31 - WELCOME
Their ride was a silent one. There was no music to keep them lit with some fun, and Grey wasn’t ready to start a conversation. He was rather too busy with his phone, while his driver on the other hand was busy with the wheel.
Lola reached out for Grey’s hand but they weren’t on the seat where she could touch them and at least feel their warmth and how soft are strong they were.
She inhaled and looked at him. She doesn’t feel engaged, and neither does she feel Grey has become not just her boss again but her man.
“I have a question, sir,” she drew his attention with her curious word. “What in heaven’s sake is the problem with Mary?”
His eyes met his but he chose to be silent. He isn’t such a man of words. Lola knew him to count his teeth before he uttered a word unless he was so excited.
“Why is she full of hate and class?”
Grey’s face broke into a weak smile, the one that preached nothing far from distress. He wouldn’t put a hand in his ass and speak silly of Mary.
“I believe your rules according to the contract you made me sign don’t forbid us to have word with each other,” she added.
There was a brief minute of silence before a reaction came.
Grey nodded his head and placed a finger to his lips, then, his whispers came as he leaned into her shoulder. “Don’t speak loud, Lola, we agreed not to make it public that we’ll have a contract marriage.”
His jaw pointed towards the driver who was busy with the wheel.
“He is human, very much alive, and another tongue to go tell the world we have shit in our seat,” he tapped her shoulder and focused once again on his phone.
Their convoy of three cars pulled into a big compound of a big mansion at the edge of the city where there were other mansions of its kind. The gates seemed to have been informed that the convoy was en route to the compound. They were opened when they got to them.
“Welcome to the family house of the Greys,” said Grey.
The cars stopped by a great pool in the compound and a few suited men ran to Grey’s car and opened the doors for him. He alighted with Lola and took her hand in his.
“This is what we should talk of now, not Mary and her malice,” he whispered once again in her ears in a pretense to brush his lips against her neck.
Lola smiled. She had wanted him to do just what he pretended to do, but all she heard were words. She swallowed her dearest desire to have him treat her like his woman. It wouldn’t ever be. She had signed his contract.
“Is this where you live?” she asked.
He smiled. She had been his personal assistant for a while but her services only ended in the office, and sometimes, she went with him to certain official occasions that required her services, but she had never been to his home or gone with him anywhere he considered private.
“Sort of,” he said.
A lady, followed by three men in suits and four maids walked down to them from the mansion.
“Welcome, Tobi,” said the lady, “I see you brought home a bride.”
The lady was attired in a beautiful dress, unlike the men and the maids whose dresses were the regular daily uniforms for people in such services as theirs.
“As you can see, Peniel,” Grey took the lady’s hand and kissed it. “You look well in that pretty cloth of yours, Peniel.”
The lady smiled. Lola had not seen such, except in movies where some rich family in the countryside, or historic settings practice the little culture of grabbing a lady’s hand and kissing it to show a kind of respect.
“Hello, dear,” the lady reached out for Lola, “may I know your beautiful name.”
“Lola Kane,” Lola replied with a warm smile.
“Such a beautiful name is worth your beauty,” the lady, Peniel said. “Come on, let’s go see the mother of the house, and mind you, from here, you’ve become mine to care for.”
She took Lola’s hand and strolled away while Grey followed gently, alongside the guards and the maids who came with the lady.
The door to the mansion was opened. It looked just like an imperial building in Chinese movies; like the castles one can see in books written by the best writers of all times.
“Welcome to the Grey mansion,” said the lady, “the place of luxury.”
Lola smiled at what was before her. Grey was rich, she knew, but he never appeared so rich. It looked like royalty, like the palace of the English Loyalty which was built with the gold snatched from the former colonies.
“I’m pleased,” Lola said.
“Come with me,” the lady took her hand and led her into a room with massive bookshelves at the four corners of it. she shut the door and led her to the window.
“I don’t want Tobi to hear us, that’s why I brought you here,” Peniel said. “My brother was heartbroken by the woman he loved so much. He even founded a business empire far different from our family’s business empire with her, yet, she broke his heart.”
Lola narrowed her eyes. it was odd to hear of such at this moment, not from Grey’s lips but from that of the lady whom, from her words, Lola knew was his sister.
“We don’t have issues with your background, though Mother would like to know everything about you, but trust me, no one will ever take odd chances with Tobi and go away with it like the other lady,” Peniel was mean to the bones.
“So, tell me, do you love my brother, or would you be like the other lady?”
Lola smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder. Peniel is beautiful, and she has Grey’s kind of eyes, but the feminine version of it. but she lacked something, Grey’s strong aura, the sort that could make anyone pee in their pants.