CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO
Two Years Ago
I practically jumped out of the car without letting it stop, fuming as I ran up the front stairs of my mother’s two-storey duplex. When I entered the living room, my mother, Melissa, and Frances were seated, waiting for me. I flung the purse in my hand at the hard wall and stretched out my phone to them.
“You see what people are saying,” I said in a tight voice, trying my possible best not to give in to my anger even though my blood was boiling. “What the actual fuck?”
Frances stood and walked toward me. “Calm down, Kylian,” she stated with the seductive voice she uses when we are in bed, but we were not in bed. Everything I had worked hard for was about to come crashing down because of some village pumpkin.
“Do not tell me to calm down,” I bellowed. “I never wanted any of this. You assured me that your guinea pig would not give us a problem and would do as she was told. Why the hell is she trending on the internet with my name in her mouth?”
“This is nothing we can’t fix,” Frances replied in that calm voice of hers again as she feigned indifference.
“Why are you not worried? She attacked Marcus, my teammate. You think that is something you can fix?”
“Yes, Kylian, because she is insignificant. She is just a pawn in all of this, a dog with no bark,” Melissa interjected sharply as she stood up.
“Then why the hell is she trending and calling my integrity into question?” I yelped as I felt the room vibrate with my anger.
“We never expected that she could go crazy, but I assure you, Kylian, she will be taken care of,” Frances retorted.
“In fact, at the moment,” Melissa picked up her iPad and walked toward me, “I have her replacement already.”
“I want no replacement. I am done.”
“Excuse me,” my mother finally spoke since I entered the room.
“I never wanted any of this.”
“We decided that marriage was the best course of action to get things done,” Frances argued.
“No, I never agreed to this. We put it to a vote and I was outvoted. Now we can see marriage didn’t work. Can we please go back to our first option?”
“We can’t just give up. It is just our first time. Someone else might work.”
“Might?” I retorted in an unhappy voice.
“We just need more time,” Melissa cut in, hoping to convince me.
“No!”
“Kylian!”
“It is not my fault you chose the wrong woman. I want the foundation to take over.”
“That will bring attention to the very thing we are trying to protect,” Frances protested.
“And this does not?” I gritted with my clenched jaw. “I am trending, Frances and not for football. The woman I married legally is apparently mad and wants to fuck me up. Tell me how that protects the project.” I moved a few steps away from her to look at her. “And frankly, I don’t understand how you are okay with another woman who is not you as my wife.”
“Because I am thinking about our future, Kylian. This is bigger than me. Getting married to a Nigerian will get us there. I thought you would pat me over the head for thinking about other people other than myself.”
“Still…”
“It is just for ten years, and the marriage is only going to be in name. We are the real deal.”
“My answer is still no.” I moved to pick up the purse I flung earlier.
“Come on, Ky—”
“Enough!” I barked, and she jumped. “I have had enough of your wits.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she questioned with a glare.
“It is exactly what you think it means. I have had enough. This is my project, and I have made my decision.” I turned to my mother. “The foundation will take over.”
“I will make preparations,” she answered in a cool voice, and I walked out the door.
-
“Five hundred thousand euros!” Frances bellowed as my mother delivered the news of my maybe not soon-to-be ex-wife to us. I closed my eyes and let out a sigh of disappointment. I thought I was done with this marriage, but I guess I was wrong.
“She actually wants 500,000 euros. A hundred is not good enough for her,” Frances said in bewilderment as she didn’t expect her so-called pawn to turn against her.
“I thought she was a dog with no bark,” I muttered as I moved to sit next to my mother on the couch in my living room.
“I am so sorry, Kylian. She sounded so innocent. I didn’t know she could be a gold digger,” Frances apologized with remorse.
“You forgot she is a Nigerian,” Melissa added as she came into the living room in her casual clothes, her hands holding a square-shaped red carton of fried chips. “They are all thieves.”
“Are you sure there is no way to get the video back?” I asked again, even though I knew the answer.
“The bitch sent it to her sister,” Melissa informed us as she threw more chips into her mouth before taking a seat on the couch.
“We should be able to get her to accept the original deal,” Frances said, refusing to believe she had been played.
“There is no bargaining, Frances. We can only accept the deal.”
“I refuse to accept this, Mother. I refuse to believe that nobody played us.”
“She only returned the hand you dealt her. You can’t fault her for refusing to let you play God with her life the way you wanted to. You have to accept she is smarter than you.”
“Excuse me!” Frances’s voice hardened as she turned to Delphine, who finally spoke since she came in with his mother to deliver the new contract with Bewaji.
“Can we get the video back if I pay 500,000 euros monthly?” I quickly interrupted when I sensed the bout of argument that was about to proceed.
“That won’t be possible,” Delphine stated.
“Why not? She is getting 500,000 euros monthly, for God’s sake!” Frances grunted loudly.
“She also wants Kylian to visit her once a month for conjugal visits.”
“WHAT!” I exclaimed.
“She wanted four times. I got her to agree to once.”
“Who the hell does she think she is?” Frances shouted.
“This is not about Frances. I can’t sleep with her, Delphine. I can’t sign this deal,” I cut in.
“She has you by the balls, Kylian” Delphine stated coldly. “And moreover, you don’t want that young lady to step out on you as your wife, yet you don’t want to perform your conjugal duties. How cruel can you be, Kylian?”
“You laid your bed and now you have to lie on it, you can't eat your cake and want to have it” my lawyer stated.
“Delphine, I don’t appreciate the way you are talking to Kylian, and I, you can’t—”
“It is just once a month, Kylian,” my mother breezed in calmly. “It is just once a month, and Frances, you get to have him for the rest of the month.”
“I want the video back,” I emphasized. I couldn’t let her have something that could jeopardize my career.
“That won’t be possible. She is holding it hostage because she does not trust you to hold up your end of the deal. As she should. With the stunt you guys have pulled, I wouldn’t trust you either.”
“She holds all the cards, Delphine. How can you be nonchalant about this?” Frances lamented. “Also, how can we trust her not to release the video?”
“You don’t,” Delphine blurted out with a chuckle. Then she focused on me. “But Kylian, she loves you. That was what started all of this, right? She was chosen because she was blindly in love with you.” A soft smile graced her face. “Despite all you have done and all she has done, she still loves her husband, and you can use that to your advantage. But if you push her… I don’t know the extent she would choose to show her displeasure. As you have seen for yourself, she can be quite mad,” the lawyer taunted.
“So what, we just hold our hands and let her do whatever she wants?”
“Yes, because technically, you are about to make billions of dollars on her back. Your mother is right. This is the only way. Sign the contract, Kylian,” my lawyer advised.
-
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, my chest rising and falling as I pulled Frances’s warm body to mine.
“That was good,” I commented.
“I aim to please,” Frances whispered in my ear, making blood rush down to my cock. She then proceeded to rub her chin against my chest, and I felt her heart pumping.
“And you did,” I replied wittily as my breath started to even out, then proceeded to kiss her neck.
“Can your wife be as good as me?”
“Why are we talking about her?” I asked in the midst of kissing.
“Maybe because she was prepared to doll herself up for you tonight.” I chuckled. “You need to see how happy she was when I saw her yesterday. She was so excited that you were coming to fuck her today.”
Then I froze. I looked Frances in the eyes and said, “That was today?” My beautiful girlfriend nodded, giggling.
“Yes.”
Then I sat up, pulling her off me. “Shit! I forgot,” and got up from the bed.
“Where are you going?” she asked as she sat up too. I quickly went into the closet to dress up. “It is almost midnight.”
“It does not matter. She has the video, and if you remember, you didn’t remind me,” I said as I quickly tied my towel.
“Calm down, Kylian,” she said with indifference as she entered the closet behind me, still in her naked glory. “Delphine was right about one thing, she loves you, and she will never do anything to hurt you.”
“You saw what she did and—”
She closed the gap between us and held my hands. “Yes, I saw what she did, and that was all temporary insanity. She loves you too much to want to destroy you.” I looked at her in confusion, bewildered by how she could be so sure. “Call Alice and tell her you were called into a late meeting with Didier.”
“The coach?”
“Yes. She will understand that as the French coach, you have responsibilities, responsibilities that come before buddy calls.”
“How are you so sure of this, and how did you know that she dolled herself up for me?”
She gave me a witty smile and looked away. “I ran into her at the mall today.”
“You ran into her?” I questioned, not believing a word out of her mouth.
“Okay, I may have planned it,” Frances confessed, trying to hug me the way she does when she is trying to manipulate me.
“Frances!” I scolded as I moved out of her reach.
“Come on, Kylian. I don’t like how she played us,” she argued. “So when Isa told me she was going shopping for your arrivals, I wanted to meet her—just to feel her out.”
“And what is she like?”
“A chatterbox.”
I scoffed.
“She told me all about her distant husband coming to visit. She was so excited. I even selected the lingerie she would wear for you and the perfume she would seduce you with.”
“Are you serious, Frances?”
“Come on, Kylian. There is no harm in that.” I shook my head in disapproval. This could go wrong in different ways. “I didn’t like how we have no control over her. I can use the friendship I fostered with her to bring her back under our control.”
“You want to manipulate her?”
“I am going to divert her attention away from you,” she tried to convince me. “No one is going to get hurt. I promise.”
I smirked when I suddenly realized the reason for the very sexy welcome I received when I came back.
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” I gestured around.
Her seductive smile came back as she moved closer to me.
“You can’t fault me for your lack of control,” she smirked.
I smiled at the brilliant brain of my woman. “So what? How do you hope to keep me away from her? I can’t keep using my coach as an excuse.”
“Leave Bewaji to me. I will make her fall out of love with you. I promise.”
“You vixen,” I said with a smile.
“I will take that as a compliment,” she stated as she closed the gap between us. “Delphine was wrong. I will eat my cake, and I intend to have you.”
I smashed my lips against hers, then pulled back.
“I need to call Alice and let her know I won’t be coming tonight.”
“After,” she said, and then we went back into the bedroom, clung to each other.
-
“Come on, Kylian, it is pouring heavily,” Frances complained as she followed me down the stairs while I hurried. At the bottom of the stairs was Bryce, my best friend.
“It does not matter.”
“So if Alice tells you to die, you would?” Frances questioned with a hard look.
I turned to her, amazed at how she couldn’t understand my position. “Of course not. But Alice has never spoken to me like that before, and I understand where she is coming from. We had a deal, which I have not honoured.”
“Bewa is finally letting you go. She has agreed to be inseminated. You not honouring the deal is of no consequence. You don’t have to go to her,” my girlfriend argued stubbornly.
“I have a d—”
“At the moment, she is having a party. She is having the time of her life. She is no longer moping about you not coming anymore. She does not care about you anymore, and as such, she is no threat. I did that. Don’t ruin it,” she roared.
“I promised Alice that I would come.”
“Fuck Alice. She is not important. I am, and I don’t want you fucking another woman.”
“You should have thought of that before suggesting I marry a complete, total stranger,” I taunted, not caring about her feelings. At this point, I was tired—and that did the trick as she looked defeated.
“Are you serious?”
“Alice may not be important to you, but she is to me. I won’t ruin my friendships for you. Moreover, it is just once a month. It’s not like I will be living with her permanently,” I retorted and walked away.
Soaked to my bones, I walked into somewhere I didn’t recognize. Bass rolled through the hallway in heavy, elastic waves, rattling the picture frames. The living room had been rearranged for chaos. The couches were pushed to the side to accommodate the partygoers. The residents of the house were dancing vigorously to the music blasting from the speakers, and at the centre of it all was my wife, whom I had only seen twice in my life. This would be my third time.
She jumped, dancing to the music with a bright smile, holding a bottle of champagne that she frequently drank from as she danced.
Soon, one by one, the residents of the house noticed me except my wife. They looked between her and me in shock while she kept dancing, moving from one place to another. A few seconds later, she danced toward me with her eyes closed, then turned and started grinding on me.
Alice gasped while I looked at Bryce, who chuckled. I saw Alice point at me, and then my wife gently looked back and yelped.
The bottle of champagne dropped from her hand to the floor and smashed into a million pieces.
TO BE CONTINUED ON NEXT SATURDAY, 9.00PM WAT.
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