Late. Late again. The second day of the week and he was rushing to his office with his laptop bag slung across his left shoulder. It wasn’t right for a man of his status to rush to the 10th floor just because he wanted to get in his seat and settle into work. But if he didn’t, he would be piling more work for himself.
“Good morning, Mr. Makinde.” The executive secretary said as he made his way past her office to the round reception room.
“Good morning.”
He didn’t know if she heard him but was it important? What good was there in saying good morning if one didn’t know the status of your morning? Like his. His father’s words from yesterday had put in him in some kind of mood that refused to leave him. It hovered like an unwanted fly on the edge of his mind.
The round room had six sides with one end connecting to the passageway, past the executive secretary’s office. Inside the round room, there was a glass table at the centre and large red velvety sofas around the table and beside each wall that was patterned by a door on each side. His office door, the second on the left, was left ajar.
A thick frown seized his lips. Good morning indeed, when the cleaner forgot to lock the door.
He marched into the office and shut the door behind him.
“There you are.” Naomi stood by his desk while two people, a fair woman and a man, dressed in an oversize white shirt but well pressed dark brown trousers, stared at him. “We’ve been waiting for over an hour.”
“An hour?” Olumide rose his brow. “I don’t remember scheduling a meeting with you.”
He walked in a straight line to his desk. As he dropped his bag, he noticed the cut-out pictures. One of it lay askew instead of on the neat pile he had made. It had better be the cleaner.
He placed his hand around Naomi’s shoulder and led her away from the desk. Her suspicion that he had something to do with Romola was one thing, the pictures were incriminating enough to engage those suspicions.
“What do you want?” He found his way to this chair behind the L-shaped desk protruding from the large bookshelf wall behind him. His fingers reached for the pictures on his desk. He opened the drawer beside his left and began to stick them in there.
“These are the new interns. I wanted to introduce them.”
“Why didn’t you wait outside?” He raised his head and met her eyes before staring at the interns. If Romola had got this job, she would be the one sitting on dark blue sofa just beside the wall length window currently shadowed by the day blinds. “Can you not stand so close to my table?”
“Every other executive member in the country was available this morning, except you.”
“They can carry on their job without my input.” Olumide jammed the drawer shut, then locked it.
“Anyways, this is Vivian. She’s a graduate of the University of Lagos and this man here,” She turned to the man with the baggy shirt who had a large dark mark across his face and over his lips. “Is Ikechukwu, he was serving in the North but was redeployed because of the situation there.”
“What does any of that have to do with me?” He powered on his laptop.
Naomi’s pink coated lips pressed in a thin frown and she locked her fingers together in front of her white trousers before turning to the interns. “This is Mr. Olumide Joseph Makinde. He is the Chief Operation Officer and he served in our overseas branch for 3 years—”
“4.”
“—with a one-year internship before he was assigned here. So, you see, there are opportunities for you in this company if and only if you are dedicated.”
Olumide nearly rolled his eyes. It was the same speech every time and yet the number of people they employed were lesser each year. It took more than hard work to get his position. His parents’ status and Tomiwa’s influence had a thing or two to do with it.
“Are we done now? Can we get back to work?’” He asked.
“Please, wait for me outside. I’ll be there in a minute.” Naomi waited till the two interns were out of the room. Then she walked to his table. “You didn’t call her?”
“Who”
“The girl who ran away.”
“You mean the naked girl?” Olumide hunched over his system and began to look through the reports he had put off for about a week.
“Her name is Moromola Ibikunle.”
“Are you sure?” He raised his eyes to Naomi’s face. “You’re not related to her, are you?”
Why was she taking it so personal?
Naomi stuck her hand into the side of her pant suit and brought out a photo. It was the picture of Romola on the beach. The picture he had taken the day she pretended to drown. He wished she had drowned instead of him to find the truth. At least the version of Romola that he wanted would still be alive somewhere in his mind.
Naomi slammed the photo on the desk, pinning it to the desk with her sharp cream nails. “You said you didn’t know her.”
“I don’t. I found those photos on the internet. Besides, why are you going through my things? That’s invasion of privacy. I could sue you.”
Naomi’s chest rose with a crossbreed between a laughter and a sigh. “Wake up sir. This is Nigeria. You are also infringing on her privacy by having her private pictures on your desk.”
“I’m just trying to gather more information so that I know the best way I can help her.”
“If you really wanted to help her, you should have called her back for the interview.” Naomi’s faux eyelashes danced up and down at his direction.
Nothing in this world could make him call Romola. All she did was lie, lie, lie and lie. He couldn’t stand it. What compelled someone to lie about themselves. He wasn’t always proud of his family, especially after Muyiwa's death but he wouldn’t lie about the situation. His mother on the other hand — Well, what she did was nothing compared with what Romola did. His mother tried to save the family’s face.
“It’s not like she would come back if I called.”
“You should still have tried. You just never know.” Naomi closed the door behind her.
He took a deep breath. Yes, she was right. He would never know what would have happened if he had reached out to Romola all these weeks. He would also never know what would’ve happened if Yetunde hadn’t found Romola’s mother before that evening of the house warming. It kept him up at night longer than he would like to admit.
He grabbed the picture and unlocked his drawer, adding it to the bulky pile. What was he thinking? Of course, Naomi had seen all the pictures. She was in his office for more than an hour? What if she thought he was obsessed with Romola, the same way his family had claimed? He pushed his chair back and hurried towards the door. Maybe he could catch up with her before she left the executive floor.
He opened his door at the same time that a feminine hand was reaching to it. It was the female intern with the bright blonde hair. Her mouth fell open as she stepped back.
“What is it?”
“I. I—”
“Can’t you speak?”
“The pictures— Romola.”
His brow narrowed. His voice sounded like crocodile skin. “Who? What?”
“I know who posted Romola’s pictures online.”
Olumide eyed her. Had she been eavesdropping on their conversation? He didn’t know? They had been in his office for quite some time but the last thing he needed was some dirty intern mouthing off to the rest of the company that he was having an affair with a common prostitute. Also, what did it matter if he knew who exposed Romola’s secret online? Knowing that would probably just unearth more secrets and he couldn’t deal with it. It wasn’t worth it.
“I do not care about this Romola and,” He pointed at her face, directly at the place where her roughly drawn eyebrows almost met. “If you so much as mention her name again or I get anyone talking about this, I will make your life a living hell in this f**king office.”
YOU ARE READING
Scars (Romola 2)
Romance"Then maybe you should have stayed in schoool. Instead of trying to be an elevated secretary and teaching me my Job." - - - - - Beyond managing Iya Tobi's store and pursing a shadow of an education, Romola's plate is full. It's been two years since...
