His Bride By Contract

Naledi Khumalo had thirty days to save her mother's house, and about two minutes before security threw her out of the richest building in Sandton. She used the first minute to run. "Ma'am! Stop!" She didn't stop. She ducked between two men in suits, slipped into the lift as the doors were closing, and hit the highest button on the panel. Forty. The doors shut on the guard's angry face, and the lift shot upwards so fast her stomach dropped. Naledi leaned against the mirrored wall and tried to breathe. Her braids were wet from the rain. Her mascara had run. Her only good jacket was soaked through. In her handbag was a letter from the bank that she had read so many times on the taxi from Soweto that the paper had gone soft. Final notice. R420,000. Thirty days. Then the house would be sold. The house Papa had built brick by brick with his own two hands. The house he had left them when he died two years ago, and that she and Mama had been fighting to keep ever since. And now Sipho. Her baby brother had called her last night, crying so hard she could barely understand him. Someone in the mailroom at Mokoena Holdings had stolen a courier package worth fifty thousand rand, and everyone said it was him. Security had marched him out of the building in front of everyone. If the company pressed charges, he would lose his bursary. Without his small salary, there would be no hope at all. "I didn't take it, Sisi," he had whispered. "I swear on Baba's grave." Sipho had never stolen so much as a sweet in his life. Naledi knew that the way she knew her own name. So she had come here, to the glass tower that ate up half the sky, to find somebody who would listen. The receptionist downstairs had not listened. The HR lady on the phone had not listened. Maybe somebody upstairs would. The lift opened onto silence. Dark wooden floors. Tall windows with the whole of Johannesburg spread out below, grey under the rain. And straight ahead, a pair of heavy double doors with a brass nameplate. DANIEL MOKOENA. CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER. Naledi almost laughed. Of course. Of course she had run straight to the top. Behind her, the second lift was humming. Security was coming. She knocked once and pushed the doors open. He was standing at the window with a phone to his ear. Tall. Broad shoulders under a charcoal suit. When he turned around, she saw a sharp jaw, a neat beard, and dark eyes so cold they could have frozen the rain on the glass. "I'll call you back," he said into the phone. He lowered it slowly. "Who are you?" "Naledi Khumalo." She lifted her chin, even though her knees were shaking. "Your company fired my brother yesterday for stealing. He didn't do it. I'm asking you to check the cameras before you ruin his life." Daniel Mokoena looked at her the way a man looks at a stain on a white shirt. "You ran past my security," he said, "to talk to me about the mailroom." "Nobody downstairs would listen." "And you thought I would?" "I hoped," Naledi said quietly, "that somebody in this building still had a heart." Something flickered in his eyes. Just for a second. Then the doors burst open, and two guards rushed in, out of breath. "Mr Mokoena, we're so sorry, she..." Daniel raised one hand, and they stopped as if he had pressed pause. "Leave us." "Sir?" "Close the door." When they were gone, the only sound was the rain tapping against the glass. Daniel picked up a tablet from his desk. "Sipho Khumalo," he read. "Mailroom assistant. Accused of taking a package from the legal department." He looked up at her. "If I check this footage and he's guilty, I'll press charges myself. Do you understand?" "He's not guilty." "You're very sure." "I know my brother." He tapped the screen and watched in silence. Naledi watched his face. She saw the exact moment his jaw went tight. "Your brother didn't take it," he said. Naledi pressed her hand to her mouth. Her eyes burned. "Thank you. Thank you, I..." "My cousin's assistant did." His voice turned to ice. He turned the screen so she could see it. A young woman in a red dress, taking a brown envelope from the mailroom tray and slipping it into her handbag. "She works for Thabo." The name meant nothing to Naledi. But it clearly meant something to him. "Why would she want to hurt Sipho?" Naledi asked. "He's nobody to her." "He isn't the target." Daniel put the tablet down. "I am. Thabo wants the board to see that I can't control my own building." He let out a short laugh with no happiness in it. "It's been a busy month for him." "I don't understand." "You don't need to." He picked up his phone. "Your brother will have his job back this afternoon. With a written apology. You have my word." Naledi didn't trust herself to speak. She nodded, turned, and reached for the door handle. "Miss Khumalo." She stopped. "The letter in your bag," he said. "From the bank. You've touched it four times since you walked in." Slowly, she turned around. Daniel was leaning against his desk now, arms folded, watching her. The coldness was gone from his face. Something sharper had taken its place. Like a man adding up numbers in his head. "How much do you owe?" he asked. "That's none of your business." "Humour me." She shouldn't have answered. But she was so tired, and the number had been sitting on her chest for weeks like a stone. "Four hundred and twenty thousand rand." He nodded, as if she had told him the price of a cup of coffee. "I can pay that tomorrow morning," he said. "Every cent." Naledi laughed, short and shaky. "Men like you don't give money to girls like me for nothing." "You're right." He walked towards her and stopped close enough that she could smell his cologne, warm and expensive. "So let me be honest with you, since you were honest with me. Six months ago, my grandfather changed his will. If I'm not married by my thirty-second birthday, this company goes to Thabo. The same man who just tried to send your brother to prison to make me look weak." Naledi stared at him. "When is your birthday?" "In five weeks." "So find a girlfriend." "Every woman I know wants something from this family. Every one of them would sell my secrets to Thabo the moment he offered more." His dark eyes held hers. "You ran up forty floors in the rain for a brother who earns four thousand rand a month. You're the first honest person who has walked into this office in a year." Her heart was hammering. "What are you asking me?" Daniel Mokoena looked down at her, and for the first time, the corner of his mouth lifted into something that was almost a smile. "I'm asking you to marry me, Miss Khumalo. Before Thabo takes everything."