Mama Grace smiled. “This house confuses many people.”
“We are farmers,” Obinna added.
That only made it worse.
“Then how can you afford these?”
Mama Grace answered casually, “My son farms a lot of land.”
“How much land?”
She waved her hand. “Many plots. Many communities. Farming is only one part.”
Obinna nodded. “There is livestock. Fish farming. Some tourism. Other investments.”
The way he said other investments made it sound like forgotten umbrellas in a closet.
Chika stared. “How much do you make from farming?”
Mama Grace answered before he could. “Billions every year from crops alone.”
Chika turned to Obinna to see if his mother was exaggerating.
He simply said, “It depends on the year.”
Then he took out a bank card and placed it in front of her.
“For anything you need.”
She looked at it as though it might bite.
“You don’t need to ask,” he added.
“I have not even bought anything.”
“You will.”
“I don’t want to spend carelessly.”
A faint smile touched his face. “Then check the balance first.”
She did.
And nearly stopped breathing.
The amount was so high it looked like a mistake. When she glanced up, he only shrugged.
“That account is small. I’ll transfer more later if you need it.”
Small.
Later.
As if numbers like that were ordinary weather.
Finally she asked the question that mattered most.
“If you have this kind of money, why do you live here?”
Obinna looked toward the old walls, the roof, the familiar room.
“My father built this house himself,” he said. “My mother refused to leave after he died. And I don’t like leaving her alone.”
There was no performance in it. No attempt to sound noble. Just truth.
And for some reason, that moved Chika more than the gold, more than the money, more than the diamond.
Because real wealth, she was starting to see, was not always loud.
That evening after they ate, another awkwardness arrived—night.
They were married in name now, yes, but still strangers in every way that mattered. Chika had only met him properly hours ago. The thought of sharing a room with him made her stomach tighten.
Obinna noticed immediately.
“You can sleep in my room,” he said. “I’ll stay elsewhere until our proper wedding. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
She looked up in surprise. “You would leave your own room?”
“Of course.”
It should not have meant so much, but it did.
In her father’s house, so many things had been decided for her. Here, a man she barely knew was already making space for her to breathe.
Mama Grace, however, refused to let her son go wandering around the village late at night just to make them less awkward.
“You are both adults,” she declared. “The bed is big enough. Nobody will die.”
Then she left them to it.
In the room, Obinna placed a pillow between them and said, “You can take the inner side.”
That almost made Chika smile.
“You don’t trust yourself?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He turned, surprised, then laughed quietly. “I trust myself. I just don’t want you to think I’m trying anything.”
She looked at the ceiling to hide the heat rising to her face.
“No,” he added after a pause, voice lower now, “but you are not exactly easy to ignore.”
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