Chapter 303 – Beginning with a Daring Encounter

“You didn’t call Derek as you planned to, did you?” Celsie asked, and Sonia shook her head.

“I didn’t. I wanted to do that, but Bryan didn’t want me to. He said we already had the evidence we needed,” Sonia explained and Celsie gave her a nod as they stopped in front of her parent’s bedroom.

Celsie knocked on the door, “You can come in,” her mother called to her, and they opened the door and walked in.

“You wanted to see us?” Celsie asked as she walked over to where her father was, and sat down, while Sonia sat down beside Celsie’s mother.

“Where is Lucas?”

“He is in his bedroom getting his stuff ready. He is hurting so much,” her mother said sadly.

“What can we do to help?” Sonia asked, feeling bad for Lucas.

“I don’t think we can help. He says he wants to be alone,” Celsie’s father explained, although he sounded worried.

“He will be fine eventually,” Celsie said after a while.

“Anyway, we called you both to talk to you about Benne and Bryan,” Celsie’s mother said, and both young ladies sat up on hearing the names of their men.

“Why? Is something wrong?” Celsie asked with a slight frown.

“Not at all. Everything is fine,” her mother rushed to assure her as she turned to her husband.

“Their dad’s birthday is on Monday, and for some reason, he believes that they won’t remember it,” Celsie’s father explained, and both Celsie and Sonia exchanged a look.

“And you want us to remind them?” Sonia surmised.

“Yes. But without directly reminding them. Don’t make it too obvious. Their father feels neglected. So if there is something you both can do to change that before we leave, you should do so. I think you both have a good shot at doing that seeing how much both men seem to love you,” Celsie’s father said, and both Celsie and Sonia smiled at him.

“We could plan a surprise party for him,” Celsie suggested.

“If you’re going to do that, try to get their sister to be present. He misses her,” Celsie’s father suggested.

“You seem to have bonded really well with him,” Celsie observed.

“Yes, we all have. We have made plans of meeting often after we travel back,” Celsie’s mother announced happily, while Sonia paid close attention to Celsie who seemed indifferent about it.

“Alright. Thanks for talking to us about this, we will work out something,” Sonia assured Celsie’s parents.

“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” Celsie asked, and her parents gave her a nod.

“Alright, we will leave you then,” Celsie said as she stood up to leave.

“About the contest with Benne, aren’t you going to give me clues?” Her father asked hopefully.

“Nah, I’m not,” Celsie said with a grin as she left the room with Sonia.

“Is there a reason you don’t want your parents getting too close to Benne’s parents?” Sonia asked curiously as they both walked down the hallway aimlessly.

“I never said I didn’t want them to get close. They can do whatever they want as long as they don’t start planning weddings,” Celsie said, and Sonia raised a brow.

“Is there any particular reason other than the reason you refused to be in a relationship all these years, that you seem to be against the idea of getting married?” Sonia asked curiously.

“…” Before Celsie could respond, Candy’s bedroom door down the hall opened, and she stepped out with Jamal.

Sonia’s eyes widened in surprise when she recognized her, “Candy?” She called, and Candy turned to look at her, wondering who knew her.

“You know her?” Celsie asked curiously, but Sonia was already dragging her along with her.

“Yes.”

“Hi! I didn’t know you were here. You remember me, right?” Sonia asked with a wide smile, and Candace smiled back.

“Of course. Good morning,” Candace greeted.

“Good morning. This is my best friend, Celsie. What are you doing here? Is this your kid?” She asked as she squatted down to say hello to Jamal who was staring at her curiously.

“Hello, big boy! What is your name?” Sonia asked with a playful smile, while Celsie simply watched them.

Jamal looked up at his mother, and when she gave him a nod he looked at Sonia, “Jamal. My name is Jamal.”

“Aw. What a cute name for a cute kid like you. Why don’t we find somewhere to sit and then you can tell me what you’re doing here? What about the other lady? Brandy?” Sonia asked curiously.

“How do you know my mom and aunt Andy?” Jamal asked curiously, and Sonia looked up at Candace who shook her head. The last thing she wanted was for Sonia to tell her son that she had met them at a strippers club.

Celsie observed all that was going on with curiosity. She knew from Benne that Candace was hiding here as a witness, but how did Sonia know her if she didn’t know why she was here? Was this another meeting that had happened coincidentally?

Once Jade woke up from sleep, she sat up on the bed and looked around the bedroom in confusion, trying to figure out where she was since this was neither her apartment nor the hotel suite she had been sharing with Harry for the last couple of days.

Immediately Harry’s name came to mind, her lips rounded in a silent ‘Oh’ when she remembered that she was at Harry’s apartment. Last night they had flown back to Serenopolis so that she could meet with her brothers and their girlfriends, and also talk to Candace about seeing Jero before they take down the cartel.

Jero had pointed out the possibility that he might be killed the moment he shows his face anywhere around the cartel lords, and so he had requested that he see Candace and their son before doing that, since he doubted that even though he survived and was sent to jail, Candace might not want to bring their son to see him in such a hostile environment.

They would have gone directly to Benne’s house, but because they arrived very late, and didn’t want to wake up everyone, they had decided to just crash at Harry’s place and head over to Benne’s place in the morning.

From the rays of sunlight coming in through a crack on the window blind, Jade could tell that it was almost noon already. They had arrived here sometime around four in the morning, and Harry had shown her to the guest bedroom immediately and had asked her to get some rest, before leaving for his bedroom. She had been too tired herself to try to instigate any form of conversation so she had done exactly that. Showered, and went to bed.

Jade got off the bed and walked over to the closet where Harry had dropped her duffel bag while showing her to her room. She took out a decent robe and wore it over her skimpy nightdress before walking out of the bedroom. She was curious to see what his apartment looked like since she had been too tired to look around the place when they arrived.

As she stepped out of the bedroom, she looked down the hallway and counted the doors. There were about four doors on one side of the wall including hers, that had to mean four bedrooms, while the other side of the wall was decorated with different paintings and artworks. And then there were two doors at both ends of the passageway. She suspected that one of them led to the convenience bedroom for visitors, while the other led to the living room.

The source of light on the passageway came from about six single cylinder-shaped chandelier lamps that decorated the roof from one end to the other, giving it a kind of golden hue. And on the floor was a red rug.

She was surprised that she hadn’t taken note of all of this last night. She must have been more exhausted than she had thought to have missed it. The place looked so classy like it was a hotel. Now she could only imagine how he would have felt, leaving this sort of place to come and visit her dump.

Just as she stepped into the living room, she heard the clicking sounds coming from his laptop before she saw him seated at the dining busy with his laptop, dressed in blue flannel pyjamas.

“Did you sleep well?” He asked without raising his head as she approached him.

“Yes, I did. Good morning,” she greeted

“It’s afternoon already. I didn’t want to disturb your sleep,” Harry said as he raised his head to look at her. Thankfully she didn’t look as horrible now as she looked that first day he had seen her at her apartment. She looked well-rested now without dark circles around her eyes, and there was color on her face that had nothing to do with make-up. She looked lovely, especially with her short crop of hair looking sleep tousled.

“Are you sure you didn’t want to disturb my sleep, or you didn’t want to wake me up because you were scared that I would disturb your work?” Jade asked with a teasing smile.

“Both.”

“What are you working on?” Jade asked curiously as she leaned over his shoulder to see what he was doing, making Harry suddenly hold his breath.

“I’m going through the evidence you received to see if it is useful and well organized,” Harry said as calmly as he could muster.

Making Jade’s brow shoot up as she pulled out the seat next to him and sat down, while he turned the laptop to face her.

“Are you doing this because you are a workaholic and can’t stay without work, or are you just curious?”

Harry shook his head as he picked up the empty cup of coffee beside him to refill it, also so that he could catch his breath, “I only did it because you seemed really tired and needed to rest,” Harry said as he walked away, and Jade turned to look at him.

She wanted to say something smart to that, but there was nothing to say, so she returned her attention to the laptop, as she wondered how long he must have been up.

“Do you want coffee?” Harry called out from the kitchen.

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