The Billionaire Rejected Bride.

THREE YEARS LATER

Three years is a long time to die and still be breathing. That was how I felt after I left Lagos.

I did not go to my mother's house. How could I? My wedding pictures were already everywhere on i********:. All my cousins had posted "Congratulations Mrs Knight." How would I explain that my husband was on top of my own stepsister on our wedding bed while guests were still downstairs eating jollof rice? I would become the laughing stock of Lagos.

So that night, barefooted, wedding dress inside black nylon, I entered night bus to Port Harcourt. I had only 50,000 naira and a broken heart.

I called my only friend, Blessing. My roommate from Uniport. She said "Amara come now, come to my house."

I arrived by 5am. My makeup was ruined, my eyes swollen. Blessing screamed when she saw me at her door in Choba. She thought armed robbers attacked me.

When I told her what happened, she just held me and cried with me. She was living in one room self-contain with her baby, but she shifted and gave me space on the floor.

For two months I was useless. Just crying and sleeping. I could not eat. My period stopped. I thought it was stress from heartbreak.

One morning I fainted in the bathroom. Blessing rushed me to a small clinic.

The doctor checked me and smiled. "Madam, congratulations. You are six weeks pregnant."

I thought I would die. Pregnant? For Ethan? For that wicked man that threw divorce papers at my chest?

I told Blessing to give me money for abortion. I hated him, I hated everything about him, I did not want any connection to him again.

Blessing did not judge me. She took me to a place.

I lay on that bed, legs open, crying. The nurse put scan gel on my belly to check first.

Then I heard it. Gbim gbim gbim. Fast like small drum. My baby's heartbeat.

The nurse said "You hear am? Baby dey greet you."

I started crying loudly and ran out of that place. I could not do it. No matter who the father was, this was my blood.

From that day my brain changed. I told myself, Amara, if you want to keep this child, you must work like a mad woman.

I had 50k left. I used 20k to buy shea butter, coconut oil, vitamin E and small containers from Mile 1 market. I started mixing cream inside Blessing's kitchen with her blender. My belly was growing big, but I was carrying cream on my head under Port Harcourt sun to deliver to customers.

I posted everyday on w******p Status. "Please buy my cream, e dey clear stretch marks." People laughed at me. Some pitied me.

My son was kicking me inside while I was trekking to deliver cream worth 2000 naira.

Then God did miracle. One big makeup influencer in PH with 400k followers bought my oil for her stretch marks. She used it for two weeks and it cleared. She came live on i********: shouting, "Who is this Amara Organics girl? This oil is magic!"

That night my phone blew up. 300 orders in one night. We did not sleep. Blessing and I were packaging till morning with my big belly.

That was how AMARA Organics was born.

Today, three years later, I have an office on the 10th floor in GRA. I have a factory in Trans-Amadi. I have 47 staff. We supply Shoprite and distributors in Ghana. My company is worth 3.2 billion naira.

And my son Jayden is 2 years and 5 months old. He is the most handsome boy. He has my nose and my stubborn mouth, but he has his father's cold grey eyes. Anytime he looks at me with those eyes, my heart cuts.

I never told Ethan about him. As far as Ethan knows, I disappeared after signing divorce papers.

Until today.

My secretary Chioma entered my office with iPad.

"Ma'am, your 3pm appointment is here. Mr. Ethan Knight from Knight Group Lagos. For the mall partnership. He is waiting in Boardroom A."

My hand froze on my laptop. For one second I was that 23 year old girl again, shaking at the bedroom door in wedding dress.

Ethan Knight. After three years.

I know his company is struggling since his father died. His new mall in Lagos is failing and he needs a hot beauty brand like mine.

He has no idea who AMARA is. He thinks CEO is A. Cole. He does not know A stands for Amara. He thinks he is coming to meet an old woman.

He has no idea his ex-wife is now the billionaire he is coming to beg.

I looked at Jayden's picture on my desk. He was smiling with two teeth.

I stood up. I wore my black power suit today. The one that cost 400k. Bone straight hair. Red lipstick. High heels. Not the cheap girl he married.

"Chioma," I said, my voice calm but my heart beating gbim gbim.

"Yes ma'am?"

"Let him wait. Let him wait for exactly one hour. Switch off the AC, give him only pure water. Just like he made me wait for an apology that never came."

Chioma was shocked but nodded, "Yes ma'am."

I sat down, crossed my legs and looked at clock. 3:01pm.

After three years of crying, hustling under sun with big belly, and building myself from zero to billionaire, it is time for Ethan Knight to meet the new Amara Cole.

Not the beggar he threw out. But the billionaire he will kneel and beg.

And he has no idea his own son is sleeping in the room behind my office, just ten feet away from him.