Shine Bright Like A Diamond: A BWWM Billionaire Love Story (7 page)

The one person who did give Almasi time from his day was Mr. Kofi Kumi. Ever bored with his brother’s financial plans, Mr. Kofi Kumi had taken to talking to Jacob’s young wife whenever he had the chance. Between meals, in the limo, and if they saw each other in the hallway by chance. Almasi was beginning to find that he always turned up in the same hallway as her as if by chance in a way that really seemed like it was planned. A week into his and his brother’s stay at the Adamson mansion, Almasi confronted him about it after he mysteriously turned up in the hall near her bathroom as she was walking to the master bedroom in a big fluffy bathrobe and towel from her shower. He gave her quite a fright when he appeared, so much so that she nearly dropped her towel.

“Mr.Kofi!” she exclaimed.
What in God’s name was he doing here?

“Ah, Almasi,” he said, his eyes gleaming as he looked her up and down. “Caught you at a bad time, perhaps?”

Almasi was in no mood for Mr. Kofi Kumi’s  games. “Clearly,” she said, gesturing to her bathrobe. “Now, if you will just excuse me, I’m—“

“Wait one moment, Almasi.” Mr. Kofi Kumi was leaning in the doorway now, leering at her. “I have a proposal for you.”

“A proposal?” What was on earth was this man talking about? Evidently, he was deranged, or else he would not have even thought about stepping into Almasi and Jacob’s private hallway.

“Well… more like a proposition.” He smiled at her again. “You see, I have noticed a certain… lack in your interest in your husband’s affairs since the beginning of our visit here at Adamson Mansion.”

“What are you talking about? You know that I’m invested in this diamond deal just as much as Jacob is.” Even more than he was; she was the one whose life had been completely turned upside down by this scheme.

“Yes, but you know that my brother has no interest in women being in his workforce. He says a lady’s place is in the kitchen and the bedroom, not in the study.” His tone was mocking now, and Almasi took the bait without thinking.

“Listen, if you think for one second that Jacob believes—” she began angrily.

“Oh, Almasi, no. I know that your dear Mr. Adamson treasures intellect equally in both of the genders,” interrupted Kofi Kumi. “It’s obvious that he is simply playing along with old fashioned misogynistic views for my brother’s benefit. I am sure that he normally loves, cherishes, and values you very, very much. Why else would such a rich and prosperous man have taken you for his wife?”

This last sentence sounded somewhat doubting, a little insincere. Almasi was suddenly reminded of how, at the end of the day, this really was just a pawn in this business game to Jacob, too. She frowned. She could tell that he was playing her, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what he was getting at. “So, what’s your point?”

“I just think that a woman such as you, a woman so brilliant, so beautiful,” he  reached out to touch her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “Well… she deserves attention. More attention than you are receiving from your husband.”

Almasi froze. He could not be serious. Was he joking? This man, coming to her in her and her husband’s own private hallway, and waiting until she was vulnerable so he could pounce on her?

“No. Absolutely not. I would never betray my –“ She moved her face away from his hand and took a step back. “I would never betray my husband like that. Ever.”

Mr. Kofi Kumi shrugged and stepped back, raising his hands in a gesture of faux innocence. “I am sure that you’d like to think that,” he said. “So I’ll give you some time, and you can mull the idea over.” He seemed to have another thought. “Think about it,” he added. “Rich men take mistresses all the time.

Don’t look at me with that face, you know it to be true. So, Ms. Gender Equality, why can you not take a lover of your own for a short while? One who will pay attention to you?” He leaned in closer. “One who will give you all of the pleasure that your husband denies you when he sits all day negotiating diamond trades?”

Almasi straightened up, glowering. She looked Mr. Kofi Kumi dead in the eye and said, “My husband pleasures me perfectly well, thank you.” Then, with a shove, she pushed him out of her doorway. “Now, if you will excuse me, sir, I have a store visit and I need to get dressed.” She opened the door and quickly stepped in, shutting it behind her immediately lest he get any ideas.

Mr. Kofi Kumi’s muffled voice rang softly from behind the door. “Think about my offer,” he said. “There is absolutely no pressure to take it. But this month will come and go, and you will be bored, I know. You deserve a little more pleasure in your life, Almasi. Do remember that.” And then she heard the sound of his footsteps as he left the hallway and walked quietly down the stairs.

Gross. What an absolute scumbag! A good for nothing pig! As if she would ever accept that kind of an offer. Marrying a man for one month and getting a bursary of a million dollars for it was one thing; sleeping with that man’s business partner’s brother was another thing entirely.

Almasi shook her head. She had been so busy with keeping up wifely appearances for Mr. Arko Kumi that she hadn’t written in a week now, and it was time for her to go back to her diary and let that comforting habit of putting pen across paper help her to clear her mind. After dressing herself quickly, she walked down the stairs to the lounge where she always wrote when she had time. She looked at the bookshelf, but the diary wasn’t there. Where was it? She always kept it…

Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no, no,
no.

She slowly turned to the desk. There was a large ink stain and a broken pen. Her diary was gone, and Almasi knew exactly who had taken it.

Chapter3

Jacob whistled to himself as he drank his second cup of coffee. It was an early morning for him, and he needed the caffeine to make a fresh start while he reviewed his papers before the next jewelry shop visit. He had not slept well the night before—Almasi had been tossing and turning and muttering in her sleep all night long, and it was hard for him to get any rest in the same bed as her. He didn’t really mind; although they hadn’t had the chance to talk much, he was falling in love with his wife more and more every day.

He heard footsteps behind him, and turned around to see a tired looking Almasi standing in the doorway.

“Good morning, my dear,” Jacob said cheerfully. “Don’t worry, I won’t spill coffee on you again. Although, if I hadn’t the first time, we never would’ve met.” He frowned a little. “I noticed you had a fitful sleep last night. What's wrong?”

She came toward him and he stood up, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her. After the kiss, she replied vaguely, “Nothing. Just nightmares. It's just a silly thing. There’s no need to worry.” She gave him a convincing smile, and he smiled back.

“Ah. Take care of yourself, Almasi! I can have the cook brew you a tea to ward off those nightmares.” He sat back down in his chair. “In the meantime, though, I need to make a couple of phone calls before we visit the next store. Could you give me a moment?” He didn’t turn around or wait for a response. Almasi sighed, and turned to leave the room.

Her strange interaction the previous day with Mr. Kofi Kumi was not important, she told herself. And maybe he didn’t have her diary after all. Perhaps a member of the cleaning staff had put it away somewhere else. And had she even left it open? She couldn’t remember, but it was possible that she had closed it and it had locked automatically when she had gotten up in her haste to clean off the ink on that first day of the visit.

So it was possible that the diary was not even in dangerous hands. Maybe Kofi Kumi didn’t know anything. But if he had the diary and could get a way into it, her secret would be revealed. It was probably better not to say anything unless he mentioned it.

She resolved to avoid talking to Mr. Kofi Kumi as much as was possible without coming off as rude. There were only three more weeks left to this visit. It was possible. She would make it be possible. She could do it. At least... she hoped that she could do it.

It was becoming more and more difficult to avoid Mr. Kofi Kumi, Almasi found, because he always seemed to turn up where she was. He didn’t interrupt her near her bathroom anymore, which was a blessing. She guessed that he had taken the cue from her anger when he had shown up to proposition her. But, in spite of her refusal of his advances, Mr. Kofi Kumi seemed determined to get Almasi to give him the kind of attention he wanted.

He started with little things—talking to her and asking her questions in front of the others, so that she had no choice but to answer or else risk coming off as totally rude and insubordinate. He would ask her completely harmless questions at first. He would ask her about the weather, or her opinion on the food. Is it not nice and sunny out today, Almasi? Is this trout not delicious? What are your views on the diamond industry, Almasi? He would constantly try to engage with her like that, and he always did it when Mr. Arko Kumi was within earshot. She had no choice but to respond politely and to give the most banal and harmless answers. And all this time, whenever Mr. Kofi Kumi asked her a question, she could see his eyes sparkle dangerously. He was going to get what he wanted. This man may be lazy when it came to matters of business and finance deals, but in matters of pleasure, Mr. Kofi Kumi always got what he went after. And he was going after Almasi at an alarming intensity.

The worst part was that Jacob never seemed to notice anything strange about Mr. Kofi Kumi’s behavior. And every time Almasi had a moment alone with her husband, she was unable to bring herself to tell him. She knew that he knew about the diary, but what would he think of her being so careless with it? What would he say if he knew that, on the very first day of the business visit from Kumi Diamonds, she’d sneaked off to write in her frivolous little book?

Almasi had grown to love Jacob so much, but she continued to see herself as a mere pawn in his game. If she messed up—if he found out that she
had
messed up—she could lose not only her one million dollars, but the respect of the man she adored the most in the world. And so Almasi kept quiet about Mr. Kofi Kumi and his fearsome intentions, instead choosing to play it safe and pretend to Jacob that everything was fine. Jacob had enough on his mind. He didn’t deserve the trouble that it would cause him if he discovered this… this
ridiculous
and above all terrifying situation.

So Almasi played the game. She didn’t flinch when Mr. Kofi Kumi leaned in to talk to her, whispering jokes and observations about the boring diamond deal. She smiled graciously when he talked to her across the dinner table. She laughed at his jokes, answered his questions, and treated him as if nothing had ever happened in that upstairs hall when she had stepped out of the shower earlier in the week.

She kept up appearances of normality, as much as it pained her deeply. But she had no choice, she reminded herself every day. She had to do it, or else risk losing everything.

Jacob continued to be engrossed in the deal with Mr. Arko Kumi. The man was severe, but not without his charms, and Jacob reflected to himself that Kumi Diamonds would be a fantastic business ally. Although he did not have much time to be close with Almasi except when they were in bed at night, he did notice how close she seemed to be growing with Mr. Kofi Kumi. Jacob was a little bit jealous, in spite of himself, although he would never admit it to anyone.

He knew Almasi was faithful to him… right? That hadn’t been part of the contract, the sex, or the
love
, but Almasi was an honest woman, and she was also being paid very, very, well for her cooperation in this game. It was feeling less and less like a game to Jacob, he reflected to himself in a quiet moment. It really felt as if… no. That was silly.

But he could not help but feel as if he truly was married to the woman he would be with forever. When he looked into Almasi’s eyes, he knew in his heart that she felt the same way. Maybe… maybe he could propose something to her. After the Kumi Diamonds business deal was sealed, of course. Maybe she would choose to stay if he asked. He was in love with her, and he knew that it had come about in a strange and unconventional way. 

He didn’t want to lose his smart, beautiful, and cunning wife. He had a connection with her now, far beyond anything in the contract they had signed at the Tall Oaks restaurant on that fateful afternoon that now seemed so long ago.  If he could get her to stay… he would be living with the one true love of his life every day for the rest of both of their lives. The  idea of being with his love was more precious than a thousand diamond deals.

Jacob showed Almasi his love in small, everyday ways. It was too risky at this point to talk about it aloud, or things could get awkward and bad between them at this crucial point in the diamond deal, but he could still tell her he loved her in ways that didn’t need words.

His nonverbal acts of adoration made their way to her in his soft, sensual morning kisses, in bringing her coffee when she looked tired (he had it made just as he knew she liked it—strong, no sugar, two creams), in the nightly heated, passionate sex that was rapidly becoming something that he could almost call lovemaking.

It was love that they were making, with the bond between them growing, and Jacob was becoming more and more elated knowing that his wife’s smiles were for him and him alone, and that he was the only one who had ever and would ever touch her beautiful body.

And did he ever touch her body. They were going through condoms like nobody’s business--Jacob laughed to himself, thinking that his next business deal ought to be with a contraceptive trade. But Almasi was his one and only now. He would see about the future. For now, he was blissfully in love with Almasi, and he knew that at the end of the month, nothing would get in the way of them staying together forever.

What Jacob couldn’t see was how Mr. Kofi Kumi was getting in their way. He was worming himself in between them, slowly but surely. One afternoon, just before lunch, he apprehended Almasi when she was alone in her lounge, reading a book.

He stood in the doorway, and she looked up and frowned. Nobody was around, so she didn’t have to pretend to appreciate his slimy advances. “What do you want?” she asked.

Mr. Kofi Kumi tutted. “Now, now, Almasi,” he said, her name sounding like an animal trapped on his lips. “Is that a way to talk to a man? The brother of your husband’s future business partner? I don’t think that my dear brother Arko would approve if he heard you using such a tone.” He smiled coldly and stepped into the lounge, shutting the door behind him. What was he doing?

“My apologies, Mr. Kumi,” said Almasi, emphasizing the formality and distance of the name she was using when she addressed him. “How can I help you?” She wanted to get back to her book; a history of the gold mining trade. But Mr. Kofi Kumi was demanding her attention now. She closed the book, glancing down to remember her page number. Then she looked up at him, directly in the eyes. He smiled.

“You do love your books, Almasi,” he began. He walked toward the desk. “Hmm. An ink stain. What a pity. It looks like a real mahogany desk, too,” he said. He then looked up at her, his laugh lines crinkling even as his eyes expressed an air of danger, of menace. “Have you been writing in your diary at all lately, Almasi?”

Almasi froze. How could she answer this without revealing that it had gone missing? She still didn’t know for certain that Mr. Kofi Kumi had it, or that he knew anything about her secret contract with Jacob. She had to play dumb. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have,” she said evenly.

“Then you must have gotten a new one,” said Mr. Kofi Kumi. “Because this…” he retrieved a small book from his pocket. “This has been in my possession for three and a half weeks now.”

Almasi’s heart sank. She stood up, reaching for her precious diary. “Give it back!” she exclaimed, but he held it high, too high for her to reach.

“Aha, not so fast, Almasi,” said Mr. Kofi Kumi. “I have found some… interesting things written in these pages.” Seeing the look on her face, he chuckled. “Yes, I have read it. Don’t look so shocked. Picking a lock isn’t that difficult when a man has motivation.” He stepped closer to her, and she took an instinctive step back and nearly tripped onto the sofa where she had been sitting. “Would you like to hear one of the most interesting passages I found?”

“Please, I beg you,” began Almasi, but Mr. Kofi Kumi was already flipping through her diary, and in a moment, he began reading softly.

“
July tenth,
” he began in a mocking high tone, imitating Almasi’s voice. “
I cannot believe what has just happened to me. I have struck gold. Or diamonds, as the case may be.
” He paused. “Clever,” he said. “You have a way with words, Almasi. Maybe you should’ve studied language or journalism instead of commerce.”

He chuckled to himself and continued. “
A man ran into me this morning. Literally. He spilled my coffee all over my shirt, and I started cussing him out before I looked up and saw who he was—Jacob Adamson, the CEO for the company I’m interning at! I was so embarrassed, but he was very gracious. He invited me to lunch. I didn’t understand why.

He is Jacob fricking Adamson, and I’m… just me. But when I got to the restaurant (and it was a fancy one, too!) he had brought his assistant with him. I was even more confused. Why were there two men there? But then the assistant, Jeremy, started explaining the situation, and I couldn’t believe my ears. They needed a nice black girl to marry Jacob—to
marry
him!—because of a diamond deal he was bringing in from Africa.

It was some sort of gesture of good faith, showing family values and blah blah blah. Anyway, they were offering me this role. It seemed crazy to accept, but then they said it was only for a month, and that I would be reimbursed. And oh my God, how! They are giving me a million dollars to be Jacob Adamson’s wife for a month.

One. Million. Dollars. I can’t believe it! This will pay off my student loans, and maybe the connection will secure me a job in the future. This has been the weirdest day of my life, but if a billionaire decides that he wants to give me a million dollars in exchange for getting fake married… why not take him up on his offer?
”

Mr. Kofi Kumi stopped reading then. “There’s more, and I could go on,” he said, “But I am sure you are familiar with the rest. You wrote all about your personal fashion manager, the cook, the wedding… and…” he raised his eyebrows. “The intimate feelings you had.”

Almasi was ashamed of herself, and angry at her own stupidity. Why had she trusted writing in that diary, as if a lock could protect her secrets? And it was bad enough that Mr. Kofi Kumi now knew her terrible secret about the marriage. Now, to add insult to injury, he was flaunting her innermost emotions in her face.

“So, Almasi,” continued Mr. Kofi Kumi. He stepped even closer to her. “It would seem that you’re in a bit of a tricky position right now, are you not?” He reached a hand to stroke her face, and she was too petrified to move away.

“You see, I have something that could very easily incriminate you to my brother. If this diary was to fall into his hands, all this,” he gestured encompassingly, “the diamond deal, the business partnership, and I daresay your husband’s good graces—it all would be gone. Your lavish lifestyle would be no more. You would lose your money, your contract, and your reputation.”