Friday, some 3 weeks later.

2:15pm

Gowon's POV

Gowon attended Friday prayers in a mosque around Ikoyi because he had some business in the area, earlier that day.

When he got into his car, he realized how close it was to Yinka's place, so he decided to go check up on them. They are not even due for his weekly supervision but he wanted to tick it off his tasks to free up his weekend.

He called Oke first to confirm if they were around before heading towards the house. She has finally agreed to use their app and she is complying with the security protocols, he should be done with everyone there in 20 minutes give or take.

The last two visits he went for were super brief and smooth (to his disappointment), while this is a good sign that the job has taken off and they probably won't have any more issues in the future, he is going to miss arguing with her small. She is....amusing.

It is actually time for him to reassign an actual security manager to her so he can focus on much more serious stuff but he is yet to do that because there is no available Personnel on ground to take over. He was going to assign Soji to her but, Soji is going to work with her half-brother instead.

Her brother, Dare is cool (unlike her) he only wants security in Lagos in fact he was more interested in armoring his car, he did not want a Bodyguard. However, Gowon was able to convince him to go with the whole Driver-Bodyguard arrangement since he also wanted a Driver.

Another reason Gowon is still managing Yinka's case is that; his intuition is telling him to stay on it for a bit longer.

Intuition......lol He laughed at himself ashamedly because he knows that is not entirely true. The crush factor is also part of that 'intuition' but his intuition is still....valid.

The thing is, he does not trust her, it feels like she is behaving herself so they can get comfortable with her and loose guard....literally.

He got into a nasty traffic as the clouds that were building up earlier got darker. "Shit" He muttered to himself. He should have just gone home because small rain like this can create maddening gridlocks around town thanks to the shitty drainage system Lagos has.

The downpour came when he finally got to Bourdillon road and as he drove towards the street leading up to her estate he caught a glimpse of a cyclist riding in the rain on the other side of the road and he laughed wickedly.

"How stupid?" He said to himself. Why anybody would be riding a damn bicycle in this Lagos and in this rain, beats him. Like, even if the weather is good there are so many obstacles to cycling in Lagos, its either the crazy 'Danfos' hit you or some touts rob you or you fall into a gutter, the list is endless.

Then again this is Ikoyi, Ikoyi people live in a cozy bubble and are not in touch with-

Gowon slowed down his car as the smile drained out of his face because he saw golden brown kinky curly hair under the rider's helmet!

As in the rider had golden brown kinky curly hair, there is only one person he knows with that same color and texture of hair and that person lives close by and probably owns a freaking mountain bike because she happens to be an environmentalist!

(The last time he saw her, she had new hair and the tips were dyed in a nice golden brown shade, he thought it was cute and even wondered if hair dyeing is good for the environment but he didn't ask her, because that would have exposed his appreciation of her new hair lol.)

He slammed on his brakes quickly and turned back but he couldn't get a clear glimpse again, the rain muzzled his view and the rider was getting away, he was going in the opposite direction. He parked and called Oke again to confirm if she was in the house.

"Hello Oke, again, where is your Principal? What is her exact location right now?" His voice was calm but he was apprehensive.

(A/N: 'Principal' is the person under protection.)

He didn't even wait for Oke's confirmation before he fired up his car again and made a quick u-turn.

He knew it was Yinka.

He swerved about 2 meters over in front the bicycle obstructing the rider's path with his car and watched out his window to see if it was really her.

"Gowon" Oke's voice came back on the car speaker "Her car is here but.....i was tracking her car initially but....her current location is....reading-" Gowon hung up because he didn't need Oke's confirmation at this point.

Her reflex was good; she brought the bicycle to a stop quick enough to prevent it from crashing into the side of his car, then she threw the bike on the ground and glared at the car, she didn't know it was him the car was tinted; it was a Company car he rarely drives.

She started marching angrily towards the car, at this point he would have laughed his socks off but he was too shocked to even react accordingly. She was about to knock on his window when he opened the door and stepped out.

She looked relieved when she saw him, then removed her helmet quickly "Hey Gowon, it's you! I thought it was some idiot...wait how many cars do you have?"

He held her hand first, before she will run away.

"What are you doing?" He asked her as he opened the rear door and steered her into the car because the rain was heavy and she was getting drenched at this point.

"What about my Bicycle!" She cried when he got back into his seat and locked the door. He looked at her through the rear view mirror. She was emptying her backpack frantically and wiping the drops of water on her laptop. She was wearing jeans and a white 'Green Cabal' cotton tee that had gotten a little bit transparent from the rain, he could see the outline and color of her light pink bra.

"My Bicycle!" She repeated, snapping him out of his confusion.....and lust because his mind had gone rogue again and was already visualizing things with mental images of her that he saved from the pool the other day.

"Urrrm..." He looked at the bicycle again wondering how to fit it inside the car, he didn't have a bike rack. He cursed silently before going into the rain again. He had to collapse one and a half rows of the back seats to fit the bicycle in the SUV.

"Thank you!" She said cutely to him as she patted the bicycle when he got back into the car.

He parked off the road then turned back to her. "Why are you out in the rain?" He asked her seriously this time.

"I have an interview with a journalist for a magazine feature in about 10 minutes," She said as she attempted to dry her shrunken hair with her hands.

"What happened to your car? Why didn't you drive? Why didn't you inform them you were going out?" He had so many questions.

She gave him some long story about how she has stopped charging her car because the electricity in the estate comes from a private power plant that burns diesel as fuel. She said she takes her clean transportation pledge seriously and cannot compromise on that.

"So I can't use the car for now," She added.

"W...why?" He was struggling to pick up his jaw from the ground at this point because he was both utterly confused (by her explanation) and distracted. Distracted because she was now tugging at her shirt gently to dry it out and the way the thin film of cloth was it sticking to her caramel skin was sending his mind off into that....

"I didn't know it was going to rain this soon and I know Isa went for Friday prayers I didn't want to bother them," She said defensively as if she knew those were going to be his next line of questions.

"We are doing the interview in a Café just by the corner, I thought I could just dash there and back quickly" She continued.

He needed her to stop tugging at that shirt, he was losing his mind at this point; she is sexy and for some reason, she is even hotter when she is....wet. He looked around the car for something she could use to dry up faster, he felt like giving her his own shirt but that would have been too much, so he turned up the car heater and faced his front, he didn't look back again.

"Where were you going? What are YOU doing out in the rain?" She asked him.

"I was going to your house," He said.

"To see me? Weren't you there like four days ago, I thought it was a weekly thing" She grinned.

"Urrrm..." He was flustered "I was in the area and I urrrm" He was stuttering at this point.

She gasped, "Why do you sound sus? Are you tracking my phone too, I thought it was just Oke with 24 hour real-time access to my location?"

"No no," he laughed, "Seriously I had some business close by and I wanted to bring the visit forward because my weekend is going to be a little bit tight" He confessed although the last part was still a big fat lie, he is not doing anything this weekend.

"Well, I am busy as you can see," She said jokingly.

He chuckled and looked at her through the rear view mirror again, focusing solely on her face, she was smiling back at him, her dark eyeliner had smeared around her beautiful eyes making them more piercing.....& sexy!

"Where is the Café? I'll drop you off" He said with a smile as he started the car.

"On second thought we can have our 'Security meeting' here after my interview you know?" She said as he drove into the Café gate.

He wanted Isa and Maryjane to come stay with her, but Isa was still in traffic so he just told MJ to wait since he was with her...plus he didn't want them ruin this nice time they were having.

The Valet came to take his car but he couldn't give the Car to the Valet, it had a lot of security functions and restrictions and there was a nice glock 17 pistol underneath the front passenger seat. Too risky, so he told her to wait at the entrance and he parked the car himself.

"What, you afraid they'll steal your car?" She teased him when he got back and he laughed.

Here is the annoying part of this whole ordeal. The useless journalist she was rushing to come and meet was not even there. They waited almost 2 hours for him; he blamed the rain and claimed he was coming from the mainland.

"Do you want something to eat?" She asked him while ordering for cake and tea.

"No, I'm not hungry" He shook his head.

She didn't look pleased.

"You should try this tea then, it is heavenly," She pointed at a line on the menu. "Since you are not hungry"

He saw there was ginger on the list of concoctions listed under the tea so he just ordered for it to get her off his back.

They were seated on the same side of a booth because she wanted to reserve the opposite side for the journalist. He was right next to her with nothing between them, almost too close. He would have waited for her by the bar area but the Café was packed with people who had no plans of leaving anytime soon because of the rain.

He asked her to cancel the meeting/interview after one hour of waiting because it was just plain rude at this point but, she went on about how the 'Journalist' is popular and writes for a major national daily. She was not even as mad about it she just kept on rehearsing for the interview.

After they did their own weekly 'security meeting' (as coined by her) which was just him repeating the usual questions and her smiling and teasing him with the same old boring answers, she asked him to help her rehearse for the interview.

"Tell me about yourself," was the first thing he asked.

She frowned. "You should ask about Green cabal, not me," She said.

"Yeah but I....the readers should know why you decided to start Green cabal and your...background" He disguised quickly.

"You're right" She smiled then started talking about herself.

"So, I was born in Lagos-"

He smiled as she went on about herself because he knew the basics already but he paid attention because he wanted to learn more about her from her own lens. He didn't know she wanted to be a Petroleum geologist in the beginning lol.

Okay, he doesn't give a shit about the environment or climate change but he loves the way she is so passionate about what she does. How emotional she got when she started talking about the devastating impact of climate change and how Africa and tropical countries will suffer more despite the fact that the developed countries created most of the problem, then her eyes lit up when she talked about the plans and roadmap for the NGO.

**

"This is my friend, Gowon" She introduced him to the useless journalist when he finally arrived. "He gave me a ride and as you can see he is still upset you kept us waiting"

Gowon couldn't hide his irritation he stared at the guy blankly as he apologized profusely for wasting their time. He then ordered for a full course meal as if he didn't eat from wherever he was coming from.

Just look at the unserious human being she was entering rain for.

When they started, he watched her silently (because she was on record) from a third person's perspective. She poured her heart out again like her life depended on it, she really needed the interview to put word out about her startup.

He caught whiff of her fresh and floral perfume again when she moved to grab something in her bag, it was like cucumber and something else but definitely floral, it was very mild but he could smell it in her damp hair and her neck and arm. He was beginning to get comfortable there, he didn't feel like she was stealing his time anymore he just loved it there with her, watching her beautiful ass talk about her stupid climate change, he could do it all day.

When the journalist left, she looked at him anxiously "How did I do?"

"Perfect" He said.

She signaled the waiter to bring the bill and he tried to collect it but she stopped him. He insisted and was already pulling out his card from his wallet but she said something to the waiter in her half baked Yoruba then the guy laughed then left with the bill.

He heard 'email' and 'tab' so he knew she asked them to add it to her tab because she is a regular there.

She smiled at him triumphantly and he didn't know what to do with himself. He knows her net worth is probably 100x of his but still! No woman has ever paid for anything for him and he really likes this one and this was very close to a first date even though it wasn't, he had a nice time.

He sighed. "I owe you lunch...or dinner," He said to her seriously.

She stared at him intensely first then said "Your toxic masculinity is showing Gowon, you didn't even eat anything, you don't owe me lunch or dinner, let it go" She smiled politely.

At this point he was rattled because he didn't know what to make of what she just said. It felt like she was turning down a possible second date, not like he was asking he out on a 'second' date, like he is not even allowed to do that WTF!.

Grabbing tea and cake or whatever with her is a borderline violation of the security plan HE created. Good thing she introduced him to the journalist as her friend, at least she understands that she is not supposed to tell people they are her security detail.

Did he just get carried away by their little role-play and subconsciously asked her out on a date...indirectly?

Did his mind go rogue again?

But it was just an honest offer to payback for her kindness!

Stop overthinking!  He thought to himself.

"Are you ready?" He asked her.

She nodded.

"Alright let's go" He said switching back to his formal tone then stood up.

Happy Democracy day people

Guys! even my weekends are tight these days, this was two chapters but I made it one so I can move on to the next part quickly. I will work towards wednesday, (This is not a promise o!)

⬇️⬇️⬇️Don't forget to vote ;)