Chapter One

Funmi stifled a sneeze, a feat that had become increasingly difficult since she woke up that morning with what she suspected was the flu. But given that she was in public, she had no choice. Sneezing freely could earn her side-eyes and other hostile reactions from people gripped by fear of the pandemic that was ruining everything.

Useless pandemic, she thought in annoyance. Her trip was already heading for an unceremonious end, with many of her goals unachieved. Back in Lagos, rumours were swirling that the government would soon declare a lockdown, banning all international travel and effectively trapping her in London. The thought of being stranded with unfinished business chilled her to the bone.

As soon as the meeting ended, Funmi said her goodbyes to the lawyers and stepped out of the office of the British Prime Minister, where she had just signed a contract to organise an experiential tour of Africa for select cabinet members. Unfortunately, the initial dates were now uncertain. Nobody was willing to commit until the pandemic was over. She sighed inwardly as she entered the elevator to the ground floor, dialling her secretary, Grace, who should have already received her instructions to move her flight up to that afternoon.

If she was being honest, being stranded in London wouldn’t be such a bad idea. It would mean watching the television endlessly, a variety of continental delicacies, some much-needed rest, and maybe even the chance to explore, on the British government’s tab. But that wasn’t her style. Besides, there was nothing to explore in London right now. Everyone had been advised to stay behind closed doors and practice social distancing. And chilling was a foreign concept to Funmi.

Luxurious vacations had never made it to her priority list. All her travels were strictly work-related, and work was what she did best. In 2005, when cybercafés and internet use surged in Nigeria, Yahoo Boys emerged; young men scamming foreigners with outrageous promises of airports, hotels, and farmland in exchange for dollars. It was in that season that the younger Oluwafunmilayo Adeshina saw an opportunity. If scammers could convince foreigners to part with money for fake versions of the African dream, then she could sell them something real.

She was right.

Her baby company, Good Work Experiences, began by selling curated travel adventures to foreigners who craved “Wild Africa”. She took them to villages with mud houses, served food on leaves, and created elaborate shows to fuel their imaginations. The clients loved it, and paid handsomely for it.

Twelve years later, Funmi was still selling Africa to the world, but no longer peddling its most primitive stereotypes. Today, her top clients for food, fabric, animal skin, and curated experiences were in the U.S and the U.K. Her company had become one of the most recognisable Nigerian businesses exporting to the world. Good Work Experiences had catered to elite clientele, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, whose visit to Nigeria had been coordinated by her team.

So it hadn’t been a surprise when she received an invitation from the British government to plan a tour for its cabinet members. The negotiations had gone smoothly. In fact, beyond finalising the deal, she had secretly been looking forward to being introduced to Prince William.

Then the virus happened.

Lord, teach me how to navigate this!

As her taxi pulled out of the government complex, Funmi dialled Grace again. An official driver had been assigned to her throughout her stay, but after overhearing him on a call with his sick wife, who was nursing their three-month-old son, she’d excused him for the day.

Grace picked up after the third ring, her voice flustered with apologies. Funmi listened, detecting the near-panic in her tone, and for a moment, she wondered how often she treated her Lagos staff with the same empathy she had extended to the London driver. The thought barely lasted a second. She might run her business with an iron fist, but her team was well-compensated, with insurance, bonuses, and perks like paid vacations.

She was tough, yes. But she was also fair.

“I couldn’t find any available flight for today, ma. The next open one is tomorrow evening,” Grace said.

“Did you check all the flights?” Funmi asked. Grace knew her preference for Virgin Atlantic’s premium services, but this wasn’t the time to be picky.

“Yes, ma. I checked all flights from Heathrow to Murtala Muhammed,” Grace assured her.

“And there were absolutely no seats?”

“Err…Not really,” Grace hesitated.

Funmi raised an eyebrow. She knew that hesitation. “What do you mean by not really?”

“I found a flight bound for Lagos today, but the only seat available is in economy,” Grace replied.

“Premium economy?”

“No, ma’am. Regular economy.”

Funmi sighed. Her head throbbed on the left side, and she was still sneezing. Today of all days, she craved comfort, but she also needed to get home.

“Should I reserve the one for tomorrow instead?” Grace asked, assuming she already knew the answer. Her mouse was hovering over a first-class ticket for the next day when Funmi’s voice snapped her out of the moment.

“No.”

“If we don’t hurry, we may lose tomorrow’s slot too—”

“Put me on today’s flight. I’m coming home today,” Funmi said firmly.

“The economy?” Grace clarified, still unsure she’d heard right.

“Is there an alternative?” Funmi snapped.

“No, ma.”

“Then do the needful. Send me the ticket details and have a car waiting at the airport when I land.”

“Straight to your house?” Grace asked.

“Straight to the office,” Funmi replied, already highlighting three urgent items on her to-do list.

“Ma?” Grace blinked.

“Did the line break?”

“No, ma.”

Grace went quiet, unsure how to respond. Back at the office, her mouse drifted away from the first-class ticket.

Funmi paused briefly. But the sight of her schedule on the screen made the decision for her.

“Yes. Tell the driver not to waste my time.”

“Okay, ma,” Grace said, defeated.

“Hope everyone worked from home today? I heard things are getting intense, and Sanwo-Olu may announce a lockdown soon.”

“No, ma,” Grace said quietly.

“Why not? Didn’t George implement the Work-from-Home policy we discussed?”

George was the Head of Human Resources at Good Work Experiences. As with most of her executive staff, Funmi stayed out of his way. 

Grace hesitated. How could she explain that no one, including George, had felt empowered to stay home without Funmi’s explicit go-ahead?

She didn’t need to say it. Funmi already knew.

She sighed.

She was a workaholic. That much was true, case in point: she was heading to the office after an international trip, arriving by 11 p.m. But her staff didn’t need to kill themselves just because she did.

Most of them had families. She didn’t. The business was her life, and the house she lived in was a noisy hub for siblings and cousins trying to make it in Lagos. She could never get any real work done at home.

Still, she prided herself on being pragmatic. She understood the dangers of burnout and was quick to offer flexibility when it mattered. And if there was ever a time for that, it was now.

“Once you book my flight, tell George to shut the office down. Everyone should go home and stay indoors. We’ll reopen when the government says it’s safe.”

Grace nearly smiled. “So… you’ll go straight home too, ma?”

“No. I’ll take an Uber to the office. Tell all the drivers to go home.”

“Ubers are still operating, right?”

“Yes, ma. They are. But—”

“But what?”

“How do we know they’re safe?”

“Let me worry about that. Just send a report of what everyone’s been up to while I was away,” Funmi said and ended the call.

She sneezed again, catching the suspicious glance of the taxi driver in the rearview mirror.

“I think I’m coming down with a cold,” she said, irritated that she even had to explain herself.

The driver didn’t reply. He simply slipped on a face mask and sprayed disinfectant into the enclosed car.

Funmi sneezed again.

The driver stepped on the gas and sped toward the hotel.

God forbid. I don’t have COVID. That’s not my portion, Funmi declared inwardly, unwilling to even pray against the possibility.

Bad things didn’t happen to her, unless you counted how unceremoniously the men in her life tended to leave.

That had once been the only thing she seriously prayed about, hoping that having her own man and building her own family would finally give her the privacy, and the excuse, to detach from the relatives who constantly leaned on her.

However, after a string of failed attempts to hold on to one, she had finally concluded: Men were not made for me.

So she gave up that prayer and simply began to ask for divine orchestration.

“Lord, bring good things to me, unplanned, pleasant surprises that make my life better, in Jesus’ name”.

And somehow, God always answered, with coincidences that led to serious success.

‘Maybe I should start praying for good health too’, she thought, sniffing.

Still, she bowed her head slightly and whispered her usual prayer:

“Lord, bring good things to me, unplanned, pleasant surprises that make my life better, in Jesus’ name.”

—————————————————————————————————————-

Heathrow looked like a scene from an apocalypse movie.

The chaos was unreal, thousands of people scrambling for last-minute flights out, doing their best to avoid touching one another. Face masks and latex gloves were the new uniforms, stretched tightly over anxious expressions and sweaty palms. Funmi wore a face mask too, thanks to the thoughtful and generously tipped attendant at the supermarket she’d just left, but she hadn’t thought to bring gloves. Not that she would have found any. Even her preferred brand of sanitary pads had vanished from shelves. The stores were nearly empty, their food and toiletries aisles completely wiped out.

Thank God she always carried a hand sanitiser in her bag. That too had become impossible to find.

Masks. Gloves. Sanitisers. Toilet papers.

They were the new gold.

London had become a shadow of itself. This annoying disease was bringing the mighty city to its knees. Shops were being emptied by panicked citizens, as though a war was raging and a siege had been declared.

After checking in her luggage and clearing immigration, Funmi made her way to one of the VIP lounges. Just as she lowered herself into a seat, her ticket slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor. She sighed under her breath. The last thing she wanted during a global pandemic was to touch the floor of a public airport.

Resigned, she bent to retrieve it, but another hand got there first.

“Thank you,” she muttered, reaching up to collect the slip. Then her eyes rose to the face behind the hand, and froze.

Kayode.

Her surprise was immediate. Her company occasionally hired him to prepare both African and international cuisine for their events, especially when hosting guests from abroad. A respected chef in Lagos, Kayode was also Soji’s younger brother—Soji, her only close male friend from university. She’d met Kayode two years ago, during an alumni gathering where Soji had introduced him as the king of food. The following day, he had sent a sample lunch package to her office. The flavours had left no doubt, he was the real deal.

Soon after, her company signed him on as one of their official caterers, and since then, her staff had handled all interactions. She hadn’t seen him in person again.

“If I knew I was going to run into an angel today, I’d have spent more time in front of the mirror,” Kayode said with a crooked smile.

Funmi returned the smile, amused by the light flirting, but she stayed seated while his tall frame loomed above her.

At over six feet, well-groomed, always neatly dressed, with a kind smile and a keen eye for detail, Kayode was an enigma. She had always assumed he was gay. The combination of his culinary gift and polished demeanor had thrown her off from the start. It bothered her so much after their first meeting that she actually prayed for him. How could such a handsome, masculine man possibly be homosexual? she had wondered.

She couldn’t help thinking, each time she saw him, that he would have made a great husband for some lucky woman. But those were thoughts she refused to indulge. He was her friend’s younger brother. That boundary mattered, even if he wasn’t gay.

They exchanged quick pleasantries, then he was whisked away by a lady toward the lounge’s television screen, where the latest uproar was unfolding. Donald Trump had just referred to COVID-19 as the Chinese disease, and the lounge erupted into a debate. Some guests nodded in agreement with the American president; others shook their heads in disapproval, finding his words offensive and ignorant.

Funmi belonged to neither group.

She just wanted to be in Lagos already.

_________________________________________________________________________

Kayode was only half-listening to whatever Agnes was so determined to gist about. His attention kept drifting, drawn like a magnet to the woman wrapped in a soft shawl across the lounge.

Funmi.

Delicate. Beautiful. Just as elegant as the first night he met her.

He remembered how swiftly he had sent her a meal the next day, hoping to charm his way into her life. She had responded with a polite text thanking him for the food, then offered to schedule a meeting with her company’s hospitality department, if he was interested in joining their list of food vendors.

Of course he was interested. He’d gone for the meeting the very next day.

But his interest had been less about the business and more about the woman who ran it.

Her cold stare gave him chills, but the good kind. The kind that made him want to lean in, get closer, and discover what she was made of.

Unfortunately, Funmi had no inner circle. No visible crew. And the fact that she saw him as Soji’s younger brother didn’t help matters. That label had made it nearly impossible for her to really see him.

So, eventually, he’d let it go.

He crushed the crush. Told himself it was just a regular guy’s fascination with a beautiful, powerful woman out of reach. He moved on.

Or so he thought.

But here she was again, seated just a few feet away, and somehow, she was stirring up all those old feelings he thought was buried.

Why is she flying economy? He wondered.

He had never imagined it. But then again, Soji always described her as conservative. One of those women who could afford luxury but never saw the need to indulge.

Must be a business trip, Kayode thought.

Still, something about it puzzled him. It added another layer to the mystery that was Funmi.

He told himself he would mind his business.

And he meant to.

Or so he thought.

———————————————————————————————————————— 

Two hours into the flight, Kayode sat in silence, lost in thought.

From his seat, Funmi’s original seat in economy, he stared out the window at the clouds, trying to rationalise his actions.

Up ahead, in the comfort of business class, Funmi was seated in conversation with a man he couldn’t quite place. The man’s northern accent, tailored agbada, and confidence marked him as a politician or rich businessman, likely part of the elite class. Kayode had noticed the shift in Funmi’s energy the moment the man entered the lounge.

He knew because he hadn’t taken his eyes off her since he returned her fallen ticket.

Funmi had approached the man almost immediately, engaging him in easy conversation. From the way she leaned in, animated and attentive, it was clear this was an alliance that mattered to her. So when the flight was called and he saw the brief flicker of disappointment on her face, knowing their seats would separate them, Kayode had stepped in.

He offered her his business class seat.

She didn’t argue. She just looked at him with a surprised kind of gratitude, the kind that made something warm stir in his chest.

That look alone had been all the assurance he needed that he’d read the moment right.

When he returned to Agnes, his culinary colleague and travel companion on this food festival trip, and told her he had swapped seats, she raised her brows so high he thought they might fly off her face.

Thankfully, she had held her tongue and allowed him to lick his wounds in peace.

He wasn’t in the mood to explain anything. Not why he’d done it. Not how Funmi had always found a way to make him lose sense and reason.

This trip marked his first time flying business class, a well-earned perk from the food influencing gig that brought him to London. And yet, he gave it up. Just like that. For a woman who didn’t see him. A woman who, truthfully, had never been in his league to begin with.

Agnes wouldn’t understand.

‘Maybe even I don’t understand’, he thought bitterly.

Enough, he chided himself.

He was a successful chef in his own right. Respected. Booked. Building his brand. It didn’t make sense, and it didn’t look good for any man, to drool over a woman so clearly out of reach.

Holy Spirit, please keep me in check, he prayed silently.

Because the truth was, this crush wasn’t in the past tense. Not at all.

As soon as they landed in Lagos, he would vanish. No conversation. No lingering goodbyes. No glances exchanged.

Thankfully, his friend Tade would be waiting at the airport. That made it easier.

There was no point igniting a fire he could not contain.

With that decision made, he closed his eyes and tried to rest.

Still, she lingered.

Haunting his imagination.

Lord, please. I don’t want these feelings to resurface. It was hard enough burying them the first time. But now my body’s literally on fire. I beg You, help me look away. And like I pray every day… lead my wife to me. My own woman. The one made for me.

————————————————————————————————————-

A few hours later, Kayode’s resolve to disappear quietly dissolved the moment he saw Funmi.

She stood amidst the bustling crowd, frowning at her phone while trying to balance her luggage. Instinct kicked in. Without thinking, he moved toward her, convincing himself it was cowardly to abandon a woman who looked like she needed help.

Her frown melted into a smile the moment she saw him.

The gratitude in her eyes, resurfacing from earlier, hit him like a wave. It went straight to his head, and he knew, deep down, he was already losing the fight.

Damn. This woman is so fine.

“Thank you so much for giving me your seat,” she said warmly.

Kayode simply nodded with a gentle smile, trying not to make a fool of himself.

But she kept speaking, clearly feeling he deserved an explanation. “I’ve been trying to schedule a meeting with Senator Ganiyu for over a month now, but the timing was never right.”

His smile widened. He didn’t know who Senator Ganiyu was, but at this moment, he was deeply grateful for his existence. This was their first real conversation, and every second felt like gold.

“It was nothing,” Kayode replied. “I was happy to give you the seat. I never fly business class anyway.”

Funmi nodded absently, the smile slipping from her face. The ache in her head was worsening. She checked her phone again, still no Uber. The crowd was thick, the air chilly, and despite the shawl wrapped around her shoulders, the cold was starting to seep into her bones. At the same time, she felt like she was burning up.

The fear crept in.

Airport officials were scanning for elevated temperatures. In this new COVID-19 world, even a harmless fever could land her in quarantine, no questions asked, no tests needed.

She was certain she didn’t have the virus. But she needed to leave. Fast.

First, though, she had to dismiss Kayode.

“Please send me your account details so we can refund—” she started, eyes still on her phone. But when she looked up and saw the immediate frown on his face, she stopped herself.

“Thank you again,” she said instead, offering a small, forced smile.

“Let me walk you to your car,” he said, stepping forward to take her luggage.

The moment his hand brushed against hers, he froze. She was burning up.

“Are you alright?” he asked, concern deepening in his voice.

Funmi wasn’t in the mood for a worried acquaintance hovering around her. But strangely, it felt… right. The look on his face was genuine. When was the last time someone outside her family had shown her concern that wasn’t about her work or her money?

Still, she couldn’t let herself crumble. “Yes, I’m fine,” she snapped, then softened her tone. “I’m just taking an Uber.”

Kayode looked puzzled. “What about your company driver?”

“They’re already observing the lockdown and social distancing,” she explained gently, trying to remain calm even as the throbbing in her head tested her patience.

“In that case, let me drop you at home. My friend is here with a car. It’ll be easier,” he offered again, reaching once more for her luggage. She looked like she could collapse at any moment, and that worried him more than he wanted to admit.

“Please, don’t bother,” she said firmly. “I’m going to the office first anyway. I’ll still need to take a taxi.”

She gripped her suitcase tighter.

Without thinking, Kayode reached out and touched the side of her neck.

Funmi flinched, startled, staring at him with confusion as she instinctively tried to step away. But he moved closer, determined.

“I don’t think you should be going to the office at almost midnight. Especially not when you might be getting sick.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, her expression defiant.

“If you think I might be getting sick, then you shouldn’t be touching me.”

With that, she turned sharply and began walking away, pulling her luggage behind her.

But Kayode followed.