THE INTERVIEW
Chis straightened in her chair, suddenly aware of the way she was sitting.
She had been trying to appear calm since entering the office, but Damian’s words had reminded her that this was no longer the slightly amusing stranger from the elevator.
He was the man whose decision could determine whether she walked out of Adetola Holdings with a job or another polite rejection.
She placed both hands over her handbag and forced herself to relax.
Damian opened the file in front of him and glanced over her résumé.
His expression was unreadable, although Chis couldn’t shake the feeling that he was studying more than the information written on the pages.
“You graduated with a degree in Business Administration.”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt.
“You’ve worked in two companies since graduation.”
“Yes.”
“What made you leave the last one?”
Chis hesitated.
She had prepared for questions about her qualifications, her strengths and weaknesses, even where she saw herself in five years.
This one required a little more care.
She didn’t want to complain about her former employer, but she also wasn’t comfortable inventing some polished answer about seeking professional growth when that wasn’t the truth.
“My supervisor took credit for work I had done,” she finally said.
Damian’s eyes lifted from the résumé.
“And you resigned because of that?”
“I tried to address it first.” Chis shifted slightly in her seat, remembering the conversation that had eventually convinced her she needed to leave.
“But he told me that if I wanted to succeed, I needed to learn how things worked.”
She didn’t have to explain what he had meant.
Damian seemed to understand anyway.
“You could have stayed.”
“I could have.” She gave a small shrug, though the memory still irritated her.
“I needed the salary, but I didn’t want to become comfortable with something I knew was wrong.”
Damian leaned back, studying her for a moment.
“You need the money.”
“Yes.” She gave him an almost apologetic smile.
“Very badly.”
A faint amusement touched his eyes.
Chis noticed it and relaxed a little.
“But I don’t think I should have to hate myself to earn it.”
The corner of his mouth moved, almost forming a smile before he looked back down at her résumé.
“That’s an expensive principle.”
“Maybe.” She smiled faintly.
“But it’s mine.”
He turned another page.
“Tell me about your previous responsibilities.”
Chis relaxed into the question.
This was something she knew how to answer.
She spoke about managing schedules, responding to clients, preparing reports and keeping records organized.
As she talked, the nervousness gradually left her voice, replaced by the confidence of someone discussing work she actually understood.
Damian noticed the difference immediately.
She wasn’t trying to sound impressive anymore.
She was simply talking about what she knew.
He asked her about handling difficult clients, and she told him about a customer who had once spent nearly twenty minutes shouting at her over an order she hadn’t even processed.
When he asked what she had done, she smiled at the memory.
“I let him finish.”
“You didn’t interrupt him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he was angry and wanted someone to hear him.” She rested one hand on the arm of the chair.
“By the time he finished shouting, he was tired.
Then I could actually solve the problem.”
Damian looked at her for a moment before nodding.
“That was sensible.”
“Thank you.”
The interview continued for several more minutes, and Chis began to believe she might actually have a chance.
Damian wasn’t as intimidating as she had expected, although there was something about his quietness that made her choose her words more carefully.
He rarely interrupted her, and when he did speak, his questions made her think before answering.
Then his eyes returned to the personal information on her résumé.
Chis noticed the change in his expression almost immediately.
“Your father,” he said.
She looked at him.
“Yes?”
“What is his name?”
There was something different in his voice now.
“Emeka Nwankwo.”
The name seemed to change something in the room.
“Emeka Nwankwo,” Damian repeated quietly.
Chis couldn’t explain why, but there was a weight behind those words that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s my father.”
“What did he do for a living?”
“He’s late.”
Damian’s eyes remained on her.
“When did he die?”
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her handbag.
“Seventeen years ago.”
For a brief moment, the office disappeared behind an old memory.
Damian was twelve again, standing at the top of the stairs in his family’s house while his father shouted behind the closed study doors.
His older brother had been beside him, six years older and already old enough to understand that something terrible had happened.
Damian hadn’t understood the words then.
He had only understood the anger in his father’s voice and the fear on his mother’s face.
But he had heard one name.
Nwankwo.
He had never forgotten it.
Damian blinked and returned to the present.
“You were very young.”
“I was six.”
“Do you remember him?”
Chis lowered her gaze, and for the first time since the interview began, the confidence left her face.
“Not much.”
There was a quiet sadness in her voice that Damian hadn’t expected.
“I remember little things,” she continued.
“His voice.
The way he used to carry me when I fell asleep.
He liked buying me sweets even when my mother complained that I was eating too much sugar.”
A small smile appeared, but it faded almost immediately.
“That’s about all.”
Damian watched her carefully.
“What about your mother?”
“What about her?” Chis asked, confused by the sudden questions about her parents.
“Does she ever talk about him?”
Chis shook her head.
“Not really.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She looked down at her hands, her fingers slowly twisting together.
“Whenever I ask what happened, she tells me it’s better to leave the past alone.”
“And you’ve never tried to find out?”
“I have.”
She laughed softly, though there was no humor in it.
“Many times.”
Chis looked toward the window for a moment before turning back to him.
“Eventually, I stopped asking because every time I did, she looked like she was about to break down.
I figured if she wanted me to know, she’d tell me.”
Damian said nothing.
There was something about the way Chis spoke about her father that unsettled him.
She knew so little.
Yet she had spent years carrying questions she had never been given answers to.
He closed the file.
“I think that’s enough.”
Chis’s stomach tightened.
She couldn’t tell whether that was good or bad.
She rose from her chair and adjusted her handbag on her shoulder.
“Thank you for your time, Mr.
Adetola.”
She had almost reached the door when his voice stopped her.
“You got the job.”
Chis turned so quickly that her handbag slipped down her arm.
“I’m sorry?”
“You got the job.”
For a second, she simply stared at him.
Then the relief hit her so suddenly that she couldn’t stop the smile spreading across her face.
“Really?”
“Yes.
Human Resources will give you the details.
You can start tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
Her eyes widened before she remembered herself and straightened.
“Yes.
Of course.
Thank you so much, sir.”
“You’re welcome.”
She reached for the door, then paused.
There was something she needed to say.
She turned around, suddenly embarrassed.
“About the elevator…” Damian looked at her.
“I didn’t know you were the CEO.”
“I noticed.”
Chis pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.
“If I had known, I probably wouldn’t have complained about how slowly the elevator was moving.”
“Probably?”
She smiled.
“Definitely.”
For the first time, Damian allowed himself a real smile.
It was brief, but Chis saw it.
And for one strange second, she forgot that he was her new boss.
“Good luck tomorrow, Ms.
Nwankwo.”
“Thank you.”
She opened the door and stepped outside.
Damian watched it close behind her.
The smile disappeared from his face.
His eyes returned to the file on his desk.
Chisimdi Nwankwo.
He opened the drawer beneath his desk and reached past several documents until his fingers found an old photograph.
The edges were worn, and the image had faded with time, but the three men standing together were still recognizable.
His father.
Emeka Nwankwo.
And another man who had once been part of their lives.
Damian stared at Emeka’s face.
Seventeen years ago, he had been a child who didn’t understand why his family fell apart.
Now the daughter of the man at the center of it had walked into his office without knowing anything about the history between their families.
He should have rejected her application.
He should have kept the past where it belonged.
Instead, he had given her a job.
Damian slowly returned the photograph to the drawer.
Before he could close it, the office door opened.
He looked up.
His half-brother stood there.
“You’re here early,” Damian said.
His brother didn’t answer immediately.
His gaze moved from Damian to the open drawer, then to the résumé lying on the desk.
He walked closer and picked it up.
His eyes travelled down the page.
Then he saw the name.
His expression changed so quickly that Damian knew exactly what he had recognized.
“Where did you get this?”
“She came for an interview.”
His brother looked at him sharply.
“You interviewed her?”
“Yes.”
“And you hired her?”
Damian held his gaze.
“Yes.”
For several seconds, his brother said nothing.
He placed the résumé back on the desk with unusual care, as though the paper itself carried something dangerous.
“Damian, you need to let her go.”
Damian’s expression hardened.
“Why?”
His brother stared at him as though he couldn’t believe he had to explain.
“Because she’s Emeka Nwankwo’s daughter.”
“I know.”
“Then you know exactly why she shouldn’t be working here.”
Damian looked toward the door Chis had walked through only minutes earlier.
He could still picture the nervous smile she had given him, the way she had spoken about her father without knowing what his name meant to the man sitting across from her.
“I hired an employee,” he said quietly.
His brother shook his head.
“No, Damian.
You just brought the past back into this family.”
Damian said nothing.
But somewhere beneath his calm exterior, an uncomfortable feeling began to settle.
For the first time, he wondered if his brother was afraid of Chisimdi Nwankwo, or of what her presence might finally reveal.
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