“Why would you deny me, Thomas? Why would you deny me? I thought I meant something to you”, I ask him as we sit outside a doctor’s room. 

“I panicked. Your parents are powerful people, Lydia. They could ruin me. Why would you tell them without speaking to me?” Is he being serious right now?

“They are my parents. Who else was I supposed to talk to? You had disappeared on me for me weeks. I was alone. Unlike you, I couldn’t just walk away from this pregnancy. The baby is actually growing inside of me”, I remind him. 

“Well, your parents came to my house. Your mother attacked Pearl. Now Pearl knows. I had to protect you from Pearl’s rage. You are giving me the one thing that she and I cannot have together. Do you think she will let you live? She already wants me to fire you”, he says. 

“You can’t fire me. I’ll sue the shit out of your company. Professionally, I did nothing wrong. If Pearl wants to bring personal matters into work, she has another thing coming her way. Thomas, you have to protect me from her”, I say. 

“I will. I just need you to work with me here, babe. You called out the big guns and shit hit the fan”, Tom says. 

“They are my parents, Thomas”, I say. 

“Miss Khalo? The doctor is ready to see you”, the receptionist says. 

Thomas and I stand up and walk towards the doctor’s office. 

This man only spoke to me a week after the commotion with my parents. We are not in a good place. But he is here and we are here to see a scan of our baby. 

The doctor lets me lie down and the sonar scan is performed on me. Thomas holds my hand. He holds on tight. I feel him shaking. I look up at him. He kisses the back of my hand. 

The baby inside of me is displayed on the screen. I see a tear fall from his eyes. He smiles. He kisses the back of my hand. 

“Doctor, is everything okay? Is everything normal? Is there anything that I or maybe Lydia should do to make sure that nothing goes wrong?” Thomas. 

Shame, I understand where he is coming from. 

“Well, I will be booking her off for a few weeks. Lydia, you need to take it easy. I’m not happy with your vitals. You seem stressed”, the doctor says. 

“What are you stressing about, baby?” Thomas asks me. His wife. Duh!

“Things are a bit difficult for me at work right now. I cannot afford to take leave”, I say. 

“You can afford to take leave. This is our child’s life that we are talking about”, he says. 

“Your wife is trying to fire me. You want me to take leave and give her ammunition to push me out?!” I am angry now. 

“Lydia – 

“Miss Khalo, your child needs you to calm down. I understand where you are coming from and I completely understand your frustration. But you need to take some time out. If it wasn’t for Covid-19, I’d say go on a holiday or something. But right now, just switch off. Be selfish with the life of your child”, the doctor. 

I’m just quiet.

“Trust me, your job is safe. Trust me.” Thomas says. 

We drive back to my townhouse in silence. I cannot read him. I am not sure if he is happy or not. I honestly think that I should get an abortion. I have always wanted to make it in this world without my parents. If Thomas lets Pearl fire me, I will have no other option but to work for my parents. I don’t want to live in their shadow. I want my own life. I want more out of life than just being the daughter of the powerful Khalos. It’s bad enough that I’m the one child that didn’t die in that accident and their favourite child did. I’m quite sure my parents would have been okay if I were the one who died instead. 

“I think we should go to Venda for some time”, he says. 

There he goes again. What are we going to do in Venda exactly? 

“It will help you relax and not think about work.” He says. 

“You are not taking me to Venda then leaving me there while you come back this side. I’d rather go be with my own parents, thanks.” I say. 

“I wasn’t going to just leave you there. I have a house there. It’s where I go every time I need some space from the hustle and bustle that my life seems to attract. I think you’d be relaxed there. Safe. Away from all of this”, he says. 

I just look at him then look out of the window again. 

“Pearl is not taking the pregnancy well, Lydia”, he says. 

“I didn’t think she would”, I say. 

“She might want to destroy me”, he says. 

I am quiet. I don’t know where this conversation is going. 

“I don’t want her to hurt you”, he says. 

“I’ll have her arrested. I’ll destroy her if she comes anywhere near me. She will see a show that she has never seen before. And if she touches my job, it will be worse. She better not test me. I didn’t run after you. This baby was made during a session of consensual sex. If she thinks she is going to treat me as if I raped you or went after you with no motivation from you at all, she has another thing coming her way”, I say. 

His face hardens and he focuses on the road ahead. 

Portia calls me. Yho! This lady and her drama. She honestly thinks that she is the only person on this planet who has problems. Have we not already given her alternative employment? She is moving from the warehouse that she loathes so much. What the hell does she still want from me? Portia exhausts me. She really does. She has a hint of entitlement that I honestly do not like. 

“Are you going to get that?” Thomas asks me. 

“No”, I reply. 

“Who is it?” He asks me.

“Portia”, I say. 

“What’s her problem this time?” Even he is annoyed with her and she doesn’t have his number. 

“I’m not trying to find out”, I say. 

Then, we find ourselves chuckling. 

“By the way, you must never do that again.” He says. 

“Do what again?” 

“Involve me in doing favours for staff. I don’t like getting involved in things like that.” 

I knew this was coming. I did put him in a difficult position. But I am not going to admit that. I would rather say sorry without saying sorry. 

“Well, thank you for getting involved anyway – despite your views on the matter.” 

“And I meant what I said. If Pearl fires her, it’s on her.” 

“How could you take someone like that and put her in Pearl’s office? This is a recipe for disaster. We will never get rid of her phone calls now.”

We both laugh. 

“Mthunzi is too nice. She needs to learn that the grass is not always greener. She is not always going to get away with blaming people for her non-performance. There are worse managers than Miles and Pearl will teach her that. Even if she leaves our company, how far does she think she will get if she just doesn’t change?” 

“I hear you. But I hope you realise that she is not going to see it that way.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. 

I get a WhatsApp message from Palesa. 

“Can you come into the office? I need your help. I know you are on leave but it’s urgent. Pearl is having one of those days“. 

I reply, “I’m driving back home from the doctor. I should be home in 5min. I’ll log on and we can connect then?“

Palesa sends me a text and says, “Thanks Elle. I owe you one“. 

“Is everything okay at the office?” I ask Thomas. 

“Why? What’s going on?” He asks me. 

“Palesa says she needs my help urgently because Pearl is being herself.” I say. 

“You are on leave. The doctor told you to relax.” He says. 

“I’ll just help her with this one thing then I’ll be off, I promise”, me. 

Tom shakes his head, angrily so. He dials Pearl through the Bluetooth option in his car. 

“Thomas, what do you want?” Pearl answers her phone. 

“Why are you harassing my staff?” Thomas asks, not in a nice tone. 

“Who am I harassing?” She asks, not in a nice tone neither.

“The operations team. What do you want? You have people in the office when there have been clear instructions that people need to work from home. Do you want us to get sued?” Thomas is angry. 

“I don’t tell you how to do your job. You don’t get to tell me how to do mine”, she says. 

“I’m your boss. I will fire you. What you are doing is insubordination and you are putting people’s lives at risk. When last was that office deep cleaned?” Thomas. 

Pearl is quiet. 

“You get paid a lot of money to play an executive leadership role in that company. I have never heard of Mthunzi harassing people to get his job done. Every time your job needs to get done, half the office must feel intimidated and uncomfortable at the site of your name on their cellphone and computer screens. What exactly keeps you up at night to make you earn the money that we pay you?” Thomas is honestly making even me feel uncomfortable. 

“I’m dealing with your infidelities, mistresses and bastard children.” Pearl says. 

“That is a household thing. That is shit you deal with as my wife in our house, not as my employee in my company!” Thomas. He is scaring me to now. 

Pearl is quiet. I think she is just as spooked as I am at Thomas’ tone. 

“Clear that office effect immediately, Pearl. I’m not joking with you. And if we have deadlines to meet, do so without terrorizing my staff. Earn your damnsalary.” Thomas says then hangs up. 

I look at him. He is breathing heavily. 

We park outside my house and we head into the house. Before I can even open my laptop, I get a WhatsApp text from Palesa. It reads: 

“I’m driving home. Will chat when we get home. Check your emails and reply when you can“. 

“Cool“, my response. 

…

I have been on leave for two weeks now. Thomas has practically moved in with me, but he is very busy. He is always in business meetings and lately, all they do is yell in these meetings. I need Palesa in my corner, so when these meetings start, her and I chat on WhatsApp. Where she is needed to answer, I help her as best as I can. When I am not doing that, I catch up on some reading. 

I think I am going to enjoy being pregnant. Thomas, as annoying as he is, shows me a caring side to him during this time. 

The company has hired two new people in management, Kique and Camilla. They are both from Mexico, but they are said to be very good at what they doand very specialised in one of the projects that we have just piloted. Camilla has already reached out to me because the data team has directed her to me for a lot of the questions that she had. Apparently, not even Palesa or Pearl could answer her questions. This has made Camilla and Kique ask Thomas what the roles of Palesa and Pearl are if people need to wait for me to return from leave to get the ball rolling. Naturally, Pearl is now on a warpath and everyone is suffering – the chain of suffering starting with Palesa as always.

I’m not going to lie. I love that I’m good at my job. If I were not good at what I do and did not leave an impact everywhere I go, I would be known just for opening my legs to the CEO and getting promotions in the bedroom as opposed to the boardroom. 

I start cooking at about 4pm. I know that I will be serving him dinner while he is still dialled into a meeting and I will be eating dinner alone. 

Indeed at 6pm, I serve him dinner, but he is just on his laptop, not on a call. He grabs my waist and puts me on his lap. I smile at him. I rest my head on his shoulder. 

“You okay?” I ask him. 

“I’m good, baby. How are you?” He asks me. 

“I’m bored.” I say. 

He smiles at me. 

“How’s my child?” Him. 

“I’m sure she is fine”, I say. 

“She? I think it is a he”, he says. 

“Well, I just hope he or she will be a healthy child”, I say. 

“He will be. I just know it”, he says. 

We smile at each other. 

“So, is this permanent now or will you be leaving me one of these days to go back to her?” I ask him. 

He takes a deep sigh. 

“I don’t know, baby. But this weekend, let’s go to Venda, please.” He says. 

“If you promise not to just leave me there, sure”, I say. 

He kisses me, I kiss him back. His hands run up my thighs and under my short dress. He slides my panties off and puts me on his desk. I undress him too. He is inside of me and my leg is around his waist. We have sex on the desk and after we both cum and shake, we make our way to my toilet and clean up. 

We have dinner together. In the middle of the conversation, Pearl calls. We look at each other. He answers it. 

“Yes?” Him. 

“I’ve sent you some reports that I need you to urgently look at before tomorrow’s board meeting. There are a few slides that the team and I couldn’t conclude without information that is sitting there with your girlfriend. Please have her complete those slides then the pack should be ready. You can email it back to me and I’ll make sure it’s distributed accordingly”, she says. 

“Lydia is on leave”, he says. 

“This is important, Thomas. I know that she is carrying your precious cargo, but her role is critical to the company. How about you make her earn her salary. She is no longer an intern, remember?” Pearl. 

Thomas hangs up. 

“Its fine, I’ll do it”, I say. 

He shakes his head, but I spend about two hours completing the deck. Some of the information is wrong, so I fix it. I call Palesa and we discuss it as I fix the deck. She is actually nice to. Really nice. When I am done, I send her the deck and she double-checks everything then sends it Thomas. Thomas tells Palesa to ensure that everyone gets a copy of the deck, except Pearl. Palesa doesn’t ask any questions, just agrees.