THE DISTANCE
For the next two days, Chis did exactly what she had promised herself she would do.
She went to work.
She did her job.
And she did not think about the kiss.
At least, that was what she told herself.
Monday morning passed without seeing Damian.
Chis arrived at Adetola Holdings, settled into her usual routine and spent most of the day dealing with reports, schedules and correspondence.
There were enough things demanding her attention that she barely had time to look up from her desk.
Whenever she remembered Saturday night, she pushed the memory aside.
There was no reason to make anything of it.
It had happened in a moment.
That was all.
She and Damian had been caught up in the atmosphere of the evening, the conversation, the closeness.
It didn’t mean they had suddenly become something to each other.
Besides, he was still her boss.
And she had no intention of making her new job complicated.
By Tuesday, she had almost convinced herself that she had succeeded.
She didn’t see him that day either.
She heard his name several times.
Someone mentioned a meeting he was attending.
Another staff member needed a document signed by him.
His assistant passed through the office twice looking stressed.
But Damian himself remained out of sight.
Chis found that strangely convenient.
It meant she didn’t have to wonder whether he remembered the terrace.
She didn’t have to decide how to look at him.
He didn’t have to worry about whether he would say something.
So she worked.
And, as far as she was concerned, everything was normal.
Damian, however, wasn’t having such an easy time with it.
On Tuesday evening, Damian sat alone in his top-floor office long after the rest of the staff had cleared out.
The sprawling city outside his floor-to-ceiling windows was slowly transforming into a bleeding sea of brake lights, but his eyes were completely blind to the view.
His attention remained fixed on the legal document lying open on his desk.
He had read the exact same paragraph three times.
He still couldn’t process a single word.
His mind kept betraying him, snapping back to Saturday night.
To the terrace.
To the way Chis had looked up at him right before he lost his mind.
With a sharp snap, he slammed the file shut.
This was exactly the kind of mess he had been trying to avoid.
It wasn’t because he hadn’t liked the kiss.
No, that was the real problem.
He had liked it.
More than he had any right to.
Damian leaned back in his leather chair, running a heavy hand over his face.
He knew better.
There were too many jagged reasons to keep his distance from Chisimdi Nwankwo.
Her surname alone should have been a massive warning sign.
His family had already made their hostile position crystal clear: The Nwankwos are not people the Adetolas trust.
Not after what had shattered between them seventeen years ago.
And whatever the full truth was, Damian knew his family was still hoarding secrets from him.
He had spent days trying to understand what his brother had meant when he warned him to stay away from Chis.
Now he had done the exact opposite.
He had kissed her.
Damian stood and walked toward the window.
He could still remember the way she had looked at him afterward.
There had been no accusation in her eyes.
No suspicion.
Only something that made him want to forget every reason he should have stopped himself.
He exhaled slowly and palm his forehead.
It couldn’t happen again.
Whatever had happened on Saturday had to remain there.
He turned away from the window and reached for his jacket.
He needed to leave.
The car had barely moved out of the company compound when Damian noticed her.
He had been checking something on his phone as the driver approached the main road, but a familiar figure caught his attention.
He looked through the window.
Chis stood near the roadside with one of the young men from the administrative department.
Damian recognized him vaguely.
He had seen him around the company, though he couldn’t remember his name.
The man was saying something that made Chis laugh.
She looked relaxed and happy.
Completely unaware that Damian was watching from the back seat of the car.
His first reaction was irritation.
His second was worse.
He didn’t like the way the man was standing so close to her.
Damian’s jaw tightened.
Then he caught himself.
What exactly was he doing?
Chis wasn’t his girlfriend nor his wife.
She wasn’t even someone he had the right to question about who she spent time with after work.
And yet the sight of her laughing with another man had produced an anger he couldn’t explain away.
He looked away from the window.
“Keep driving,” he clipped out, his voice cutting through the quiet car.The driver hit the gas, moving forward into the traffic.
Damian stared at his reflection in the dark glass. Find the original chapter at g.com.
He was angry.
But not at her.
At himself.
Because two days ago, he had convinced himself that the kiss meant nothing.
Now he had spent several minutes watching her laugh with another man and wondering who he was.
He gave a quiet, humorless laugh.
“This is exactly the problem,” he muttered.
The driver glanced briefly at him through the mirror but said nothing.
Damian turned his attention back to the passing streets.
He had to stop this.
Whatever was happening between him and Chisimdi had to end before it became something neither of them could control.
The following morning, Chis arrived at work earlier than usual.
She walked into her department with a cup of coffee in one hand and her handbag over her shoulder, already thinking about the reports waiting on her desk.
She had barely greeted two of her colleagues when she noticed something strange.
Her usual workspace was empty.
The files that normally occupied one side of her desk were gone.
Even the small plant Chinny had given her was missing.
Chis stopped.
She looked around.
“Where are my things?”
One of her colleagues turned from her computer and smiled.
“Oh, nobody told you?”
“Told me what?”
The woman pushed her chair back and stood.
“You’ve been transferred.”
Chis blinked.
“Transferred?”
“Yes.” She pointed toward the empty desk.
“They moved your things yesterday.”
“Where?”
“The executive floor.”
For a second, the words didn’t register.
Chis simply stared at the empty laminate desk.
“The executive floor?”
Her colleague nodded.
“You’re now officially working as Mr.
Adetola’s Executive Administrative Assistant.
I thought you knew.”
Chis slowly, deliberately set her coffee down before her hands could shake.
“No.
Nobody told me.”
The woman gave her an apologetic shrug.
“Maybe HR was waiting to drop the bomb this morning.”
Chis looked back at the gaping void where her desk used to be.
A chaotic storm of excitement and sheer panic clashed violently in her chest.
The executive floor meant more responsibility.
It also meant Damian.
The thought came so suddenly that she immediately pushed it away.
This was work nothing else.
She picked up her handbag again.
“Where exactly am I supposed to go?”
“Someone from HR is waiting for you upstairs.”
Chis nodded.
“Thank you.”
She turned toward the elevator.
As the doors closed, she caught her reflection in the mirrored wall.
She looked perfectly calm.
She almost smiled.
Maybe that was a good thing.
Because if she was going to work directly with Damian now, she needed to be calm.
Whatever had happened between them on Saturday didn’t need to change anything.
She had already decided that.
The executive floor was quieter than the department she had just left.
Chis stepped out of the elevator and looked around.
A member of HR approached her with a folder and a welcoming smile.
“Ms.
Nwankwo?”
“Yes.”
“Welcome to the executive floor.”
Chis returned the smile as she accepted the folder.
“Thank you.”
The woman walked with her toward a spacious office positioned not far from Damian’s.
“This will be your new workspace.
Your responsibilities remain largely the same, but you’ll be handling Mr.
Adetola’s schedule, correspondence and executive administrative duties directly.”
Chis nodded as she listened.
She looked through the doorway.
Her desk had already been arranged.
Her files were stacked neatly on one side, her computer was waiting on the desk and, somehow, even the little plant had made it upstairs.
She smiled when she saw it.
“At least they remembered this.”
The HR woman laughed softly.
Chis stepped inside and placed her handbag down.
She was still arranging a few things when she heard footsteps approaching from the corridor.
She glanced toward the doorway.
Damian stopped when he saw her.
For a second, neither moved.His eyes shifted briefly from her face to the office around her.
Then back to her.
“You’re here.”
Chis straightened.
“Apparently.”
Something almost like amusement flickered across his face.
“Apparently?”
She gestured toward the desk.
“I was told this morning that I had been transferred.”
Damian slipped one hand into his pocket as he studied her.
“I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
A brief silence settled between them.
For Chis, it was strangely easy.
For Damian, it wasn’t.
He had spent two days telling himself that distance was exactly what he needed.
Now she was standing a few steps away from him, looking at him as though Saturday night had never happened.
And somehow, that bothered him more than he expected.
He moved a little closer.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
Chis’s eyebrows lifted.
“Have I?” The calmness in her voice caught him off guard.
She wasn’t defensive.
She wasn’t embarrassed.
She simply looked genuinely curious.
Damian watched her for a moment before answering.
The silence between them grew heavy, suffocating.”I haven’t seen you since Saturday.”
“I’ve been working,” she replied smoothly.
She didn’t look up, but the sudden rigidity in her shoulders gave her away.
“I know.”
She picked up a manila file from the desk and placed it neatly beside her computer.
Her alignment of the folder was agonizingly precise—a desperate attempt to project a control she didn’t feel.
“Then you know I haven’t been avoiding you.”
Damian’s eyes remained pinned to her.
He didn’t blink, his intense stare a physical weight in the small office.”You didn’t think we should talk?”
Chis paused.
For the first time, something shifted in her expression.
The flawless, professional mask she wore cracked, just for a millisecond, revealing a flash of raw panic underneath.She knew exactly what he meant.
Saturday was an open wound, and they both knew it.
But instead of looking away or letting him see her flinch, she slowly, deliberately closed the file in her hands.
The crisp snap of the folder echoed like a gunshot in the quiet room.
She leaned back, bracing her weight against the desk.
“About what?”
The question landed harder than he expected.
There was no tremor in her voice, no guilt—just a chilling, absolute detachment.
Damian stared at her.
The words caught in his throat, utterly thrown by how easily she could rewrite reality and look him in the eye as a stranger.
He almost smiled.
Not because anything was funny.
Because he suddenly understood that Chis had no intention of making things difficult for him.
Maybe she had decided the same thing he had.
That the moment was better left alone.
Damian’s expression hardened slightly as he stepped back.
“Nothing.”
Chis studied him for a second, then nodded.
“Alright.” She turned back to her desk.
Damian remained where he was.
He should have left.
Instead, he found himself watching her settle into her new workspace as though she had been there for months.
The distance he had wanted was gone.
And he had no one to blame for that but himself.
Finally, he turned toward the corridor.
“Ms.
Nwankwo.”
She looked up.
“We have a meeting at ten.”
“I’ll have your schedule ready.”
He gave a brief nod and walked away.
Chis watched him disappear through the doorway.
Only after he was gone did she let out the breath she had been holding.
She touched her fingers lightly to the edge of the desk.
Saturday came back to her for one brief second.
His hand at her waist.
His face close to hers.
The kiss.
She quickly pushed the memory away and reached for her computer.
There was work to do.
She wasn’t going to make the mistake of letting one moment change everything.
Not when neither of them had said what it meant.
And perhaps that was exactly why Damian couldn’t stop thinking about it.
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