The Billionaire's Wrong Wedding

At 4:52 in the morning, Temitope Adebayo was standing on a stepladder in the grand hall of the Lagos Continental Ballroom, arguing with a chandelier.

"You will hang straight," she told it, "or I will personally explain the meaning of rent to you."

The chandelier swung. A crystal fell. Her assistant Bola screamed from the doorway like someone had announced a fuel price increase.

"Madam Temi! Madam Temi! It is not the chandelier!"

"Bola, if you say the caterers have not arrived, I will go and sit in that lagoon."

"It is the bride."

Temi came down the ladder one rung at a time, the way people descend when they already know. "What about the bride?"

Bola held up a phone. On the screen was a text, sent at 3:17am, from a number saved as Zainab Wedding Bride 💍💍💍. It read: Sorry. I cannot do this. Do not look for me. Tell Kachi I am sorry. Tell him it was never about money.

Temi read it twice. Then she read it a third time, in case the words would rearrange themselves into something that did not end her career.