Read Online After the storm by Osar Adeyemi - Free Book Online Page A

trip. 
    Akeem
led her to another, smaller, sitting room, and she sank gratefully
into a seat. 
    "Are you
okay?" he asked.
    "I'm
fine." She smiled wanly, not quite meeting his
eyes. 
    "Wait
here for me, I'll be back." He touched her lightly on the shoulder
before leaving the room.
    Yemi
felt somewhat confused. She got the distinct feeling that Akeem's
mother did not like her. There was just a certain coldness that she
could sense from her. She wondered how she was going to survive the
rest of her visit.
    "Where
did you go?" she asked Akeem when he came back into the room a few
minutes later.
    "I had
to sort something out quickly." He pulled her to her feet and held
her close for a moment before taking her hand in his. "Let me take
you around the house."
    The
house turned out to be larger than she had thought. It had eight
bedrooms, all en suite. There was another sitting room upstairs,
two dining rooms, two studies, a gymnasium, and a huge kitchen.
There was also a swimming pool and another building behind the
house where the domestic staff lived. Yemi tried to appear
enthusiastic as Akeem took her around, but her mood had been
dampened by Mrs. Kadiri's coldness.
    "It's
beautiful out here," she said as Akeem showed her the well-tended
garden located at the back of the house.
    Akeem
looked around fondly. "We had plenty of fun here with our friends,
ball games and all. It used to get quite noisy in here back
then."
    They sat
down on one of the garden seats, and he continued to tell her about
his childhood, but her thoughts were far away, and she did not
really hear half the things he was saying.
    "This
place is so big," she said as they made their way back into the
main house. "It must be lonely for your mum to be here by
herself."
    "I guess
she is used to it now. We used to do a lot of entertaining when my
dad was alive. It did not seem that big then, as we nearly always
had guests staying over."
    "Maybe
you could have stayed here instead of getting your own place. After
all, there is enough room."
    "Yeah…and I can just imagine you coming here to visit me,"
Akeem said so drily that Yemi smiled.
    They
made their way towards the living room. Akeem appeared to sense her
mood and cradled her a little closer. He took her back to the
smaller sitting room and was in the process of telling her about a
prank he had played in his teenage years when one of the doors
leading to the sitting room slid open.
    "Hey,
big brother! Good to see you!"
    They
both turned at the same time, and Yemi found herself looking at a
young lady who could have passed for Mrs. Kadiri in her early
twenties. She knew this must be Nadia, Akeem's younger
sister.
    "Hi! I
am Nadia. You must be Yemi," Nadia said as she got to where they
were.
    Yemi
smiled. "Hi, it's good to finally meet you."
    Nadia's
eyes moved over Yemi. "Hmmm…now I can see why my brother has been
swept off his feet." 
    "I guess
that's a compliment?" Yemi said, regaining some of her confidence.
She did not intend to be tongue-tied with Nadia. She knew they were
age-mates, but Nadia had taken out a year to travel with her
friends, so she was just about to start her final year at the
university.
    "Oh,
believe me, it is," Nadia said. "I could not believe someone had
finally been able to snag my brother's heart, but now I see why."
She turned to Akeem. "Mum said that lunch is about to be
served."
    They all
made their way to the dining room. Mrs. Kadiri was already seated
when they got there. Akeem pulled out a seat for Yemi and then sat
beside her. Mrs. Kadiri sat at the head of the table, and Nadia sat
opposite Akeem and Yemi.
    "What
would you like to eat?" Akeem asked Yemi. "Some rice?"
    Yemi
looked at the assortment of dishes laid out in very attractive
cookware. "That's Tuwo, isn't it?" she asked Akeem quietly, looking
across at a dish. Akeem nodded. Tuwo was a popular dish in the
northern part of the country where Akeem was from. "I'll have some
of that."
    He
passed her the dish, and she