SUNRISE AND SHENANIGANS
1886 Words
Zavian had been staring at the flame of the table candle when she arrived—too early to seem eager, too late to be polite.
He heard her before he saw her. Heels clicking in a deliberate, elegant rhythm. She walked like she didn’t owe the world a thing. That alone told him more than any matchmaking sob story ever could.
Then she appeared.
And she was… a problem.
Tall. Legs like a threat. That little black dress that dared him to look—he didn’t. Not properly. Just enough. Long, silken black hair, parted down the centre. Skin warm-toned and smooth. Full lips, untouched by a smile. And eyes that said don’t even try it, even though she’d shown up.
He didn’t stand. Didn’t smile. Didn’t speak first. He didn’t play games where the rules weren’t his.
But damn if she didn’t sit across from him and meet his indifference with the poise of a woman who’d been disappointed by the world one too many times to care anymore.
“Hi. Nylah.”
He almost smirked at the way she said it. Like she was daring him to forget it.
“I figured,” he said, because he had. She matched the desperation her parents projected—beautiful, yes, but guarded. Like a bomb wired to detonate if someone pulled the wrong string.
When she pushed back with, “You figured?”, he tasted the sarcasm before the wine.
God. This was why he hated dates.
Not because women weren’t beautiful—they always were. Not because he didn’t enjoy attention—he did, when it was convenient. But because there was always something underneath it. A motive. A question. A hope. A trap.
He’d met models, influencers, women who called themselves entrepreneurs and thought seduction was a currency. They saw his car, his watch, the name on his litigation firm—Blake and Verreaux—and immediately thought they’d won a lottery.
Nylah Daniels wasn’t one of them.
That, strangely, made her more dangerous.
She challenged him.
And part of him—his worse part—wanted to keep listening just to see what else she’d say to piss him off.
She tilted her head, waiting for more. So he gave it to her. Cool. Controlled.
“There aren’t many women who would wear Louboutin heels to a first date and still manage to walk like they’re ready to bolt.”
He saw it—the way her eyes narrowed. She was quick. Too quick.
“So you’re an expert on footwear and anxiety?”
That almost got a laugh out of him. He felt it rise in his chest like a cough he didn’t want to acknowledge. Instead, he let one corner of his mouth twitch. Briefly.
“Only patterns,” he said. “People tend to reveal themselves before they speak.”
He saw the way she bristled at that. Pride. She hated being readable. He respected that. But she asked the question anyway.
“And what have I revealed?”
His answer was deliberate.
“That you don’t want to be here.”
And then—checkmate—she leaned in.
“Well, lucky you. We have something in common.”
Zavian blinked. No one ever told him that. Not without stammering. Not without trying to impress him.
He should’ve ended the evening right there. Called the valet, walked away, gone back to the silent penthouse with its curated view of the city. But he didn’t.
He told her his name.
Zavian Blake.
He never explained himself to people. But he found himself doing it now—admitting why he agreed to this setup in the first place.
“Your mother cornered me in the middle of a client lunch. Started crying about how her daughter hasn’t smiled in six months.”
The horror on her face was almost comical.
“She cried?”
“They said you were beautiful and wounded,” he added, sipping his whiskey slowly. “They said I looked like a good man.”
He leaned in now, low enough to steal the breath from her lungs.
“They were wrong.”
And he meant it.
Zavian didn’t do love. He didn’t do soft. He had power, wealth, control—all things love tore down. He’d watched men lose everything because they got attached. Grew weak. Loved blindly. And women? They saw him as an empire, not a man. A kingdom to conquer, not someone to know.
So he kept his walls high and his gaze cold.
Yet here she was. Dismantling his silence, piece by piece, with nothing but a sharp tongue and quiet fire.
“So why come, then?” she asked, as if daring him to admit weakness.
He told her the truth.
“Because your mother looked at me like she was asking me to save someone from drowning.”
And maybe, just maybe, because some part of him hadn’t had this—this—in far too long.
“And because I haven’t done anything irrational in a while.”
Her expression cracked, just slightly. She didn’t know what to do with that.
Good.
He liked it that way.
The waiter came over.
“Would you like to order drinks for the lady?”
Nylah glanced at Zavian, then smirked.
“He doesn’t drink with strangers.”
Zavian gave a slow blink.
“I drink with threats.”
The waiter laughed nervously. Nylah didn’t.
She held his gaze and said,
“Then I guess you better keep sipping.”
Zavian grinned.
Dark.
Slow.
Unforgiving.
She was playing a game she didn’t understand—but God, she played it beautifully.
***
The smell of freshly brewed coffee curled through the Daniels’ house like a quiet whisper of peace—warm, earthy, deceivingly calm. Nylah cupped the mug in both hands, fingers wrapped tightly around it like it could anchor her to this moment. She stood on the narrow balcony just outside her bedroom, her eyes fixed on the eastern horizon where the sun was crawling up behind the Hottentots-Holland mountains in molten gold.
Cape Town was waking up. Slowly. With that hush of possibility that only came at sunrise.
And still… all she could think about was him.
Zavian Blake.
The Devil in Dior. The human embodiment of red flags in a three-piece suit.
Last night, she’d told herself to expect awkwardness. To grit her teeth and endure the setup dinner with minimal eye contact and emotional damage. But what she got was tension so thick it could have been butter-knifed off the table. There was fire. There was challenge. There was something dark and coiled under his calm exterior that made her both want to run and lean in closer.
Which was exactly why she needed to stay far away.
He wasn’t normal. He wasn’t safe. He wasn’t like any man her parents had ever tried to throw her at.
He didn’t ask her where she saw herself in five years. He didn’t try to compliment her dress like he rehearsed it in a mirror. He didn’t pretend to be someone who wanted a happy ending.
No. Zavian Blake looked at her like he’d already seen the ending—and wasn’t planning to survive it. And she saw Zavian as someone who stored corpses under his bed for a living.
Nylah took a long sip of her coffee and muttered to herself,
“Yeah, I really need therapy.”
The sliding door creaked open behind her.
Of course it did.
“Morning, sweetheart,” came her mother’s singsong voice—the universal sound of a woman who’d been waiting to interrogate since sunrise. “You’re up early. Couldn’t sleep? Or were you thinking about that lovely dinner?”
Nylah exhaled slowly. Here we go.
She turned just slightly and forced a smile.
“Morning, Mom.”
Her mother stood in her robe, hands already fidgeting with the belt like she was about to launch into a TED Talk on how one dinner could lead to grandchildren.
Nylah turned back to the sunrise.
Play it cool. Say just enough. Not too much.
“He was… fine,” she said slowly.
Her mother gasped like she just won the Lotto.
“Fine? You liked him?!”
Nylah blinked.
“Did I say ‘liked’? I said ‘fine’. That’s legally vague, Mom.”
“Oh, don’t be coy with me,” her mom said, stepping closer like a lioness stalking her prey. “I know that voice. That’s the same voice you used when you saw those leather boots at Canal Walk. You tried to act calm but your soul was already at the till with your credit card.”
Nylah choked on her coffee.
“Are you comparing Zavian to leather boots?”
Her mother shrugged, unbothered.
“If the man fits.”
“Wow.”
“So?” her mom pressed, bouncing on the balls of her feet like she was resisting the urge to squeal. “Tell me everything. Did he like you? Did he compliment your dress? Is he as handsome in person as he looked when I spotted him at Bootlegger?”
Nylah closed her eyes. Bootlegger. Of course that’s where her mother poached a literal stranger to set her up with. She was the kind of woman who made a friend in the produce aisle and called it fate.
Deciding it was safer to lie than to unpack what actually happened over dinner—like the part where Zavian casually admitted he wasn’t a good man while looking into her soul—Nylah plastered on her best “daughter of the year” face.
“Yeah,” she said, “he liked me.”
Her mother squealed.
Nylah continued.
“He said… we should do it again sometime. Soon.”
More squealing.
“Maybe even dinner here.”
And now there were actual tears forming in her mother’s eyes. The Holy Grail of Parental Approval had been unearthed.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?” her mother whispered, too giddy to care.
“I mean… technically, yes. But it’s a hopeful lie.”
Her mother waved her hand dismissively.
“It’s fine. Manifest it. Speak it into existence.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how billionaires work, Mom. You can’t just vision board them into dating your daughter.”
But her mother was already gone—probably to change the tablecloths and prep Zavian’s hypothetical welcome dinner menu.
Nylah sighed, finishing her coffee in one final gulp. The caffeine was hot, bitter, grounding.
She turned back toward the horizon.
Truth was—last night had stirred something in her.
But she wasn’t stupid. Zavian wasn’t the kind of man you casually dated. He was the kind of man you either locked out of your life forever—or the kind you let ruin you in a way that felt like a choice.
They were both broken in places too sharp to fit neatly together.
Two souls too scarred to save each other.
And yet…
She thought of the way he said her name. Quietly. Like a question he was still trying to answer.
Nylah stared into the gold-streaked sky and muttered,
“God help me if he actually calls……. Great! Good he didn’t take my number!”
- Writer
