Chapter Four

Iris

 The beep coming from my phone woke me up, and I couldn't help but hiss when I saw the caller ID; Alyssa, why would she be calling this early I briefly wondered before remembering that I am supposed to be madam C.E.O had yesterday's meeting been a successful one. Her call would definitely be to find out how the meeting had gone and perhaps congratulate me for that, what a pity though, there would be no need for a congratulatory message as there was absolutely nothing to celebrate.

"Good morning" I greeted in response to hers after picking the call

"Oya, give me the gist. How did it go? Are you now madam C.E.O? Is he good looking? Well, was the meeting stressful?" She bombarded me with questions and I was not surprised. Alyssa was a natural born gist lover and that was the one of the few habits she never outgrew. 

"Madam, so which one of your questions should I answer first?" I asked in return.

"Anyway joor, just give me the full gist abeg."

"Okay. The most important thing you need to know is that I didn't get the contract."

"Why na? I thought you said you had everything under control? What happened then?"

"A devil and his assistant happened."

"All this half half gist, I don't like it oo, just tell me all that happened."

How do you tell your kid sister who sees you as a demigod that you were outsmarted by another being.

"Ehmm how do I start self?" I asked rhetorically, but Alyssa who was a talkative still went ahead and supplied me with an answer.

"Start anywhere joor." I could imagine how her face was; creased forehead, pouted lips, closely drawn eyelids, it was something she did when she felt she wasn't getting her way in something.

"Okay fine I will just go ahead and say it. Remember that guy I told you I slept with last year,on my birthday?"

"Ah! How can I forget na? Sweet gist like that one, I remember. The one you said disappeared when you woke up and you thought was a ghost till you saw a note from him. I remember too well."

"It was him."

"What do you mean by it was him? Who is he?  Him, what? abeg explain make I understand." She said in Nigerian pidgin. Another habit she was never going to drop.

"Well apparently, Mr Amadi is the same person as Mr Ghost"

"No way! You don't mean ittt!!  Wait, don't tell me he's rejecting the deal because he thinks you are a slut just because of that one night stand thing."

"Wait. what? No!! That's not it. He just wants some more 'sugar'." I laid emphasis on the sugar just so she would know I wasn't talking about the sugar one would need to take tea or coffee.

"Oh. My. God! Seriously? That guy is a sharp shooter. So what you are saying is that the guy you had great sex with is asking for more in return for a multi-million collaboration deal?" She drew the words 'great sex' and briefly, I regretted letting her know that sex with Enyinnaya was the best sex I ever had. The witch was certainly going to use that against me.

"Well, that pretty much summarizes it all " I replied rubbing my forehead with my palm one of the signs that I was no more comfortable with the discussion, but Alyssa could not see me, so it was quite useless doing so.

"Iris that makes everything so much better. So what did you say to him? Don't tell me you threw his offer at his face cause I know you are capable of doing just that."

"Well...."

"Well what, Iris? You know uncle Obinna is looking for any opportunity to get the company and I sincerely hope that you don't give him the chance to. Come on na, this is just a small challenge. I mean you get to kill two birds with one stone, that is you get laid by the best lay you ever had, and you get to become dad's successor without stress. You shouldn't be thinking twice about this, you know."

"Yeah I know and I already told him I would, so all this lecture is not necessary."

"Yes! That's my best bitch!" She exclaimed as if I had just told her I won a lottery. "You should have told me that instead of letting me blarb on, you wicked small sha."

"I wanted to but you just started talking and I didn't want to interrupt you as that would have been rude" As if controlled by a power button, we both bursted out laughing immediately.

"I'm really glad you did, Dad would be so proud of you."

"You think so?" I asked, suddenly not too sure, I made the right decision.

"Are you kidding me? I know so gurl. At least uncle Obinna wouldn't be reaping where he did not sow."

Uncle Obinna used to be our favourite uncle and he was the only maternal uncle we had. He was always buying us ice cream and cheese while we were kids and when we became young adults, he always took us shopping. To cut a long story short, uncle Obinna was the perfect definition of a great uncle until my mum's death; hate, greed and selfishness was borne in his heart. He suddenly started showing interest in my mum's company, insisting that he should be the one heading the company since his sister; my mum was dead. Technically, dad took over the rein of the company from my maternal grandfather by virtue of his marriage to my mum, but truth be told, dad was responsible for the skyrocketed growth and expansion of the company, but uncle Obinna's greed wouldn't see that. Now that my dad is dead, his improved in his devious tactics to take over and I wasn't planning on giving him the chance to win me in this power struggle.

"Yeah I'm happy about that too."

"Sis, you should try this thing out with Mr Amadi, you never know where love can sprout from." My sister advised.

I hissed in response to it, I may not know the devil well but I was sure love wasn't ever found in a devil's dictionary and if that devil was a man named Enyinnaya Amadi then love was certainly a lost cause. I mean looking at him that day, I could tell he was the Playboy kind not Mr lover boy.

"It's weird hearing about love from you, I'm sure you know that right?" I said so because, Alyssa was sworn never to love a man since mum's death from a high blood pressure, a result of thinking and worrying too much about her husband's mistress. Mum had loved dad too much and it had killed her to find out after marriage that he could not reciprocate her feelings equally. He loved her in his own kind of way but his heart was sworn to a Greek lady who he had met when he traveled to Greece for a business conference. She was one of the cleaners in the hotel and somehow the both of them had gotten entangled romantically though brief. 

"You can't blame me abeg. But you know I will always root for your love life, atleast one of the Adelana's daughter deserves to be loved and pampered by a good man. Anyway sis I have to go now, I have a guest. I will call you later okay?" She said conclusively.

"Okay, love you"

"Love you too dear" she finished and ended the call.

Just as I dropped my phone, it rang again and I thought my sister was trying to play a prank on me, but when I checked the caller ID it was an unknown number so I decided to ignore it but the caller kept calling, annoyed I picked ready to lash out at whoever it was.

"Hello" I said, not trying to conceal the anger I'm sure laced my voice.

"Hey Mami." The caller said.