His Old Money World

Chapter 17 - Back To Mainland

Mama Adeyemi gave me three days off. "Go home. Let Lagos forget your face small. If you stay here now, reporters will come."

I didn't want to go. But Adrian drove me himself. No driver this time.

The drive from Ikoyi to Yaba is like traveling from another country. The roads got worse, the noise got louder, the air got more real.

My mama saw the G-Wagon and nearly fainted. "Amara! You brought oga?"

"No mama, he just dropped me," I said quickly.

Adrian came inside our small house. He had to bend his head to enter. My mama offered him Fanta and biscuits — those same affordable biscuits I used to buy for 3k. He took it. He sat on our small plastic chair and drank it like it was champagne.

My mama was watching us. "So na you be the reason my daughter no dey call me again?" she asked him, half-joking, half-serious.

"Mama, I promise I will take care of her," he said.

"Take care how? You get wife for house already," my mama snapped.

That was the first time I saw Adrian Adeyemi speechless. The cold ruthless heir had no answer for my Mother.

Later that night, my mama told me, "That boy loves you. But love no dey pay rent, Amara. Old money family will never accept you. Are you ready to be hated for 10 years like his mother was?"

I had no answer either.

At 2 AM, Adrian texted: Come outside.

He was still parked outside. He didn't sleep. He waited.

"I can't give you Mainland and Ikoyi at the same time yet," he said, holding my hands in the dark Yaba street, with NEPA having taken light. "But I can give you me. Is me enough for now?"

I kissed him. In front of my house. Where my neighbors could see. Where there was no chandelier, no mansion, just a flickering street light.

"Me is enough," I whispered.

But we both knew it was a lie. It would never be enough for his world.