Reality Check

I get home in time to see my children’s nanny, Mrs Benson, getting them ready for bed. Mrs B, as I prefer to call her, is a middle-aged granny who came highly recommended by a former colleague of mine.

Two little girls who look like me run excitedly towards me with arms open wide to give me warm hugs. They look like adorable pink pandas in their matching pajamas.

“Mommy!” They scream in unison and wrap their little hands around my waist.

“Hey, babies,” I greet them with a happy smile. “How are my girls doing?”

“Great,” Zeena, the older twin, says.

“Super,” Krissy adds with a toothy smile. “Where have you been, Mom?”

“Out with my friends,” I say vaguely as I begin to disengage myself from their firm grip. “How was school today?”

“Boring,” says Krissy.

“School is always boring to you,” Zeena tells her twin.

“OK, girls. Time to go brush your teeth,” Mrs B calls out to them.

The girls promptly obey and run up the stairs to do as their nanny says. Having the homely granny as their nanny since the girls were born has been a huge blessing for me. She treats them with such love and care as if they are her grandchildren, and the girls absolutely adore her.

“Thank you, Mrs B,” I say to her once the girls are upstairs. “I didn’t know I would stay out this late. My friends always like to take advantage of any opportunity to party and just do the most. If it were up to me, we would have wrapped things up earlier and gone on our separate ways hours ago.”

Mrs B smiles at me and says, “You don’t owe me an explanation, Eunice. You deserve this and more. You are finally getting your life back, and that is something worth celebrating.”

I am deeply touched by her kind words. I walk over to where she is standing, and I hug her. “Thank you, Mrs B. You’re a breath of fresh air.”

“You’re welcome, darling. Let me go and check on the girls before I leave. They’re probably playing at the sink instead of brushing their teeth.”

Some minutes later, Mrs B goes home, while I tuck the girls in for the night. This is by far one of my favorite moments every day.

“Want me to read you a bedtime story?” I ask them.

They both frown. Zeena and Krissy are not identical twins, but their resemblance to each other is uncanny. They’re like two different mini-versions of me.

It was Walter’s idea not to give them matching names like other twins. According to him, the girls deserved to have their individual identities. Well, I believed he was just being petty because none of the girls looked like him, so he robbed me of the satisfaction of naming them what I wanted. 

“What?” I ask my daughters now.

“We are not babies anymore,” Krissy says and rolls her eyes. “We don’t need bedtime stories to fall asleep.”

“Since when?” I ask in surprise. “We read one yesterday, didn’t we?”

“That was yesterday. Now we’re big,” Zeena chimes in confidently.

“Wow…” I laugh. “Why the sudden change?”

“Sarah in our class says big kids don’t need bedtime stories,” Zeena informs me.

“Does Sarah get to decide what happens inside our house?” I ask them. “She won’t know if you two don’t tell her.”

“Yes, but we want to be big girls too,” Krissy says in a whiny voice.

“Oh, I see. Ok then, goodnight to you two,” I say and kiss them on their foreheads. I know how to pick my battles, and tonight isn’t a great night for one.

“Goodnight, Mommy,” they say in response to my greeting.

I stand up to leave their room and as I lift my hand to flip the light switch off, Krissy says, “You can leave the light on.”

“Yes, boss,” I agree and leave them to sleep.

With a sigh of relief, I go to my bedroom to retire for the night. After a warm shower, I dress in my nighty and tie my back-length braids into a knot on top of my head.

I begin my nighttime skincare routine while humming a random tune. I didn’t use to care for stuff like this, but sometime last year, Diana practically initiated me into the skincare cult, and now I’m hooked.

Never mind that some of these beauty products are obscenely expensive, but the results they give are totally worth every single dollar spent on them. They’ve sliced off a few years from my age.

With my skincare regimen done and my skin feeling soft like a baby’s butt, I make my way to my bed to lie down with my phone in my hand.

In the quietness of my room, my mind travels back to my encounter with the handsome strange guy at the restaurant.

Samson Ewing.

Ah, yes. My favorite mystery guy. I’ve waited all evening for this moment. I click on my G****e app to search for his name on the browser. When the search results show up, my jaw goes slack, and my eyes become huge like saucers.

“What the…” I whisper in awe.

Samson ‘Sam’ Ewing is the son of a billionaire, Brandon Ewing, who has owned oil blocks in Texas since the early 80s. He also owns a conglomerate of businesses that deal in consumer goods, with branches across North America, the Caribbean, and a few African countries.

Sam graduated from Ivy League schools in the U.S. and U.K. He has traveled across the world on business and pleasure since his teenage years.

His mother, Marissa Ewing, is a retired lecturer, former dean of the Texas A&M University School of Law, and the former ambassador of the United States to Egypt.

Despite being the only child of wealthy parents, Sam has created his own wealth through various business ventures. He owns three successful nightclubs in Los Angeles, Johannesburg, and Dubai.

Sam also owns a music record label called Samz Music and a chain of high-end men’s boutiques in major cities across the United States, Mexico, Jamaica, Nigeria, and South Africa.

He co-owns several popular restaurants in the country, including the one where I met him today. The guy appears to be raking in billions of cash annually from his numerous businesses.

“This guy is a walking money bag,” I say to myself.

As for his love life, the 30-year-old bachelor has dated the crème de la crème of women, ranging from supermodels to movie stars, reality TV stars, beauty queens, and businesswomen. He is even rumored to have dated the widow of a political bigwig recently.

Sam’s list of exes is endless, and my head is already spinning from reading all their names and titles. Of course, he is every woman’s dream; filthy rich, insanely handsome, and single.

And… he is completely out of my league. I mean, let’s be honest – he is young and rich and moves with society’s upper echelon.

On the other hand, I am a divorced mother of two children, running a small knick-knack store, and four years older than Sam.

We are totally on the opposite ends of the spectrum here. We have absolutely nothing in common. Nothing!

But… I kissed a billionaire today!

The thought pops up in my head like an alarm. I chuckle. If it hadn’t happened to me, I would not have believed it either.

That was by far the wildest thing I have ever experienced in my ordinary life so far, and I think it is going to be my dirty little secret for now. My friends won’t even believe me if I tell them. It’s just too crazy!

“I kissed a billionaire,” I whisper to myself.

With a smile, I drop my phone on the nightstand, turn off the lights, and snuggle into my pillow to sleep. And I begin to dream…

I’m on a yacht, and it’s moving at top speed. I’m panicking and looking for a way to get off the vessel. I’m dressed in white just like a bunch of strangers on the yacht. Unlike me, these people seem relaxed, and they are enjoying the view. They watch the landscape speed by as the vessel continues to zoom across the waters.

“I need to get off this thing!” I say to no one in particular.

I am ignored. It’s as if I hadn’t spoken at all. I turn to leave, and I bump into someone. The red wine the person is holding spills on my white dress and the entire dress turns red.

Suddenly, everyone is looking at me with shock and disgust. Some begin to laugh and point at me, while others shake their heads in disappointment.

I feel embarrassed. I need to get out of here fast. I don’t belong here with these judgmental people.

There’s a flight of stairs ahead of me, so I run towards it. As I hurry down the stairs, I trip on one of the steps and begin to fall. Just before I land at the bottom of the stairs, Sam shows up and catches me.

“Why are you always running?” He asks me with a laugh.

“Let me go,” I say desperately. “My dress is stained.”

“No, it’s not,” he replies calmly. “It’s beautiful. Red suits you, you know.”

I’m flattered by his compliment, but I still feel a strong desire to get off the yacht. For some reason, I don’t feel welcome here. I shouldn’t be here.

“I have to get off this yacht,” I tell Sam. “It’s moving too fast for me.”

“No, it’s not,” he says with a charming smile. “This is how it moves.”

“Well, I’m getting off,” I say stubbornly. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

I try to tug my hand free from his, but he won’t let me go. The more I try to get away from him, the more he holds on to me tightly.

“Please, let me go!” I beg him.

“Stay,” he says longingly. “Stay with me, Eunice.”

I hear a shrill noise above my head, and my eyes snap open. I’m awake, and it’s morning. The alarm on my phone is going extra nuts today.

“Shut up,” I groan and turn off the alarm. I had fallen asleep with my phone beside my pillow.

I roll out of bed, feeling like I didn’t sleep at all. In reality, I’ve been asleep for almost six hours. I yawn and go into the bathroom.

While I relieve myself, I think about the weird dream I’ve just woken up from. What does it mean? Will I meet with Sam again, or was that just my subconscious playing tricks on me?

I don’t know much about dreams or their meanings, but I’m tempted to believe this one might be significant.

Or not, my brain replies cheekily.

I mean, let’s be honest. Where will I run into Sam again in real life? Our previous encounter was a one-in-a-million kind of thing.

Besides, I had spent over an hour Googling the guy and staring at pictures of him. That explains the dream. End of story!

“Get a grip, Eunice,” I tell myself. “You’ve had your fairytale moment in the restaurant with him. Now, it’s time for you to wake up and face reality.”

I have never been a delusional person, and I’m not going to start being that now. Dreams are just that – dreams!

With a whimsical smile on my face, I imagine myself as a granny telling my grandchildren about that one time I nearly had an affair with a billionaire whom I met by chance. That will be the mother of all bedtime stories.

I wonder if Sam even thought about me after he left the restaurant. Or did he write off our encounter as just another random moment with a starstruck fan?

“None of that matters anymore,” I remind myself. “It’s time to get back to real life.”