LOVED BY MY EX'S BILLIONAIRE BOSS

My birthday cake was still burning on the table when I heard my boyfriend moan another woman's name from my bedroom.

"Oh, Tasha! Yes, just like that!"

I froze at the door of our small one-room apartment in Sabo, Kaduna. In my hands were two black nylon bags. I had used my last 5,000 naira to buy chicken, rice, and a small cake. Today was supposed to be special. Today was my 23rd birthday and my 3-year anniversary with Michael Obi.

I had woken up at 5AM to clean the room. I had borrowed a wrapper from my neighbor. I had texted Michael, "Come home early today, I have a surprise."

His reply was, "I am busy at work, don't disturb me."

But he was not busy at work. He was busy in my bed.

I pushed the bedroom curtain with shaking hands.

There he was. Michael, the man I had loved since my second year in Ahmadu Bello University. The man I had fed when he had no job. The man I had paid his final year school fees for. He was naked, on top of another woman.

And that woman was Tasha, my roommate. My only friend in Kaduna.

My birthday wrapper I had washed and ironed that morning was on the floor under them.

"Michael?" My voice was so small I didn't recognize it.

He jumped up so fast he fell from the bed. "Lena! Lena, it's not what you think! I can explain!"

Tasha didn't even cover herself properly. She just used my blanket, MY blanket, to cover her chest and laughed. That laugh will never leave my head.

"What is there to explain, baby?" She looked at me with disgust. "Lena, open your eyes. You think a fine boy like Michael will manage a village girl like you forever? You have no hair, no fine clothes, no family. You can't even afford to make your hair. He was just managing you until he got his job in Lagos. Now he has better options."

I looked at Michael, waiting for him to defend me. To say she was lying. To say he loved me.

He didn't.

He picked his trousers and shouted at me instead. "Lena, get out! Can't you see we are busy? Why did you come back early? You always spoil things!"

That was when my three years died.

I didn't scream. I didn't fight Tasha like other girls would. Something in me just broke quietly.

I walked into the room, ignoring their nakedness. I took my small Ghana-Must-Go box. I packed my two dresses, my certificates, my small Bible, and my mother's old photo. That's all I owned.

Tasha said, "Go and meet your poor family in the village."

Michael said nothing. He just watched me pack.

When I was done, I took the birthday cake from the table. It was still burning, the candle melting. I looked at them one last time.

"Happy birthday to me," I whispered, and I blew the candle out right in front of them.

Then I left.

Outside, it was raining heavily. Kaduna rain, cold and angry. I sat at the bus stop with my box on my lap. No umbrella. No phone battery. No place to go. My mother died two years ago. My father remarried and told me not to come back unless I have money.

I was 23, homeless, on my birthday.

I put my head on my box and finally cried. I cried for all the nights I went hungry to feed Michael. For all the times I defended him. For being a fool.

Then my phone vibrated. One percent battery left. An unknown Lagos number.

"Hello?" My voice was hoarse.

"Is this Miss Lena Adeyemi? You applied for Executive Assistant position at Knight Enterprises three weeks ago. This is HR. Can you come for a final interview in Lagos tomorrow 8AM? The CEO wants to see you."

I almost laughed. Lagos? Tomorrow? I was sitting in rain in Kaduna with no transport money. I had 200 naira in my account.

But something in me said, this is your last chance.

"Yes," I said, wiping my rain and tears. "I will be there. What is the address?"

"45 Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island. Don't be late. Mr. Damian Knight does not like late people."

The call ended. My phone died.

Damian Knight. I had heard that name before. The billionaire. The ruthless one. Every newspaper called him the King of Real Estate. Worth over $500 million at 32. A man who never smiles. A man who fired his own cousin on live TV.

And Michael, my ex, just got a junior manager job in that same company last week. He bragged about it to me before cheating. "I now work for Knight Enterprises, Lena. I am now a big boy. You are too local for me."

I stood up in the rain with my box.

Let him see me in his big company. Let him see that the village girl he threw away will walk into the same building he is cleaning shoes to enter.

I used my last 200 naira to buy pure water and started trekking to the park to beg for a night bus to Lagos.

I didn't know that tomorrow, when I walk into that interview room, my ex-boyfriend would be sitting right there next to his billionaire boss.

And that billionaire boss would take one look at me and decide he would never let me leave.