Billionaire Heiress of Lasgidi, page 13
“You said you love me,” I began. “How can you be willing to share someone you love with someone else?” I queried.
Determined eyes met mine, “I have loved you since we were little kids at Credence,” she began. “I have watched you go through different girls. I waited my turn then. I am willing to wait my turn now.”
I shut my eyes tightly. The words had to form in a way that wouldn’t ruin her. I didn’t want to break her with the things I said but I couldn’t find a perfect way to mold my words. I placed my hand on the window behind her. “You’re going to be a celebrity. Girls will come anyway. Why would I deceive myself into thinking the world won’t want a piece of you?”
That wasn’t right. If I fell in love with someone, I wouldn’t care if they were Beyoncé, the world wouldn’t share them. Not in the way Lili was offering me to Nimi.
I opened my eyes. Sympathy and confusion were the least of the things I felt. How could I begin to tell her that she was loving wrongly? I had never even felt romantic love, how could I know how it was done?
But maybe I didn’t need to know how to love to know how not to love.
I proceeded towards the driver’s seat.
We drove in silence. I watched Nimi get on the phone with the person I assumed was her boyfriend. I stiffened as words like ‘baby’ ‘I miss you’ floated in the air, escaping her lips with such ease, I wondered if she truly meant them or if she’d just settled mechanically into the relationship in a way that made everything robotic. A wicked part of me hoped that her boyfriend loved like Lili. In my fantasies, he offered her to me and he never for a second got a chance with her again.
The roads were quite free. The perks of a weekend night in Lagos. I took a different turn once we linked Ikoyi. Those plans for drinks were going to be shelved tonight. If Lili asked crazy questions at dinner, I’d hate to see what she had planned for drinks.
Lili faced me sharply as I turned into the road that housed her family’s estate. She watched me through confused and betrayed eyes, her lashes fluttering as I slowed down at her gate. The security threw the gates open and I ignored her until I pulled up at the entrance.
“I’ll see you, Lili,” I said firmly. Fury inflamed her eyes but she hopped out of the car and slammed the door loudly. “Move to the front seat,” I said to Nimi. Confusion was plastered all over her face and she didn’t try to mask it.
“Why?”
“Because I am not your fucking chauffeur.”
It wasn’t because of that, it was because I needed to see her face and those fucking tempting lips of hers up close. She was a distraction all through dinner in her unflattering clothes and the thought of what she’d look like if she made do on her threat to show up at Risqué had my thoughts reeling through the freeway of intense lust. I had lost the control to reduce the speed but I could rein in the primal feelings if I curbed the wild thirst for her early enough.
She joined me in the front seat and slammed the door with the same force with which Lili did some seconds before. Poor door.
"You cannot come to that party." I gripped the steering with one hand and threw the gear into drive as I sped out of the vast estate.
"I thought we were over this silly conversation?"
"We are not. Not until I say we are." Couldn't she just stay away? Why was she so trusting of this new world? Or did she hate me enough to put herself at such risk?
"Weird. But I'm done. I'm coming to the party, dressed to the barest minimum." She flashed her phone and as we sped through a few working streetlights, I caught a glimpse of the email from Risqué. My mind went into overdrive as fury threatened to blind my vision. Malik and Lili were hard at work.
"If you come to that party, I will have to tell your Dad."
She gasped in shock. The raw, honest, and undeniable show of emotion on her face was so innocent and natural that it made me want to reach for her face and stroke it. The way she responded to everything was different and it mostly drew me in because half the time she wasn't faking anything or giving rehearsed responses. Maybe with time, she would become like the rest of the people who surrounded us. Most of them felt the need to tuck away their true feelings and emotions because they felt the need to keep up with appearances that I was certain nobody fucking cared about. It was why I adored my parents - during my worst spiral they didn't for once put on me the burden to conceal my true emotions and everyone who came to me without truly understanding the gravity of my mental health was put at arm's length. They protected me.
"What are you? The morality police?" She scoffed. “You’re so silly. You and your girlfriend deserve each other.”
Oh, no, I deserved her. Streetlights cast some illumination on us as I sped through a narrow road. I briefly gazed at her before I returned to the bad road ahead. I slowed down a little, driving carefully as I bypassed a few bumps.
Then I increased my speed again.
My eyes were glued on the road as I switched lanes as if I was being chased by something from the deepest parts of hell. I wanted to drop her quickly because of the same reason I wanted to spend more time around her. She was lodging herself into my whole system without realizing it. I wanted to fuck her every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I wanted to push my cock deep into her wet pussy, my cock held tightly in place by her cunt while I eased myself in and out of her with the same fervor with which she sucked me in with those eyes and mouth of hers. She was fast becoming a drug and chasing her was like chasing a high. I had my pills with me tonight and I still didn’t use them. She helped me to bear my days and my nights without even realizing it. I felt nervous around her but it wasn’t the type of nervousness that I needed to seek a calm for. I fucking liked her. I fucking needed her. I wondered what it would feel like after… oh, Ryan If. IF. You can't have her. She's like a sister to you.
"Who do I think I am? Your brother," the words left a distaste in my mouth but fuck me, I wasn't going to tell her the reason I didn't want her at Risqué was that I would be expected to fuck her senseless until she couldn't move and her voice was hoarse from begging for more.
When she shut her eyes, anger spreading through her frame, I briefly watched her full lashes flutter and I knew at that point that if I fucked her, once wouldn't be enough. She was going to be the type of fuck one had every single day until they were sated.
The problem was the satisfaction felt like something one would long for right after they had it. Again, I am reminded of how much of a substitution she’d be for the pills.
"You're like a sister to me. And your Dad asked me to take care of you. And I will. And that includes making sure you stay away from that party."
I slowed down as we neared her home. "Okay, so drugs, sex, alcohol; what else are you hiding?"
"Excuse me?" I frowned.
"You are clearly discouraging me from this party because of something. What the fuck is it?" Oh, I truly wished she wouldn't use the word "fuck."
Because all it did to me was wild things, daring me to unzip those jeans and pull her underwear aside with a finger so I could feel her warmth. How long would it take me to turn her on? It wouldn't take her a second to turn me on, as it had been established that all I had to do was see her.
"Nothing you should trouble your head with."
When I drove through the driveway, she scoffed. "Are you the one who needs to fuck me?"
I slammed my foot on the brakes. If she said fuck one more time tonight I would have to remove those jeans on her and spank her bare ass until my cock could drill through concrete. And that would be crazy because the bulge in my pants had to be close to the limit somewhat.
She wore her insolence boldly. She would be a good fuck. I could tell. I could tell that I would also teach her many things about pleasuring herself, letting go, and letting loose because as I suspected she wasn't as tough as she thought she was. Maybe she was tough in other areas but where I'd take her wasn't someplace she was familiar with. She still mustered so much effort to talk back at me and a tiny trace of innocence peeked whenever she tried hard to act as though she didn't care.
I lifted her chin with my finger as I told the biggest lie of my life. "I don't find you sexually attractive and I won't touch you if my life depended on it. Get those stupid thoughts out of your head and sit your ass at home!"
Sit your ass on my face. Shit. Concentrate, Ryan.
"You literally just found your Dad. Enjoy that and leave the depraved parties to the ones built for it. As I said before I can see through you and you're not great at this bad girl thing."
"Wow," she muttered, the pain traveling through her word so quickly it drove guilt deep into my chest. I felt bad that I said those words to her. I felt stupid for speaking to her as though she wasn't fit to run in my circle but I buried the guilt with the self-assurance that I was protecting her. At least if nobody made sense of it her father would one day thank me for driving his daughter far away from my unbridled hard cock.
She stepped out of the car without another word and I hated that I couldn't apologize for being a dick. But if she was saved from the fangs of Lili and Malik's debauchery then it didn't matter if she hated me. I just needed her safe from the depraved bunch and I needed her safe from me.
NIMI
Ryan Dokpesi hated me. His hate burned with the level of intensity that I wasn't used to but that I had imagined kids like him would have for people like me.
I hadn't experienced it before but I had friends who went to elite schools back in Ibadan and who were from homes where all their parents could really afford were the fees. So they ended up in a world filled with a bunch of spoiled, entitled kids who didn't care much for people like them. Sometimes they were intimidated and bullied and the experience wasn't something I could ever have imagined going through. Still, I was no longer the girl who only knew about rich people through tales of friends who went to expensive schools or went to Church with privileged kids. I was a Billionaire Heiress. And that meant Ryan could hate me all he liked but I was like him and his hatred didn't mean a thing. It also meant I couldn't just go away because he willed it so.
It made sense to think that way. It was the right way to think so why was I obsessed with his feelings and actions towards me? Why did it matter that his eyes tapered when he saw me and his antagonism deepened? What did it matter what he thought? And why was I so obsessed with the party he desperately wanted me uninvited from?
I pushed in through the front door. From the entrance, I could see Grandma Carew on her way to the Kitchen. I followed her. The entire kitchen was empty save for the Chef who she spoke to silently.
“Where’s the broccoli?” she asked, pulling the doors of a double door fridge open. The Chef provided her with some broccoli. I could perceive the aroma of onions. A bottle of extra olive oil sat on the Kitchen Island. “Is everything here?” She asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” The chef nodded.
“Excuse me then.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The chef bowed slightly when he walked past me. “Ms. Carew.”
“Good evening sir,” I murmured. He looked startled.
“Fatai is the name. You can call me Fatai.” He smiled as he wandered off. He was at least twice my age. I wasn’t going to call him Fatai. Mr. Fatai will be fine. Grandma Carew chopped some carrots, green and yellow bell peppers that she tossed into the oil on low heat.
“You’ll get used to them,” She murmured. I never pegged her for one who knew her way around a kitchen. I knew she singlehandedly built the Carew brand into what it was before my father took over some years ago. So I never really thought she’d have the time to make her meals. “Cooking can be sometimes therapeutic,” she said, glancing at me. She could tell what my thoughts were.
“What are you making?” I asked her.
“Rice sticks.” My gaze fell on the boiling water in a pot on the massive cooker.
“You told the Chef to make me some salad,” I said, breaking a silence that stretched on for minutes.
“I made the salad.”
I fell silent. She was sprinkling some coarse sea salt to her meal. She barely glanced my way. “I thought you hated me,” I said.
“You thought wrong.”
I wanted to ask her about my mother. I wanted to ask her too many questions I knew that I wasn’t ready for. So maybe I almost got raped and she swung in and acted like a caring grandmother but she was still the reason my life turned out the way it was.
I’d have had someone ‘take care of it’ if I was a Carew when three years ago happened.
“The meal plans are great for your health. Both physical and mental.” She didn’t say more as she pushed the rice sticks into boiling water.
I walked towards the exit. “You don’t know what’s good for me.”
“The meals are good for your health. The friendships are fine too. Maybe a little partying that doesn’t hurt. Have all the fun you can before the responsibilities required of you as a Carew come calling.”
Oh, there she went again, talking as if this was Buckingham palace and we had some stupid royal duties. I stormed out of the kitchen.
I could take her advice though, eat some broccoli, lettuce and whatever and go to Risqué. What would it hurt? I was curious enough to see Ryan at that party. He made me feel things Banks had never made me feel. And all he ever did was stare, scowl, and brood.
Aunty Nurse was descending the stairs when I exited the kitchen.
"Aunty Nurse!" I called. “You finally made it here.”
"Nimi, I sent tons of messages. Where have you been?”
"Sorry, I went to dinner with some people." I looked through my phone. She arrived an hour ago. “The messages were getting too much so I only receive calls for now.”
She smiled. "Friends already? I'm proud."
"They definitely aren't friends," I dismissed, leaning against the railings. "Just some guy and some girl my brand new father convinced to hang out with me."
She giggled. "Still funny." She pulled my cheeks.
"Who let you in? I hope it wasn't difficult finding this place?"
"Difficult? Nimi, everyone knows here. It's the wealthy people's side, have you forgotten?"
I smiled. "It is."
"I was told that you'd informed everyone that I will be coming over. The house is huge!" I giggled as wonderment leaped into her eyes and she looked around as if appreciating every single furniture and architectural design in place.
"Yeah, I guess." I shrugged.
She smoothed her hand over the hair Tokunbo Carew got a Stylist to come and make for me just before I stepped out with Lili and Ryan. "Look at you already acting unbothered. See her mouth like 'I guess' omo olowo."
"Has anyone seen you?"
"No. Just the staff."
I glanced towards the Kitchen exit. I wondered what Grandma Carew would have to say when she saw her here. I wasn’t sure I was feeling as bold as I was a couple of days ago. Or maybe my anger had just dissolved into something else.
"How is it with your father? He seems like a nice man from the videos of him, I have seen online."
"He is," I confessed. And he was trying his best too.
"You shouldn't be so hard on him though. I know you're very hurt and you are not in a good place especially with what happened with grandma but that man is innocent of all the charges." When she flashed me a smile, I returned it. Tokunbo Carew emerged then, closely followed by my mother. They weren't speaking but even when they walked into a room quietly it felt as though a million things were being said between them. I watched as my mother's gaze landed on Aunty Nurse, narrowed and as if she didn't recognize her, remained stoic. Tokunbo stood before the table, his hands thrust in the pockets of his Senator-styled outfit.
"Hi. You must be Arin,'" he said with a smile. "I'm Tokunbo Carew, Nimi's father."
"Good evening, Sir," Aunty Nurse sputtered, offering her hand. She looked at him as if he was something of wonder. She smiled at everything he said and struggled to keep eye contact. She liked him. And it was instant. Curious, I watched my mother who acted as if she was unmoved by the obvious attraction that Aunty Nurse felt for my father. Did she still love him? Would this be a problem for her? I didn't know how I felt about Aunty Nurse's obvious attraction to my father. I had known her for years and in that period I had watched her remain in a relationship with a man who was not deserving of her. But I had never seen her look at any man the way she looked at Tokunbo. Aunty Nurse wasn't like my mother, a woman who strutted into every room as if she owned it. Where Lola Sodipo seemed unmoved by almost anything, Aunty Nurse was shy and sometimes awkward.
And if she had ever felt this instant attraction for any man around her, I would have known.
"Lola, good evening," Aunty Nurse greeted my mother who looked at her with the same indifference that had been on her face since she walked into the room.
"Arin. Hi. It's been a minute."
She shook hands with Aunty Nurse and they exchanged stiff pleasantries.
"I hope you're staying for a while," Tokunbo Carew said to Aunty Nurse.
"I don't think so. I only came because Nimi wanted me to."
"If Nimi wants you to stay, there's enough room for you. She’s decided to extend her stay and I’m the happiest for it. If she wants guests, so be it.”
They all looked at me. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s cool.” I shrugged.
“I guess it’s decided then. Whatever she needs.” She smoothed my hair in the manner she did earlier. “We’re quite close. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about in the coming days.”
I watched my mother's gaze turn cold.
“Maybe we will even draw out a plan of things to do.”
She was making my mother uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure I liked that. I wasn’t sure my plans to have my parents together would stick if Aunty Nurse acted as if she had a monopoly on me. I loved her but I was trying out an experiment here.
“Maybe go on movie and ice cream dates?”
