CHAPTER TWO
After a pleasant drive through the congested Lagos roads which gave her ample opportunity to think and clear her mind, Adamma returned home and lolled on a sofa in her living room, sipping green tea and mentally reviewing the dance moves she and her dance choreographer was working on for her upcoming album. A gossip magazine was spread on her laps, and even though she was absorbed in the pages, occasionally, she managed to extricate her face from it and stare gloomily into space. She was thinking about her encounter with Obi, the man who meant nothing, and yet meant everything to her life.
Her encounter with the man had left her feeling almost shell-shocked. It was a huge shock to her and potential threat to her sanity and peace of mind that she had met him again. As a huge sense of outrage engulfed her, she tried as much as possible, to relive the scenes on the pages of the magazines she had read about him and his innumerable, scandalous affairs with a plethora of the some of the most gorgeous models and actresses who had been found hanging on to his arms. They were all beautiful, and he used them unscrupulously and then dumped them by the side.
Dragging her mind from its contemplation of Obi and the women who were either unlucky or stupid enough to be his paramours, she quickly added a drop of acid to his reputation. Simply put, the man was even more dangerous and autocratic than his reputation indicated. He was a man who pursued the fairer sex with an animal passion that almost made him irresistible to the women that flocked to him_ he had even tried to proposition her at that hotel. He was a hard, ruthless, arrogant, stupendously rich super bastard who was as respected as he was feared in the business world, an acclaimed genius with the Midas touch who turned everything he touched to gold.
Reading about him was quite inevitable because of the fact that his name and face graced every magazine that was thrust into the market, Adamma thought glumly to herself as she pouted her lips in annoyance. She recalled that it had been a rude shock, a huge surprise the first time she had encountered his face in the tabloids. There he was, her one-night lover, the man with the perfect body and roaring libido who had been nearly insatiable and had peremptorily ordered her to come to his house and entertain him a second time, being praised and simultaneously condemned by the press who loved him and hated him.
She heard the sound of a car, and that sound, intruding on her thoughts, yanked her away from the zone of her mental sanctuary into the reality around her. She dragged her traitorous senses from her contemplation of a man who had no place in her life to look up and see who the intruder was.
The sight of the object of her contemplation jumping out of a white Toyota made her eyes widen in fear and expectation. What has he come here to do? That was the first question that flew to her mind, but even as the question cropped up, she already knew the answer to it. She knew that the super bastard had already figured it all out. She braced herself for the explosion. She sighed. Well, so be it.
OBI’S EYES TOOK IN THE BEAUTIFULLY trimmed flower beds, the garage with the two sleek cars that were parked there, the coconut trees that lined the long driveway, and the lovely house itself in a sweeping glance; he saw the big swimming pool which glittered like green emeralds in the sun, but he did not waste time admiring the aesthetics of the house.
He turned and hurried towards the screen, and then he rapped on it, expecting a maid or a doorman to come to the door and answer_ they would probably turn him away from the house. He rapped on it, and, hearing clear instructions from the voice of the woman he desperately wanted to strangle, he pulled the flimsy barrier out and then charged into the interior of the house where he was engulfed by a blast of cool air. He walked past the foyer into a loving room that seemed to be filled with the blue of the ocean. It was a huge room with bamboo furnishings, low glass tables, deep-blue sofas and settees, and paintings reflecting the tempestuous nature of the blue oceans. He could see past the living room to a terrace that was filled with chairs and tables and an exercise bike that glittered like silver in the sun.
Obi, when he saw Adamma seated on a chair like a marble statue, her face betraying no emotion whatsoever, felt a shock of fear. She looked far more exquisite than she had been when he’d encountered her in his hotel and in the numerous pictures of her he’d seen. Her hair appeared very dark, and was pulled back from her face in a simple ponytail, and she was dressed simply in blue gown that reflected the blue all around her, but she looked classically stunning.
‘Hello, Obi.’ Her voice was pitched low, a bewitching musical instrument, and she was smiling at him. He marveled at the chiseled perfection of her face, the flash of intelligence in her eyes, her lips which were unpainted with lipstick but which looked generous and had the color of wine. A speech made by his father when the latter was still alive flashed through his mind: Money can give you happiness; it can make you safe and also reckless, but it can never save you from a truly classically beautiful woman if you’re not gay.
That innocent smile of hers nearly threw him off balance, but he steeled himself, reminding himself that she was a bitch; that behind the demure facade she presented to him, that she was a cold-blooded bitch.
‘Where are the children?’ he bellowed at her, but he felt disgusted at himself for stooping so low. He’d learnt the hard way that there is nothing as hard as accusing a beautiful woman of something. It was a bad moment, one he wished he could forgo, but he had to do this. He had to find out . . . ‘Where are the kids, you stupid bitch? You fucking whore?’
‘What kids?’ she countered wearily, throwing him a glance that would have wilted other men, but which did nothing to shake his rigid stance as he stood there, towering over her chair and glaring at her with so much anger and venom in his eyes. Fervently wishing he’d sit down, or at least stop glaring at her in such a manner, her eyes took in the expensive corduroy pants he wore, the white jacket that accentuated his lean, muscular physique, the black Gucci loafers, and the handsome face with an inward snort.
Obi was almost flipping. ‘How dare you?’ he bellowed at her. ‘How dare you sit there, cross your whoring legs, and ask me what kids? You shameless hussy! You even dared to lie right to my face that you had no idea about who I was and yet you’ve here, hiding such a huge secret from me. You have my children here with you and I dare you to deny it to my face!’
‘They’re my kids, not yours,’ Adamma said with mock cheerfulness. ‘I am their mother. I gave birth to them and they’re mine, so get out of here.’
Barely able to control his boiling rage, Obi hastened to warn her of the utter folly of her lies. He said coldly, ‘Not even the angels above us will be able to help you if you dare to lie to me again. I’ll kill you here, and nothing can or will stop me. So please tell me the truth.’
Adamma looked up at him, and, for the first time, she felt a sliver of fear up her spine. She had now taken the hint; she had looked into the eyes of the man standing before her and had seen that he was clearly certifiable: he was indeed crazy, and crazy men can do anything and get away with it. The naked rage she saw in his eyes was a telltale indicator that he intended to do everything he said. Her safety was not assured in his questionable hands. But darn the bastard to hell! How had he been able to find out? Who could have told him?
Impatiently, Obi hauled her feet and grabbed her hair. Entwining the glossy locks around his fingers, he pulled her head back, forcing her to look at him. He saw the fear and defiance that was written in her face. ‘Now tell me the truth,’ he told her in a low, dangerous voice that was deceptively calm. ‘If you insist on lying to me, then I’ll murder you and take those kids to a hospital for a paternity test. Either way, I’ll win.’
She looked furious; the instinct for self-preservation had kicked in and she was trying to fight her way out. ‘Let go of me!’ she cried out. ‘You’re hurting me!’
‘Oh yes I want to hurt you,’ Obi barked into her face. He could see the pain that was etched into her face, and he was sorry for hurting her in that way. But he had to know what she was hiding from him. This was no time for mercy or tenderness.
She screamed as he tugged on her hair. ‘You’ve won, you bastard! The twins belong to you. Now let me go!’
Abruptly, he released her, and she fell flat on her face since there was nothing to steady her or cushion her fall. Trembling from this forceful revelation of his paternity, Obi yanked the fallen woman back to her feet, his eyes fixed contemptuously on her face. A cauldron of emotions surged through him and the uppermost thought in his mind was that he should kill her for her lies. She had the audacity to lie to him fearlessly, telling him that she’d had no children with him, and if he’d fallen for that old trick, she would have walked him out of her house and slammed the door in his face. And how had he stumbled on the identity of the children_ how did he know they were his children?
Their age, and the stamp of resemblance they bore to their mother had done the trick. They were tiny replicas of their mother’s undeniable beauty, especially the girl who would be a ravishing beauty when she grew up. But there was something about the chin of the little boy, something in his face and eyes_ especially the eyes_ that told Obi that he was looking at his own genes replicated in that kid. And their mother had lied to him . . . she had buried the truth, relying on the fact that she was a beautiful woman who didn’t look like the mother of anybody to lie to him and bury the truth.
Adamma broke into the flow of his thoughts. ‘You’ve beaten the information you wanted out of me, so please get out of here or I’ll have you thrown out of here so fast, you’ll not even know what hit you.’
The sound of her angry, superior, commanding voice made Obi turn to spare her living room a contemptuous glance. Like he’d noted when he first walked into the room, he noted that nearly everything was blue: a blue rug, blue walls that was readily accentuated by the blue lights that shone from the white ceiling. It seemed just like the right place for the elusive singer to hide herself in, away from the prying eyes of men.
He decided to cut down her airs a little bit and impose his will upon her, so deliberately settled himself on one of the wonderful-looking sofas and ordered her to go fetch him a glass of cold water or seltzer.
‘Whoa!’ she screamed as if he’d dashed a pot of hot tar on her face. She was livid with fury. ‘Who the hell do you think you are that you can just walk up to my house? Oh, you have nerve!’
Perfect black brows rose questioningly at her outrage. ‘Nerve, you say, my dear girl who is terribly naive in spite of her experiences? I’ll advise you to try and conserve your energy for the real battle between us_ the kids. They belong to me, and even when you saw me and could have tried to get me into their lives, you chose to lie to me and cover everything. I wonder what your real motive was. And please don’t tell me that there was no way you could’ve contacted me_ isn’t that a copy of The Entrepreneur magazine and a stack of Who’s Who around the corner? I appear in every issue of those magazines, and since you’re an avid reader of them, you definitely knew about me; you knew where to find me. But I never knew about you until I saw you at my hotel where you denied me right to my face. So, what do you have to say about it?’
He’d intended to rattle the woman thoroughly, and he succeeded. She was now reveling in rage, and she unknowingly succumbed to the trap he’d set for her. She screamed and raved and ranted, and he merely sat back and entertained himself by watching her face. From the display of sheer, unadulterated fear on her face, he could tell that she really loved her kids; that she really cared for them more than any other thing in the whole world. And he realized that he too cared for them and wanted to meet them even though he’d never seen them before.
Seeing how rattled she was, how utterly afraid and vulnerable she was, Obi decided to advance his trump card. ‘And knowing that our case will be in my favor and not yours, let me make it clear to you that I want those kids, and, by the time my battery of lawyers are through with you, you’ll be begging me to let you see them and be with them.’
Adamma stiffened, and then she found her lost voice. ‘What?’
‘You heard me, whore, so please spare me the indignation of having to repeat everything I say to you. Don’t play daft and stupid with me; it won’t work. Perhaps you have something else in mind, something that’ll favor the both of us. If you do, I want to hear it. Or we can talk.’
Instead of replying to his taunting words which she believed he was using to draw her out, she spun round on her heels and fled to the relative safety of her kitchen so she could escape from his taunting words which were being burned into her mind. It was as if an exotic jungle animal had been thrust into her life, and with its presence, she knew her life would never be the same again. The tides had changed, and she would have to welcome it, embrace it as a new part of her that couldn’t be erased no matter what she did. He was now an indispensable part of her life, and she would have to make the necessary adjustments. He was the father of her kids, for goodness sake!
Busying herself by starting lunch for her kids, she began to relive that fateful day when she had discovered that she’d lost her monthly blood flow. That had been more than ten years ago, and she’d known instantly who the father was. Her initial reaction had been to sit down and cry herself to stupor because she knew there was absolutely no way for her to ever tell the man responsible for it_ she had destroyed the card he’d given to her.
‘Hello, my dear. There you are.’
Adamma nearly cut the tip of her finger with the knife she was cutting vegetables with as her chopping became awkward. Struggling to infuse a semblance of anger into her voice, she snapped, ‘I have a name and I would really appreciate it if you addressed me by that name and stopped calling me a dear!’ and then she turned back to her chopping.
Obi endured her silence for a while and then said quietly, ‘I took a tour of the house, and I even went to the kids’ rooms. They seem to be very tidy, and the paintings in the boy’s room looked exquisite. Who painted them?’
‘Dan,’ she said simply, without turning around to look at him.
He watched her, a queue of questions lining up in his mind. He had a burning curiosity to ask her how she’d managed to earn so much for herself; how she’d been able to climb the social ladder and reach the esteemed height she was now in. But he kept mute, because he had the feeling that she would never deign to answer such a question if he dared to ask.
All he did was watch her cook. How many times had she done this, played this scene with the men that came into her life? Here she was; the beautiful queen performing housewifely duties like an ordinary woman even though she’d been hailed as the most beautiful woman ever to dazzle the screens with her beauty and her talent. She wore no protective apron over her dress and was professional as she chopped vegetables, prepared a plate of vegetable salad and then set the table. She ignored him, looking past him and humming to herself as if he wasn’t there with her.
‘Where are they?’ he asked.
She whirled round to face him, disdain in every line of her face. ‘If you’re smart, then you’ll see that I have no intention of speaking to your sorry ass!’ she snapped at him. ‘So just shut up!’
The reprehensible creature chuckled to himself. ‘But you’ll still talk to me. If not here, then it’ll be at the courts of law or in the pages of those newspapers that glorify your sorry ass. They’ll be so happy to find out that you were once a whore who danced to an audience of drunks.’
Losing every shred of sanity she possessed, she lunged wildly at him, a stinging blow aimed at his face. But he continued to smile, and if hadn’t delivered the words which were like blows to her senses, she would have hit him and possibly regretted her actions.
‘My dear, if you hit me, then I’ll be forced to use it against you,’ he drawled. ‘You’ll be branded a malicious, abusive woman. Go ahead. Hit me; take your best shot.’
Adamma halted in her tracks, her chest rising under the thin stuff of her dress as if she was suffocating. Trembling with impotent rage and frustration, she knew that the conceited animal was right. It’d favor him if she displayed the abusive behavior that was abhorred by the courts. She would be invariably branded as an abusive mother who was susceptible to violent fits of rage. Damn the blasted man!
And then, a loud car horn blasted through her consciousness and she jerked her head up, her thoughts a clear procession through confusion to utter bewilderment. What was happening?
It was Obi who disabused her of her of her unholy thoughts. ‘It’s already past two pm, and so I think the kids are back from school. You’re so terribly scatter-brained; you don’t even know when your kids are supposed to be back from school.’
The kids . . . She felt a momentary wave of sheer panic in her mind. She glared at the intruder in her kitchen with undisguised loathing, and then turned towards the door, her damp fingers clutching at the table for support. And then, the bundles of energy that were so alike to her physically came crashing through the door, the boy rushing in first, the girl walking more slowly and languidly into the kitchen with the grace of a ballet dancer.
Adamma was staring at Obi when he first beheld the ten-year-old twins, and the expression she saw on his face, in his eyes, almost broke her heart. It was a look of joy, one that seemed to light up his handsome face as if from some inner light.
And he was thinking to himself, they’re my children. They came from my body. They’re mine. And he knew at that moment that he would do anything for them if they asked for it.
Seeing the tall stranger that crowded their mother, the twins halted in their tracks. The boy seemed to draw back, and it was obvious to their father who was in charge between them. The girl walked up to him boldly, her eyes flashing with annoyance. ‘Who are you?’ she asked in a deliberately rude voice that made the boy smile at her antics. Her eyes looked angry. ‘What are you doing here? What did you do to my mother to make her look so sad and unhappy?’
Obi smiled at the girl with all the charm he could muster, hoping to charm her and win her over, but she frowned and recoiled from him; he’d obviously misjudged his quarry. She frowned severely at him, and he made a mental note to be wary of her in the future. She demanded, ‘Who are you? Mother, I don’t like him!’ and there was an unmistakable hint of coldness in her words that astounded her father. This was her mother’s daughter, all right.
‘Now, Helen. . .’ Adamma began, moving forward, but Obi’s powerful arms encircled her waist, halting her movements.
‘Let me handle it, my dear,’ Obi interjected smoothly. He smiled once again and then he addressed the twins. ‘Kids, I’m not making mummy sad or unhappy in any way. In fact, she’s the epitome of happiness. Am I right, darling?’
And Adamma had no choice but to smile brightly so that the hyper perceptive Helen wouldn’t flip. The bastard was monopolizing the conversation and was using her love for her kids into eliciting the appropriate responses from her.
Satisfied, his eyes challenging her to contradict him, Obi continued brightly. ‘And did your mother ever tell you about your father?’ he asked, his fingers clamping shut on the singer’s lips as she nearly let out a scream.
‘Why, yes,’ Helen and her brother said in unison, and then the girl added, ‘she’s told us severally that our dad is a well-known man and that one day, she’d take us to go and meet him. But we have to be old enough first, she said. Do you know our dad?’
Obi smiled gracefully, and he lost several heights as he talked to them in a very low, patient voice. ‘Well, today is your lucky day, kids. I’m your father.’
And Adamma bit him and then cried out in fury. If she had the power, she would have conjured up thunder and lightning and struck him down where he stood. But the damage had already been done. How dare this man walk into her house, disrupt her mind, and then, disclose his true identity to their children without first discussing it with her and gaining her approval? And to think that the conceited jerk had tried to hoodwink her children into believing that she was happy with him! She was horrified and appalled at the gall the man had displayed, and she would forever hate him for it.
Ian rushed to her and hugged her legs happily, his small face smiling up at her. ‘Oh, mother, thank you so much,’ he whispered. ‘I love you very much. Thank you for doing this for us_ for me.’
Helen smiled, her eyes glued to her father’s face in a slow, deliberate appraisal. ‘I’m not surprised,’ she said with a maturity that belied her age and requisite experience in life. ‘You look like Ian in a very subtle way,’ she said to her father. ‘You have the same features in a way that’s not too noticeable because we take after our mother in looks.’ Signaling her beautiful mother to bend down, she encircled her arms around Adamma’s neck. ‘Thank you. You’re the best mother in the world.’
Adamma held her kids as she blinked back burning tears, and she scowled fiercely at Obi, knowing that he’d found his way into her life and there was no way she could force him out of it. He was now a permanent fixture in her life, and there was nothing she could do about it. They had one thing in common; they had their kids, and it was a bond that bound them together stronger than iron bonds.