42

I stood to my feet and wondered what he was doing there. He looked up and met my gaze and like me, he appeared to be surprised to see me. “ I will call you later.” He dismissed whoever was at the other end of the phone and frowned at me. “What are you doing here?”

Without asking for his permission, I took the seat opposite from him. I took notice of his unironed shirt and wondered if he was a lot more affected by the break than I was conscious of.

“Thank God I ran into you here, I know we had to talk about our relationship in the flesh and it was honestly rude of me to have broken up with you over the phone but I swear I was going to let you know all about it in person in fact, I was going to come by your place after work today, oh goodness, I know how unbelievable this sounds but trust me.”

Tom rolled his eyes at me and shook his head. “Of course Nikki, you suddenly bump into me at a restaurant and think it makes sense to cover it up, of course.”

“You don’t believe me.” I muttered under my breath. “I’m honestly not going to stress over it, I tell you. Look, you didn’t anything to me that could have warranted having to break up and that makes me feel like a terrible person.”



“But you are a terrible person.” He deepened his frown at me.

“And I’m not even going to argue with you. I just want us to part ways without holding on to a guilty heart.” I sighed.

“You are the only one with a guilty heart.” He clarified.

“Oh please, I know.” I nodded in agreement. “This is just the right thing to do.”

“You think?” He chuckled sarcastically. “Nikki, you let your feelings run wild while you were in a relationship, you probably think what you feel is love, but trust me, it isn’t. That is how the cycle begins. You will find someone else you will ‘fall in love’ with and drift to them and keep it going.”

“Stop getting so bumped, nothing of that sort is going to happen. We weren’t even three months into this relationship, why are you making it seem like such a big deal?” I knew he had a solid point but if I didn’t speak so confidently, I would breakdown in front of him and that would be so embarrassing because his discussion about the cycle made me more anxious than should be normal.”

“Of course, look, just have a nice life. I’m glad to know that all we had meant nothing to you.” He stood up, making moves to leave. “Right, you are the intruder here, you should leave.” He pointed in the direction of the door and I stood up as well.

“This is a restaurant and anyone can be here when they want to be.” I said, going red at the amount of people that were paying attention at us.

As I wobbled back to my seat, I concluded internally that that was the end between Tom and I. He had made my heart ache with his stupid words and I regretted not staying in my lane and thinking to clear things up. It would have been sensible if he would have stayed home and let me come there. Sitting there, I could feel his eyes piercing through my skin.

What if he was right? What if I was a loose woman that literally fell in love with every single person that came my way?

Just then, Cornelius returned to his seat and I flinched in reaction.

“Why do you seem so startled?” He looked like he was genuinely confused and it made me gasp in reaction.

“What do you mean? W..what are you trying to say? You think I’m in love with you? What are you trying to say? I don’t love you.” I gasped. “Oh my God, have I been acting like I’m in love?” I threw the words at him in fast motion.

Cornelius looked around him in confusion, trying to understand what was going on. “Are you, are you talking to me?”

“I’m sorry.” I shook my head, giving way back into reality. This was a nightmare that I required to escape from as soon as possible.

*

By the time it was closing hours, being the human that I was, I was no longer on the guilt trip, thanks to Cornelius’ assistant. He had decided to take me on a full on mind tour about the occurrences in this organization and thankfully, a list of staff to avoid, if possible, avoid everyone and we had somehow managed to deviate to our regular lives, It turned out there was more to his life than his physical appearance. Strange that I had thought that was all there had to be. He was currently hooked from his lst breakup that he claimed to have refused to get the best of him.

“You really managed to make my first day of work worth it, I tell you.” I said, securing the grip of my handbag around my shoulder. I had texted Chad that I would not be stopping at Tom’s anymore. Cornelius had willingly chosen to follow me to the nearest stop that would take me home and I was honestly grateful for the free company that would distract me from having seen Tom today.

“I do that a lot,” He seemed to be proud of himself and the smile on his face was the confirmation to that claim.

I stopped walking and my smile faded into confusion when I noticed a familiar black vehicle pull up in front of us.

“Chad?” I slurred under my breath, what was he doing?

He confirmed his presence when he came out of the car in a full suit outfit and sleeked brunette hair.

He looked like he was in control of everything just by being here and that was almost hilarious if I was not trying to understand what he was doing at my new work place.

“Do you know this man?” Cornelius asked me.

Not giving me anytime to process what was going on, Chad yanked me closer to him and away from Cornelius’ side, staring at him with a harsh gaze.

“Come on Nikki, we are going home.” Chad said in an authoritative voice and things would have gone along fine if Cornelius hadn’t decided to interfere.

“Oh Nikki, you didn’t tell me you had a driver.” He said.