CHAPTER 7

"...for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband...”

Saint quietly shut the door to the bedroom, thinking how convenient it was that his wife was asleep during the part of the scriptures she should have been most attentive to. Walking away from the door, the sound of the audio bible playing from Naomi's phone gradually faded away as he made his way to his home office.

It had been a long day and with the way things were going it was going to be an even longer night. The only reason he had come home early was because he'd received a text from Naomi, saying she was taking a taxi to his house, having flown in from London earlier in the day, but because he had been in a meeting he had only seen her message two hours after she'd sent it. He'd tried to call her back several times but she didn't pick up, and so worried he decided to check up on her, but now he was home, he wanted to stay home – with her.

Sighing heavily, Saint dropped his briefcase on his mahogany desk and sat on the chair, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back. He was exhausted.

The mud brick plant he'd recently acquired in India a few months ago, was turning out to be a pretty bad business decision as because of the typhoon, the plant was basically in ruin, some of his employers had been injured and a lot of the machines needed to be replaced and so that had been the cause of his headaches for the past weeks. Many a times he'd forgotten to eat and take his insulin shot, only remembering when he was at a dangerous point of passing out.

He needed a break and his wife had come at his time of need.

She had told him that she wanted to stay with her family over Christmas, that had been two weeks ago, but for some reason he was still yet to know why she'd come earlier than the planned.

Saint had never felt lonelier in his life than on Christmas morning, waking up in a house that could fit a city but with nobody but himself present. He'd spent the morning texting his wife before she had to end the call because her parents were present, and that left him trapped in his office working for the rest of the day.

“Qul lli, tubarraeatikum tubqi lakum dafiatan fi alllil?”

(TRANSLATION: Tell me, does your money keep you warm at night?)

Saint tried to silence his mother's voice in his mind but couldn't with the pangs of guilt hitting his heart. Usually he'd spend Christmas with his mother but because of the pressing issues he couldn't go to Antalya, which inevitably left his mother highly vexed at him.

Opening his eyes, he reached for the middle drawer of his desk and took out the red, small velvet box before placing it in front of him and opening it.

For long moments, Saint stared at his wife's wedding ring. In the limited time that he had to sort out all their wedding arrangements he'd gotten a diamond from Angola, that had only been cut three days prior to their wedding - but Naomi barely even looked at it, talk less of wearing it. The last time he'd seen her wear it was on their wedding day, nearly two months ago.

A crystallised mineral hardly ever was solid proof of love, but all that knew Saint knew that everything he did was from his heart. And that's why he'd married the woman currently sleeping in his bed. But now he was reconsidering everything.

Her body was a hot plate of nerves whenever he was close to her. Touching her, feeling her, making her feel not only like a woman but a human. Someone with a voice and not a bitch who is barked down with orders and expectations and terms and conditions, and all the other bullshit she felt she had to adhere to in order to be wanted and accepted, but he, Saint-Luc Roux just took her as she was and that's why at five in the morning she let him - over and over again.

Being a light sleeper, Naomi heard when her husband got up from the bed and went to use the toilet, but she pretended to still be asleep. Truth was she was extremely tired from all the constant travelling but when her husband lifted up her shirt and latched his mouth on one nipple whilst stroking her other breast, she couldn't deny her want for him.

This was their bedtime position and usually with great difficulty she would suppress her arousal but she missed him so much that it was hard for her to just brush her hands through his hair and not seek for more after their time apart. It had been two long weeks, two long weeks of slow burning and she needed the candle on her cake blown out.

“I thought you weren't coming until the 3rd of January?”

“Yeah...I just needed to get away,” Naomi replied avoiding Saint's intense gaze as she took a bite out of the French toast, pretending to be interested in the business news channel her husband always had on in the mornings.

She thought she could stay at her parents house, but as it turns out, they still irritated the fuck out of her, and it was harder for her to remain for a further week in the midst of their stifling selves when she had other options and so that's why two days after Christmas she lied to them saying she had to go back to London to get a book for a module assignment and she could only get it from her uni.

Closing her mouth as she let out a silent burp, she drank the rest of her orange juice before collecting both their empty plates and taking them to the sink to wash.

It had been over an hour since their love-making and like always the aftermath she was left with strung out emotions of sadness, something she was getting used to. Something she wasn't used to though was sensing how tired Saint seemed. Apart from his eyes lacking their typical shine, everything seemed okay on the outside but Naomi knew better and she found herself wanting to know what was wrong and help him fix the problem – but she resisted.

She was only his wife for one reason, even though her heart told her another.

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