(Mina's POV)
The world outside the hospital walls was a relentless storm-the hushed, judgmental whispers from her neighbors, the probing, worried questions from her family, the immense, invisible weight of societal disapproval pressing in from every conceivable corner. But here, on the secluded hospital rooftop under a sky bleeding from orange to deep violet, it was quiet. The vast city of Lagos stretched out before them in a sprawling, mesmerizing patchwork of twinkling lights and encroaching shadows, and Mina clutched the cold, rough railing as if she could physically steady herself against the tumult of it all.
Adams stood beside her, a solid, silent silhouette against the dying light. His presence was as steady and reassuring as the concrete beneath her feet. The fine wool of his jacket sleeve brushed against her arm, a point of warmth in the cool evening air that carried the scent of rain and distant traffic.
"They'll never approve," Mina murmured, the words nearly snatched away by the wind, a confession meant for the dusk.
"Whose approval are we waiting for?" Adams asked softly, his gaze fixed not on her, but on the smudged horizon where the sky met the sea. "Your mother's, who measures safety in predictability? My mother's, who measures value in bloodlines and balance sheets? My cousins, who measure a man's worth by the digits in his bank account?" He paused, and finally turned his head slightly toward her. "Or mine-the only one that should matter? The man who knows, with absolute certainty, what he wants."
Her chest tightened, a familiar ache of longing warring with fear. She turned fully to him, searching his profile in the dimming light, looking for any hint of doubt. "Adams... you say that. But love isn't enough when entire families are arrayed against us. You know that. We won't be fighting people; we'll be fighting ghosts, fighting shadows, fighting traditions older than both of us."
Finally, he turned to face her completely, his eyes capturing the last of the daylight and glowing with a fierce, unwavering intensity. "Then let's fight them together. Side by side."
The simple declaration struck a chord so deep within her it felt vibrational. She wanted to believe him, wanted to lose herself in the unwavering fire of his gaze. But a cold, pragmatic fear gnawed at the edges of her hope. "And if the day comes when the fight breaks us?" she whispered, giving voice to her deepest terror. "When the cost is just too high?"
His hand found hers where it rested on the railing, his fingers strong and warm as they laced through hers with a quiet, unshakable certainty. "Then at least we'll know we broke because we chose each other. Not because we let them choose for us. Us. We made the choice."
Something broke inside her then-not a shattering into pain, but a release, a yielding. The formidable wall she had built around her heart, brick by brick through years of disappointment and self-reliance, developed a deep, irrevocable crack, and the flood of feeling that rushed through nearly swept her off her feet.
"I'm so afraid of losing you," she confessed, her voice trembling with the raw admission, all pretense of strength gone.
"You won't," he said, his voice a low vow. He pulled her closer, until her forehead rested against the solid warmth of his chest. His heartbeat drummed a steady, strong rhythm beneath her ear, a primal promise. "Mina, I have spent my entire life letting others dictate my path. I've lived for their approval, their expectations, their legacy. It is an empty way to live. This time, I choose. I live for us."
---
(Adams's POV)
Holding her there, feeling the slight tremble in her frame slowly subside against him, was both terrifying and the most exhilarating sensation of his life. He had known boardroom victories that sent stock prices soaring, business triumphs that expanded his empire, fleeting infatuations that burned bright and fast-but nothing, nothing like this. Mina wasn't just a woman he desired. She was the anchor he hadn't known his drifting soul needed, the one who reminded him that a life could be built on more than profit margins and cold, calculated family politics. She was his compass pointing true north.
And so, before either of their doubts could slither back in to poison the moment, he said it. The words left his lips not as a question, but as a declaration. "Marry me."
Mina froze against him, every muscle tensing. Then, slowly, she pulled back, her eyes wide and shimmering with unshed tears, searching his face as if she hadn't heard him correctly, as if the words were a trick of the wind. "What... what did you just say?"
"Marry me," Adams repeated, his voice steadier now, filled with a conviction that left no room for ambiguity. "Not in some distant future. Not next year after we've jumped through a million hoops to please everyone else. Now. Let's decide this for ourselves, before anyone else can try to decide it for us."
Her lips parted, her breath hitching in her throat. For a heart-stopping moment, silence stretched between them, charged and dangerous, the fate of their future balanced on a knife's edge.
"Adams..." Her voice was a breathless whisper, fragile as glass. "Do you mean this? Truly? This isn't just... a reaction?"
He cupped her face in his hands, his thumb gently brushing away a single tear that had escaped to trail down her cheek. "I have never meant anything more in my entire life. You are what I want. This is what I choose."
She let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob, shaking her head in bewildered disbelief. "You are the most reckless man I have ever met."
"Maybe I am," he conceded, a small, earnest smile touching his lips. "But I'd rather be reckless with you, fighting for a life with you, than be perfectly safe and utterly miserable without you."
Her laugh broke fully then into a quiet sob of joy, and then she nodded-once, twice, a firm, decisive movement as though she was convincing her own heart. "Yes." The word was soft, but clear. "Yes, Adams. I will marry you."
The words were whispered, but to Adams, they rang louder than any award ceremony applause, more significant than any multi-billion-naira contract signing. He pulled her into his arms, their kiss not one of fiery passion, but of profound tenderness, a silent, sacred seal on a promise made not to the watching world, but solely and completely to each other.
(Later – Mina's POV)
When she finally returned home that night, her feet feeling as if they barely touched the ground, her mother was waiting for her in the dark courtyard. She sat on her low stool, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her face an unreadable mask in the faint light escaping from the windows.
"You've made your choice, haven't you, my daughter?" her mother asked, her voice cool and flat, devoid of its usual warmth.
Mina's chest constricted, the joy of the rooftop momentarily dimmed by the palpable disappointment. She drew herself up, meeting her mother's gaze directly. "Yes, Mama. I have."
Her mother studied her for a long, heavy silence, her eyes missing nothing-the new lightness in her posture, the resolved set of her jaw. Then, without another word, she turned away, picking up a discarded basket of laundry, her voice low but cuttingly clear as she spoke to the night air. "Then may God, in His infinite mercy, give you the strength you will surely need. For you will need every ounce of it."
The words stung, a prophecy of hardship. But for the first time, the sting didn't bring fear. Mina lifted her chin, a newfound steel in her spine. She had chosen. And she knew, with every fiber of her being, that her choice was worth every storm that was yet to come.
At that very same moment, in the opulent, silent stillness of the Dared household, Hajiya Zainab stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of her sitting room, a crystal tumbler of untouched brandy in her hand, staring out into the impenetrable night. A trusted servant had just slipped into the room, bowed, and whispered the devastating news into her ear before vanishing again.
"Marry Mina Ibrahim," she repeated to herself, the name a foul taste on her tongue. Her lips curved into a cold, utterly humorless smile that did not reach her eyes. It was the smile of a general who has just been informed of a rebellion, already plotting its swift and total annihilation.
If her son, Adams, truly believed his pretty little notion that love could overcome all, he was a far greater fool than she had ever imagined. And he was about to learn the devastating, crushing weight of a mother's fury.