by Kiru Taye
“I know I sometimes bottle things up rather than say them. I’ll work on changing that. From now on, no more secrets between us.” She looked at him, confirming her sincerity with her eyes. His sober yet tender black eyes reflected her emotions.
“I want you to tell me what happened the night I saw you with Dele.”
She stiffened and bit her lip worriedly. “Are you sure?”
He kissed her, shutting off her panic and replacing it with passion. When he lifted his head, she wished he hadn’t stopped.
“Tell me. Please.”
His voice came as a gravelly whisper and goose bumps skittered over her skin. She let out a deep breath before speaking staring blankly at the TV screen as she replayed the events in her head.
“After our night together, you stopped taking my calls. I panicked. I thought you didn’t want me and had changed your mind about the wedding. I was going out of my mind with worry. Then Dele showed up at my mum’s. He’d heard about our impending wedding and had come to wish me the best. He wished it could be him and I getting married but understood I had to move on. I guess for a brief moment, I wanted to get back what I’d had with him. After all, I had known him for over ten years. He might not be perfect, but at least I knew him.”
She turned to look at Felix. “You, on the other hand, I had thought were perfect but I knew nothing about you. I asked myself, why take the risk with you? So when he kissed and touched me, I allowed it. I wanted to find out if I could recapture what we had. As it happened, it wasn’t the same. I didn’t feel the spark that I get when you kissed me. There and then, I wondered when I had stopped loving Dele and started loving you. Was it the first day we met? Or the first day we kissed? Or the first day we made love? I guess it probably involved all of those times.”
Ebony stopped, expecting to see anger in Felix’s eyes, but there was none, just tenderness and sadness. She leaned into his chest, letting his hard warmth soothe her.
“Before you carry on, I have a question for you. Please be honest. I won't be mad. I promise. Did he penetrate you that night?”
She jerked in his arms but he didn’t let her go. “God, no. I stopped him before we got that far.”
The rush of warm air from his exhaled a relieved breath fanned her face. “Thank God for that. I’m sorry if my question upset you but I had to ask to get it off my chest. Please carry on.”
He tightened his arms around her. She inhaled and continued.
“I swore that if we got married, I would show you just how much you meant to me. On our wedding day, I was so happy when I arrived at the venue to find you standing there waiting for me. You hadn’t changed your mind. I would now have two years to convince you that we were meant to be together permanently. Well, until our wedding night, when you refused to touch me and walked out, instead.”
Felix shook his head, his eyes clouding over. “After the night of the governor’s ball, I grew unnerved. I was developing these feelings for you that were so overwhelming and I was slowly losing control. The only way I knew to deal with it was to get some space. It gave me time to think. It also gave me time to miss you.”
He scrubbed his head with his hand. “I realised that what we had must be so important I had to make sure you knew. I’d raced back from a trip to New York to tell you that I loved you. I was going to cancel the prenuptial agreement. I wanted you to know that when I said ‘I do’ at the wedding ceremony, it would be the truth and for keeps. Until I saw you with Dele.... I thought you must still be in love with him and probably wanted to get back together with him. I waited for you to tell me but you didn’t. On our wedding night, when you told me you loved me, I got so angry. If you loved me, you wouldn’t keep secrets, wouldn’t have been with a man you knew I didn’t want anywhere near you. I got so angry and just drove out into the night. I never saw the truck coming.”
She shivered as she remembered that night. “I thought my life to be over when I turned up at the hospital and saw your broken body hooked up to all those life-saving equipment. I know I probably wouldn’t have gone on if you hadn’t survived.”
He squeezed her body tight again. “Don’t say that. We are both here. We’ve been given another chance. Another chance at life and love. I, for one, want to grab that chance with both hands. Our first child in on the way—a child conceived in love, even if we didn’t know it at the time.”
She pulled back slightly, putting one hand against her belly. “Does that mean you think it’s your child?”
“Of course I know it’s my child. We both made him, in love and in beauty. You already had my heart before that night, but after seeing you in those waist beads, you certainly won my body forever.” He growled in appreciation as his eyes turned a fiery onyx with desire.
Joy flooded her heart and tingles spread over her body at his words.
“Does that mean you’d like a re-enactment of that night sometime soon?”
“Yes, indeed. But not right now. Right now, I want to show you how much you mean to me by savouring all of you right here.”
“Before that, I have something else to tell you.” She’d debated how to tell him this but the best way would be just to spill it.
“Tell me.” He carried on massaging her neck and shoulders, the expression on his face not changing.
“I’ve been getting crank calls. Some man, I don’t know who he is. He never told me his name. But he knows a lot about you and me.” Tears misted her eyes.
Felix pulled her tighter, brushing lips to her forehead. “You don’t need to say any more if it upsets you.”
“No. I have to. I don’t want to keep anything from you.” She inhaled a deep breath. “The man threatened to hurt you unless I divorced you and I agreed.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I'm sorry.” She covered her face as shame washed over her. But he pulled her hands off.
“Look at me.”
She did and no anger marred his expression.
“It's okay,” he said.
“No, it’s not. It was on the day you woke up from coma. Somehow, he tapped into my anger at you for spurning me on our wedding night and used it against me. He gave me one month to get the divorce rolling. At the time, I was so angry at you I wanted to divorce you.”
“Do you still want a divorce?” Midnight eyes stared at her with understanding and love.
“No. I want forever with you.”
“Then, you’ll have it. I want forever with you, too.” He leaned forward and retrieved something from the drawer under the centre table. “There’s something I need to show you. I wasn’t going to but since we’re no longer keeping secrets from each other, you need to see it.”
She turned around and noticed some photos on the table. Due to the dim lighting, she didn’t recognise the people immediately.
A couple cinched in a kissing embrace, the woman’s dress sleeves fallen off the shoulders and the man’s hand on her buttocks.
She leaned closer and gasped. “Where did you get that?”
“They came in the post today along with a note.”
Panicked, she clutched his arms. “You’ve got to believe me. There’s nothing going on between Dele and me. That picture was from my mother’s garden before—”
He shut her up with a searing kiss. “I know you’re not cheating on me.”
“You do?”
“I was there that night and that scene is branded in my mind forever, so I recognised the image as soon as I saw it.
Relieved, she puffed out a breath and hugged him. “Thank you.”
“Also, I know about your blackmailer.” She opened her mouth to refute. He pressed his thumb against her lips. “Your phone is bugged.”
Her eyes widened with shock.
“After my accident, Kola took extra precautions. You have to understand he is ex-military and with the rise of kidnapping incidents, he put a tracker on your phone which also doubles as a listening device. He didn’t tell me about it until last night when he played
back your phone conversation with the blackmailer at the airport.”
“Oh. My. God!”
“I know your privacy has been invaded and I’m sorry. Unfortunately, due to the high profile of what we do, the Essiens are a target so Kola has the license to do anything to keep us safe and secure. I’ve asked him to remove the listening piece but keep the tracking device on your phone. No recording of your conversations are kept. Only the ones with the blackmailer.”
“That’s something. Thank you. But do you know who the blackmailer is?”
“I have an idea and they are going to pay for threatening you. Nobody threatens you and gets away with it.”
“They?”
“Kola believes there’s more than one person involved and I agree with him.” His grip on her hip tightened. “But you shouldn’t worry about that. Right now, I want to make you scream my name.”
She laughed as he laid her backwards on the sofa. “Don’t you want to finish watching the DVD?”
He turned, smiling wickedly. “We’ll watch that later, together. You do realise that’s you and me on the screen. My dad brought the DVD when he came over.”
“No way.” She turned and looked over his shoulder at the TV screen. “Even then, you were smitten with me.” She teased him.
“Oh, so smitten,” he replied as he took her clothes off one by one.
He made sweet love to her, slowly and tenderly worshipping her whole body. When they were finally spent and cradling each other on the sofa, a thought occurred to her.
“You know we have to thank our parents for bringing us back together again.”
He lifted his head. “How come?”
“You dad and my mum had arranged specially for you to pick me up at the airport. Your father told me this earlier when I went to see him. Apparently, they’d been making plans before the board gave you the ultimatum. They just seized the opportunity.”
“Our cunning parents. Well, we have a brilliant thank you present for them.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“A grandchild.”
“And a fantastic present, too.”
“I love you, Ebony. You are my love, my heart, and my life, ima-mmi.”
He said the words she’d been waiting to hear but knew already in her heart.
“I love you, too, Felix.”
And she kissed him again, showing her man how much.
Thank you for reading Keeping Secrets. Carry on reading to find out more about the next book in the Essien Trilogy as the story of the Essiens continues with Mark and Faith’s story.
Blurb - The Essien Trilogy
The Essiens are the kings of African finance. A close-knit family, their father is the patriarch of a finance dynasty that ranges from retail to investment banking spanning the African continent. Yet, all is not as it seems as the three brothers—Felix, Mark, and Tony—soon discover when their family is rocked by secrets and scandals. Blood ties or not, family is family.
Blurb – Making Scandal
Sassy, successful Faith Brown has earned her place in the boardroom through hard work and ambition. Making family is not on her agenda when there are businesses to develop and competitors to outdo. So when a casual affair with smooth and irresistible tycoon Mark Essien leads to an unplanned pregnancy, she’s determined not to make the mistakes her mother made by living with a man just for the sake of her child.
For Mark, personal matters have no place in the boardroom. Spotting the perfect opportunity, he ruthlessly launches a takeover bid for Faith’s Investment Brokerage firm. Finding out he’ll soon be a father, he knows he can’t let the indomitable and sexy Faith go through with her plans of single parenthood. All gloves are off. He’ll seduce her by any tactic necessary if it means his child doesn’t suffer the same stigma he did as a child.
With the media dogging their affairs in the boardroom and the bedroom, they find that making family is harder than making scandal.
Making Scandal – The Essien Trilogy #2 - Prologue
Mark strode down the aisle towards the boxing ring on Felix’s right hand, with Kola on his brother’s left side. His brother walked fully kitted out in his boxing attire—boots, shorts, robe, and gloves. Boxing wasn’t Mark’s thing, but Felix enjoyed it as a sport. Apart from training sessions, he had not participated in a boxing fight since his days at university. This would be Felix’s first serious match since his accident.
Felix was his brother. And Essiens stood side by side, in love and in war. Like right now.
In the ring, his brother’s opponent stood with his corner men beside him. The referee was there, too, as well as the owner of the boxing club. Aside from them, no one else stood in the sidelines. Kola had arranged this strictly private affair to set things right for Felix.
A lesson needed to be taught. No man messed with an Essien and got away with it.
Kola parted the rope and Felix stepped between them. Mark stood at the edge of the ring, his hands in his suit trouser pockets.
Felix gave a cursory nod at the man he would fight. The opponent sneered at him. This wasn’t meant to be a friendly fight. The stakes were too high, almost a winner takes all. He rolled his shoulders, moving around on his corner of the ring.
Stocky, Felix’s opponent packed more weight than he did so if he got hit, he’d feel it. Mark remembered all those videos of Mohammed Ali fights that his brother had watched religiously as a teenager. Felix had learned a thing or two about avoiding punches.
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” would come in very handy today.
The referee introduced them, Felix Essien versus Dele Savage, read out the rules, and started the countdown to the first round.
Kola took his robe and stepped out of the ring. “Remember, keep moving. Don’t let him hit you.”
At the bell, the man ran at his brother like a bull with a jab. Felix ducked and hit out with a left hook, connecting with his right side. They circled each other. Another jab came at him. He blocked and threw a cross punch. Before long, the bell rang for the end of the first round.
Kola was back in the ring, outlining the opponent’s weaknesses and what Felix had to do. The next round went great and quickly. All of Felix’s punches hit their mark and he avoided being hit except for one glancing blow on his shoulder. In the third round, he caught the man out with a right upper cut, blood flying in the air as he knocked Dele out.
The bell rang and the referee declared Felix the winner.
Now to collect the prize. When Kola’s investigation had pointed all fingers at Ebony’s ex-fiancé as the man who had taped his encounter with her and sold it on to the blackmailer, Felix, Kola, and Mark had agreed they needed to get back at Mr. Savage. Kola had wanted to throw the man to the wolves or the area boys who saw his actions as an affront to a man who was one of them.
But Felix hadn’t wanted a street brawl. Neither had Mark. His suggestion had been to strip the man of what made him a man—his wealth. Take away his job, house, and car, and make him destitute.
Felix had chosen the boxing ring, instead—a legal and equally painful option—and had thrown the challenge to Dele in a way he couldn’t resist.
Now the man barely stood before his brother, his face and lips cut and swollen from Felix’s punches.
Kola slipped a smart phone into Felix’s hand.
“I warned you that if you messed with my wife, I’d make you pay for it. You should’ve heeded my advice,” Felix said.
“I haven’t seen or spoken to your wife since that day in the hospital.”
“I believe you. However, pictures of you and my wife were sent to me and my father with a threat of it being published online if we don’t meet specific demands. Do you know anything about that?”
“No. I—I don’t.”
“We’ll see. Kindly unlock your phone for me.”
“I won’t. Why should I?” The man glared with defiance.
Kola stepped forward.
“You might consider chang
ing your mind. Unlike me, Kola here has no qualms about disfiguring this pretty face of yours. No woman would want to look at it ever again.”
The man’s eyes widened. Kola bunched his fists and took another step forward.
“All right. The code is 9329.”
“Thank you.” Felix entered the number to the phone keypad and unlocked the screen. He found the media folder and scrolled through until he found what he was looking for.
“Well, well, well. So it was you. You recorded your time with Ebony and sold it on to a blackmailer. What kind of man are you?”
Disgust rolled through Mark. What kind of man set up the woman who had once loved him?
“Tell me the name of the man.”
“No. I can’t,” Dele replied.
Felix nodded. Kola threw a jab and Dele staggered back into the corner of the ring. He tried to block and punch back but Kola didn’t let up. Each of his punches connected, the pounding sound against flesh and bones reverberating in the space.
“Just say the name and he will stop.”
“Petersen,” Dele shouted in a pained voice. “Kris Petersen paid me to give him information about you and your wife.”
Kola stopped throwing punches. Felix nodded and threw the phone on the floor where it shattered into pieces.
“My promise still stands. Keep away from my wife so you can live a long life. I won’t be so gentlemanly next time.”
Felix stepped out of the ring and walked out, with Mark and Kola behind.
Kris Petersen – Nil. The Essiens – One. The fight had only just begun
Copyright© 2014 Kiru Taye
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