Hidden Currents (Lagos Romance Series) (18 page)

On a busy day
in the streets, a young girl who has recently been transported from her
uneventful life in a poor village, to live a life of forced servitude in Lagos,
witnesses the vicious lynching of an innocent young man, as well as the brutal
and questionable justice that soon follows.

Buy on Amazon
       

Here’s a sample from
ALWAYS
YOURS
- Lagos Romance Series, Book One.

The Beginning

Just thirty minutes, I told myself as I
succumbed to the temptation to doze off in my office. Just thirty tiny minutes.
It had been a long day and I was tired, plus even if I were caught, there was
no one to tell me off. I was my own boss, after all.

There are a few things I love more than the
fact that I am a successful, self-employed young woman who does what she likes
doing, writing. It’s still hard to think of myself as the publisher and
Editor-In-Chief of Living Lagos, a weekly lifestyle magazine that presents the
highlights and highpoints of Lagos life in an entertaining and engaging format.
But I am! I own Living Lagos, or at least I own a part of it. I have an
investor, my close friend Eddie Bakare, but he’s more of a silent partner.

After years of co-editing a campus
newspaper together, I got the idea for Living Lagos during our National Youth
Service year and Eddie bought into it, literally. He invested over seventy per
cent of the capital. (He does have a lot of money. His grandfather was a
well-known politician/public funds looter, who made a lot of money ruining the
country in the seventies. Eddie suffers the ill-gotten wealth very gracefully
and generously.)

We worked very hard in the first year of
running the magazine and by the time service year was over, Living Lagos had
become a hit. In the second year we started an online edition. By then we were
getting very good returns on our initial investments and Eddie was ready to
leave me totally in charge, and take the job in his father’s oil marketing firm
that had been waiting for him all his life.

So here I was, two years after completing
my service year, practically my own boss and boss of four others. We rented
this really tiny office space on Lagos Island from where we pursued stories on
fashion, lifestyle, arts, social events and so on, within Lagos.

It was Friday afternoon, and the latest
edition of Living Lagos had just hit the stands.  After a week of intense
work all I wanted to do was rest. Even the thought of driving to my tiny
apartment, close by in Victoria Island was too much for my exhausted limbs. I
leaned back in my chair and tried to ignore the sounds of Lagos Island coming
from outside my window. I was already well on my way to dreamland when Ada, our
resident photographer cum graphic designer burst into my office.

‘Hey! Wake up Soph!” She practically
shouted, jolting me out of my doze.

I groaned and opened my eyes “What, what,
what?” I said wearily. “Can’t you see I’m trying to work?”

“Yeah right!” She scoffed, impatiently
brushing her braids away from her face and planting her rear on my desk.
“Working with your eyes closed?”

“I’m working on catching up on my sleep,
duh” I said with an unrepentant smile. “I had a meeting with Morpheus.”

She pursed her lips. “You will never
change, Sophie.”

I sniggered. “I hope not.” I replied. It
was comfortable to have Ada around. We had been casual friends in university,
and even though we hadn’t been very close, I’d always liked her a lot. When the
guy I and Eddie hired to do the graphic design had messed up the work, she
stepped in as a favor to me. Now she was an integral part of our organization
and apart from the other gigs she took as a wedding/ event photographer and
portraitist, she seemed to be satisfied with her work at Living Lagos.

“I have some pictures I want you to look
at.” She told me, cutting into my thoughts. She placed a large folder on my
desk. The pictures were neatly grouped into categories. There were the ‘Candid
Nollywood’ pictures, which showed Nollywood stars in various situations around
the city - Stuck in traffic, riding in commercial motorcycles, looking bored on
a public movie set etcetera. There were also the fashion pass and fail
pictures, which included several pictures of socialites and actresses in
varying degrees of embarrassing fashion failures or very well put together
outfits.

Some of them made me laugh out loud as I
looked through, but I made sure to remove some of them from the folder,
ignoring Ada’s disapproving look. I wasn’t interested in being mean, or feeding
other people’s meanness, so I took out pictures that I felt would be too unfair
to publish. Ada was of a different persuasion in that respect, she thought most
pictures deserved to be published. It was the photographer in her.

As I removed one of the last pictures, one
of a young girl I recognized instantly, attending one of the award shows, and
wearing a particularly hideous orange gown, Ada couldn’t help herself.

“Not that one!” She complained. “I think
it’s a really good one.”

I gave her an uncompromising look. “If she were
older than eighteen, maybe I would think about it.” I told her, ignoring the
sulky face she was making. “Besides, she is Eddie’s little cousin.”

That got her quiet, sometimes I imagined
she had a crush on Eddie, she was always quieter and more reserved whenever he
was mentioned or came around.

“Okay, forget the picture.” She said.
“There’s this benefit at the MUSON Centre tonight.”

The Music Society of Nigeria Centre was a very
popular venue for highbrow occasions. One of the good things about working at
Living Lagos was that we always got invites to the best events and nicest
parties.

“And?” I asked.

“We have an invite.” She continued.
“Actually, we have two. There’s a press tag, but that’s mine as I am going to
take the pictures.”  She paused. “So there’s one guest ticket.”

“Get Oliver to go.” I advised. “He can
write something afterwards, or take Fadeke, she needs to cut her teeth on
events like this.”

“I would ask them,” Ada said. “But I think
you would like to go.”

“Moi?” I laughed. “Er… Nope. I am going to
the Galleria to see a movie, get a facial, a foot massage and a pedicure, and
then I am going home to sleep till Monday.”

“It’s a benefit for children with heart disease.”
Ada said.

“Oh!” I said guiltily. “That’s sad.” I
thought for a minute. “I’ll send a check on behalf of all of us.” I told her.

“It is organized by CareLife Foundation.”
She continued, with a challenging expression on her face.

I paused. My heart had just started
hammering like a gong, my mouth was suddenly very dry.

“CareLife.” Ada continued sweetly. “You
know CareLife, don’t you? It is run by Cecilia Fernandez, who used to be
Cecilia Ade-Cole.”

Of course I knew CareLife, and she knew I
did. Why she was torturing me though, I didn’t know. I swallowed, hard. My
heart was beating too fast, much too fast.

“You know her brother just returned from
the states?” Ada continued, trying and not succeeding to keep the smirk from
her voice “What’s that his name again?”

“Michael” I said. It came out as a whisper
“Michael Ade-Cole”

“Yes that one.” She nodded, obviously
pleased with herself. “I heard that he will be there.” She paused and gave me a
mischievous look. “Confirmed.”

“Confirmed?”

“Yes.” She replied.

“You’re evil.” I said, when I could
breathe.

“I know.” She grinned. “So what should I do
about the ticket?” She said innocently. “Should I give it to Oliver or Fadeke?”

I glared at her “Not on your life.”

Michael Ade-Cole! Long after Ada had left
my office, his name kept running through my mind. In a world of Facebook,
Twitter and even email, it would seem really strange that I had not seen or
spoken with Michael in more than five years. We hadn’t spoken since before he
left the country after his National Youth Service. If other people wondered why
we hadn’t communicated at all, I didn’t, because I knew. It was because I was
afraid. I was afraid of how much I still loved him, still wanted him, I was
afraid of how his being in my life would affect me.

I met Michael in my first year at
university, through Eddie Bakare. They were family friends. When we were
introduced, Michael was in his final year and I was the greenest fresher that
ever was. For some reason, He took a great liking to me. Whenever there was
anything happening, like the cool parties he or his friends usually had, he’d
invite Eddie and tell him to bring his “cute friend Sophia”. As for me, in
those first days I was in awe of him, he was really handsome, tall, and slim
with a smile that could do things to a girl’s insides. For a girl straight out
of a girl’s only boarding school, he was like a Mills and Boon hero come to
life.

After a while, Eddie kind of dropped out of
the equation. Michael would pick me up after my classes and take me to lunch,
he knew all the best places to eat and the best places to just hangout. He used
to listen to me talk and talk, in those days I had views on everything and I
was always sure I was right. He would listen and laugh and call me a breath of
fresh air. The first day he came to the girl’s hostel to visit me, my roommates
were all agog. I hadn’t realized before then, how popular he was. It turned out
that everyone either knew him, or knew of him. Rich, handsome, brilliant, funny
and friendly, guys liked him and girls loved him. He was like a campus legend.

I was very innocent at the time. The fact
that his interest in me seemed to be purely platonic made me very comfortable
in my new friendship. It made me less insecure, I doubt that the fledgling confidence
I possessed at the time would have supported a romantic attachment to the most
desired guy in school. But if I was comfortable, his avuncular attitude also
made me aware of my lack of siren power.

I wasn’t too bothered at the time. I really
didn’t want a relationship. Before starting university, I had heard countless
stories about the ‘Jambites Rush’ the annual seduction of Freshers by more
experienced male students. Determined not to be a statistic, I had resolved not
to date anyone in my first year in school.

But sometimes when I thought about the
possibility of going out with Michael, I could feel my resolve weakening. I
daydreamed about him so much it was a wonder that I got anything done that
year.

Once, when I was presenting my views on the
‘Jambite rush’ to him, and making fun of the guys who had tried to ‘rush me’ I
mentioned that I had no intention of going out with anybody for at least my
first two years of school.

“Seriously!” He had exclaimed teasingly.
“So if I were dying for you right now, you would just tell me to get lost?”

Even though my heart had skipped a beat and
was now pounding erratically and my mouth had gone dry and I couldn’t really
arrange the thoughts in my head, all of which seemed to be screaming ‘Yes! Yes!
Yes! Tell me you love me and see what happens!’ I shook my head stubbornly and
gave him a challenging look.

“Really! Sophia!” He had groaned. “You just
broke my heart, so I have to wait for like, two years?”

“Yes.” I replied stubbornly, forcing myself
to laugh as if I wasn’t taking it all seriously.

“Hmm.” He shook his head. “Two years is
really long, I might just have to polish my Casanova skills.” He said laughing
“By the time I give you the smoothest lines ever invented, you won’t even know
when you’ll be dating me by tomorrow.”

No one can understand the kind of elation
that conversation gave me. What I had always seen as impossible now seemed like
a distant possibility at least. Even when we started talking about other
things, hilarious pickup lines and such, my heart kept soaring. Yes! Yes! Yes!
I was going to go out with him!

However, nothing ever came of that
conversation, even though every day I fell more in love with him. Somehow, the
school year passed, our friendship continued, and his graduation came around.
Sometimes it was like a fever, all the time we spent together was like some
sort of sweet torture. I had to pretend all the time, that I wasn’t dying for
him, that it wasn’t all I wanted for him to tell me that he couldn’t wait any
longer and would I please go out with him.

It was hard to convince my friends that we
weren’t dating, everyone thought we were. If only they knew.

By the time his graduation came around, I
was convinced that he really didn’t have feelings for me, that he had only been
teasing me that day, and that we were and would only ever be friends. I had
also heard millions of rumors, a girlfriend he had at home, in another school,
outside the country, etc.

On the day of his convocation, his whole
family came to school, and there was a huge party. I had met his mother before,
but now I also met the rest of the family. They all knew of me, and called me
Michael’s baby. They made such a fuss over me, it felt like I was the one
celebrating something.