TERMS AND CONDITIONS

MANDY

I smiled through the rest of the tart.

I smiled through Tiwa squealing “Lare has a girlfriend!” to every guest within a thirty-foot radius. I smiled when Aunt Abike asked how long we’d been together and he said “Long enough,” like that was a number.

I smiled when Chief Imelda Ajayi-Williams shook my hand at the gate and held on one second too long.

“Goodnight, Chimamanda.”

All four syllables, correctly pronounced, in a tone that said she would be learning the rest of me soon.

By eleven, the last car was gone. I walked to mine in the dark with my clipboard, my earpiece and my last nerve.

My car is a 2011 Corolla with a sticky passenger door and a back seat full of centrepieces. It is not built for dramatic exits.

Mr. Ajayi-Williams was leaning against it.

Of course he was. I still didn’t know what to make of him. Trying to stop his sister’s wedding, that I understood. He was, of course, overprotective of her. But trying to get me to aid him in it… And what the fuck was that in there?

“Get off my car.”

“It’s holding me up.”

“It’s barely holding itself up.” I unlocked it. “Move.”

He opened the passenger door instead. Yanked, actually, because it sticks. Then he folded his very expensive body and his very crisp agbada into my very cheap seat, next to a box of glass candles, and shut the door.

I stood there for a full five seconds. I counted.

Then I got in. The alternative was screaming at a CEO in his mother’s driveway, and I still wanted to get paid.

“Girlfriend, what the fuck?” I hissed.

“You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t thank you.”

“You will.”

“You told sixty people I’m dating you. Your mother looked at me like a contract with a typo.”

“She’s going to have you investigated.”

“Great. Wonderful. Love that for me.”

He took out his phone and handed it to me.

“Read.”

It was a background report on Daniel Cole. A man in his thirties who appeared, fully formed, in a business registry three years ago. Like a mushroom after rain. No school. No old addresses. No ex-girlfriends with opinions. Nothing before a registration form with my name right next to his.

Under it, bank statements. Tiwa’s trust. Four transfers in two months, each one neat and small and quiet, into an account number I didn’t recognise.

“Whose account is that?”

“I don’t know yet.” His jaw moved. “I will.”

My stomach turned.

“He never had money,” I said slowly. “When we met, he said he’d left everything behind. A bad family thing. I didn’t push.” I swallowed. “I paid for everything. The office. The foil.”

“I know.”

“How do you know about the foil?”

“I have your letterhead.”

I stared at him. “You investigated me.”

“I investigate everyone.”

“That’s not the flex you think it is.”

He took the phone back. “I think he’s marrying my sister for the Ajayi-Williams money. I think he did a smaller version to you first. And I think you’re the only person in that garden he’s actually afraid of.”

I remembered Daniel’s hand. Flat on the tablecloth. Pressing down.

“So here’s my offer,” he said. “I clear your loan. This week. Up front. You keep planning the wedding, you play my girlfriend in public, and you tell me every word he says to you. And if this wedding dies and anyone comes for your fifty percent, I pay that too.”

I laughed. It came out wrong. “And if I say no?”

“Then you still plan it. You still owe the bank.” He looked out at the dark driveway. “And when it blows up, and it will, the company he hid behind has your name on it first.”

The car went very quiet. Somewhere a caterer dropped a stack of plates and swore.

I thought about Ward C. About Dad, who still thought Daniel would visit. About my landlord’s last note, which had underlined ‘final’ twice. The loan.

And most of all about a hand pressing down on a tablecloth. A hand that had slid a ring onto my finger and disappeared before saying ‘I do’.

He was going to do the same to Tiwa. No, her brother wasn’t going to let him. He had the resources, hell, even a private investigator, so why did he need me? Why was he agreeing to relieve me of my financial issues just by playing his pretend girlfriend?

I don’t trust any of it. I don’t trust him. In fact, I don’t trust any man. Not after Daniel.

“You have a file and a pretty good private investigator, Mr. Ajayi-Williams,” I said. “Why do you need me?”

He turned to face me.

“Yes, I have all these things, but I think he still likes you. Tonight proved my suspicions. So he will try to win you back, I know his type. He will feel intimidated by me dating you and he will abandon all caution to win you back, making him careless. And when he slips, I need you to report everything to me and then there’s the fact that you are the planner.”

He touched my clipboard as if to emphasize.

“You have the schedules. The seating chart. Every tasting. Every fitting. Every rehearsal, for the next few weeks. He’ll be in a room you booked, at a time you chose, in a chair you put there. You literally have keys to every venue he’ll stand in. So yes, I need you, Amanda.”

There was something about the way he said my name. The way you say an important amount in an invoice.

He sounded genuine enough. But I… No. This was a chance to pay off my debts and also know why Daniel disappeared.

“Fine, I agree,” I said, “ but I have conditions. And I want them in writing.”

He didn’t blink. “I assumed.”

I picked up my clipboard and clicked my pen. If I was going to do this, it had to go my way. It had to be itemised.

“One. No kissing. In private, ever. In public only if absolutely necessary, and I decide what necessary means.”

“Agreed.”

“Two. I plan this wedding properly. If it ends up not happening, fine, but it will be beautiful right up until it doesn’t. I have a reputation.”

“Agreed.”

“Three. Your sister doesn’t get hurt more than she has to. She hugged me. Twice.”

Something moved in his face. Small. Gone fast. “That’s the point of all this.”

“Four.” I pointed my pen at him. “No more red notes on my invoices.”

He considered that longer than the kissing.

“Blue?” he offered.

“No notes.”

“Black, then. Small.”

“Mr. Ajayi-Williams.”

“Fine.” He sounded genuinely pained. “No notes.”

“And I’m not calling you Mr. Ajayi-Williams in front of your family. Nobody will buy it.” I tapped the pen against my teeth. “What does everybody call you?”

“Lare. Egbon, at work.”

“Then I’m calling you Dami.”

He looked like I’d spilled something on his agbada. “Nobody calls me Dami.”

“Perfect. Then it’ll sound real.”

He reached into his pocket again. This time it was paper. Folded in thirds. Three pages, stapled.

PERSONAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN OLUWADAMILARE AJAYI-WILLIAMS AND CHIMAMANDA OKORIE.

Clause one: public relationship until the wedding date.

Clause two: full disclosure of all communication with Daniel Cole.

Clause three: full settlement of the First Meridian Bank loan on signature. Settlement of any cancellation f*e if the wedding does not take place.

He even had the loan number.

“You had this ready,” I said.

“Since the tasting.”

I hate being predictable. It’s the only thing I hate more than carnations and Daniel.

I wrote my conditions in the margin in my neatest handwriting and initialled each one, because I’m not an amateur.

He read them. His mouth did something that, on any other man, I would have called a smile.

“The kissing clause is very detailed.”

“I’m very detailed.”

He held out his pen. Black. Heavy. Probably cost more than my car.

I used my own.

Chimamanda Okorie. Full name. The same signature that was on the Ajayi-Williams contract, the one that got me into this.

Funny how one signature can trap you and another can get you out.

He folded the pages into his pocket and reached for the sticky door.

Then he stopped.

“One more thing,” he said, not looking at me.

“What?”

“Daniel isn’t his real name.”