The boardroom was cold.
Not just the air conditioning—though it hissed like a warning—but the people seated around the glass table, eyes sharp, faces locked in neutrality.
Amaka sat at the head.
Tunde wasn't allowed in. This was "company business."
They'd told her to come alone.
Across from her sat Mr. Okoye, the lead investor. Beside him, Rita, tight-lipped. Others joined by video, their names flashing in corners of the screen like vultures circling the feed.
Mr. Okoye cleared his throat. "Amaka, in light of the recent PR crises and conflicts of interest, the board is requesting a temporary step-down from your position as CEO—until we can 'stabilize optics.'"
Her pulse did not spike. She'd prepared for this.
"Temporary," she repeated, voice crisp.
"Only optics," he said, smiling like it wasn't a knife.
She looked at Rita, who couldn't meet her eyes.
Then she looked around the room.
"What happens to women who step down?" she asked. "Do we ever step back up? Or do we become cautionary tales in pitch decks and risk assessments?"
Silence.
"Let me ask it a different way," Amaka continued. "What scares you more—that I fell in love with someone unapproved? Or that I didn't ask your permission first?"
No one answered.
So she rose.
"I built this company. I bled for this company. And if you think a few headlines and backroom threats will scare me into erasure—you've forgotten who I was before I became 'profitable.'"
She slid her resignation across the table.
"You can have the company name. The logo. The board. But the vision? That stays with me."
Gasps. Panic. Papers rustled.
"Amaka—" Mr. Okoye started.
She didn't wait.
She walked out.
Tunde was waiting by the elevator, sketchbook in hand.
He didn't say anything when he saw her expression.
She handed him the resignation letter.
"I just walked away from everything."
"No," he said, eyes soft. "You just walked toward something else."
That night, they stood on a rooftop in Yaba. The rain had come and gone, washing the sky clean. Below, Lagos glowed like a wound and a prayer.
Amaka turned to him.
"I don't know what's next."
"You don't have to."
"But I'm scared."
"So stay scared," he said. "Just don't stay small."
She leaned into him.
"I didn't fall in love with you because you made things easier," she whispered.
"I didn't fall for you because you were perfect," he replied. "I fell because you were impossible not to believe in."
And under that sky—borrowed, broken, boundless—they kissed like people who had already lost and still chose to love anyway.