CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (FIND A DATE)

"How will you do that?" Mom asked.

I looked down at my shoes and just kept blinking my eyes. I do this when I am nervous and don't know what to say.

"The engagement party is in a weeks time. Let me see if my daughter can manage to find a man by then." Mrs Dupe said to Atinuke.

She hoped this will make her see that Adenike is in a competition with her and therefore fight back by bringing a man home.

"That was the last thing my mom said and I left after that."

"Do you have a man in mind. Someone to pretend to be your man?" Sam asked.

"Geez, how can you ridicule me like that? A man to pretend?" Do you think that I am not good enough or beautiful enough to make a man fall for me within such a short time." I said upset by this remark.

"You haven't been able to make a single man take you out for a date in all these years, what makes you think you can now."

Ahh!!! I gasped and then scoffed at him.

"Don't make me reveal my hidden magic that no man can resist sir." Atinuke said to him and started making cute faces at him.

"I don't even want to see it. I am so sure that I will run away after seeing it and even quit being your boss." Sam said with a side smile.

He loved taunting her because she always look cute whenever she got angry and that cuteness is the one thing he always like to see.

"Leave my office now. Your story was totally boring and stupid except for the part that your cousin managed to win herself the jackpot."

Is he seriously chasing me out after making me relay all that to him? I asked myself and somewhere inside me, a spirit was telling me to punch him and the other was calming me down.

"Alright sir." I said with a false smile and walked to the door.

"Hey, ehh, before I forget. Please bring me the SK files, I need to go through those bastards plan for building the mall in that village and beat them to it." After he said this to me, he waved at me to go.

"I can't believe that crazy guy." I said out loud in anger.

"What crazy guy?" Someone asked behind me and I froze, what if he has heard me.

Turning around I saw him, the one, the only one who can save me from my family's nightmare, Collins Ifeoluwa, he is the only one that can save me from their torture.

"If he had money." I wispered as I came to the realization that my family members only wanted to see how far I have gone in life after I swore to become great and even insulted them before leaving in anger from the last meeting. That was two years ago.

"I hope I am not the one." He said and jerked me back to reality.

Since I was still mute and didn't say anything. He came close to me and gave me a hug.

"Am I really so good looking that you can't even close your mouth while staring?" He asked with a smile.

He waited again and still there was no reply from Atinuke. She was torn between the two spirits in her mind arguing about if she should simply manage Collins as her date to the engagement or just leave him since he doesn't even have any money.

"Since you still won't give me a reply. I would like to share a good news with you."

"I am getting married." He shouted with excitements and my head spinned and I almost lost my balance but he held me and pull me to himself.

"My life is over. Even the person I was thinking of managing is now getting married, why does this keep happening to me?" Atinuke asked herself and cried out.

"You know when you asked me to go to the gym because I looked fat and then I did. I met a girl there, the gym instructor. Everytime I went, she was always staring at me like how you did a while ago and she would show me more attention. Then I decided that I will tell you about it and I called severally but you never picked or your phone was switched off."

After thirty minutes, he ended his long and provocating tale with.

"That was how I grew my confidence and when we were on the ferris wheel, I proposed to her and she immediately agreed, blushing. My parents didn't like her at first because they said they liked one friend of mine who used to send them their drugs and make a calendar for routine exercise but I didn't know what friend they were talking about."

"That was me." I said in my mind. I was the one who always sent them drugs.

"But they have agreed now and my engagement date is fixed to the fifteenth of next month, two weeks from now."

Gosh, my last hope is gone now. Looks like Sam was definitely right about me, how on Earth will I be able to make any man fall for me within a week.

"Are you listening?" He asked and squeezed my cheek tightly.

"Ouch stop that." I yelled at him.

"You are not happy for me, right?" He asked looking away sadly like a drenched puppy.

"Off course I am." I said with the most FAKEST smile, if there was actually any word like that.