Bolaji's Pride 2: The Teacher And The Throne

The Lagos sun blazed mercilessly through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Adedayo Estate's infinity pavilion, casting geometric shadows across imported Italian marble. Bolaji Adedayo lounged in her throne-like position on a custom-made daybed, her bronze skin glowing against the pristine white of her Tom Ford jumpsuit. Around her, five carefully curated friends formed her court: each one beautiful, wealthy, and utterly disposable.
"So I told Senator Obiora's son," Bolaji was saying, swirling her glass of Dom Pérignon rosé, "that any man who uses 'bae' unironically in a text message clearly hasn't evolved past secondary school. Then I blocked him." She paused for effect. "His father called mine this morning, begging for a reconciliation meeting."
Adaeze nearly choked on her champagne. "You didn't!"
"I did. Daddy found it amusing. Said it serves the senator right for raising a boy with no sophistication."
Kemi adjusted her Cartier watch with theatrical precision. "These politicians' children think their fathers' positions grant them access to us. They forget we're the ones with the real power."
"Exactly." Bolaji's voice carried the casual cruelty of someone who'd never been denied anything. "Money without class is just loud poverty."
The friends tittered in agreement, their laughter floating across the manicured gardens like wind chimes made of malice.
That's when the shadow fell across their perfect afternoon.
A man was approaching from the direction of the main house: tall, lean, moving with quiet determination across the emerald lawn. He wore simple clothes: pressed khaki trousers, a white shirt that had seen better days, and black shoes that were polished but clearly old. Yet something about his bearing suggested he belonged wherever he chose to stand.
Bolaji's eyes narrowed behind her Dior sunglasses. "Who is this one?"
The man stepped onto the pavilion's marble deck without hesitation, nodding respectfully but not subserviently to the assembled women.
"Miss Adedayo," he said, his voice carrying easily in the space. "I'm Xavier Dada. I teach literature at Memorial Secondary."
Recognition flickered across Bolaji's face. She'd seen him at a few school functions�"always in the background, always observing. "One of Daddy's teachers." She didn't bother to hide her dismissive tone. "You're quite far from your classroom, Mr. Dada. And quite bold, walking into private property uninvited."
"I asked security to announce me, but they said you were not to be disturbed. I told them this couldn't wait."
"Oh?" Bolaji sat up slightly, intrigued despite herself. Her friends had gone quiet, sensing drama brewing. "And what could possibly be so urgent that a literature teacher would risk his employment to interrupt my afternoon?"
Xavier met her gaze directly..... a mistake most people learned quickly to avoid. "I came to tell you something I should have said months ago."
The air seemed to still. Even the garden birds fell silent.
"I've been watching you," he continued, his voice steady. "At school events, graduation ceremonies, board meetings. And I've come to realize something about myself." He paused, gathering courage or foolishness. "I'm in love with you, Bolaji."
For a heartbeat, the world suspended itself in crystalline silence.
Then Bolaji's laughter erupted; not the practiced tinkle she used at social events, but something raw and incredulous and sharp enough to cut glass.
"Jesus Christ!" she gasped between peals of laughter. "Are you completely insane? Did you suffer a head injury on your way here?"
Her friends exchanged delighted glances. This was better than any Nollywood drama.
Xavier stood perfectly still, waiting for the laughter to subside. His composure seemed to irritate Bolaji further.
"Do you have any conception," she said, rising from her daybed like a queen addressing a peasant, "of who you're speaking to? Do you understand the mathematics of what you just suggested?"
She began to pace, her voice gaining momentum and venom.
"You earn what? Sixty thousand naira a month? Seventy? My weekly manicure costs more than your monthly salary. This champagne we're drinking? One bottle costs more than you make in two months. The jumpsuit I'm wearing right now could pay your rent for a year."
Xavier opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a raised hand.
"I'm not finished. You live in some cramped flat in Surulere or Yaba, taking molue buses to work, eating rice and stew for dinner every night. Meanwhile, I fly to Dubai for weekend shopping trips. I have dinner at restaurants where the appetizers cost fifty thousand naira. My gym membership alone is more than most people's annual income."
Her friends were recording now, phones out, capturing every moment of the humiliation.
"And you," Bolaji continued, her voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more threat than shouting, "you think you can support me? You think you can maintain a woman like me? Do you know what kind of man I'm meant for? Governors' sons. Business tycoons. International oil executives. Men who own private jets, not men who've never been in one."
She stopped directly in front of him, close enough that he could smell her expensive perfume.
"You're a servant, Xavier. A well-educated servant, but a servant nonetheless. You work for my family. Your job exists because my father allows it to exist. And you have the unmitigated audacity to stand in my home and speak to me about love?"
Her friends were barely containing their glee. Adaeze had actually started a Instagram Live stream.
But something shifted in Xavier's posture. Instead of the expected collapse, he seemed to grow taller, more solid. His eyes, when he looked at her, held something she'd never seen directed at her before: pity.
"Are you finished?" he asked quietly.
The question caught her off-guard. "Excuse me?"
"Your performance. Are you finished? Because now I'd like to say something."
"Performance?" Bolaji's voice rose dangerously.
"Yes. This whole theatrical display of superiority. Because that's what it is, isn't it? Theater. A show you put on to convince yourself and everyone else that your worth is measured in naira and kobo, dollar and dime and whatever currency gives you that false sense of superiority."
The pavilion fell dead silent.
Xavier took a small step forward. "You want to talk about mathematics? Let's talk about mathematics. You're twenty-six years old, and in those twenty-six years, what have you actually accomplished? What have you built? What have you created that didn't come from your father's sweat and vision?"
Bolaji's mouth opened, but no sound emerged.
"You mock my sixty thousand naira salary, but I earned every kobo of it. I educate children. I shape minds. I build futures. What do you do besides spend money you didn't make and look down on people who actually contribute to society?"
"How dare you..."
"I'm not finished." His voice was gentle but implacable. "You want to know what I can offer you? I can offer you the truth. I can offer you someone who sees past the designer clothes and the trust fund to the woman underneath. Someone who would love you if your father lost every naira tomorrow."
He paused, studying her face. "But mostly, I can offer you the chance to become someone worthy of the privileges you've been given. Someone who uses her advantages to lift others up instead of tearing them down."
The silence stretched between them like a taut wire.
"You know what your real problem is, Bolaji?" Xavier's voice was almost conversational now. "It's not that you're rich. It's that you're empty. You fill that emptiness with cruelty because it's easier than facing the fact that beneath all the luxury, you're just as fragile and human as the rest of us."
Bolaji found her voice, but it came out as a whisper. "You're fired."
Xavier smiled then, not with mockery, but with something that looked almost like relief. "I resigned this morning. I knew there was a good chance this conversation would end my employment, so I made the choice myself. I wanted to speak my truth without the fear of consequences hanging over my head."
He turned to go, then paused at the edge of the pavilion.
"You know what the tragedy is, Bolaji? You really are beautiful. You're intelligent. You could be extraordinary if you chose to be. But instead, you've made yourself into a cautionary tale about what happens when privilege isn't tempered with purpose."
As he walked away across the lawn, not hurrying, not looking back, Bolaji stood frozen in place. Her friends were buzzing with commentary, already crafting the social media narrative that would make this story legendary by evening.
But for the first time in her adult life, Bolaji Adedayo wasn't thinking about how the story would be told.
She was thinking about whether it was true.

@@@
The garden party resumed its rhythm, but something had shifted in the air.
Bolaji settled deeper into her cushioned lounge chair, designer sunglasses reflecting the afternoon sun. Around her, the conversation gradually returned to safer territory; weekend plans in Abuja, the new collection at Temple Muse, someone's cousin's engagement party. The usual soundtrack of privilege.
But underneath the laughter, tension hummed like electricity before a storm.
"Can you believe that guy?" Kemi said, adjusting her gold bangles. "Walking away like some kind of... prophet or something."
"The audacity," Bolaji muttered, her voice carrying an edge that made the others glance her way. She reached for her glass of rosé, then thought better of it, letting her hand fall back to the armrest. "Some people don't know their place."
But even as the words left her mouth, they tasted wrong.
Across the semi circle of friends, Tonie sat quietly, turning her phone over in her hands. She'd been unusually subdued since Xavier's departure, her usual animated chatter replaced by thoughtful silence.
"Tonie, you're being weird," Gigi observed, leaning forward with the predatory interest of someone sensing gossip. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
Tonie looked up, meeting her friend's eyes. "I was just thinking about what he said."
"About what?" Bolaji's voice sharpened.
"About authenticity. About... being real." Tonie's words came slowly, carefully chosen. "When was the last time any of us met someone who spoke their truth like that? No agenda, no trying to impress anyone."
Kemi laughed, the sound brittle in the humid air. "Girl, you're talking about a secondary school teacher who probably takes danfo to work. Reality check needed."
"Maybe," Tonie said quietly. "But I've been around enough men to know the difference between someone who's performing and someone who's genuine. That man..." She paused, seeming to search for the right words. "That man has something most of the guys we know don't have."
"Which is?" Bolaji's question came out more defensively than she'd intended.
"Integrity."
The word hung in the air like incense, heavy and unavoidable.
Gigi scoffed. "Integrity doesn't pay bills, babe. It doesn't buy houses in Ikoyi or send you on vacation to Dubai."
"No," Tonie agreed, "but it makes you sleep well at night. When did we start thinking that was worthless?"
Bolaji felt something uncomfortable stirring in her chest; a feeling she couldn't quite name. She stood abruptly, smoothing down her silk dress.
"I need some air," she announced, which was ridiculous since they were already outside. But no one called her on it.
@@@


That night, Bolaji couldn't settle.
Her penthouse apartment felt too quiet, too spacious. She moved from room to room..
the marble-countered kitchen where she never cooked, the living room with its imported Italian furniture that no one ever sat on, the walk-in closet that could house a small family.
She ended up on her balcony, overlooking the glittering sprawl of Lekki Island. The city lights stretched endlessly, each one representing lives she'd never considered, struggles she'd never faced.
Her phone buzzed with a text from one of her usual admirers...some banker's son wanting to take her to a new restaurant in Lekki. She deleted it without responding.
Instead, she found herself thinking about Xavier's words, playing them over like a song stuck on repeat.
'Pride goes before a fall, girl'.
The presumption of it still rankled. But underneath the anger, something else was growing. A question she didn't want to examine too closely: What if he was right?
She thought about the men who usually surrounded her...smooth-talking, wallet-conscious, quick with compliments and quicker with their hands. When was the last time any of them had challenged her? When was the last time any of them had seen her as anything more than a prize to be won?
The realization hit her like cold water.
Never.
@@@

Three days later, in a moment of impulse that she would later struggle to explain, Bolaji made a call.
She was in her home office, supposedly reviewing some documents for her father's company, but really just staring out the window at the afternoon traffic on Ahmadu Bello Way.
The phone rang twice before a gravelly voice answered.
"Mama B. Long time."
"Hello, Chike. I need a favor."
Chike was what her father politely called a "fixer", the kind of man who could make problems disappear or create them, depending on what you needed and what you were willing to pay.
"What kind of favor we talking about?"
Bolaji hesitated, suddenly aware of how her request would sound. "There's this teacher. Disrespectful. I want him... reminded of his place. Nothing serious. Just some bruises and scratches to scare him a little."
"Teacher?" Chike's voice sharpened with interest. "What's the name?"
"Xavier Dada. Worked at some secondary school in Surulere. He's tall, lean, teaches literature in English."
The silence that followed stretched too long. When Chike finally spoke, his voice had changed completely... harder, colder.
"Say that name again."
"Xavier Dada. Why?"
"Nah, nah, nah." Chike's laugh was harsh. "You don't know what you're asking, sister."
"What do you mean?"
"That man saved my life. Literally. Two years ago, I was bleeding out in some back-alley clinic, no money, no hope. My own boys had scattered like rats. Then this stranger; your Xavier walks in, sees me dying, and pays my entire medical bill. Twenty-three thousand naira. That was his whole month's salary."
Bolaji felt the blood drain from her face.
"I asked him why," Chike continued. "You know what he said? 'Because you're human, and humans help each other.' Then he left. Never asked for payback, never came looking for favors. Just did it and walked away."
"Chike, I..."
"Listen carefully, Bolaji. I've done work for your family for years, but this crosses a line. Xavier Dada is off limits. Completely. You touch him, you deal with me. And I don't care how much money your papa has. Some debts can't be paid with cash."
The line went dead.
Bolaji sat staring at her phone, her hands trembling slightly. Outside, Lagos pulsed with its usual chaotic energy, but inside her climate-controlled office, everything felt suddenly still.
For the first time in her twenty-six years, she had encountered something her money and status couldn't touch. Someone who existed outside the rules she thought governed everything.
The uncomfortable feeling in her chest had a name now.
Shame.
@@@

That evening, as rain drummed against her windows and the city blurred into streaks of light below, Bolaji found herself thinking about authenticity. About integrity. About the difference between being feared and being respected.
Xavier's words echoed in her mind, no longer sounding like an insult but like a warning from someone who could see clearly what she was still learning to recognize.
Pride goes before a fall.
And for the first time, she wondered if she was already falling.



To be continued in Part three...