Tobi looked at Nkiru, then back at the chairman. His expression changed, not from confusion to understanding but from shame to the recognition that another hidden fact was about to become public. Folarin said Tobi had returned to Akinwale Group after Abuja partly because Korede was there, attending company family events and sometimes spending afternoons near Temi's office. Tobi had assured everyone he was seeking work, and that was true, but he also wanted to remain close enough to see the boy occasionally. Folarin had known this and had allowed the arrangement because it seemed safer than asking difficult questions.
When the chairman left, Nkiru asked Tobi whether he had accepted the job because of Korede. He said he had needed income and that Temi's recommendation opened a door he could not afford to refuse. Then he admitted there was another reason: he had never fully believed the negative report, and proximity to the company allowed him to see the boy occasionally from a distance. He described birthday gatherings and holiday events where Korede ran between adults who called him Deji's son. Nkiru remembered buying Tobi a blue tie to celebrate the job and felt as though she had walked joyfully into a room where everyone else knew a hidden meaning.
"We had nothing then," she said. "I prayed over your first day."
"I know."
"I thought my husband was building our future. You were also positioning yourself near a child you suspected might be yours."
"I never approached him. I kept my distance."
"That is your defense? That I should be grateful you only watched a child from across the room and kept the reason from me?"
Tobi had no answer that would satisfy either of them. He told her he had been frightened of losing their marriage, frightened that raising the subject would turn a possibility into a permanent division. Nkiru reminded him that fear had become his explanation for everything: the concealed engagement, the Abuja visit, the job, the payment he signed, and the years he let her believe the company's accusation contained no professional wrongdoing at all. She loved him, and that made the disappointment harder rather than easier. She did not know whether their marriage could survive the truth, but she knew she could not return to living inside his edited version of it.
For several weeks they lived quietly in the same flat and made deliberate room for separate decisions. Tobi continued counseling and began seeking advice about the legal and practical implications of being Korede's biological father without disrupting the boy's existing relationships. Nkiru kept her own appointments with a counselor, someone outside the Akinwale orbit who had no financial interest in whether her marriage stayed intact. They agreed not to make promises simply to avoid an uncomfortable evening. It was a slower process than reconciliation scenes in films, and sometimes it felt crueler because no one could make the consequences disappear after a single apology.
At work, Nkiru was learning how deeply a company's culture could be shaped by decisions made in private offices. Some managers had been told to turn away guests who looked unlikely to spend enough money, though no such rule appeared in official policy. Others routinely scheduled younger staff for impossible hours, confident