All Chapters of SELINE'S FANTASY: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

48 Chapters

What Made Him Guarded

The drive back from Ikoyi was quiet, but it wasn't the same brittle, watchful quiet that had filled the car on the way there. Sweet kept one hand on the wheel and didn't let go of Seline's hand with the other, not even to change gears, managing the two badly enough that she eventually took pity on him and shifted for him herself at the junctions."You didn't have to come today," he said, eyes on the road. "I know it wasn't really your family's history to sit through.""I wanted to be there," she said. "Besides, I think your mother liked having a witness. Some things are easier to say out loud when somebody new is in the room. It gives you permission to finally say them."He was quiet for a moment, and then, almost too casually, he said, "Can I tell you something? Something that has nothing to do with Rachael, or Christiana, or any of it. Something I haven't actually said out loud to anyone in about three years.""Only if you want to."He pulled the car over instead of answering right

A Mother's Call

Sweet dropped Seline home first, insisting on it despite her protests that the bus was perfectly fine, and lingered at the gate a beat too long before finally driving off, like leaving had become physically harder than it used to be. She was still smiling faintly over that, letting herself into the flat, when her phone rang with a name she hadn't expected to see again so soon.Sweet's mother."I got your number from Ayomide's phone this morning, forgive the informality," she said, before Seline could even manage a proper greeting. "I've just come off a call with Christiana. I thought you deserved to hear how it went from me directly, rather than through my son's version of it."

Not For The Cameras

Sweet showed up at the flat two days later without warning, dressed down in a plain t-shirt and jeans instead of the label he usually wore like armor, and refused to tell her where they were going."You could at least give me a hint," Seline said, climbing into the car, glancing sideways at him. "Am I dressed for it or not?""You're perfect," he said, and something about the easy certainty in his voice made her stomach do a small, unhelpful flip. "And no hints. If I tell you, Ronke will somehow find out and turn it into content.""Is that what tonight is? Content?""Tonight

His Father's House

Sweet didn't wait until morning.He drove straight from the beach to his father's house, Seline in the passenger seat beside him though he'd offered, twice, to drop her home first. She'd refused both times. Whatever this conversation was about to become, she wasn't interested in hearing about it secondhand.Chief Akambi was still awake when they arrived, sitting in his study with a glass of something amber untouched at his elbow, reading glasses pushed low on his nose over a stack of papers. He looked up when Sweet appeared in the doorway, and whatever he saw in his son's face made him set the papers down slowly."Ayomide. It's late.""You called Mandy."His father's expression didn't so much as flicker. "I called an old friend to discuss a business matter. I fail to see what requires you showing up at my house at this hour to discuss it.""An old friend," Sweet repeated, "you asked to publicly pretend to be with me. To muddy a story about a real relationship, for a deal.""For this f

Thursday

Thursday arrived faster than either of them wanted it to.Seline spent the morning at Sweet's house going through PA duties that suddenly felt strange to be doing again, given everything that had happened between them since the last time she'd organized his calendar or fielded his calls, but Ronke had insisted the appearance of normalcy mattered more than ever with AKZ signing that afternoon, and Sweet, for once, hadn't argued."You're allowed to still be my PA and also the woman I love, you know," he said, watching her sort through a stack of mail at the kitchen counter with more focus than the task strictly required. "The two things aren't in competition.""Try telling that to Ronke's spreadsheet of appropriate public behaviors.""Ronke's spreadsheet can wait until after Thursday."He came up behind her, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head while she worked, and for a moment it was easy to forget that in three hours he'd be sitting across a boardroom table deciding, in fr

What We Choose

The days after the announcement blurred into something Seline hadn't expected, not chaos, exactly, but a strange new rhythm of being watched that she was still learning to live inside. Strangers recognized her now at the market. A blog had run a piece calling her "refreshingly real," which her mother had printed out and stuck to the fridge like a school report card. Lya had taken to introducing her, unprompted, as "my best friend, the one dating the whole of Nigeria's celebrity blogs at once."Through all of it, Sweet had been steady in a way that surprised her, showing up, staying present, never once making her feel like she was managing his image instead of simply living her life beside him.That Friday, he took her back to his house after a long week of appearances and interviews, and instead of the usual chaos of Marcus's calls and Ronke's schedules, the house was quiet. Empty. He'd given the staff the evening off.

Paid In Full

Monday came dressed in the kind of bright, ordinary sunlight that felt almost disrespectful given what the day actually held. Seline stood in front of the mirror in her room longer than she meant to, smoothing down a blouse she'd chosen carefully, simple, unshowy, nothing that looked like it was trying to prove anything to anyone. She wanted to walk into Christiana's house as exactly who she was, not as Sweet's girlfriend, not as a headline, just as her mother's daughter, finally standing on her own two feet in a room that had spent years deciding her future without her.Her mother was waiting by the door, an envelope clutched in both hands, her knuckles pale from gripping it so tightly."You don't have to come," her mother said, for the third time that morning. "This is my debt to answer for, Seline, not yours.""It stopped being just yours the moment it had a clause with my name written into its future," S

What King Chose Instead

King asked her to meet him somewhere neutral, a small café near the office he'd started interning at three months ago, half his father's insistence, half his own quiet ambition to build something that wasn't just inherited. He was already at a corner table when she arrived, two cups of tea waiting, no coffee this time, because he'd remembered, somewhere along the way, that coffee had never actually been her thing."You look lighter," he said, as she sat down. "Good lighter. Not performing-for-cameras lighter.""I feel lighter." She wrapped her hands around the warm cup. "Your mother amended the contract, King. The alliance clause is gone."Something in his face eased, a tension she hadn't fully registered until she watched it leave him. "I know. She told me last week. I think it was the first time in years I've actually been proud of her instead of just loving her out of ob

The Story They Didn't Approve

The peace didn't last.It started small, a blog Seline had never heard of running a piece with the headline "SWEET'S GIRLFRIEND: THE FULL STORY OF SELINE OKONKWO'S FAMILY DEBT," the details clearly sourced from someone who'd had access to information that should have stayed private. By the time she saw it, it had already been shared thousands of times, the comments a churning mix of sympathy and cruelty in roughly equal measure.Poor girl, using her tragedy to trap a rich man, read one. Gold digger energy but make it "sad backstory," read another, with alarming numbers of likes beneath it.Seline sat frozen at her mother's kitchen table, scrolling with a numbness that felt worse than the anger she knew was coming for her later, once the shock wore off enough to let it through."Turn it off," her mother said gently, reaching for the phone. "Th

In Her Own Words

The two days between the leak and Seline's response felt longer than the six weeks Christiana had originally given her. She barely left her room, scrolling through comment sections she knew she should avoid, watching strangers construct an entire version of her out of half-truths and screenshots of a repayment schedule that had never been meant for public eyes."You need to eat something," her mother said, appearing in the doorway with a plate she'd clearly been trying to deliver for the last hour. "Starving yourself won't make the comments disappear, Seline.""I know." Seline didn't look up from her phone. "I just keep thinking, if I read enough of them, I'll figure out how to make it stop hurting. It's not working."Her mother set the plate down and sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight the way it had when Seline was small and sick and needed someone simply present rather than s

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