The Debt Bride

Chapter 15 - Nneka

The photos went live on Monday morning.

Sade had selected four of them. The veranda one where they were mid conversation and Emeka was wearing that almost smile. The flame tree one where he had almost laughed. The kitchen doorway one where they looked like two people who belonged in the same frame.

And one Adaeze had not expected.

Sade had caught a moment between setups. Adaeze looking at the flame tree. Emeka looking at Adaeze. His expression in that unguarded fraction of a second was something she had not seen directed at her before.

Something careful. Something almost tender.

She stared at that photo for a long time.

Then she put her phone down and went to work.

The comments were immediate and overwhelming.

*They look so real together.*

*The way he is looking at her in that last photo.*

*I need a full story.*

*She has tamed the beast. Lagos is healed.*

*Who is she someone find her i********: immediately.*

Her own i********: gained four hundred followers before noon. She had not posted anything. People had simply found her from the tags.

She was eating lunch at her desk in Surulere when the first message came in.

From an account she did not recognize.

The profile picture was a woman. Stunning in the particular way of someone who had spent considerable resources on being stunning. Light skinned. Perfect makeup. The kind of beauty that announced itself loudly.

The message said:

*Enjoy it while it lasts.*

Adaeze looked at it for a long moment.

Then she screenshot it and called Chioma.

"Who is Nneka," she said when Chioma picked up.

A pause that told her everything.

"Where did you hear that name," Chioma said carefully.

"Someone with that name just messaged me on i********: telling me to enjoy it while it lasts."

Another pause.

"Chioma."

"Okay." Chioma exhaled. "Nneka Briggs. Her family and the Okafor family have been connected for years. Old money. Her father and Emeka's grandfather were close." A pause. "She and Emeka were together for two years. Everyone assumed they would get married. Then about eighteen months ago it ended. Nobody knows why. She has not been with anyone seriously since."

Adaeze sat with this information.

"How serious were they," she said.

"Ada she was basically Lagos's expected Mrs Okafor for two years."

Adaeze looked at the message on her screen.

*Enjoy it while it lasts.*

She typed back two words.

*Thank you darling.*

Then she blocked the account.

Chioma who had clearly been listening to the typing made a sound of pure delight. "You did not."

"I did."

"ADAEZE."

"She messaged me first."

"You are my hero."

She finished her lunch.

She did not tell Emeka about the message.

She thought about it on the drive home. Thought about whether it was the kind of thing a real wife would mention or whether it was the kind of thing that was simply hers to handle.

She decided it was hers to handle.

What she did not decide was whether to ask him about Nneka.

That question sat in her chest the whole evening. Through dinner which was quieter than usual because Emeka had come home with the particular stillness of a man who had absorbed bad news and was processing it internally. Through the brief exchange at the bottom of the stairs when she said goodnight. Through the first hour of lying in bed not sleeping.

She had no right to ask.

That was the thing. They had a contract. The contract said no romantic involvement with other people. It did not say anything about the past. It did not say anything about the woman who had apparently been the expected Mrs Okafor before Adaeze had ever entered the picture.

She was not jealous.

She decided that firmly.

She was simply gathering information. Understanding the landscape. That was sensible and practical and had nothing to do with the photo Sade had taken of Emeka looking at her with something careful in his eyes.

Her phone buzzed.

A message from Emeka.

She sat up.

*Are you awake.*

She stared at the message.

Typed back. *Yes.*

A pause.

*Come downstairs if you want tea.*

She looked at her phone. At the time. 11:43pm.

She got up.

He was in the kitchen already. Kettle on. Two mugs. Chamomile for her because he had apparently started keeping chamomile specifically now without being asked.

She sat on the counter the way she had started doing because the kitchen stools were the wrong height and it made him look at her with mild exasperation every time and she had decided she found his mild exasperation entertaining.

He handed her the mug.

"Something happened today," he said. Not a question.

She wrapped her hands around the mug. "What makes you say that."

"You were quiet at dinner."

"You were quiet at dinner."

"I am always quiet at dinner."

"Then how do you know I was quiet."

He looked at her. "Because your quiet is different from my quiet."

She looked at him.

He knew the difference between her quiets.

She did not know what to do with that.

"Nneka messaged me," she said.

The kitchen went very still.

His jaw set. Almost imperceptibly but she had been studying this face for weeks now and she caught it.

"What did she say," he said. Very controlled.

"Nothing important." She sipped her tea. "I handled it."

A pause.

"How."

"I replied and blocked her."

He looked at her. "What did you reply."

"Thank you darling."

Something moved across his face. Complicated and quick. Then he looked down at his coffee.

"I should have told you about her," he said.

"You do not owe me your history."

"She is not history," he said. "She is present tense. She will look for ways to make this difficult." He looked up. "I am sorry you were pulled into that."

She looked at him across the kitchen counter. This man who apologized without being asked. Who noticed the difference between her quiets. Who put chamomile in the cupboard without saying anything about it.

"Emeka," she said.

"Hmm."

"What ended it. Between you and her."

A long silence.

He looked at his coffee.

"She wanted someone she could manage," he said finally. "I am not manageable."

He said it without bitterness. Just as a fact about himself.

"No," Adaeze agreed quietly. "You are not."

They stood in the kitchen a little longer than necessary.

When she went back upstairs she felt the question she had been carrying all evening had not been answered exactly. But it had been placed somewhere more comfortable.

She slept well.

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