Red Wine, Red Flags

The Eko Grand Hotel had been dressed like a palace for the night.

Ada stepped out of the car into a storm of flashbulbs. Photographers shouted over the barricade. Mrs. Okafor! Over here! Mr. Okafor, look at your wife! Damian's hand settled at her waist, warm through the green silk, and he bent his head as though whispering something tender.

"Smile," he murmured. "They are counting your teeth."

"I am smiling."

"You look like you are planning a murder."

"Only a small one."

His mouth twitched. To the cameras, it looked like a private joke between a husband and wife in love. Ada hated how well it worked.

Inside, the ballroom glittered with chandeliers and old money. Politicians, oil barons, women in gowns heavy with beads. The Chief held court at the centre like a king receiving tribute, and the moment he saw them, he raised his glass.

"My son! My daughter-in-law! Come, come."

Ada kept her smile in place and walked into the lion's den.

The Chief waited until the room had quieted around him. Then he tapped his glass with a spoon.

"Friends. Tonight we raise money for the children of Lagos. But first, a toast to family." His eyes found Ada's. "My son has brought into our home the daughter of Samuel Bello. A man I knew well. A man who, sadly, could not manage his affairs."

A ripple went through the crowd. Ada's smile did not move.

"But the daughter," the Chief continued, warm as honey, "is clearly wiser than the father. May she help us rebuild what the Bellos so unfortunately lost."

Laughter, polite and uneasy. Glasses rose.

Damian's hand tightened on her waist, a silent apology, or a silent warning. Ada could not tell which.

Do not react, she told herself. Not yet.

* * *

It was Vivian who struck first.

She appeared at Ada's elbow near the buffet, radiant in silver, a glass of red wine in her hand.

"Mrs. Okafor," she said sweetly. "I wanted to say how brave you are to wear green. Most women would not dare."

"Thank you, Vivian."

"It really is a striking shade. Oh!"

The glass tipped.

Cold wine spread across Ada's bodice, dark as blood. Conversation stopped. Dozens of heads turned. Vivian pressed her fingers to her lips with perfect, rehearsed horror.

"I am so sorry! How clumsy of me!"

Ada looked down at the ruined silk. Then she looked up, and smiled, and the smile was not warm.

"Don't apologise," she said softly. "Red suits you, Vivian. It is the colour of everything Adeyemi Textiles owes Okafor Holdings."

Vivian's face went white.

"Three hundred and forty million naira, isn't it? Restructured twice. The second time on terms that were, forgive me, extremely generous." Ada took a napkin from a passing waiter and dabbed her dress with unhurried calm. "It must be so comforting to have a father-in-law-to-be who forgives debts."

Someone gasped. Someone else laughed, quickly smothered.

"You dare—"

"Wine stains," Ada said gently. "Debts show up in audits."

For a moment no one in the room breathed.

Then a jacket settled over Ada's shoulders, still warm, smelling of rain and stone.

"My wife is tired," Damian said, in a tone that was perfectly calm and perfectly lethal. "We will dance."

He did not wait for an answer. He led her to the centre of the floor while the orchestra, with great presence of mind, struck up a waltz.

"Where," he said into her ear, as his hand found the small of her back, "did you learn to do that?"

"Forensic accounting."

"It is a terrifying discipline."

"You have no idea."

They turned. The chandeliers wheeled overhead. His hand was steady and certain, and his other hand held hers as though it were something that might break. The ballroom blurred. For the length of one slow turn, Ada forgot to hate him.

She remembered at once, and stiffened.

"Do not," Damian said quietly.

"Do not what?"

"Remember. Just for the length of one song."

She had no answer for that.

* * *

In the car afterwards, silence stretched thick as a held breath.

Damian leaned his head against the seat and closed his eyes. Ada watched the city slide past and turned the question over in her mind until it had sharp edges.

"You were at my father's office," she said. "The night he died."

His eyes opened.

She had expected him to deny it. To argue, to ask who had told her.

"Yes," Damian said.

The word landed like a stone in still water.

"Why?"

"Not tonight."

"That is not an answer."

"I know." He turned his head and looked at her, and in the passing light his face was bare and exhausted. "I will tell you everything. All of it. But not tonight, and not here, and not before I know you are safe."

"Safe from what?"

"A month," Damian said. "Give me one month."

"Why should I?"

"Because I have reason to believe that someone is listening." He said it almost gently. "Because some of what I say to you is being heard by people I do not trust."

Ada stared at him.

"Trust me for thirty days, Ada. After that, hate me if you want to."

"And if I can't wait thirty days?"

He hesitated. When he spoke again, his voice was rough.

"You were right not to trust me. I am not a good man. But hear this, and believe what you like." His eyes held hers. "I did not kill your father."

The car turned into the gate of the Okafor residence, and the iron closed behind them like a mouth.