The Clause

The invitation arrived on thick, cream-coloured paper.

Lunch. Just us girls. V.

Ada should have thrown it away. Instead she found herself, at one o'clock on Thursday, seated across from Vivian Adeyemi at a corner table in the most exclusive restaurant on Victoria Island, watching a waiter pour sparkling water into a crystal glass.

"I want to apologise for the party," Vivian said.

"No, you don't."

"No," Vivian agreed, with a bright, brittle smile. "I don't. But I do want to offer you something better."

She slid a cheque across the tablecloth.

Fifty million naira. Made out to Adanna Bello. The signature at the bottom was not Vivian's. It was a bold, familiar flourish, black as ink.

Emeka Okafor.

"Take it," Vivian said, "and walk away. Today. Before the year is out. It's a very generous offer. More than you will ever be paid by my fiancé."

"Your fiancé is my husband."

"For now."

"The contract says twelve months."

"Yes, the contract." Vivian leaned forward on her elbows. "Has he explained the real reason for it?"

Ada kept her face blank. It cost her everything.

"He needs a wife," Vivian said softly. "Oh, not for love. For inheritance. Old Mr. Okafor, the grandfather, built the trust that controls the family holdings. Fifty-one percent. And the will says the controlling share passes to the eldest grandson on his thirty-fifth birthday, but only if he is married by then. Otherwise it stays with the board. With the Chief."

The restaurant noise fell away.

"Damian's birthday is in eleven months," Vivian said. "Do the arithmetic, darling. Twelve months, from the day you signed. A contract that expires exactly when the trust transfers. You are not a wife. You are a clause."

Clause.

Ada thought of the contract on her kitchen table. Twenty-three clauses. A year. A pen engraved with two letters. A man who had said I need a wife who hates me enough to be honest.

Not a word about a trust.

"Why would you tell me this?" she heard herself ask.

"Because I would rather you leave on your own." Vivian's smile slipped, revealing something raw underneath. "The Chief will not allow the transfer. If you stay, you will be hurt. I am saying this as a courtesy."

"Courtesy."

"Take the money."

Ada picked up the cheque. She held it for a long moment, feeling the weight of the paper, the shape of the signature. Then she folded it neatly in half and put it in her bag.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll keep this."

Vivian blinked. "You'll...?"

"As evidence. A fifty-million-naira payment from the chairman of Okafor Holdings, offered through his protégée, to induce the spouse of his CEO to abandon her marriage." Ada rose. "It is a very interesting document. I am sure my husband's lawyers will agree."

She walked out with her head high and her hands shaking, and she did not breathe properly until she reached the street.

* * *

She found Damian in the library that evening, a glass in his hand and a lamp burning low.

"I know about the trust," she said from the doorway.

He did not turn. For a long time he did not move at all.

"Who told you?"

"Does it matter?"

"No." He set the glass down. "Not really."

"You said it was about appearances."

"It was."

"You said you needed a wife who hated you enough to be honest. You did not say you needed one by a deadline."

"No."

"You used me."

"Yes."

The word cracked across the room. She had expected a denial. A defence. Not that.

"Yes," Damian said again, and now he turned, and his face was stripped of every mask. "I used you. I found a woman who would hate me, who would look at my books, who would dig, and I put her in my house. I told myself it was necessary. I told myself that you would be safer inside than out."

"And the contract?"

"Was the only way I could keep you near me without lying about why."

"You lied by leaving it out."

"Yes."

Ada's eyes burned. She would not cry in front of him. She would not.

"I came to destroy you," she said hoarsely. "You know that."

"I know."

"I signed that contract to bring you down."

"I know that too." A shadow of something almost like a smile. "Ada. We both signed knowing the other was lying. That is the nature of the arrangement."

"Is that supposed to make it better?"

"No." He crossed the room slowly and stopped an arm's length away. His voice dropped. "But I need you to understand that when I sat in my office and told you I wanted a wife, there was a version of the truth that was easy and a version that was true. And I picked the easy one. And I have regretted it every day since."

"Why?"

"Because I did not expect," Damian said, and stopped.

The sentence hung in the dark.

"Did not expect what?"

He shook his head once, a small, rough movement. "Not tonight."

She waited. He said nothing more.

"You keep saying that," Ada whispered. "Not tonight. A month. Thirty days. When does it become now, Damian?"

Before he could answer, a knock rang against the library door. Mrs. Bankole entered, pale, her hand pressed to her chest.

"Master Damian," she said, "the Chief is at the gate. He has come with two police officers, and he is asking for Mrs. Okafor."