She slowly opened the door and entered her apartment only to be consumed by the sweet smell of potato chips, tomato and egg sauce, which caused her mouth to water and her stomach to growl in response. She remembered on one of her dates with Cainan weeks ago she had ordered this when she saw him eating it and it looked pleasing to the eyes and when she got served and finally tasted it, she wondered where it had been all her life, the aroma, the taste and feel…some things were always going to be better than sex. She didn’t need to taste to know the meal was going to be delicious and heavenly and she couldn’t wait.
Then she remembered who was doing the cooking. Cainan and her heart slammed against her chest at the thought of him being in her house. She didn’t remember giving him a key and she didn’t even know she shared one with him in the first place and as much as the thought of him in the kitchen making meals was romantic and somewhat kinky, his presence in her apartment without notice or invitation was creepy.
What did he want though?
He stormed off last week without a single word and didn’t bother to call throughout the week and showing up unannounced and uninvited wasn’t a good way to begin whatever he intended to. Yes, it was different from his usual harmless tactics, but it was still not something she was going to hop on and forget all logical reasoning. There was a lot that needed to be said, questions that needed to be answered before she could feel okay about everything that is happening.
She was still lost in her thoughts when, he walked out of the kitchen in a black long-sleeved shirt and black Jean trousers, wiping his hands with a white napkin. His eyes caught hers as though she was a thief trying to escape and they stayed on her.
His eyes darkened upon seeing the shopping bags in her hands. “I told you not to go.” he reminded her.
Her grip hardened on the bags and she held her head up and rose a brow. “How did you get in?” she ignored his question.
The side of his mouth lifted in a small smirk, “I’ve always had a key to the apartment, Ms Whyte.” he told her and stepped forward, his word and his actions not helping her reasoning at this moment and she trembled on the inside. “I told you not to go.”
“Well, you were gone for a whole week, what was I supposed to do?”
“It doesn’t matter if I was gone for a year you were supposed to stay off Lisa’s path! Like you know I wanted,” he stated, his voice weirdly calm for the words they carried.
He was right, it wasn’t, she didn’t want to argue with him or try to be right, she was so far from right, but she needed clarification, “You never gave a reason why you wanted that, Mr Inferno, she’s your step-sister and she is fond of you from what I heard her say today, so help me understand why you made such a wish.”
He took a bold step forward, “You don’t have to, but you need to understand that they are consequences to doing what I forbid.” That wasn’t the answer to her enquiry, but she wasn’t surprised, she was dealing with Cainan Inferno after all.
She dropped the bags on the centre table, “Why are you here?” She wanted to believe that he was here to mend bridges but she didn’t want to get her hopes up.
“The results came in from the hospital yesterday, it confirmed that you are indeed pregnant. Why didn’t you tell me all this while?” he asked, his brow raised curiously and for the second time, he had ignored her question.
His question was blunt and direct and it got to her and she rubbed her sweaty palms together, thinking of the best answer to it. “I never got the right time.”
His voice although calm was rigid, “We were together for three weeks,” he informed her, discrediting her lame excuse for hiding the truth for so long.
Her eyes flutter and she wiped at her face, “Yes, I know that. Three weeks can be such a long time. But I was afraid you were going to terminate the agreement or relate with me differently or treat me with pity because of it. Still, there is no excuse for leaving you in the dark.”
His eyes darted to her belly hidden away in her clothes and a warm look settled in his eyes, “Because of the delay in releasing the results there are inconsistencies with the dates, so how far along are you, Ms Whyte?”
“Three months, I think,” she replied and slowly leaned her body against the wall for support.
His eyes watched her every move with scrutiny, “And the father, who and where is he?” He asked, stuffing his hands into his pocket.
She knew enquiries into her past life was going to come up one way or another once the truth was out but still, she felt ashamed and her head dropped, “His name is Dennis and he’s back home in Port Harcourt.”
“That’s a little far away, were you running away from him?”
She shook her head, but her words came out as a conflict, “Yes, I found him cheating and I finally found a good reason to leave him and my old life behind for good. I later found out I was pregnant for him and though I thought about going back, I couldn’t. Dennis is a thief, just like I was and I didn’t want that for my child. I didn’t want my baby growing into a man like him or a woman like me, I wanted something better for his life, and so I chose to stay away. I wanted to change to become a better person.”
“And yet you stole from me the first day we met or was that before you found out about your pregnancy?”
Her cheeks heat up and the guilt of her actions weeks ago washed over her, but she struggled no to let them unto the surface, “It was after, it was a week after I came into the city of Lagos, I had no money, no job and I was pregnant and needing medical checkup and I knew no one in this big city, only Anita whom I met once while I was going about for a job then. I did what I did because I had no other choice. I do regret it but if I had to go back in time, I would do it again because it was the only choice I had.”
