Stay with me CEO

l there. I was stunned. I expected them to talk about the fact that I still had no children. I was armed with a million smiles. Apologetic smiles, compassionate smiles, God's-will-be-done sm

worth. They tell me that they recognize you as a good wife in your husband's house." Baba Lola cleared her throat. "Yejide, I want to pay you my respects personally. I want to acknowledge your efforts to ensure that our son, when he dies, will leave a son as his legacy. That is why we know that you will not consider this new wife a rival. Her name is Funmilayo, and we know, we trust, that you will welcome her as a younger sister." "A friend," Iya Martha said. "A daughter," Baba Lola added. Iya Martha patted Funmi on the back. "Oya, go greet your iyale." I winced when Iya Martha referred to me as Funmi's iyale. The word crackled in my ears, iyale: first wife. It was a title that marked me as a woman who was not enough for my husband. Funmi came to sit beside me on the couch. Baba Lola shook her head. "Kneel, Funmi. Even twenty years after the train began its journey, the earth will always be ahead of it. Yejide is ahead of you in every way in this house." Kneeling, Funmi placed her hands on my knees and smiled. My hands itched to slap the smile off his face. I turned to look into Akin's eyes, hoping that somehow he was not complicit in this ambush. His eyes met mine in silent supplication. My smile, already shy, faded. Anger gripped my heart, wrapping its fiery hands around it. My head throbbed right between my eyes. "Akin, did you know about this?" I asked in English, excluding the two elders, who spoke only Yoruba. Akin said nothing, just scratched the bridge of his nose with his index finger. I looked around for something to focus on. The white lace curtains with blue trim, the gray couch, the matching rug with a coffee stain I'd been trying to remove for over a year. It was too far from the center to be covered by the table and too far from the edge to be hidden by the armchairs. Funmi was wearing a beige dress, the same shade as the coffee stain, the same shade as the blouse I was wearing. Her hands were just below my knees, wrapped around my bare legs. I couldn't look past her hands, past the long, puffy sleeves of her dress. I couldn't look at her face. "Hold her, Yejide." I wasn't sure who had just spoken. My head was on fire, growing hot