the air as if reading something invisible. “No, that’s so messy.”

“And the wedding went smoothly.”

“The packaging packaged.”

“Is it not me again?”

We both laugh. She takes a sip and looks ahead of her, thoughtful.

“Did you judge them?”

“Judge? Deze, that is not allowed in my job description. I’ve planned events for all sorts of people. I’ve seen a bank MD’s head between his sister-in-law’s thighs, just before he climbed the stage for an inspiring speech. Had a client who had to sniff cocaine before his events. A bride had me include her sidecock’s flight and hotel fees to the honeymoon package. She had me lodge that guy in the same hotel as her and her husband’s in Greece—”

“And you did?”

“I had no choice. The groom dispensed the cash to the bride who was my primary client.”

“Okay, I’m officially dumbfounded. Clearly, I’m still a baby in this events business.”

“Humans are complex, are as their reasons for doing what they do. I can’t judge them.”

She looks at me, and I see her almost smile. We continue with our martini espressos in silence.

***

The groom is not going to show up for his own wedding today.

It won’t be the first time this would happen in a wedding I’ve planned, but it would be the first that has the groom being my friend, making this utterly personal for me. What do I tell his bride?

I get off my bed and read Frank’s text a third time with a sigh. This guy has to be joking. Which one is ‘you gave me clarity about living my truth and marriage would be me living a lie’?

So, he’s going to blame me for his own stupid mistakes just because we had drinks on his bachelor’s eave, and I gave him advice about his very financially-challenged life? How did that translate to him walking away from an amazing woman and leaving me with the job of shattering her world?

For God’s sake!

I check the time. It’s a few minutes after eight. We still have two hours to kill before the wedding. If I can catch him in good time, I can change his mind and get my reputation out of the kill zone.

I freshen up and dress up for the wedding. When I get into the car, I toss my tux in the backseat. As I drive out of the estate gates, I try Frank’s number, hoping he has somehow come to his senses and switched on his phone.

No luck. I dial his best man and tell him what’s happening. There’s a long sigh on his end, and I ask him if he knew that Frank had planned to do this.

“Yes, and no.”

“Okay?”

“We talked at the bachelor’s eve last night. He hinted at not being prepared. He even made a joke about running away. I thought it was normal wedding jitters. How Frank go do this kind thing nau? Wetin I wan tell Wande? She’ll just die. Ah!”

“Don’t tell her yet. Just…find him. Where do you think he is right now?”

“I have a few places in mind. You know what? Let me call you back.”

“Abeg, keep this to yourself.”

“Yeah, sure.”

But he breaks the news faster than a gossip blog. He tells just one person whom he’ll later claim he trusts; and that’s a stupid thing to do because the person is Yewande’s cousin’s sidechick, who is also his sidechick, but that’s not the point. That lady then tells Yewande. Next thing, I’m getting phone calls from everyone. Nkechi has never handled this type of mess before, and she panics so badly that I tell her to take a break as I step in to see how I can save a bride from losing her mind.

It’s now eleven minutes past nine, and I’m at the hotel where the reception is to hold. Guests would be arriving at the church in less than an hour. We have to find Frank or cancel this wedding.

I take a call from Deze. She breaks the news to me about Frank’s disappearance, explaining that Nkechi was the one who broke the news to her in panic. I tell her I am already aware.

As we speak and try to come up with a plan, I get into an elevator to the floor where the bride and her family are lodged. I find my way to the bride’s suite, but Deze is already there, standing calmly outside the door in a pretty pink outfit, hair pulled up, a tablet in hand. She looks like a general who arrived before the war started.

“I was really bored this morning. When Nkechi’s call came in, I just jumped at it,” she explains. “I figured you’d be busy trying to find the groom.”

“Status?” I ask, falling in beside her.

“Confirmed. Your friend is gone. Sent a text to the bride from a new number. Best man’s network has collapsed. The news is leaking. Mother of the Bride is inside, currently declaring a blood feud on Frank’s entire lineage.” She speaks calmly. No panic. 

Before I can respond, the suite door flies open. Mrs. Shonola, Yewande’s mother, spots me and unleashes a torrent. “You! You people and your loose mouths! You should have come to me first! You have shamed my family!”

I open my mouth, ready to take the hit, but Deze steps forward, not in front of me, but beside me. She greets her, introduces herself, then explains the situation from a Barrett Brothers’ POV. 

Mrs. Shonola listens to her patiently. When she’s done, she resumes her tirade while I fix my eyes on the bride who is ready for her day, seated on the bed, typing on her phone. She’s in tears, but otherwise, she looks calm. There’s a bridesmaid that dabs off her tears now and then. The other maids of honor look apprehensive, and the air is thick with tension.

“Mrs. Shonola,” Deze says, “your anger is valid. But directing it at us wastes time and energy you need for your daughter. Every second we stand here, the story is solidifying. We need to decide what happens next. Right now.”

She doesn’t apologize or cower; rather, she reframes the crisis. Mrs. Shonola is again momentarily derailed by her calm authority. Deze uses the pause. “Is Yewande ready to talk? We need to hear from her.”

Yewande looks up from her phone and stands. “He’s not coming,” she whispers. “He just texted again from another number. It’s really over.”

“Ah!” Mrs. Shonola screams, taking off her gele. “Franklin! God will punish you!”

“Ma’am,” I call her. “Let’s just… pray that we find him.”

“You won’t,” Yewande insists. “He’s gone.”

“Gone where?” She marches toward her. “Let me have that phone!”

“No, Mommy.”

“I want to call him—”

“You can’t reach him.”

“Give me the phone, Yewande!”

Yewande holds tightly to her phone and moves away from her. “Mommy, leave me!” she screams in Yoruba. “Leave me!”

Her chief maid of honor reaches out to her, but she yells at her too. She instructs everyone to leave the suite, her mother, Deze and me, inclusive. But the stubborn, old woman stays behind.

Deze and I stand outside and listen to Yewande break down. I have already gotten word from my friends that Frank has reached out to them to confirm that he is indeed not turning up for his wedding. There’s an argument in our WhatsApp group on whether he’s made the right decision to leave Yewande because he’s not as rich and successful as her. 

Silly argument, if you ask me. 

The door to the suite opens, this time gently. 

“We will continue with the wedding,” Mrs. Shonola says. I am surprised at her words.

“Sorry?”

“Only the wedding reception.”

“We’ll handle it, ma’am,” Deze assures her. 

Mrs. Shonola, a tall and wrinkly woman, with a surprisingly straight posture, smiles at me for the first time today and rests her hand on my shoulder. “We will have a good party, and God will punish your useless friend.”

Yewande bursts into tears again.

What follows is an hour of sheer, brutal triage. While I handle the external firewalls, Deze steps into the eye of the storm. In the midst of the chaos, I can’t help but observe how she moves. 

She guides a disoriented Nkechi with firm kindness, assigning her concrete tasks to keep her from spiraling. She negotiates with the hysterical Mrs. Shonola, not by fighting her, but by channeling her fury into actionable decisions. 

In the end, we turn the wedding into a statement. By the time the first confused guests begin to arrive at the repurposed “Celebration of Yewande” reception, the atmosphere has been alchemized, the signage changed, the schedule ripped up, and a new one displayed on the wide screen TVs in the hall. The crowd is a mix of pity, shock, and morbid curiosity. The emcee, a pro I’ve worked with for years, handles the awkward announcement with stunning grace, reframing it as “Yewande’s fearless next chapter.” 

And then, the masterstroke.

Just as the reception commences, Deze makes Franklin’s friends (me, inclusive) and close male relatives do an entire show of lying prostrate to apologize to Yewande and her family on his behalf. 

Then, his best man gives a speech, reminding Yewande that she is already Franklin’s wife traditionally, and nothing can steal him away from her. But her mother grabs the mic and stops him, announcing that the union between the couple will be severed via traditional rites. After that, she puts a smile on and tells the guests to enjoy themselves.

Fana takes the stage, sitting behind a grand piano and a mic. Deze, with Nkechi and Yewande’s permission, had invited her, last minute, during the week, to render the number for the couple’s first dance.

“For Yewande,” Fana says into the mic once she’s settled. She doesn’t sing a happy song. She takes on Coldplay’s Fix You. Her voice is a rich and aching instrument, filling the room. “When you try your best, but you don’t succeed… When you get what you want, but not what you need…”

The bride sits at her sweetheart table, staring at her untouched champagne flute, tears snaking through her perfect makeup. But she is listening, and Deze is standing a respectful few feet away, ensuring this moment remains sacred. 

I watch her watch Yewande, and I see that she isn’t just salvaging an event; she’s building a scaffold for a woman’s shattered pride. The efficiency and empathy touch me.

Later, after Fana is done and the wedding band takes over with an upbeat set, I see the bride quietly slip out with Deze. I know this hotel quiet well, so I trace them to a smaller hall that’s usually used for corporate meetings. It is filled with office chairs, surrounding a group of tables that form a square in the center. The lights are off, as there’s still daylight outside and it sips in through the windows.

Yewande sits on the floor, in a square space, and stares at the distance for a bit before stretching out her back on the floor to look up at the ceiling. Deze sits beside her. I stand at an angle they can’t see. I know I shouldn’t listen, but I’m frozen.

“…don’t know how to thank you,” Yewande is saying. “You took a nuclear bomb and turned it into… I don’t even know. But I can breathe.”

“You did the hard part,” Deze replies. “We just cleared a path.”

“Is that what you do? Clear paths for people?”

A long pause. “Sometimes it’s easier to navigate someone else’s wreckage than to even figure out your own.”

“You have wreckage?” Yewande asks.

My partner laughs. “Yes o. A different type. The one you see coming from far away and you still can’t dodge.”

“Man trouble?”

Another pause. I hold my breath. “Something like that. There’s… this man. He’s all the wrong reasons and the only right one I’ve had in a long time. He’s in my head. Constantly. I want him so badly. God! I want him in a way that’s making me annoyingly emotional.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Like I said, wrong reasons. My career. This life, this company, this reputation I’m gluing back together. It’s mine. It’s the first thing that’s ever been completely mine. And he’s… he’s not a complication. But he’ll shake me and turn my life around, and I’m not ready. Career has to come first. It’s the rule.”

Her words are a quiet, disturbing earthquake. She feels it. This thing. And she is fighting it.

I melt back into the shadows. I’ve just witnessed a masterclass in strength. I’ve also just heard her voice out the possibility of us with that same unbreakable will.

The contradiction is immense.

***

The air in my car after the reception bears the ghost of Fana’s song, the image of Yewande’s shattered composure, and the echo of Adaeze’s confession.

My phone vibrates on the passenger seat. An unknown number. A text.

Unknown: It’s Frank. I’m at the Transcorp. Suite 1407. I need to talk. Don’t tell Yewande.

The audacity! The sheer gall of it. A hot wave of anger washes over me, burning away the fatigue. He wants to talk? Now? After he’d detonated a life and left us to sweep up the ashes?

I don’t reply. I just start the car and drive.

The night receptionist at the in Transcorp desk doesn’t blink when I ask for the suite. “They’re expecting you, sir. Fourteenth floor.”

They.

Frank and another woman. The anger curdles into something colder. I ride the elevator in a bubble of tense silence. The corridor on the fourteenth floor is hushed, swallowing my angry footsteps. I stop at 1407 and knock.

The door is opened not by Franklin, but by Nabil. He stands there in his tux. I see weariness on his face. Behind him in the suite’s living area are Tega and Boma. They were just at the reception with me. What’s going on?

My brain short-circuits. “Nabil? What the hell is this?”

Before he can answer, the door to the inner bedroom opens. Franklin steps out. He looks like hell. Slouched shoulders, eyebags, his confident composure gone. And right behind him, emerging from the same room, is the man I had introduced to Adaeze as Baba at her party. Another quiet, rich friend from university. He places a hand on Franklin’s shoulder from behind, a gesture of such intimacy that the final, staggering part of the mystery clicks into place.

They’re not just friends sharing a suite. The energy between them is electric. 

“Baba?” My voice is flat, alien to my own ears.

Franklin speaks in a raw voice. “King, I’m sorry for everything. The mess, the lies… especially to you.”

The coldness in me ignites back into white-hot fury. I look from Franklin’s devastated face to Baba’s stoic one, then to Nabil, who had to have known. “All of you,” I say, the words tight. “You knew. You let me walk into that today, let that woman be crucified in front of everyone, while you all sat on this?”

“Me, I didn’t know o!” Tega exclaims. “I just dey find out and I dey irritated. Frank, you be hypocrite. All this time wey you dey follow woman, na to cover up this nonsense?”

Frank and Baba ignore him.

“I’m also just finding out,” Boma says.

I redirect my eyes to Nabil.

“It wasn’t mine to tell, King,” Nabil says, his voice firm but his eyes pleading. “Frank asked for confidentiality. I was trying to help him find a way out that wouldn’t destroy everyone.”

“You call what happened today not destroying everyone?” I snap, turning my fire back on Franklin. “You humiliated her. You humiliated her family. You used my company as the stage for your fucking existential crisis!”

“It is not an existential crisis! It is who I am!”

“And I have no problem with that! What I have a problem with is the lies! The deception! Even to me, your friend! You couldn’t have been a man? Couldn’t haven told me? How about her? You couldn’t have sat her down a month ago, a week ago, and told her the truth?”

“What truth, King?” Franklin’s own anger finally flares, desperate and pained. “That I’m gay? That I’ve been living a lie my whole life to make my family, her family, this entire society proud?” He steps closer, his hands clenched. “So, I should have gone through with it? Married her? Lived a double life, cheating on her with the man I love?” He gestures toward Baba, whose expression is of silence. “Used her as my beard and societal shield until I died? Is that the man thing to do?”

His words are a battering ram. They don’t absolve him, but they reframe the crisis. It’s a catastrophic collision of fear and a brutal, last-minute attempt to save his integrity.

The fight drains out of me, leaving a hollow, weary understanding. 

“You still owe her an apology,” I tell him. “A real one. Not a text. Not a message passed through your prostrating friends. You look her in the eye and you explain. She didn’t just lose a husband today. She lost the reality she knew. You owe her that truth.”

Franklin nods, a tear finally escaping. “I know. I will. I just… I needed…”

“You needed to get your story straight with your support system first,” I finish for him, looking at the circle of men in the room—my friends, his lover. A brotherhood. I am both inside and outside of it. “Fine. You’ve done that. Now go and face what you broke.”

I turn and leave, closing the door on the fragile sanctuary of their shared truth. Walking down the hallway, I think about Deze and how she chooses to deny the truth of her feelings for me, not because she chooses the lie, but because the alternative is solid and dependable. 

I conclude that everyone is living in some kind of lie, by fighting for a sliver of truth under the crushing weight of expectation, family, society, career, self.

***

When I make the turn to my street, I spot Deze’s car parked close to my gate. Curiosity hits me as I make my way to her. I honk for the gateman and pull up beside her. She lets down her window.

“Hey,” I say.

“We need to talk.”

I drive into the compound, and she follows me in. We don’t say a word to each other until we’re in my living room. 

“Yewande told me something about Frank,” she says, taking off her shoes at the door. “The reason he didn’t show up today. It has nothing to do with him not being as financially stable as her. I mean, he could afford a fifty-million-naira wedding—”

“He’s gay,” I blurt out.

“You knew?” Deze asks in surprise.

“I just found out,” I say, unbuttoning my shirt. “But how did Yewande know?”

“Someone sent her an anonymous message on WhatsApp last week with a picture of Frank and your other friend, Baba.”

Deze passes her phone to me. Frank and Baba are sharing a kiss in a dimly lit room that looks like a bar. I sigh, shaking my head. 

“I asked her why she chose to go on with the wedding. She said it was already too late to back out. Told me that she and Frank weren’t getting married because they were in love. They’ve never even had sex, and she was fine with that.”

“Why? That doesn’t make sense.”

“She just wanted to get married, King, and get her mom off her back. She was ready to face whatever being married to Frank meant. She’s more pained that he didn’t show up. She doesn’t care that he lied, said she understood.”

I scratch my head. Clearly, I’m exhausted from this whole mess. “Need a drink?” I ask.

Deze follows me to the kitchen, where I pour us both some wine from a half-consumed bottle. After a long sip, I look at her. “Is that why you came here? To gossip?”

There’s a hint of humor in my tone and face, which she would naturally respond to with a laugh, but her face has a somber expression that I can’t quite read.

“What’s wrong?”

“I lied to you,” she says, staring at her glass of wine. “I lied about Yele.”

“Okay?” I set my glass on the kitchen counter, dreading what’s about to come next. She looks at me, an apology in her eyes. 

“I slept with him, King. I…” She sighs, eyes lowered down once more. “I have no excuse for doing it, even though it felt like the only thing to do then to get ahead.” She looks at me again, tears in her eyes. Her voice barely makes it out. “I’m so sorry.”

The words hang in the air between us.

I slept with him.

The puzzle pieces I’d been collecting snap into a brutal, coherent picture. It wasn’t just a fraudulent transaction. It was a transaction of the most intimate, degrading kind. The ministry money was the public score and the affair was the private currency. Her shame isn’t just about a crime, but about a body used as collateral.

I turn away, walking to the window that looks out over my dark, ordered garden. I need the space. I need to breathe.

“You lied,” I say. “You looked me in the eye and you lied, Adaeze.”

“I’m sorry.”

I turn to face her. She’s clutching her wine glass like it’s the edge of a cliff.

“Why? That’s what I don’t get. Your father is Dr. John Nnadi. Your family has a hospital. You weren’t some girl from the gutter fighting for her first meal. Why would you… become a statistic? Why would you let yourself be that for him?”

I’m not slut-shaming her. I’m terrified. I’m looking at the woman I’m falling for and realizing I have no idea how far she’s willing to go or what lines she’s willing to cross when she’s cornered. If she could do that with Yele, what calculus is she performing about me and our business, right now?

She puts away the wine glass and wraps her arms around herself, as if shielding herself from my question. “It was never just about the money.” Her voice is scraped out. “It was about how doors close in your face, no matter how good you are or how hard you work, unless someone on the inside lets you in. Imani made sure I knew my place. Yele was the one who offered to make my dreams come true. Just one night, he said. But it turned to many nights.”

The bastard!

“And I honestly thought I could take whatever he was offering, use it, and slam the door shut behind me. I thought I was smart enough to outsmart the game. I wasn’t,” she whispers. “I was so ashamed that I let you and everyone believe I was just a victim. Because the truth is, I walked into that house in Guzape with my eyes open. That’s the person I was. And I’ve been terrified that if you ever saw her, you’d walk away.”

The second confession hangs in the air, heavier than the first. It’s full of conscious choice, of a calculated, degrading trade-off. It reveals a pragmatism so cold it borders on self-destruction. A desperate strategist who gambled with her own body and lost.

I stare at her, this woman in my kitchen, who is both one of the strongest and most broken persons I know. My mind screams at me to walk away, but to where? She’s my brilliant, creative, ambitious partner. She’s the woman I’ve fallen for. The broken parts, the fierce parts, the ashamed parts. All of it.

“Cora!” I groan in frustration. I look at her, wiping tears that won’t stop. Goddammit. She shouldn’t be crying. 

Didn’t Nabil say I like the ones that give me trouble? Why can’t I stay mad at her and keep her away? Why is every instinct in me pulling me closer, even now, staring at this ugly truth? Why do I want to claim her, not in spite of this, but including this? 

The choice is clear. The easy way is the door. The hard way is forward, into the wreckage.

I walk back to her in deliberate steps that fight against my own self-protection. “I’m not in a place to judge you, Adaeze.” I stop in front of her. “I once had an affair with someone’s wife. I wasn’t pushed to the wall or looking for money or connections. I was just stupid. Her husband found out and came for me, but Don took the bullet and lost his eyes.”

I see her absorb this new, dark weight in my past.

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“So, you see, I understand secrets and shame. I don’t hold yours against you.” I take a final step, closing the distance. “But I need you to understand something about me. I deal very badly with lies.” I search her damp, long-lashed eyes. “So never lie to me again. Not as a friend. Not as a business partner. Not as… anything we might become. That’s the only rule.”

“Okay.”

A new question surfaces. “But why tell the truth now? You could have carried that lie forever. It’s not like we’re an item.”

“We’re business partners, King. Yele and his wife are our clients…”

I stop her with a shake of my head. “You’re still lying, Cora. Is it so hard to admit that I make you vulnerable, that you feel something for me?”

“Is it obvious?” she asks in a whisper.

I nod.

“It’s hard for me, King. I’m fighting so hard to act like nothing happened between us…” she shakes her head. “It’s messing me up.”

The air in the room changes to something warm and charged. “How much?” I ask.

“I don’t know. And I hate that I don’t know. I hate feeling this way. Like, I’m so unanchored. Is that even a word?”

I smile. “It is.”

“All I want is to protect what I’m building. To not get sucked into something that makes me lose focus, make bad decisions… again.”

She’s talking, and I can’t listen anymore. My hand comes up to cradle her jaw as my thumb brushes away a fresh tear. Her words falter.

“Are you losing focus now?” My gaze drops to her lips.

Before she can answer, I kiss her.

It’s a reclaiming. She melts into it, then meets me with a desperation that steals my breath. Her hands grab my unbuttoned shirt, and I feel the rightness of her body against mine.

When we break apart, she lets out a shaky laugh, resting her forehead against my neck. “So much for focus.”

I hold her tight. We stand like that in the quiet kitchen for a while. I finally but reluctantly loosen my hold. I press one last kiss to her forehead. “You should go before we worsen things.”

Business first. The unspoken rule hangs between us as a lifeline and a barrier.

She nods in understanding. At the door, she pauses, looking back. There are no more tears. “Goodnight, King.”

“Goodnight, Cora.”

The door clicks shut. I listen to the sound of her car driving away and lean back against the counter. The confession that could have been a weapon to tear us apart now feels like a foundation. I must be a mad man, because why does the fact that she’s so messy and flawed turning me on right now? I’d never been the type of man to be attracted to good girls, but this is a revelation.

I’m choosing the hard way. And it fucking feels like the right one and the beginning of something real. 

She thinks the rule I gave her about never lying to me again is about building a clean partnership, a pristine empire where we stand as equals.

She is right, but she does not know the half of it.

My own lie sits quiet and anchored in the center of my chest. It is not a lie of the past but of the future. My aim is not just to build an empire with her. That is the professional boardroom excuse. The truth I am not yet brave enough to speak is to make her my own. To have her heart be the ground where my loyalty is planted and her happiness is the only standard of my success.

One day, when the time is right and the last of her fears have been outgrown, I will confess this one, beautiful lie of omission. And I will watch her realize that every strategic move, every patient step, and every shared victory was not just about building a legacy.

It was about building a home. With her.