CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The call

The phone was still ringing on the marble floor.

Unknown number. The same number that sent the naked picture. The same number that sent the second picture of us in the living room.

Vanessa was calling Amara directly.

Twenty-three staff were still locked in the living room. One Tecno phone on the floor had no owner. The owner refused to claim it. That phone took the live picture of us one hour ago and sent it to press outside. That person was still inside this house.

Jidenna looked at Amara. Amara's hands were shaking, but her eyes were sharp. That genius eyes that made Jidenna hire her as contract wife in the first place.

"Answer it," Jidenna whispered. "Put it on speaker."

Amara knelt and picked her phone. Her voice was cold. "Hello."

A soft laugh came from the other side. A laugh Amara knew. Everyone in Lagos social circle knew that laugh.

"Amara. The contract wife. How are you enjoying my house? My man?"

Vanessa.

Jidenna's first love. Sophia's best friend before Sophia died. The woman who was supposed to marry Jidenna five years ago.

Amara clenched her fist. "Vanessa, where are you?"

"Outside your gate, darling. In my white Range Rover. Watching your beautiful marriage crash. Just like you watched me crash when you signed that contract to replace Sophia."

Jidenna grabbed the phone. "Vanessa, what do you want? Why did you do this?"

Vanessa laughed again, but this time it was shaky, like she was crying. "Why? You ask me why, Jidenna? You left me for Sophia. Sophia was my best friend! You promised me marriage, then you married my best friend because she was..., she paused ,Then Sophia died, and I thought you would come back to me. I waited two years! You mourned her for two years! And then you brought this... this small girl from nowhere, this Amara, with a contract! A contract wife! You didn't even give me a chance!"

Amara's chest rose. She remembered Sophia's diary. Sophia had written that Vanessa was obsessed with Jidenna since university.

"So you paid my cousin Emeka to put a camera in my bedroom?" Amara said, her genius brain working fast. "You paid him five hundred thousand naira to destroy me?"

"Five hundred thousand? Oh darling, I paid him one million. He is a fool who lost one point two million of your mother's pension... sorry, not your mother... I mean his own mother's pension in Bet9ja. He needed money. I gave him a job. Put a tiny camera. Get me a picture. I will make sure Amara leaves. And Jidenna will finally see me."

The detective was recording everything. He signaled to David through the radio. "White Range Rover outside gate. Woman inside. Don't let her leave. But don't touch her yet."

Vanessa continued, her voice getting angrier. "Do you know what they are calling you outside, Amara? They are calling you the gold digger who seduced a grieving widower. Your naked picture is on ten blogs now. Even if they blur it, every man in Lagos has seen your body. How will Jidenna's mother accept you now? How will Jidenna's board accept you? A contract wife with a leaked tape?"

Jidenna was shaking with rage. "You sent my late wife's best friend to do this? Vanessa, Sophia would be ashamed of you."

At the mention of Sophia, Vanessa screamed. "Don't mention Sophia! Don't you dare mention her! Sophia stole you from me! She knew I loved you since 100 level, but she got pregnant for you deliberately! She trapped you!"

Amara froze. That was new information.

Sophia got pregnant deliberately?

Vanessa was crying loudly now on the phone. "Sophia told me herself