Chapter 9
Three months later
Samira couldn’t sleep.
She picked her phone up from beside her on the bed and checked the screen. It was after midnight, and she had to get up early in the morning. It had been ten months of their relationship—really not that long. Definitely not enough time to ask a man to sell the home he once shared with his family because she felt out of place when she was there.
She didn’t know the right thing to say or to do. She wasn’t even in total control of her own feelings or sure she had a right to feel them. Her emotions were varied. Hurt. Disappointment. Even jealousy. And then such guilt at what she felt was her own pettiness considering the loss of both his wife and child. Will he ever love me like he loved Belle?
She winced. It felt heartless to think and even more cruel to ever say.
She thought of him losing his child, and she was ashamed. She couldn’t imagine how that felt. Her father’s life had been taken in an airplane accident many years ago, and Samira missed him still. Cried for him still. Wanting nothing more than him to be there still.
Samira sat on the side of the bed and reached for the martini glass to sip her creamy Orgasm drink. “I have to get out of my own head,” she said with a breath.
She pushed her feet into her bed slippers and reached for her black satin robe to cover the matching black silk slip with fuchsia lace trim. As she tied the long belt of the kimono-style robe, she left her suite and made her way through her expansive apartment to her kitchen, deciding to use the rear halls since she was in her nightclothes. She grabbed the key chain from the drawer nearest the rear door. On it was the key to the back-door lock and a small can of Mace.
She trusted no space completely, no matter the zip code or per capita income.
Holding up the hem of her gown to keep it from dragging against the tiled floor, Samira made her way down the narrow, brightly lit hall to the stairwell. The bottoms of her slippers slapped against the concrete steps as she easily climbed two levels. She reached for the door out to the rear hall of the floor of her mother’s apartment.
“I need to talk to my mother...and have a bowl of strawberry fool,” she said aloud, ready for the delicious Ghanaian dessert of fresh strawberries and wine folded into heavy whipping cream.
She came to a stop in the open doorway. “What?” she softly gasped as she eyed her mother, LuLu, and Alessandra’s longtime chauffeur, Roje, in a heated embrace as they shared a kiss that was obviously loving.
Samira was stunned, and she cringed at watching another man be so familiar with her mother like her father used to be. Her father, with whom she had been very close. “Maman?” she said, unsure of which of her emotions to give priority: anger, sadness or disbelief.
She walked down the hall as they shared a look before both turned to her. She shook her head as her mother closed her robe to cover the silk and lace gown she wore. She frowned at the comforting hand the man placed on her back.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I didn’t want it to come out like this.”
LuLu glanced up at him with a soft smile. “It’s okay, my love. It was time for the truth to be revealed,” she said before resting her concerned eyes back on her daughter.
“My love?” Samira squawked. “The truth? What truth?”
Roje pressed a small kiss to LuLu’s temple. “Call me,” he said, before giving Samira a nod and walking past her to eat up the distance of the hall and reach the door to the stairwell.
Samira turned to watch his exit before whirling back to face her mother, but her door, still ajar, was empty. She rushed inside, closing the door behind her as she watched her mother move about the large kitchen preparing coffee. “I thought Daddy was the great love of your life?” she asked, coming to stand by the island.
LuLu lowered her hands to the white marble countertop as she stiffened. “Never question my love for your father,” she said.
“That’s hard to do with a man sneaking out the back door of your apartment in the middle of the night,” Samira returned, coming to stand by the marble island.
LuLu turned. “Not just any man, ma poupée de chocolat,” she said. “We have been together for nearly a year—”
Samira recoiled.
“We are in love,” LuLu continued.
Samira turned from her.
“And we are getting married.”
With that, she whirled around with her eyes wide. “You have got to be kidding!” she spat.
LuLu held up her hand and gave her daughter a steely-eyed stare. “Respect me. Always,” she said, her tone hard.
Samira laughed bitterly. “Request of me what you demand for yourself, Maman, because falling for the schemes and machinations of a chauffeur doesn’t reek of respectability.”
“Is that who I raised you to be, Samira? Because if so, I am disappointed in myself,” LuLu said, her voice soft.
“That disappoints you?” she said, knowing she was being snide.
Anger and hurt were her fuel, and that was a dangerous combination.
“Follow me,” LuLu said, leaving the kitchen with the hem of her silk robe rising a bit from the floors.
With reluctance, Samira followed her mother through her five-thousand-square-foot postwar apartment. They came to a stop before her wall of original Ghanaian artwork and artifacts. The streetlights glowed and cast a bluish light through the French doors of the adjoining terrace.
“Assois-toi!” LuLu demanded.
Samira obeyed her mother’s command and sat down on the low-slung gold leather couch, but her emotions stood firm.
“Did you know I was a painter?” LuLu asked as she stood there eyeing each piece of artwork. “From the time I was a toddler, I loved to paint, and my parents encouraged me in any way that they could. All through school. Lessons with notable artists. I graduated from the National School of Fine Arts in Paris. My second year there, I even had one of my paintings in a collection at a gallery. I was considered gifted. More so, I simply loved my art, and the time I spent in Paris attending school was a highlight.”
Samira looked on as her mother lightly touched the frame of a realistic painting of a young girl crying. “No, I didn’t know that,” she said. “Why don’t I know that?”
LuLu looked back at her over her shoulder. “Because I became devoted to being a wife and a mother,” she said simply. “And no one cared about my life before then. Not even me.”
It was hard to deny the sadness in her mother’s voice.
“Maman—”
LuLu shook her head as she turned back to the wall. “I am a good mother. I was a good wife,” she said, reaching again to stroke the painting. “For the first time in a really long time, I am putting myself first. I’m choosing me. I’m choosing to be happy.”
Samira looked away from her mother. “Can’t you just paint something?” she asked, knowing she sounded childish and petulant.
LuLu threw her hands up in exasperation.
“No. Nope. Nah,” Samira said, rising to her feet and walking away.
“Samira!” LuLu called behind her.
She stopped in the hall, dimly lit by sconces. “No, Maman,” she said, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. This marriage will not happen.”
“You’re being a hypocrite, Samira,” LuLu said, calmly sitting on the sofa her daughter had vacated.
“How?” she asked, feeling perturbed.
“Lance.”
Samira looked down at the polished floors as she allowed her body to lean back against the wall.
“So he deserves to fall in love again after losing his spouse?” LuLu asked. “But I don’t?”
Damn.
“It’s not the same,” she insisted.
“Different rules for your mother than your lover, huh?”
Samira pushed off the wall and
thought of her own fears about her Lance and just how deeply both his love and his grief for Belle ran. She sat down on the floor at her mother’s feet. “This is about more than love,” Samira said, closing her eyes at the feel of her mother raking her fingers through her hair like when she was young. “Roje is a chauffeur. What are you going to do—take him to charity events after he gets off duty driving Alessandra? Or let me guess, he’ll quit working, right?”
LuLu’s hand disappeared. “You got those instincts you love so much from me, you know?” she said.
She bent her legs and rested the side of her face atop her knees.
“Roje and I are not clueless to the differences in our stations in life, Samira. He wants nothing from me or any of you. We have agreed that any wealth or items your father left to me will go to you and your brothers upon my passing. Even this apartment, Samira. I am not foolish. He is not an opportunist.”
Hearing that freed some of the tensions from her neck and shoulders.
“But if I had to leave this all behind,” she said, waving her hand around the elaborate multimillion-dollar apartment, “then I would at this point to be with him.”
“Un cuore felice è meglio di una borsa piena,” Samira said, thinking of her driver in Milan, Luca.
A happy heart is better than a full purse.
“Assolutamente,” LuLu sighed in Italian, absolutely agreeing.
“But will you move?” she asked her mother.
LuLu tsked. “Of course not. I love my apartment. I’ve been here since a little after your father passed,” she said with a dismissive wave.
Samira smiled at that.
The hand returned. “I loved my husband, and for a long time, I wondered if I ever would be happy without him,” LuLu said. “I am happy again, Samira. Roje makes me happy. He loves me, and I love him.”
Samira closed her eyes, lost somewhere between her anger at her mother and wanting to know more about this new phase in her life, because the parallels between her mother and Lance could not be denied.
“Will you forget Daddy?” she asked, her voice soft as she remembered her closeness with her father. No one denied that his lone daughter had been his favorite.
“Never,” LuLu said emphatically.
“Is Roje just to replace him?” she asked, speaking to her own fears again.
“That would be impossible, ma poupée de chocolat,” she said with softness. “For me...or for Lance.”
Samira said a silent prayer that her mother was right.
* * *
The next day LuLu eyed her family as they sat in the family room of Alessandra and Alek’s mansion. She was nervous. The night before, when Samira had happened upon the truth of her relationship with Roje, it had not gone well. Her sons might take the news twice as badly. Nevertheless, the time had come to be honest with them, because she had not hesitated when Roje proposed to her as they made love over a week ago.
A year after the tragic death of her husband, Roje had happened upon her during a moment of gloom and had made it his business to cheer her up. Long into the night, they’d talked and laughed. And when they shared that first hesitant kiss, her surprise had quickly faded into the desire she felt for him the entire night. For a little while, she forgot her grief and got lost in the most intense passion.
“That night I left a piece of my heart with you that I will never get back, LuLu.” She smiled, remembering him telling her at ADG’s golden jubilee celebration, four years after their one night together.
“So did I, Roje.”
Her admission had been the truth. LuLu had never forgotten his compassion or his passion that night. She had wanted more of both but denied herself and him because of her obligations to her children, to the dynasty her husband helped to create, to her marriage of more than twenty years, to class and her age.
But Roje never gave up on them. Never.
She touched her fingertips to her lips at the memory of him kissing her with passion in the rear garden of Alek and Alessandra’s home. It had taken all her might to deny her feelings and run away. But then one day she’d stopped running and turned to him. Enjoyed him. Loved him.
And still, he’d pushed for more than stolen moments.
“As long as we pretend we’re not in love, right? Like we’re near strangers and not lovers, LuLu?”
Nearly two years ago, she’d known she wanted him as not just her lover but also her family. She had felt so conflicted as she stood near him in the private waiting room of the hospital as the entire family awaited news of Marisa’s emergency caesarean. Their hands had briefly touched and their eyes locked as he handed out the coffee he brought for everyone. All of the love they felt for one another passed between them without a word spoken, and she had wanted nothing more than to feel his strong arms around her and to have him hold her close to ease her fears.
Enough was enough.
It’s time to claim my happy.
“What’s going on?” Alek asked, the last to enter the room and claim his seat on the sofa beside his wife.
LuLu eyed her sons and their wives before resting her gaze on Samira. She felt foolish seeking understanding from her. It was clear from her closed expression that her daughter had none to offer.
“I have some wonderful news,” she began, rubbing her hands together where she stood before the unlit fireplace.
“What is it, Maman?” Naim asked, his eyes just as warm and charming as ever.
And so LuLu began to tell her children and their spouses of her sadness and grief after their father’s death. But as she began to tell them of her newfound love and happiness, she had to stiffen her back and notch her chin just before she revealed that it was Roje.
LuLu winced as her sons both hit the roof.
She calmly answered every one of the same questions Samira asked the night before.
“Why are you so quiet?” Alek barked at Samira.
“I had my conniption last night,” she replied smoothly.
“Last night!” both men roared.
LuLu rolled her eyes.
“Besides, Maman pointed out that I’m currently in love with a widower, making my argument against this union hypocritical,” Samira said, crossing her legs and holding up her hands. “Y’all have to troubleshoot this.”
LuLu did not miss the look Marisa and Alessandra shared before both began to manage their husbands.
Thank God.
“Wait,” Alek said, holding up his hand to stop the melee as he eyed his wife. “The night Naim saw Roje leaving my mother’s apartment last year, you said you sent him there to pick up papers.”
Alessandra looked uneasy.
Both Alek and Naim threw their hands up in the air and swore.
“I did not lie. I was managing a truth that was not mine to tell,” Alessandra said.
The melee resumed.
LuLu looked beyond her family, to where Roje stood in the doorway quietly watching them, distinguished in his work uniform of black suit with a black open-necked shirt. He was tall and strong, bald and handsome, and made all the more charming by his silver goatee and dark brown complexion. Looking at him gave her peace as she smiled at him with all the love she had for him in her eyes.
“Maman, why are you tickled?” Naim asked.
They all swung their heads to follow her line of vision resting on Roje.
He came into the room and cleared his throat as he stood by her side. “I understand your difficulties in being comfortable with our relationship, but I believe—and I’m sure you do as well—that the majority of your conversation can be had outside the company of your mother,” he said, giving each man a stare that matched their own. “We will leave you to it, and when we are all ready to have this discussion with nothing but respect for each other, we will rejoin you.”
LuLu eyed her children and their express
ions of surprise and some annoyance.
The roles had just changed. This was an employee—a well-paid one—who had just claimed his role as the future husband to their mother. He placed a hand to her lower back and guided her out of the room ahead of him.
LuLu loved it. One of the things she adored about him was his strength and insight. He was the epitome of class and grace—even under fire. And she was going to spend the rest of her life loving him for who he was without concerns for who he was not.
* * *
Samira drove her Benz through the streets of Passion Grove from the Ansah-Dalmount estate to Lance’s property. It was early October, and the signs of fall and Halloween decor were on full display—cornucopias and jack-o’-lanterns on steroids.
Soon fall would transition into winter—the season when she and Lance had begun. “A year,” she said, turning her vehicle onto the drive leading to the expansive log cabin–styled mansion.
Time was flying.
As she parked in the courtyard, she stayed in the car and looked out the driver’s side window at the residence, taking note that it looked just as lacking in love and life as it had when she first saw his home. She couldn’t help but wonder if her effect on his life was as minimal as her attempts to have him liven up his home. Open the windows. Draw the curtains. Buy live plants. Add color.
Stop mourning.
One of the front double doors opened, and Lance filled the entry.
Smiling at him, she climbed from the car and dug her leather-gloved hands into the pockets of her full-length multicolored tweed coat gathered at the waist with a matching belt. She wore it with vintage jeans and heels. The wind whipped her hair around her face as she took long strides to jog up the steps and reach him.
“I made some hot chocolate,” he said, bending to kiss her mouth.
She pressed a hand to the side of his face and deepened the kiss with a moan of satisfaction.
“That bad?” Lance asked, closing the door once she stepped into the foyer.
She had already filled him in on her discovery of her mother’s relationship last night and the family meeting LuLu had called for that evening after work.
Christmas with the Billionaire ; A Tiara for Christmas Page 13