Location: Silver Croft Avenue, Blackwood City, Pearl Coast.Sophia, a stunning 28-year-old woman with an olive skin tone and a flair for fashion, paces around her father's opulent living room, her heels clicking on the polished marble floor.Sophia, popularly called Sophiee by her two bosom friends, holds the phone close to her straight hair, which falls just below her chin. She is styled in a chic, bouncy bob with a side part that adds to her effortless charm.Sophie draws her lips parts her gorgeous lips which are painted in a rosy hue, into a thin line as she waits for Valeri to pick up her damn phone, after calling her four times already. Her outfit is sleek and modern, featuring a long black shirt that dramatically skims her curves, barely covering her bum. The top's hem grazes the top of her thigh, creating a flattering line. She dramatically taps on it, wondering why Valeri answered her call on the first ring. She makes a mental note to inform Valeri to keep her phone close si
Sophia’s eyes drift away, her mind consumed by the turmoil that is brewing inside her. Aiden is an inquisitive child who always has questions, and if she doesn’t properly coordinate her mind on how to answer his question, because if she answers his question the wrong way, she may end up setting herself up for a huge problem later.“But really, how will I pad the truth to Aiden that over the past 12 years, his father never wanted to see him?” Sophia asks herself again as her eyes drift from side to side.“How nicely can I put it to a 12-year-old that his father’s idea of fatherhood is only limited to throwing money at us, but never is time and attention,” Sophia’s heart breaks as she thinks about it. Her tears threaten, to spill because the weight of the truth threatens to crush her.Aiden’s innocent question has unleashed a torrent of emotions. As Sophia struggles to find a perfect response to his question, she can’t bear the thought of shattering her son's illusions that Aiden must h
Location: Silver Oaks Resorts, Maple Ridge, Oakland.Melanie returns to her room, reeling in her good sorts because she didn’t expect to have such a nice time with Caleb. Still, him setting up such a surprise for her during the day, just because she insisted that she didn’t want to talk to him is something that she isn’t able to get over, and then the date wasn’t something out of the extraordinary. However, it was still perfect in its own way, exuding its own uniqueness.She isn’t the type to agree to go on a date easily with someone, but first, it was the dating site that she didn’t have a choice but to check out, then the first date with Caleb at his club where he left a sour taste in her mouth and she made up her mind not to have anything to do with him again, but then the man keeps following her everywhere like he wants more from her.In all honesty, Caleb Wellinton is a good-looking man who screams money even though Melanie doesn’t know his net worth, but after she did him dirty
Location: Silver Oaks Resorts, Maple Ridge, Orion.Alistair's eyes slowly flutter open to the soft glow of the morning light peeking through the curtains. He stretches, feeling refreshed and fully sober after a good night's sleep. He glances around the room, expecting to see Caleb asleep in the adjacent bed, but he is nowhere around.Alistair hisses, he throws off the covers and gets out of bed, thinking that Caleb ditched him to go and spend time with Melanie again while he is left lonely and sad in the room at a vacation that was told was going to be compensation for being away from the country for a whole week with a woman that he just met, without giving him a proper explanation, and just shoving all his duties down his throat.On getting into the bathroom, Alistair stands in front of the bathroom mirror, brushing his teeth with a rhythmic motion. As he scrubs, his mind begins to wander to the events of the previous night. Specifically, he isn’t able to shake off the feeling of ma
After sorting Caleb out, he goes to the side of the room where Caleb’s stuff is arranged to get an outfit change out of the duffel bag so that he can have a warm bath and change into something fresh. He then goes into the bathroom to take a quick bath because he starts feeling really uncomfortable.While he is busy drying his body, the landline in the room starts to beep, so he quickly gets the call so that it won't disturb Caleb.“Alistair Rolands from room 77B speaking,” He introduces as he picks up the call.“You placed an order for a breakfast platter to room 16B on the fifth floor right?” the caller confirms from him.“yes I did…is there any problem with delivering my order?” Alistair inquires, concerned because the other was placed way over 30 minutes ago.“We brought the delivery to her room door five minutes ago, and we have been knocking since then, but there has been no response from the person inside since then,” The person at the other end of the phone informs Alistair.“
“Hey, I got the surprise delivery that you asked your best friend to deliver to my room, and I am grateful for that.” Melanie’s eyes sparkle with gratitude as she types the text that she wants to send to Caleb before she procrastinates and forgets to do so. As she types, she smiles to herself.She hit send, but the messages only ticked once; they didn’t double-tick, which can only mean one thing: his data is not on or he is not available.“Excuse me, Alistair, do you know where Caleb is? I tried texting him to thank him for the breakfast, but the message didn’t deliver,” Melanie says, frowning as she turns to Alistair.“I’m afraid Caleb is unavailable at the moment, and that is exactly why he sent me here to drop food off for you, so that you can know that you are still on his mind,” Alistair’s expression turns sympathetic.“Is he okay?” Melanie asks with furrowed brows.“He is perfectly fine, there are just a few things that he needs to sort out quickly, which is exactly why he is in
As soon as Melanie hangs up the call with Shirley, she puts a call through to Kalinin almost immediately. It tells her that the line is busy, but instead of just letting her sister call her back, she persists with the call until her sister picks up her call. “What the F is wrong with you?” Kalinin asks her angrily as soon as she picks up her call. “Shirley told me that Mom went to Pearl Coast, and I wanted us to agree on what you are going to tell her before you spoil things way beyond what I can salvage for her,” Melanie informs her sister. “What is that supposed to mean?” Kalinin asks pissed. “I figured that you may not be able to come up with something very fast, so I decided to call you immediately,” Melanie let’s get sister know. “You should know that I won’t tell our mother something that you haven’t told her, because I know how she likes to blow things out of proportion and also overreact,” Kalinin hisses as she says. “Whoosh!” Melanie exclaims. “I can’t believe that you
As soon as Kali drops the call, Melanie’s mind reels. She wonders how she will deal with the situation when she finally gets to that bridge while stuffing all her things in the mini-traveling bag she brought with her.“In the next few hours, I should be out of here, but where do I go from here?” Melanie questions herself as she routinely stops forcing her unfolded clothes into the bag.“The only people I know here are Kali and her little family, but I can't even go back there because what if I get comfortable in my sister's house and my mom decides to pay her a surprise visit?” Melanie ponders, and she shakes her head, to dismiss the idea of going to Kalinin’s house because she knows that for her mom to wake up one morning, and decide to visit her, then she can also do the same to her other daughter and it won't be strange in her dictionary.“I also know Ryan, but that man wants nothing to do with me since he hasn’t left me a message since he left, nor has he tried to even call or rea
“What do you want to do now, Mrs Wellington? Will you wait for me to get dressed while we go downstairs to have dinner?” Caleb asks her but she shakes her head. “How about a reunion party?” Melanie suggests. “That can work, but it will take a while to be able to get that ready because I would like to publicly announce my daughter's presence and your return to the public,” Caleb informs but Melanie shakes her head. “I feel like going public with both of us, while we are still trying to make our family work sounds like a bit too much for now…we can always go public after one year,” Melanie suggests instead. “So the reunion party that you mentioned earlier was supposed to be tonight?” Caleb raises an eyebrow, skeptical. “Yes, why not? We can invite Ryan and…” Melanie nods enthusiastically as she says. “It is too late to start cooking,” Caleb interrupts, shaking his head. “We can always ask Ryan to order food from Bistro Bliss and have it delivered here.” Melanie waves her hand dis
Melanie’s eye widens in horror as the truth of everything that happened in the last five minutes that she got to Caleb’s house sinks in. The baby girl, Dawn is not just from any of Caleb’s one-night stands, but her flesh and blood, the child that she didn’t look at after birth because she didn’t want to get attached to, but now she is expected to just deal with it like Caleb instructed? “How could he do this to me?” Melanie’s voice trembles with rage and frustration. It just feels like she has been punched in the gut, her breath knocked out of her. “It was one of the hardest decisions of my life not to get attached to the stranger in my belly, and when I finally did, I had to just give her up because I know that giving her up is way better than having her stay with a mother that can’t cross the mountains and swim the oceans for her, but now I am expected to just…take care of her like it is no big deal?” She scoffs, her mind reeling with emotions. She had thought that she closed tha
Melanie steps into Caleb’s grand Mansion, her eyes scanning the opulent interior as a mix of nostalgia and unease washes over her. It has been a year since she last stayed in this place, and she can’t help but notice how much she missed the warmth and comfort that radiated from its walls. As she walks alongside Caleb, she pants in surprise at how natural it feels to be back here, almost as if she never left, but her reverie is short-lived. They enter the foyer and are greeted by a sea of smiling faces. The stewards, who had been like family to her during her brief stay, are all lined up, eager to welcome them back. Melanie’s eyes wide as she takes in the scene, feeling a sense of disorientation and then, her gaze lands on a tiny, chubby baby girl, dressed in a white onesie and a baby pink headband, being held by the dog, Mia’s nanny. Melanie’s heart skips a beat, and she feels a jolt of both surprise and confusion because she thought that Caleb was kidding when he said that he had
“What do I need to do to make you divorce me?” Melanie sighs before she questions Caleb because she has realized that arguing with him will not bring any positive results.“Now you are speaking the language that I want to hear,” Caleb admits with a sly smile.“…which is?” Melanie prompts.“Stay with me for a whole year, and then if you don’t fall in love with me within one year, I will let you go,” Caleb proposes, and Melanie goes wide-eyed.“Are you insane?” she questions him, and he shakes his head.“No, I am not,” He answers as if he didn’t just utter the most outrageous thing that there is to utter.“Am I a trophy that you need to secure?” she asks him while still trying to wrap her head around why he will suggest such ridiculous terms, and he shakes his head.“This cannot be a bet with Alistair like it was when you matched with me on the dating site, right?” she asks, giving him a calculated look.“How did you find that out?” Caleb inquires.“Alistair and I were in close contact
“Is this man trying to get revenge on me?” Melanie wonders after waiting for hours without hearing a word from Caleb.She silently thanks God for giving her the wisdom to convince Ryan to leave when she asked him to. No matter how understanding he might have been, sticking around her while she faces Caleb probably sets her divorce in motion. On a second note, she thinks it might be for the better because they got there around 4 p.m., and now it is 8 p.m. with no sign of Caleb.“Should I just go now, or should I keep waiting?” She silently contemplates as she looks around the reception hallway that also doubles as the waiting room of the corporation.Melanie's eyes scan the waiting room, her gaze drifting towards the passage that she feels leads to the elevator for what feels like a hundred times. She hasn’t achieved everything that she was hoping that she would achieve today, like editing the videos that she recorded earlier and posting on tiktok and her patience-wearing thing.Sudden
“Hey man, guess who just unblocked and texted me,” Alistair texts Caleb before forwarding the screenshot of Melanie's message to him. ()“Coincidentally, I just got off the call with the receptionist and apparently she is at my office with that brother of mine to see me which is not so surprising because after she ghosted me but remained in contact with Ryan” Caleb replies his best friend. “We didn't really talk about her because I could see how everything was getting to you, but you mean to tell me that she was in touch with Ryan throughout her pregnancy?” Alistair inquires and Caleb just calls him immediately “She didn't tell me that she was pregnant, but Ryan who isn't the father of her child knew that she was pregnant,” Caleb hisses. “How are you so sure that the child is yours... that if the child belongs to Ryan?” Alistair argues. “Melanie can be a lot of things, but a liar? No, she is not and she said that nothing was going on between her and Ryan,” Caleb informs Alistair.
Melanie meets Ryan at the parking lot. As they drive down to the spa, the warm morning sun shines brightly around the windshield, casting a relaxing glow over the car. Melanie, feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness, chats enthusiastically with Ryan because she knows that she has missed so much in his life because of how self-absorbed and insensitive she has been, but she is determined to change that moving forward.Ryan fills her in on the details of what she needs to know, and Melanie, smiling and attentive, listens patiently as he wraps up the details of Ryan Wellington scandal with his mom and switches to discuss his plans for her to have a rejuvenating day at the spa.“You will be having a full body massage, a facial, and a hair treatment,” Ryan goes ahead to list, and Melanie just nods.“And of course, we can't forget the nails and make-up,” He adds, and Melanie tries to hide her smile because having someone like Ryan who pays so much attention to detail is not enough, she
As soon as Ryan ends the call, Melanie tries to get out of bed to put a few things together, like taking out her outfit and putting her bags together since Ruan insisted fo take her to his mom's house, but a bright idea occurs to her to do something that she has not don't in almost one year, which is to film. She even deleted her TikTok account after she left Orion because everywhere she went on TikTok, one person or another had something or the other to say about her marriage with Caleb, and there were just a whole lot of speculations going around the internet with the videos that she watched, so she just had to let the app go. This morning, she decides to get back to the routine of filming because filming is just one of those things that she genuinely enjoyed doing, but she hasn't done it in over a year. “Since I let my business go and I am trying to find myself again, what better way is there to go about it than trying to explore the things that I used to enjoy doing before to s
Melanie takes a deep breath after she rushes out of the cramped Airport toilet that she has been hiding away, smoothing out her clothes and attempting to compose herself. She is still telling from the unexpected and uncomfortable encounter with Ethan and her mind is racing with thoughts of what is to come. As she makes her way through the bustling airport, her eyes scan the signs and directories, guiding her toward the gate where her flight is departing. She quickens her pace, her heels clicking on the polished floor as she navigates through the crowds. Finally, she reaches the gate and presents her boarding pass to the attendant, who scans it and hands it back with a smile. Melanie takes a deep breath, steeling herself for the long flight ahead, and she steps onto the plane. As she walks down the aisle, Her eyes adjust to the dim lighting and she scans the rows of seats, searching for her designated spot. She booked a seat in the second-class coach, and she is determined to find a