‘IJEOMA COME BACK HERE, if you walk out of that door that is it, you are no longer my concern, you will get nothing, nothing, did you hear me Ijeoma? NOTHING’
‘Kendra Douglas’ she smiled, it sounded good, really good, four more days and it was going to be hers, her name, she was going to be Mrs Douglas of Douglas Global. She pushed away the urge to laugh out loud; third time really was a charm. The wedding planner was talking about something, cake probably the woman only seemed to care about food, and her overly generous waistline attested to this but Gideon had wanted her, something about his mother having loved the woman and trusted her when she was alive. Kendra on the other hand did not like nor trust the robust, midget of a woman which is why she was here at the Venue when she could be out to lunch with her mother or in bed with Gideon. ‘Be right back Shirley dear, let me just powder my nose’ and with that she fled to the bathroom, and after double checking the door was locked she slid down to the floor, kicking off her heels and digging in her handbag for…. Where was it…. Oh here, she smiled as she unwrapped the chocolate bar and bit into it, her mother would freak out if she saw her, nuts always did a number on her face and she couldn’t afford to not fit into the dress but right now at this moment Kendra didn’t care. As she chewed, she remembered Samson and the way he had loved chocolate, Samson Gerald Gibson, master chocolatier for Gibson Enterprises and one of the best lovers in the world, all of England had mourned his death, Kendra included, her hand traced the chain around her neck, and then to its startlingly beautiful pendant, two wedding rings wielded together to form a ring of infinity.
Chinedu Ndekwe had come to the village to visit his mother, tired of her constantly complaining that she never saw him, he had taken this weekend off and now he was trying to manoeuvre his car through the disgusting village roads on his way back to Lagos, ‘Chinedu nwa’m, I do not know how to tell you again, I want a grandchild, tell that witch in your house that she must provide, that I am tired of waiting, does she want me to die first? Ehn, fourteen years in my son’s house, eating his money with nothing to show for it, not even a miscarriage, hmmm my son I am warning you, there is nobody else to look after that your big big company if you die God forbid, and you know you’re brothers, they are greedy and they are stupid, they will collapse that company, Nedu my child, you need a son’ that had been the last thing she had said before he left.
Two months later Chinedu saw the girl, her smile dazzled him, her intelligence left him speechless but it was her prowess in bed that snarled him, six months after meeting her, he married her and a month later she was pregnant. The baby was a boy, they called him Steven, there had been complications during the birth and the girl died, Steven was born with green eyes and olive skin.
Samson, forty years old, deliciously rich and known as a renowned bachelor, no children or ex- wives, his mother was long dead and his father had never remarried before he died. Poor Samson was alone in the world and Katharine Jameson was determined to do something about it. It took her £25k and a couple of chocolate making classes to get asked on a date, and three months to become Katherine Gibson. People had wondered how she had done it, she was only 24, quite young but then again Samson liked his young girls, no the scandal was simply that Samson was a white, middle aged man with thinning hair and a paunchy belly and she was a beautiful, slender black female with an ivy league background and a dazzling smile, she could have anybody, why Samson? And how had she gotten him to marry her? Four years later Samson had a heart attack and Katherine Gibson the coffee coloured beauty with the slim slender frame and small features became a widow. A year later Kendra Williams a sexy caramel coloured temptress, with a Southern accent, a curvy body, an ass to die for and 14 Billion pounds in her account moved into a New York apartment with her mother and six months later she was engaged to Gideon Douglas.
Kendra stood up from the floor, dusting herself off she slipped her heels back on, thrashed the chocolate wrapper, washed her hands and left the bathroom.
Ijeoma Ndekwe was pregnant, somehow God had chosen to make her a Sarah in her household, and now as she was just turning 42, she was finally carrying a child, a child conceived at a time of pain but a child still. Chinedu had travelled again, ever since the birth of that child which was so obviously not his own, he had been travelling, a year had gone past now and Ijeoma had only seen her husband three times and each time was as troubling and filled with pain as the last. He seemed to blame his bad choice of second wife on Ijeoma, it was her fault he said, why didn’t she just get pregnant? Wasting his money and carrying his name with no child to prove it. She had made him go and marry a whore and now he had another man’s child in his home. He had wanted to give the child away straight away, she had begged him not to and now as she cared for her husband’s whore’s child she rubbed her belly and smiled God had blessed her.
The baby was a girl, full and chubby, she had Chinedu’s smile and Ijeoma’s beauty, and she was going to be a knockout one day, they named her Chioma. Chinedu hated her the minute he saw her, why is it not a boy he asked, you keep us in suspense for fifteen years and this is all you can come up with? And with that he travelled again and Ijeoma settled down to raise her two children.
Kendra woke up on her wedding day with a smile on her face; she was going to marry Gideon, sexy, tall, kind Gideon, with his silly laugh and his lovely words. She always woke up too early on her wedding day, it gave her time to shower and think before the house came alive with its panic and slight hint of fear and she needed a cigarette anyway. She slinked down the stairs and into a room on the second floor, ‘hello CC, you okay’ a croaky voice came from the bed in the centre of the room, Kendra ran over to the bed and the man who was to give away in few hours ‘oh Stevie, it’s almost over, I’m so relieved’ she said as she slipped into bed next to him, ‘it is over, well at least our part is over, its Momma’s turn now’ he replied as he pulled her shivering body closer to him and held her.
Joshua Bennett, South African billionaire had come to Nigeria for a weekend to give his great speech on litigation versus mitigation, he stayed two months and he left with a fiancé. A pretty little girl, with nice legs, big brown eyes and an infectious laugh. His sister had disapproved right away, ‘I don’t even fuck a guy after two months, how are you marrying this girl?’ but the girl worked on her and soon Natasha Bennett loved her brother’s new wife. Two years later, a car carrying Joshua and Natasha Bennett had an accident on a bridge and they drowned, the girl had become a widow. Her name was Chioma Ndeze and she was now owner of Bennett’s the biggest law firm in Africa.
Chinedu Ndekwe woke with a start, sweat pouring down his back, another bad dream, they were getting really bad now, almost every night for the past thirty years these dreams had plagued him, since Ijeoma had left him. He raised himself and reached for the scotch bottle by his bedside, and swigged it straight from the bottle, screw the doctors and their advice, the scotch calmed his nerves. And today of all days, he needed to calm his nerves; he was seeing his partners today, the three men who each owned 25% of Chinedu’s company CHIN. As he looked through his closet for the right suit, he thought of Ijeoma and he missed her a little bit more.
‘Chinedu, I’m leaving you, I can’t deal with this anymore, you are never at home and when you are, you attack me and the children, we agreed when we got married that no matter what, if God blessed us with children we would never hit them, do you remember Nedu? We argued about it, you were the one who said it was forbidden. Have you seen your son’s face? ’ Ijeoma Ndekwe was standing up to her husband for the first time, she couldn’t keep quiet anymore. It had been okay when he would come home from his travels with his whores and spent the night making noise and drinking himself into stupor, it had been okay when he would come back in a terrible mood and find her body the perfect punching bag and it had been okay when he would come back and tie her to the bed and defile her over and over. But this last time, he had come home and somehow his fist had connected with Steven’s face. And that moment had decided everything for Ijeoma; she packed their bags and left her husband. ‘He is not my son, don’t you dare call him that again’ and that was all Chinedu said.
The meeting of the partners was to be held in the conference room of the London office of Bennett’s law firm, ‘welcome Mr Ndekwe, I am afraid Mr Douglas could not make it to the meeting today sir, he has however sent his wife in his place’ the girl with the nice breasts said. Chinedu Ndekwe smiled to himself, three women, all beautiful according to his assistant, and each with a share of his company. He walked into the conference room and stopped in his tracks, instead of three women, there was only one woman in the room and she looked nothing like any of the wives that had been described to him, in fact she was old, with greying hair and a wrinkled face and she looked oddly familiar. ‘Hello Chinedu’ she said and his head snapped up and looked at her properly
‘Ijeoma?’
