𝐀 L͟e͟s͟s͟o͟n͟ 𝐈𝐧 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞

Thirty Two

A few days later.

To say Tiana was happy to see her father was an understatement and to say it was a total surprise was definitely true. She had not expected either him or June to be here at the Gym's conference hall that she was using to stage her VIP gym wear collection debut.

Most of the years since her departure from their family home had constituted them communicating via the phone but after a time it seemed strained and bothersome and rather scripted to converse so eventually they had ended up corresponding on special occasions or on specific events that warranted it.

It was sad to know that like her mother her relationship with her father had boiled down to cards filled with words scribbled that barely reflected how they feel.

Some of those very cards had been invitations to events she had hosted over the years but never has it warranted her parents being in attendance until now.

She smiled as my eyes caught her father standing in the crowd of patrons that currently milled about now that the major event was over. The people round and about included journalists, rivals as well as supportive gym owners mixed with friends and their family members that came to the debut of the new gym wear collection.

Her smile however faltered as her eyes rested on her mother standing beside him looking like a black Nubian queen in a gold metallic ankle-length alter top belted cocktail dress. Her thick black hair texturized to form a well-configured bob about her angular jawline as her ears, neck, wrists and fingers sparkled with BvLgari Serpentine.

In years to come, Tiana thought to herself, I will be the replica of the woman who I hate to love but crave with all my heart to love, because as much as you could tell I was my father's daughter I was fashioned in June's image.

"Where the hell was Kessa?" She muttered to herself as something old and replenishment of things she had to lay buried tried to surface.

She wanted her here with her. She could not bear to face her mother or the man she shaped her father into. It scared her to think that the bitter broken girl she had set free so that she could love Kessa the way she deserved would sully back to the surface and take hold of her.

The days leading up to tonight had been the happiest of her life in a long time. She had worked hand in hand with Kessa and surprisingly Tim who was by Tyra's side every chance he got.

Tyra was a vital part of tonight turning out to be the success it was like she did at TWest Fitness Apparels. She had unconstitutionally incorporated the four of them into a team and thus enabling borders to be expanded as boundaries that were callously and inconsiderable created to be ripped down and in the end, an unlikely little band was formed.

Her eyes searched for Tyra and Tim and saw that they too were nowhere to be found. No doubt they probably fucking down the nearest office they could find. Now that he was not scheduled sessions that were back to back or too rigorous he has to put in his all to endure as she had given him a practical and more reasonable schedule to work they went about it like rabbits or pretty much the way she and Kessa did.

Yes, being in love was glorious and fulfilling so who was she to bash Tim and Tyra? She smiled to herself and tried to muster up the courage to face her parents.

However, as she made it from the group of people who had stopped to compliment and congratulated her on tonight's success she saw the lights cut and the room filled with temporary darkness. Murmurs filled the expanse before a trolley with a massive cake in its centre and bordered by starlights came wheeling in.

"For she's a jolly good fellow, she's a jolly good fellow..."

Tiana listened as the crowd joined in and the three persons that she had come in the past days to admire, care about and love deeply emerge from behind the cake grinning with delight as they looked at her standing there surprised.