“It doesn’t matter what I would’ve done that day.” I told him, placing a possibly cold palm on his cheek. “Today I decided that I’m done hurting the both of us. You especially. I mean I know how you feel about me. And every time I talk about Yoké I realize that you’re getting hurt. And I’m done doing that to you. So, if he does happen to magically show up in Duran one day, I won’t be going anywhere. I want to be with you. I’m done hurting you.”
Those words made Nathan smile. His smile made the corners of his lips curl upwards, beautifully.
“Promise?”
I smiled back. “I promise.”
He nodded slowly, and then he couldn’t take it anymore and gave me a big hug. He placed his arms around my neck and kept me plastered against him. I hugged him back of cause. I felt happy. Happy for making someo
Francis looked at me. “Don’t tell me you believe everything that girl said?”“Well, you didn’t tell me why I shouldn’t believe her.” I told him.“Because she’s some poor girl from a poor city looking for a rich opportunity to change her life.” Francis said. “It seems I fell into that trap because of a one-time moment of weakness.”“One time, so you did actually do it.”He looked away, like he felt disappointed in himself. “Yes. But only once.” “Francis, are you lying to me?” I asked staring him directly in the eye. He held his gaze until he shook his head. “No I’m not lying.” “And how long ago was it?” “I don’t even remember.” He said running his hands through his hair. “But it was a long time ago. Like beginning of this year maybe.” “That is a long time ago.” I said, nodding. “I remember that night. You all were here, I don’t remember what we were celebrating. You were still behaving like a total stranger. I hate to remind you of this but it was right before you wanted to… You k
“What do you mean?” Yoké asked me while rubbing his cheek, where I had slapped him. “Why the hell did I just see you kissing my sister?” I shouted at him.“Genesis, you’re creating a scene. Wasn’t it you that said that public is not good for us two?” He asked me.I don’t know what was controlling my mind at that moment but I grabbed the edge of his hoodie and started pulling him down the stairs.“Where you taking me?” He was asking me with a grin.“To the car. We need to talk.” I said. I only managed to get him to the bottom of the stairs. He wouldn’t let me take him to the car.“I don’t have to get into your car. We have nothing to talk about.”“Oh really?” I shouted and shoved him at the same time. “You flipping kissed my sister!”“So?” He shouted back in my face. The grin he had, now washed away. He looked as serious as me now.“Are you asking me that?” I asked him, feeling angrier than ever. “Are you asking me that?”“Yeah. I kissed Alee, so?”Who was this stranger before me?“Fir
Their flat was a one bedroom flat. They had an open planned kitchen. The kitchen was small and the sitting room was clustered. The couch and sofa too close to the coffee table. Their TV was small, an old make. There was dirty dishes on their kitchen counter.“It was your man’s turn to do the dishes yesterday.” Uma said when he noticed me staring at the kitchen counter. “You can have a seat.”I squeezed between the couch and sofa and then took a seat on the couch.“I’ll be back now.” Uma told me, entering the room and quickly coming back out.“Uhm, I know in your country, when someone visits, you are supposed to offer them alcohol but unfortunately Dan and I don’t drink.”I smiled politely. “I’m actually good.”“No, I can go buy it downstairs. There is a liquor store righ
After a while, I heard the front door open and then Omar calling out.“You can come out now.”I slowly slid out of the room.“I didn’t want Alice to see you here. We don’t know which questions she would have asked. Or how we would answer them.”“Where’s Dan?” I asked him. “I mean Yoké.”“Dan. Get used to that name.” Omar told me. “He went to drop her downstairs. She only came to see the place.”“Dan brought her here to see the place?” I asked.Omar nodded.“So, what? He wants her to start coming here?”I went back to the kitchen and began doing Yoké’s dishes. Omar didn’t redoing, just continued spicing the chicken.“It’s such a
“Genesis.” Omar was following behind me. I was literally running down the stairs. When I reached the third floor I felt Omar pull me by the arm.“Omar.” I warned.“Can you give me a second?” He was panting.“What?” I said, sounding so hopeless.“Did you actually mean everything you told Dan?”“Which part?” I asked bluntly. “The part where I told him how so much better Nathan is than him, or the part where I told him how much he means to me?”Omar blinked, clueless, not knowing what to say for a second. “The part that you said you would marry Nathan.”“Yes.” I said. I was no longer thinking anything over. I was upset. Angry with Yoké. I was probably going to regret this later but right now I didn’t even want Omar doubtin
When the driver dropped me at my apartment that night, I felt so happy that I connected my phone to the speakers and turned the volume right up, although it was late. The loud music banging against the windows. I danced around like some girl from a happy scene of a movie. Rosalie came to the living room.She kept her head down and wanted to walk past me.“Here.” I said taking my coat from the floor and handing it to her.“This goes directly into the washing machine.” I told her. “Please isolate it, don’t put other clothes in the washing machine with it, please.”“Okay, ma’am.” She responded. She wanted to walk away again.“Come here.” I took her hand. “Rosalie.”“Yes?” She responded, not even able to look at me in my eye. Reminded me of Omar today. I laughed. Omar
I phoned Leticia that morning. We put the call on loudspeaker and both Nathan and I were talking to her. She was so happy. Telling us that it would be as big as a wedding. I told her that I wanted it to be huge and that she could do what ever she wanted on that day. We decided to make it on Saturday. It was only four more days until Saturday and then things would get hot, messy. I knew that Alice would invite Dan, if cause, since he is all she sees these days. And when he invites Dan and Dan sees me with Nathan, it would drive him insane. I was going to make sure that he really gets jealous. I would do whatever it takes, as long as it means that at the end of that night he would be begging me to not marry Nathan.The rest of the day, I spent the day in bed with Nathan. We watched a couple of movies and then he told me that he would spend the night. Nathan and I both have clothes at the mansion and at my apartment. Obviously it's normal for some of my clothes to
It felt so good being back at the office after being away for so long. Well, it’s only been two days but it felt like a very long time. As I signed countless forms from the board requesting my authorization regarding so many things, which weren’t even all that big of a deal, I remembered what Omar had told me about our company. I picked up the phone.“Yeah?” I heard Penny’s voice on the other side. Through the glass door, I could see her holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder while typing on her phone.“Can you please let my father know that I’m coming up to see him.” I told her. “And please put your phone away, you’re at work.”“Oh okay…” She said awkwardly while eying me.I placed the phone on the receiver and got up. I had to do something about this. Whoever it was creating those fake portfolios was in our
"We have nothing left because of him." Dad said, staring at the ground. "I can't believe I trusted him that much.""Who is it, dad?" I asked."None other than your very own half brother, slash cousin, slash no relation at all, Francis.""What?" I asked. "What is he looking for? He wants to make money out of Toko Village meanwhile he is stealing from us and still gets a basic salary on top of that. How can someone love money this much? So much that you'd steal from your own..."Alice and Yoké joined us, they had heard the news too."I knew that that sneaky guy was dodgy." Alice said as she stopped behind the couch Delilah was sitting on and leaned on it.
Uma was awake, and as soon as we entered his ward and he saw us, he smiled, looked away and began sobbing. He covered his hand over his eyes and sobbed. "Aww." We chorused in unison, as if we had planned to. "Don't cry babe." He's girlfriend, Esther said, quickly walk-runned to him. She sat on the side of his bed and hugged him. She hugged him for a while as he continued crying. "We are here..." She told him, she looked sad too. "We love you and we'll always be here for you." Yoké stood behind next to his bed, the opposit side to where Esther was and placed his hands on the cotside. I came over to her side and she stood up to let
I stopped at the door way before entering the living room. He was in a navy blue suit, standing next to the couch, instead of sitting. Rosalie had just brought him his drink. He briefly pointed towards the table where she was supposed to place his drink. I went to sit on the couch opposite the one dad was standing next to. Yoké stayed at the room door post and leaned against it.Dad paced to and fro and stopped where he had started."So we've lost more than half of our clients..." Dad said, voice still powerful although the sad message.I kept quiet and watched him."We've lost most of our projects we were busy with, the clients asked to cancel their contracts or else they'd take us to court. Most of our employees, has resigned because they see the downfall. They know that we won't be able to pay them. Only the loyal ones remain."He then shrugged. "Maybe they're not even loyal. Maybe they are just
We stopped a block away from the motel just incase there were people put in place by Nathan to watch Yoké. But we could see the motel from here. It was a cheap old building. So cheap that the light of the ‘M’ in ‘Motel was flickering so bad that you’d think it would just die any moment. “So what will happen is you’ll give me Nathan’s phone so that when I get in, I can ask him which room number he is at.” The woman half turned to talk to me.“But I’m going in with you.” I told her.She shook her head. “I may not have been entirely loyal to your father but I’m not bad enough of a worker to put your life in potential danger.”“What do you mean danger? I’m—”“I have a gun. Although I’m going in there alone, I know how to defend myself up to a certain point. We don’t know whether Nathan’s men are in there, or around here, in some building, possibly watching us right now. What happens if they fire at us?”“They’ll never fire at me—”“You d
"Yoké...""Gen— Genesis is that— oh my, are you okay?”“I’m fine Yoké. I’m fine.”“What— how did you— Did Nathan put you on the phone with me?”“No Yoké. You don’t ever have to worry about Nathan ever again. He’s in custody…”“Nathan is in custody?”“He’s gone. He’ll never stand between us again. It’s all good now.”“No, no, no Geny. You don’t know Nathan, he’ll never be ‘gone’. You have to hang up right now and never call this number again.”“I’m telling you, my love. It’s over for him. The police have him and my dad knows about him—”“Look Nathan can’t be in custody. We have a— Look, I’m sorry Geny but you and I can’t ever be together. It will never work. Just p
I slammed the car door and fell back on the back seat. The woman, who was supposed to shut the already shut door for me gave me an unbelievable look and then got into the driver's seat."So what happened to your twin? Isn't he going to come with us?" I asked, bitterly."I understand you're upset that your father won't help you with your boyfriend but you don't have to take it out on me, or the car door." She told me looking back at me.We maintained eye contact for a while until she turned back and fastened her seat belt. She started the car and we were on the road again after a few minutes.I was too angry to care about how much this woman was looking at me in the rear view mirror."What?" I suddenly asked after a while of more rear view eye contact.She suddenly stopped the car causing me to fall forward and hit against her seat."Hey!" I shouted as I sat back in my seat. "Are you crazy?""Look, I'm not sure whether or not Mr
“Come here, my love.” Nathan told me. “Come take a seat next to me.”“I don’t want to sit next to you.” I told him. “I want you to tell me which plane Yoké is planning to take and when.”“Gen, your dad will always choose me over Dan. Look, all this is a misunderstanding. Once I speak to him things can go back to the way they were. We could still get married and what happens today would never come to light. We’d still be the world’s favorite couple.”I didn’t even know what to say to him. “Are you crazy?” Those were the only words that could leave my mouth.“I’m crazy about you, yes. My fiancée.”“Nathan, tell me which plane Yoké is planning to take. Please.”“Why do you need him when I’m here?” He asked me.Just then, two cops walked in."Is he ready for us now?" One asked."Yes, sir." One of the nurses answered."Okay." The policeman said and began unlocking the cuff on Nathan's arm to the bed.
When they got out of the car and came to open the door for me, I didn’t even try to fight them off, what was the use? No matter how much I would try, they’d still have the upper hand. And besides even if I manage to get away, how do I get home without a cellphone or money? There hasn’t been a building in sight since we’ve hit the road.“I’ll walk myself.” I told them as they opened the door for me.They exchanged looks. What was it with these two and looking at each other as if they could pass little messages with just one glance?“Look, if you try to run, we won’t go after you,” The male officer told me. “The distance back is not walkable, you’ll starve out there and die and then your family will never hear of you again. So don’t try anything stupid, okay?”I didn’t respond.“You have a better chance of surviving this than running away.” The lady
When I got back to my senses, my first instinct was to unlock the doors and get as far away as I could from this car and Nathan. Nathan was still crying out in agony, trying to ease his pain by clutching onto his wrist with the unharmed hand. I reached out and pressed the unlock button on the stirring wheel. He didn’t try to stop me, just continuing yelling in pain. I opened the door on my side. As I was about to step out, I remembered, Nathan was our only way to getting Rissa back. I reached into his suit pocket where I had seen him put his phone back after the call with one of his men.“What are you doing, Genesis?” He asked me but did not try to fight me off. “Help me.”I began searching the pockets of his jacket for the phone.“Help me, Genesis.” He said again, looking at me helplessly as I searched his pockets. “I love you.”“Freeze!” I looked up to see a policemen on Nathan’s si