Insight of a Kenyan Girl

By the time he returned, the sky had turned the color of burnt copper. I’d been pacing half hoping he would come back quickly, half dreading what it might mean when he did.

I still didn’t know what he’d stepped out to do. The note he left was simple, thoughtful even, but vague. Just like him.

I didn’t know where he went, who he met, or what his life outside of me looked like.

And that realization itched at the edge of my calm.

When I heard the quiet knock at the door, I knew it was him. Patty never barged in, never assumed. He asked, always. As if he understood how fragile trust was for someone like me.

I opened the door.

He stood there like he hadn’t just disappeared for hours. Dressed the same, no trace of urgency, just that ever-present calm wrapped around something I still couldn’t name.

“I brought you something,” he said.

In his hand was a small paper bag from a local café I liked. My favorite pastries were inside ones I never mentioned to him but always ordered.

I blinked. “How did you..?”

He gave a small shrug. “I remember things.”

But it wasn’t just memory. It was precision. Almost too much of it.

He stepped inside, setting the bag on the table, and then turned to look at me. “You okay?”

I nodded, though I wasn’t entirely sure.

“You look like your thoughts are louder than the room,” he said gently.

“Maybe they are.”

He watched me a moment longer, then moved to sit on the couch, one leg crossed over the other. There was something fluid about the way he moved like someone trained, deliberate, aware of space and silence.

I sat across from him.

“I’ve been thinking,” I started carefully. “I still don’t know anything about you.”

He tilted his head, considering. “You know enough.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have right now.”

His voice wasn’t dismissive. It was… cautious. Guarded. Like someone who knew that revealing too much could ruin everything.

And yet, that only made me more curious.

“Can I ask you something?” I said slowly.

“You can ask anything,” he said. “Just know I may not always answer.”

“Where did you go today?”

His eyes flickered with something unreadable. “I had a meeting.”

“That sounds… vague.”

“It was.”

A beat passed.

“Patty,” I said softly, “are you in trouble?”

He smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “No. I’m the kind of man who ends trouble before it begins.”

I let that settle. His words weren’t a boast—they were a warning. Not to me, but to the world he came from. A world I hadn’t seen, but was starting to feel the edges of.

“Who are you, really?” I asked, almost whispering it.

His gaze was steady. “The man who showed up when you didn’t expect him to. The man who’s still here.”

“But I don’t even know your real name.”

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“Names are just labels, Minnie. They don’t change who someone is to you.”

“But they hold power,” I said.

He smiled again, this time softer. “Exactly.”

It hit me then. The way he spoke, the way he moved, the way people deferred to him without him ever needing to raise his voice he wasn’t just rich.

He was powerful.

Dangerous, maybe.

The kind of man who could walk into a boardroom and change the course of a city. The kind who could topple economies without raising a hand.

And yet here he was, handing me pastries and watching me with quiet concern.

“I feel like I’m standing in front of a mirror that’s cracking,” I murmured. “Like I’ve been seeing only part of you this whole time.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But maybe that part was the most honest one.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how.

Then, as if sensing I needed something simple, something grounding he reached out and tucked a stray curl behind my ear.

“You don’t have to run,” he said. “Even if you’re scared. Especially if you’re scared.”

My heart stuttered.

“You’re not like Callum,” I said quietly, without thinking.

I froze the moment the name left my mouth. I had never said it to him. I had never told Patty about Callum.

But he didn’t blink.

Instead, he looked at me with that same steady gaze and said, “No. I’m not.”

There was no surprise in his voice. No pause, no shift. Just quiet understanding.

A chill slid down my spine not from fear, but from recognition.

He knew.

Somehow, he already knew.

And he hadn’t asked. He hadn’t cornered me with questions or judged me for the things I hadn’t said out loud.

He had just waited.

And for the first time since his arrival, I let myself breathe.

Even if I didn’t understand everything about him, I believed this part. The part that didn’t try to own me. The part that simply chose to stay.