THE WEEKEND
By Friday afternoon, Damian had stopped pretending he wasn’t looking at the clock.
He had a meeting scheduled for four, another at five, and a stack of documents waiting for his signature, yet every time he glanced at the time, his mind went somewhere else.
Four fifteen.
He looked back at his laptop, the cursor blinking at the end of a sentence he had read twice without taking in a word, and closed the document.
The office had been unusually quiet that afternoon; most of the senior staff were already preparing to leave for the weekend, and even the corridor outside his office had lost its usual movement.
Damian picked up his phone, his thumb hovering over Chisimdi’s name.
She was his assistant—he could ask her to bring the documents he needed for Monday—but he stopped and put the phone down.
The documents could wait.
A few minutes later, he heard footsteps outside his office.
He looked toward the door before he could stop himself, but it was just one of the managers walking past.
Damian leaned back in his chair, becoming ridiculous.
A knock sounded.
“Come in.”
His assistant stepped inside with a folder.
“Sir, the five o’clock meeting has been moved to Monday morning.”
Damian took the folder and glanced at the new schedule.
“Who changed it?”
“The clients requested it.”
He nodded and closed the folder.
When she hesitated near the door, he looked up.
“Anything else, sir?”
“No.”
She left.
Damian looked at the schedule again.
Monday morning.
That meant he wouldn’t see Chisimdi until then.
The thought irritated him more than it should have as he pushed the folder aside.
It was only a weekend.
Chisimdi was packing her handbag when she heard the elevator doors open.
She looked up automatically as Damian stepped out, their eyes meeting for barely a second.
“Good evening, sir.” She returned her attention to her desk almost immediately.
“Good evening, Ms.
Nwankwo.”
He continued past her workstation and walked down the short corridor toward his private office.
She heard his door close and allowed herself a small breath.
She had become too aware of him since Saturday—not because she wanted to, but because every time she saw him, she remembered.
She zipped her handbag and stood.
Since her desk was right by the elevator bay, she didn’t have to walk past his office to leave.
She just picked up her things, stepped out from behind her desk, and pressed the down button.
Inside his office, Damian heard the faint rustle of things being moved, followed by the quiet click of her desk drawers closing.
He looked up from his desk; the space right outside his door was quiet, but further down the hall, near the lobby, he could hear her preparing to leave.
He stood before he had decided to, opened his door, and walked out into the corridor.
“Ms.
Nwankwo,” he called down the hall toward the elevator bay.
She stopped, her hand hovering near the elevator buttons, and turned.
“Yes, sir?”
For some reason, he had no idea what he was going to say.
His eyes moved to the handbag on her shoulder.
“You’re leaving?”
She gave him a small smile.
“It’s Friday.”
He almost smiled.
“I know.”
“Then why are you asking?”
The question was innocent, but it still caught him off guard.
He walked closer, leaning against the edge of the corridor wall near the lobby entrance.
“I thought you might have something unfinished.”
“I don’t.” She glanced at the time on her phone.
“I finished everything on my list.”
“Good.”
She waited.
He said nothing else.
After a moment, she gave him a polite nod.
“Have a good weekend, sir.”
“You too.”
A man was already inside—the same colleague Damian had seen her with outside the company the previous week.
The man smiled when he saw Chisimdi.
“Chis, you’re finally leaving.”
She laughed softly as she stepped inside.
“Apparently.”
“I thought you were going to spend the weekend in that office.”
“You’re the one who always complains when I leave work on time.”
“I was joking.”
The elevator doors began to close.
Damian remained standing where he was, watching the man’s smile disappear behind the closing doors.
Something unpleasant tightened in his chest.
He turned around, walked back to his office, and shut the door harder than necessary.
He stood there for a moment, laughing once under his breath.
What exactly was wrong with him?
She had a colleague.
So what?
She was allowed to laugh with him, leave the building with him, and have a life that had absolutely nothing to do with Damian Adetola.
He walked back to his desk where his phone was still sitting, picked it up, and opened her contact.
He closed it, set the phone down, then picked it up once more.
He hated this.
He hated that one kiss had made him notice things he had never cared about before—the way she smiled at other men, the way she seemed perfectly comfortable around everyone except him now, and the fact that she had barely looked at him before leaving.
Especially that.
Before Saturday, she had been easy with him.
She had joked with him and looked him in the eye.
Now she measured every interaction.
Perhaps she had finally understood the boundary between them, or perhaps she was trying to protect herself.
He should have been grateful.
Instead, it bothered him.
Damian dropped the phone onto the desk.
He needed to get over this.
Saturday morning arrived with no reason for him to go into the office, but he went anyway.
There were reports he could review from home, but by nine, he was sitting behind his desk with a cup of coffee growing cold beside his laptop.
The building was almost silent.
No ringing phones, no footsteps rushing down the corridor, and no voices coming from the administrative offices.
And no Chisimdi.
He stared through the open doorway toward her empty desk down the hall, where her computer was switched off and her little plant sat quietly beside the monitor.
He had never noticed how much life her presence brought to the floor until she wasn’t there.
He looked away.
This was absurd.
He had work.
He opened a report, but twenty minutes later, he was still on the same page.
His phone vibrated with his brother’s name on the screen.
Damian answered.
“Hello.”
“Are you at the office?”
“Yes.”
A short laugh came through the phone.
“On a Saturday?”
“I have work.”
“You always have work.” There was a pause, and then his brother’s voice became more serious.
“Have you thought about what I told you?”
Damian’s expression hardened.
“About what?”
“You know exactly what.”
He looked down the hall toward the empty space where she usually sat.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“And?”
Damian rubbed his thumb slowly over the edge of his phone.
“I still want to know what happened.”
His brother sighed.
“Damian—”
“I said I want to know.”
Another silence followed.
“I know.”
“And neither will the rest of the family.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“I know that too.”
He ended the call before his brother could say anything else.
For several seconds, he sat without moving.
His family’s opinion should have been enough—it had always been enough.
Then why wasn’t it now?
His gaze returned to the empty desk in the distance.
He knew the answer, and he didn’t like it.
Across the city, Chisimdi spent Saturday afternoon with Chinny.
They had lunch, talked about work, and laughed over things that had nothing to do with Adetola Holdings.
At least, that was what Chis wanted.
She had barely mentioned Damian, but Chinny noticed anyway.
“You’re quieter than usual.”
Chis looked up from her drink.
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe I’m tired.”
Chinny studied her for a moment, then she smiled knowingly.
“You’ve been thinking about him.”
Chis almost choked on her drink.
“Who?”
“Please.” Chinny laughed and shook her head.
“Adetola.”
“I haven’t.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Then why did you suddenly start looking at your phone?”
Chis glanced down.
She hadn’t even realized she had picked it up.
She placed it back on the table, her tone defensive.
“I’m not waiting for a message.”
“I didn’t say you were.” Chinny raised an eyebrow.
Chis narrowed her eyes, breaking into a reluctant look away as Chinny laughed.
“I’m just saying.”
Chis tried not to smile, looking away out the window.
The truth was that she had thought about Damian.
Not constantly, and not enough to make it frightening—just enough to wonder whether he had regretted the kiss.
She hadn’t asked, and she wasn’t going to.
Whatever had happened between them had happened without a plan, without a promise, and without either of them deciding what came next.
Perhaps leaving it alone was better.
She took another sip of her drink to cut the silence.
“Let’s talk about something else.”
Chinny smiled, letting it go.
“Fine.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Chis allowed herself to forget about work—at least until Monday.
Sunday evening, Damian stood by the window of his house with a glass of water in his hand, staring out into the dark.
He had spent most of the weekend trying not to think about Monday, but it hadn’t worked.He knew exactly when Chisimdi would arrive tomorrow.
He knew which meetings were scheduled, which documents she would probably place on his desk first, and he even knew he would hear her footsteps before she knocked.
He closed his eyes briefly, his fingers tightening around the glass.
This had gone too far.
He had spent years learning how to separate business from everything else, how to control his reactions, and how to make decisions without allowing emotion to interfere.
Yet one woman had managed to disrupt that control in a matter of weeks.
And she wasn’t even trying—that was what made it worse.
He remembered her on Friday: the polite greeting, the careful distance, and the way she had smiled at that man in the elevator.
Damian set the glass down with a sharp click against the counter.
He had no right to be jealous.
He knew that, but knowing it didn’t make the feeling disappear.
His phone vibrated on the table.
He picked it up to see a message from his brother: We need to talk before you make another mistake.
Damian stared at the screen, his eyes closing as the words sank in.
Another mistake.
He knew exactly which one his brother meant, but for the first time, Damian wasn’t sure the kiss had been the mistake.
Perhaps the mistake had been believing he could kiss Chisimdi Nwankwo once and then simply walk away.