CHAPTER 3

Even though Paris was his birthplace and residence, Antalya would always have his heart and so his first day off in six months and the first thing he did was fly over to the Turkish city. He'd barely left the airport before he made a quick detour to get himself some home-cooked kebab. That twelve liras on the kebab had been the best value for money than all the thousands of euros he'd spent in the last month eating pink meat.

Staring out of his car at the idyllic blue skies a smile settled on his lips as he mused over his boyish aspirations of twenty years ago. Saint had dreams of having a successful career, with a God-fearing devoted wife at his side and her being the mother of his five kids and all of them living here.

He let out a quiet snort as the thought of having a child sounded ridiculous to him now, talk less of five. The only thing he'd had down pat was his career and he'd learnt a whole lot since he was at the grand young age of twenty five – being successful in both career and family was a balance only some could reach and he wasn't one of them.

Saint had been talking to that girl...Naomi. At the thought of her a full blown smile became present on his face. He had been surprised when she'd reached out to him even if it was three days later. It was an absolute surprise when she did and the only reason why he even found the courage to give her his number was because he figured she wouldn't call and he had nothing to lose, but then the other part of him checked his inbox, junk email, work phone, private phone at least once a day hoping she'd decided to get in contact.

What were the chances that his last two trips to London and he'd seen her – he was sure it was not a mere coincidence.

There was something about her that he'd still yet to figure out that just made her so intriguing. It was the first time in his adult life that he found himself wanting to lie about an aspect of his identity, more specifically his age, just because he knew there was a big chance that she'd stop contact with him and to his surprise he didn't want her to. She was nineteen and he was forty-five, when he'd admitted that to her, she'd barely flinched in her response and only added that he could pass for thirty. Instead of the anxiety he'd initially felt to tell her his age, Saint became increasingly suspicious at her nonchalant attitude but didn't let it stop the conversation with her.

Over the last two weeks they'd been talking they'd already fallen into some sort of routine, they had opposite sleeping patterns, she was nocturnal whereas he had to be in bed before ten and she'd teased him about being an old man because of that, but he'd merely laughed because now she was the only one other than Antalya that could draw him out from the crazy hectic turbulence of his life. On one of the nights that they'd talked Naomi vented to him how unhappy she was at her job and Saint had offered to come and work for him as his personal assistant and she'd said no. But Saint even though he didn't voice it out to her knew she was only saying no for the time being.

The car rocked side to as he drove through the uneven streets of his mother's area, bringing him back to the present. No matter how many times Saint tried to persuade his mother to let him get her into a proper gated residential home she would insist that she was fine and she didn't need to be living in a mansion all by herself. When he'd then made the suggestion to renovate the area his mother had defiantly resisted the idea and said:

Look at the Colosseum it has been standing there for more than 2,000 years yet no one thinks of 'renovating' it. And so he had no choice but to respect her decision.

Grabbing his car keys, he got out of the car, slammed the door shut before quickly walking over to his mother's front door and pressing the bell. The November air was colder than he was used to and so he shoved his hands in to his pockets as he waited for his mother to open the door.

The oakwood door finally opened and he hadn't even fully entered the house before his mother put her two short arms around him.

“My son, you're here.”

“Yes mummy,” he answered as cupped his face in her hands.

“Why did you not tell me you were coming?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well what about if I had a man over, you would have been the one surprised.”

An unamused look crossed his face to which his youthful looking mother laughed out loud to, “Saint you know I'm joking. Come inside I've just made some pilav and köfte.”

Even though he knew his mother was a grown woman and she could do whatever she wanted the thought of her being with another man, had never settled well with him ever since he was nine and his parents got divorced. Despite the divorce, his parents were always in love with each other and another of his childish wishes was that his parents would get back together but that never happened and could never happen with his father dying from heart disease five years ago. Though his parents never remarried, his father did have multiple partners, whereas his mother to Saint's knowledge never did and at his father death she considered herself a widow rather than divorced and so took a vow of celibacy in the church.

As they settled in to the small dining table by the kitchen, Saint quickly checked his phone to see if he had any missed calls or text messages from Naomi but saw none, leaving him a little disappointed as it had been nearly two hours since he'd texted her to say he'd landed.

“Qadis, hal 'ant bikhayr?” his mother, Ayda asked as she brought over a plate of steaming hot food infront of his son.

(TRANSLATION: Saint, are you okay?)

“Nem 'ana bikhayr , mjrd mas'alat qalilanaan ... aleml,” he lied but that lie completely back fired.

(TRANSLATION:Yeah I'm okay, just a little... work issue.)

“Dayimaan aleamal , aleamala, aleamal alqiddis w hadha hu alssabab fi 'annak kunt wa'akkad dayimaan . 'iidha kan ladayk zawjat wal'atfal , walnnas alladhin ymkn 'an tati 'iilaa almanzil , wakunt 'adrak 'ann almal hu shay'.”

(TRANSLATION: Always work, work, work Saint and this is why you're always stressed. If you had wife and children, people who you could come home to, you'd realise that money is nothing.)

“Mumia' min fadlika, 'ana la 'urid 'an yakun hdha alhiwar.”

(TRANSLATION: Mummy please, I don't want to have this conversation.)

“Eindama kunt fi alththamanin min eumurih walays li'ahad walikun kunt marrat mumarradat lika, thumm ealayk 'an tueraf ma 'atahaddath eanh . qadis , la 'ahad yurid 'an takun qadimatan w hadduha . qul lay, tafeal kl almalayin mmin al'amwal alty taqum biha tubqi lakum dafiat fi allyl?”

(TRANSLATION:When you're eighty years old and no one but you're nurse visits you, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Saint, no one wants to be old and alone. Tell me, do all the millions of money you make keep you warm at night?)

“'Ana la 'adhhab 'iilaa alqadim w haddih,” he said as calmly as he could but could barely get the words out with all the frustration building inside of him.

(TRANSLATION: I'm not going to old and alone.)

“'Adeu alllah falan jiddaan , abni,” Ayda replied with a sad look on her face before picking up her spoon to eat.

(TRANSLATION: I pray you won't too, my son.)

By this time, Saint had lost his appetite but forced himself to eat whilst wondering what had brought on this unexpected talk from his mother. It had been a long time since his mother had brought up this sensitive topic, years even, and even though she had been desperately unhappy of the decision Ayda had come to accept that her son wouldn't produce her any grandchildren.

“Hal ra'ayt 'akhik fi alawinat al'akhira?”

(TRANSLATION:Have you seen your brother recently?)

“Nem mundh hwaly 'arbaeat 'ashhur.”

(TRANSLATION:Yeah about four months ago.)

“lays hdha ma 'aenih al'akhir sanat luk,” responded Ayda disapprovingly shaking her head whilst putting a spoonful of rice in her mouth.

(TRANSLATION: That's not what I mean by recent Saint-Luc.)

He just continued eating pretending not to have heard her response.

She fucked up the order again. She always fucked up, it was innate in her fucked up genes. It was a wonder yet that she still had not been fired. Nearly two months into the job and she couldn't even say how many times she had made a mistake. She was running on three hours of sleep, her fault for leaving her thousand word assignment until the last minute.

“You need to hurry up. The woman on table 45 is still waiting for their gluten-free main.”

The urge to tell the supervisor who'd just sidled up behind her to fuck off was serious.

“Okay, I'm coming,” Naomi replied as she waited for the chef to add chives onto the rice.

The plate was extremely hot yet she was not allowed to wear gloves. Walking as quickly as possible through the maze of tables and passing bodies was not easy when it felt like she was holding an erupting volcano in her hands and still had to feign a friendly smile on her face. Luckily before a hole burned through her hand she was able to get it to the guest in one piece.

Wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand she re-entered the kitchen and much to her displeasure her supervisor told her and a couple others to grab a tray of wine and go around the hall with it.

That was the part of the job she detested the most, she was a natural klutz and so doing that always unnerved her. Reluctantly she did as she was told but walked at a slug's pace and kept her eyes solely on the filled wine glasses even though the smell of alcohol made her feel sick. Thankfully she didn't drop any...that time.

It was when she was on her fifth tray that she may have gotten a little overconfident and so walked a little faster than with the previous ones and so when some guest bumped into her she couldn't control it and eight glasses of Sauvignon Blanc fell on the carpeted floor and because she was pretty much in the middle of the hall, it caught a lot of attention.

Embarrassed, she apologised to the surrounding guests and because of how idiotic she was, she started picking up the shards of glass with her bare hands onto the tray until one of the floor managers saw what she was doing and basically shouted at her infront of everyone to stop or she could hurt herself.

On the guests side, she thought it'd only make her employers look good as it'd look like they actually care for her health and safety but on Naomi's side which she knew was the actual truth, they were only trying to prevent themselves from getting sued by an employee.

The urge to cry was overwhelmed her but she swallowed her pride as she knew she couldn't quit especially because her student bursary had all been used up to pay for her accommodation and so she'd had no choice but to work.

By the end of her shift the pain in her feet was so bad she was hobbling to the tube station. It wasn't until she was sat in the tube that she'd remembered she'd switched off her phone and turned it back on to find missed calls from her parents which she left unreturned and a message from Saint telling her he was in Turkey. Her body was basically broken and her spirit in tatters but just that message from him put her in a good mood. She texted him back saying she had been at work for the whole day and when she got home she'd Skype him and not even two minutes later he'd texted her back saying okay.

When she got home the first thing she did was to have a shower, and even though she had one in the morning she wanted to rid herself from the pungent smell of the wine. Too tired to stand longer than necessary, she sat cross-legged on the shower floor and closed her eyes as hot water rained on her.

Her life was one fuck up to another fuck up. She'd stupidly spilled tea on the keyboard of her laptop the week before and since then it hadn't worked and she had been left with borrowing her university's laptop to do work. When she'd called the laptop company they'd said it'd cost hundreds of money to fix, which she didn't have and asking her parents for money was out of the question. Her mother had only bought her the laptop three months ago as a bribery gift for going to university. Tears fell from her eyes freely, mixing with the shower water. All the money worries was getting to her.

Remembering to call Saint before he fell asleep she turned off the shower and dried herself off with a towel, before getting dressed into her pyjamas which was just an oversized top. Settling herself into her bed she grabbed the chicken wrap and water she'd bought before getting home, which considering the status of her bank account she really shouldn't have but because she wanted to avoid seeing any of her flatmates in their communal kitchen as she wasn't in the mood to pretend to be happy.

Grabbing her phone, she rang him, munching on her food whilst waiting for him to pick up.

“Hey.”

“Hey you. I missed you.”

Her heart beat a little faster hearing the warmth and accented huskiness of Saint's voice fill her ears, saying those words.

“I missed you too. How was your flight?”

“Boring. How was work?”

“Urgh, I don't want to talk about that,”she said as she guzzled some water before settling into a foetal position on her bed and with the phone laying on her ear.

“Why what's wrong?”

“Everything, but nothing I'm willing to discuss at this present moment in time.”

“Okay...”

“So what have you done since you got there?” she asked to switch the focus from herself.

“Not much really. I went to visit my mother and I just came back like an hour ago.”

“How was it?”

“It was good,” Saint replied not really wanting to get into the specifics of the dinner with his mum. “Why do I sense you're leaving a lot out?”

“That's because I am just like you're not telling me what's bothering you today.”

“Alright, that's childish.”

“It takes one to know one, Naomi.”

The way he always pronounced her name made her think her name was the most beautiful sounding name in the world. Over the few weeks that they'd been talking he'd learnt little about him especially his personality traits, one in particular, his unabashed honesty, he spoke from his heart a lot and that was one thing that could easily become annoying or appealing or both at the same time. She changed topic once again to avoid argument.

“So hypothetically speaking, if you're job offer was still open -"

“It's still yours if you want it.”

“What would being Mr. Roux's personal assistant involve?” “Someone to take care of my personal needs.”

“And by personal 'needs' you mean...?”

“You fulfil my sexual needs.”

For some reason it didn't surprise Naomi, an older guy like him with his financial status and a young girl like him with a non-existent self-esteem it was almost like the perfect match. Tears fell down and her heart sank at the realisation of how open she was to the idea, just because she felt it a tempting desperate measure she was considering to take for her current desperate times.

“Naomi...are you crying?”

Ignoring his question, she grabbed some tissue by her bedside.

“Why can't you just hire a prostitute?”

“I don't want a prostitute,” and for some reason Naomi could hear a little frustration in his voice, “I don't mean to upset you.”

“Yet that 's what you did both times we met by basically pointing out how financially disadvantaged I am, and now this...this is just the cherry on top. I hope you have a goodnight.”

And with that she hung up the phone on him and cried herself to sleep, because she knew she'd be taking the job.

And that's how it all started.