The Eighth Woman - Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

The Seventh Goodbye

At 8:17 on Friday evening, Daniel Nwosu learned that a relationship could end before the person standing opposite him had finished explaining why.

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He sat in the living room of Victoria Bello’s apartment in Abuja, watching her hold a phone she had barely touched since he arrived. Outside, the evening traffic moved restlessly along the road, and the occasional horn drifted through the closed windows. On the coffee table between them sat two untouched glasses of water.

A small paper bag rested beside Victoria’s handbag. Daniel had brought it from a bakery near his office because she liked the chocolate cake they sold there. He had imagined them eating it after discussing the final arrangements for Saturday’s family meeting.

Their families were supposed to meet the following afternoon.

For months, they had spoken about marriage in practical terms. They had discussed where they would live, how they would manage their finances, and how they would balance their careers with the responsibilities of building a home. Victoria had met his mother twice. Daniel had attended a family dinner at Victoria’s older sister’s house, where an uncle had jokingly asked when he intended to make the family buy wedding clothes.

Daniel had laughed that evening.

He had not imagined that, less than three weeks later, he would be sitting in Victoria’s living room wondering whether their plans had ever been real.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.

Victoria looked up. She was thirty-five, a corporate lawyer who could remain composed through a difficult negotiation. Daniel had always admired that quality. Tonight, however, her composure felt like a wall he could not reach across.

“I have been thinking about us,” she said.

He waited.

“I have been thinking for a long time, Daniel.”

“That sounds serious.”

“It is.”

He leaned forward. “Then let us talk about it.”

She looked down at her phone again. For a moment, he thought she might show him something. Instead, she placed it face down on the table.

“I don't think we should continue this relationship.”

The words seemed too simple for what they were doing to him.

Daniel stared at her, waiting for the rest of the sentence. Perhaps she was unhappy about something he had done. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps she needed time.

“You don't think we should continue?” he repeated.

“No.”

“Why?”

Victoria drew a slow breath. “Because I don't think I can marry you.”

He had prepared himself for difficult conversations throughout his career. As a project manager at an engineering consultancy, he often dealt with delayed projects, disappointed clients, conflicting reports, and decisions that carried financial consequences. He knew how to ask questions without losing his temper. He knew how to examine a problem before proposing a solution.

But there was no professional language for the sensation that spread through his chest.

“Has something changed?” he asked.

“Several things.”

“Then tell me what they are.”

She hesitated.

“Victoria, please. We have a family meeting tomorrow. If something is wrong, I deserve to understand it.”

“I know.”

“Then help me understand.”

She picked up her phone and unlocked it. After a few seconds, she turned the screen toward him.

Daniel saw a screenshot of a message.

The sender's name was unfamiliar, but the words beneath it were unmistakable.

You should ask Daniel what happened with the woman he was involved with before you. You are not the first person he has promised marriage to. There are things about him you don't know.

Below the message was a second image, apparently showing part of a conversation between Daniel and another woman. The text was incomplete. Several lines were missing, and the visible words could be interpreted in more than one way.

His first reaction was confusion.

His second was anger.

“Where did you get this?”

“Someone sent it to me.”

“Who?”

“I don't know.”

“Victoria, you are telling me you want to end our relationship because an unknown person sent you a message?”

“It's not just the message.”

“What else?”

She withdrew the phone but kept her eyes on him.

“I have heard things about your past. Things that made me wonder whether I really know you.”

“What things?”

“That you have had serious relationships before. Relationships that almost led to marriage. That there were problems in each one. That some of those women believed you were not honest with them.”

Daniel felt a familiar coldness settle over him.

“How many people have you spoken to about me?”

“Enough to know that I needed to ask questions.”

“But you didn't ask me.”

“I am asking you now.”

“No,” he said, his voice rising despite his effort to control it. “You have already made your decision. You are showing me a message from someone who won't even identify themselves, and you expect me to explain my entire life in the few minutes you have left for me.”

Victoria flinched slightly.

He noticed it and immediately regretted his tone. He lowered his voice.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spoken to you like that.”

She nodded, but the distance between them remained.

Daniel looked again at the screenshot. There was something unsettling about it, something he could not immediately identify. The language seemed deliberately vague. It suggested wrongdoing without naming an event. It invited suspicion without offering enough information to establish the truth.

He had seen similar accusations before.

The thought disturbed him more than the message itself.

“Do you remember Miriam?” he asked.

Victoria's expression changed.

“Your first serious relationship?” she said.

“Yes.”

“I know about her.”

“What exactly do you know?”

“That it ended badly.”

“It ended badly because we were young, defensive, and unwilling to listen to each other. There were misunderstandings. We both made mistakes.”

“And the other women?”

Daniel looked away.

He could not deny that there had been other women. He had never claimed to have entered adulthood without romantic disappointment. He had told Victoria about his previous relationships, although he had not described every painful detail. Some memories were difficult to revisit, and he had assumed that the important thing was to be honest about the past without allowing it to dominate the present.

Now he wondered whether his silence had left room for other people to define his history.

“I have never told you that I was perfect,” he said. “I have made mistakes. I have also been hurt. Some relationships ended because we wanted different things. Some ended because trust broke down. But I have never deliberately set out to destroy anyone's life.”

“I didn't say you did.”

“You didn't have to.”

Victoria rubbed her forehead. For the first time that evening, she looked tired rather than merely determined.

“Daniel, I want marriage. I want children someday. I want to build a life with someone I can trust. I cannot enter a marriage while wondering whether I have ignored warnings that I should have taken seriously.”

“And you think ending things without finding out the truth is the safest decision?”

“I think I have to protect myself.”

He understood that sentence. He could not even accuse her of being wrong to care about her future. Marriage was not a small decision, and neither of them owed the other a lifetime simply because they had made plans.

But something about the speed with which their future was collapsing felt unbearable.

“Look at me,” he said quietly. “Have I given you a reason not to trust me?”

She met his eyes.

“I don't know anymore.”

That answer hurt more than an accusation.

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Daniel remembered the first time Victoria had visited his apartment. She had noticed the books stacked beside his desk and asked why he kept returning to stories about people who survived difficult circumstances. He had told her that he admired people who refused to let disappointment define them. She had smiled and said she hoped he would remember that principle when life became difficult.

He had liked her because she seemed to understand him without requiring him to explain everything.

Now, he wondered whether he had mistaken understanding for certainty.

“Is there someone else?” he asked.

Victoria's eyes widened. “What?”

“Are you ending this because there is another man?”

“No.”

The answer came quickly, almost sharply.

He believed she meant it.

That made the situation harder, not easier. There was no rival to confront, no obvious betrayal to blame, no simple explanation that would allow him to turn his pain into anger and move on.

There was only a woman he loved, a message from an unknown person, and a decision he had not seen coming.

“What happens tomorrow?” he asked.

“I will speak to my family.”

“And my family?”

“You should tell them yourself.”

He nodded slowly.

Then he looked at the small paper bag beside her handbag. The cake suddenly seemed ridiculous. He had carried it carefully from the bakery, protecting it from the heat and the careless movement of traffic, imagining that it would become part of an ordinary evening with the woman he intended to marry.

He stood and picked up his keys.

“Daniel,” Victoria said.

He turned.

“I am sorry.”

He wanted to tell her that an apology could not repair what had happened. He wanted to ask whether she would remember this evening differently if she knew who had sent the message. He wanted to tell her that seven other women had once stood on the other side of similar conversations, each leaving him with a different explanation and the same emptiness.

Instead, he said, “I hope you find the peace you're looking for.”

He walked to the door.

Neither of them moved to embrace the other.

Outside, the night air was warm. Daniel sat in his car without starting the engine, his hands resting on the steering wheel. For several minutes, he stared through the windscreen at the dim lights of the building opposite.

Then he took out his phone.

His mother's name appeared near the top of his recent calls. She had called earlier that afternoon to confirm the time for Saturday's meeting. He had promised to call her after speaking with Victoria.

He could not make that call yet.

He opened his messages and scrolled through old conversations, searching for the screenshot Victoria had shown him. He found nothing that matched it. He searched his email, then checked the names of people who might have known about his previous relationships.

Nothing.

He was about to put the phone away when a notification appeared.

It was a message from an unfamiliar number.

I'm sorry about what happened tonight. You deserve to know that Victoria was not the first woman who received that kind of information about you.

Daniel read the sentence once.

Then again.

His fingers tightened around the phone.

Before he could reply, another message arrived.

Seven relationships did not all end for the same reasons, Daniel. But someone has been making sure you never forget how they ended.

He stared at the screen until it dimmed.

For years, he had wondered whether his repeated failures in love meant something was wrong with him. He had blamed his timing, questioned his judgment, and examined his own shortcomings. He had never seriously considered that someone might have been influencing events behind his back.

He typed a reply.

Who are you?

The message showed as sent.

No answer came.

Daniel started the engine and drove home through the Abuja night, carrying a question that would not let him rest.

If the message was true, who had been watching his relationships so closely?

And why had they waited until the seventh goodbye to tell him?

Stay tuned for Chapter Two by 8.a.m tomorrow.


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