HAROLD'S POV

My assistant puts my coffee cup beside me and I pick it up immediately for a sip. The whiskey burns my throat. I have her disguise the alcohol as coffee so I can get through these grown men and women speak over each other.

They're like those seagulls from Finding Nemo. All fighting over a fish. Only the fish here is to give the best idea and save this hospital. All these rich men decided to overcharge everyone for treatment and now the people hate them.

I cannot understand a word and it is not the alcohol. It's the annoying sound of my father running his mouth. "I urge you all to discuss this like normal people." He says. As if he wasn't the one yelling the most. Absolute psycho.

After my maternal grandfather, the previous duke passed away, his estate and title passed onto my mother. She was his only child and he made adjustments in his will to make sure a woman could be his successor because people before him were grade A misogynists.

She got his title which she passed onto me. She said she didn't understand any of this enough. As if I did. My mother meets with high society people and goes to charities and hospitals and even then she decided to put her duchy on my shoulders.

I didn't do any of what she did. I didn't go to meet dying children to give them hope that things would get better. I didn't donate money to good causes. I didn't care about anything enough to do all this. But then it all changed.

I became the youngest Duke of Halesbury around six years ago. But that wasn't my goal. I never cared for the riches and duties and noble blood or whatever else exists. I had other shit to do.

While I've been the head of the duchy for six years, I haven't stayed home for more than a few months at a time. I lived on that shitty island.

And I enjoyed every second of it.

I still remember the boy I was before that night. Before I lost almost everything. I was naive. Foolish even. I was hurt because daddy dearest was mean.

I grew up after that. I went back to Mount Palacia from that hospital. I buried Joëlle with my own two hands and I buried her right beside me.

Even in death, Joëlle stays beside Hadrian.

I hope she rolls in there in absolute agony. I hope she hates her resting place beside me and I hope she rots.

She fucking ruined my life.

I told her about my childhood. I told her how I never felt loved and she decided to use me. She decided to hit me right where it hurt the most. I fucking hope her ghost still roams around this planet and that she never finds peace.

I loved her. Even after she died, I fucking loved her. She made me hate myself because I couldn't stop loving her even after all she did. It took me years to get where I am now.

Many years and many dead bodies.

"What do you think, Mr Crawford?" I look at the man who questioned me and then at my assistant. Her notebook is right in front of her, and she did take notes. Thank goodness because I tune out these toddlers most of the time.

"I'll think about it and let you know." I say. My father scoffs. "It's a yes or no question." He just can't keep his trap shut.

"And I said I'll let you know."

"Before you came here, things went by quickly because we made fast decisions." His raises a smug brow. I'll pay someone to wax that off his face without his knowledge the next time he goes to the body massage place.

"Is that why the quality of service was going down? Because you gave no thought to anything?" The late duke funded my father's hospital and many others. He made a whole chain.

And my father as the head surgeon took full liberty of ruling over it like a dictator. Over a fucking hospital. He charged whatever he wanted, he did whatever he wanted. People were paying four hundred quid for fucking cold medicine.

While I was a duke in name, I didn't have my inheritance. It wouldn't come to me until I got married. And while me having my inheritance would've made my father's life hell, he decided if I am to marry, he should pick my bride.

He started throwing his friend's daughters in my face. I knew they would all be his little spies, making my life a living nightmare. So I picked my own poison. My beautiful but broken poison.

She despises my father as much as I do. I know I picked well when the second she saw him, she turned away. He is borderline rude to her every time he sees her. She has done nothing to him except refuse his handshake but that's because she touches no one.

He hates my wife because her existence ruined his plans but nobody cares about him so he can weep in his bed. I look back at the table and decide it's time to end this meeting.

"Now, if you could all excuse me and get back to your jobs."

I walk inside my office and start to clean up the desk a little. I do not come to this hospital everyday. I prefer my home office, or the one my grandfather had in the countryside. He sat there and gambled. But instead of cards or sports, he gambled on companies and enterprises.

He made so much money just investing his inheritance in companies. Man was a genius. I sit in my seat and read through the notes my assistant sent me when my door opens.

I expected my father because he is an annoying wanker but I'm fairly surprised to see my wife walk in. Her long beige overcoat hides whatever she is wearing underneath completely.

It swallows her up. A shame. I remember buying this coat for her and it fit her perfectly then. Which means she has lost even more weight than before.

At this rate, all that would be left of her would be skin and bones. "Are you here to lend me a hand at work, darling?"

"No." Her response is curt. Her face is even more hostile than usual. "Then are you here because you missed me?"

"No."

"Are you upset?" I ask. "No."

"Is that the only word you're going to say to me?"

She huffs at that question. "It doesn't seem nice when you ask something and the answer is 'no', does it Harold?" Oh dear. She holds grudges. When I don't respond, she sits on the chair opposite my desk.

"You told me you will give me whatever I ask for." I did say that. "I apologise darling, I should've written down terms and conditions for that. Divorce is not included." I look back at the notes while she mopes.

"Harol-" Fuck this. I stand up and put on my coat. "It's late Inayat, do you want to have dinner?" I walk out of the cabin before she has the chance to respond and I know she is following me. That's what she does. Once she sets her mind on something, she only stops when she gets it.

Too bad, divorce just isn't in her cards.

The hospital is extremely close to high end restaurants. You eat, get sick and boom, there's the hospital! I hold the door open for Inayat and she walks in without a word.

A waiter approaches us with menus but I don't need one. "Steak and mashed potatoes. Medium rare." My wife refuses the menu too. "I'm not hungry." Why must I be punished every single time?!

"Can you give us a minute?" I ask the waiter, and turn to my wife when he is gone. "You need to eat."

"No."

"Don't make me shove food down your throat, Inayat." It would be a problem considering she doesn't tolerate being touched. Her eyes widen a little.

"If you're upset, take it out on me, not food. Eat something." She gives up on her hunger strike and gets a lamb steak for herself. She eats with elegance. Cutting her steak with poise and chewing it deliberately slow.

That's the kind of etiquette lessons I received as a child. Probably not as strict as a woman's but they were still a lot.

I don't know much about Inayat's past. I know she has parents somewhere but she never talks about them. I should've dug deeper into her life but I am her husband, not a detective investigating her for a crime.

I'd rather she tells me things herself. She just hadn't yet. "Would you ever consider a divorce?" She asks.

I finish chewing my steak before dropping my cutlery, sitting back in my chair and staring into her soul. I never see anything. She has everything hidden from the world. From me.

"Why do you want it so desperately? Is there someone else you'd rather be with?"

"No."

"Then? What is it?" Today is the first time she has breathed about a divorce and she is adamant about it too.

"I'm tired of this."

I shrug, "take a vacation. I can arrange one now if you'd like." She scowls at my response. "I don't see a future for us."

"I'll get you glasses."

"You-" she cuts herself off to breathe and calm herself down. "I'm not happy."

"Then tell me what I can do to make you happy. You deserve all the happiness in the world darling but you don't need to leave me for it. Tell me what makes you happy and I'll do it."

"Can you love me?"

That's what she wants? That overrated feeling of happiness for five minutes with pain and misery for an eternity?

She has made it clear time and time again that she isn't looking for anything with me. She doesn't even touch me and I don't think that is going to change anytime soon. Her fear of human contact is pretty potent.

"If that's what you want, then I can try." I have become great at pretending. This wouldn't be hard.

"You're lying." She says. "You narrow your eyes slightly and flex your jaw a little every time you lie. It's so little, people probably don't even notice."

But she does. She knows when I'm lying. She can tell by simply looking at my face. Well shit.

She goes back to her food and I go back to mine. I lethargically cut through my steak and chew without tasting anything. "Why do want to stay in this marriage?" She asks.

Because I know. I know that whatever happened to her, sucked the soul out of her. I know she barely has a will to live. I know she has self harming tendencies. She tries her best to clean up but I've seen a drop of blood in the shower more times than I can count.

Initially I chalked it upto menstruation but I see the cuts on her. She always makes up an excuse and tries to hide them really well but I see more than most.

I'm worried that if one day, I'm not standing on the other side of the door, she would never come out. That one day her blade would do more damage than I can dare imagine.

Every time I walk into our bathroom, I rummage through every nook and cranny to find her blade and throw it away. Yet somehow she manages to get her hands on new ones.

If my banging on her door or reminding her that I'm there keeps her from killing herself then I'm willing to do it forever.

I gave up on relationships when I killed my girlfriend. I gave up on love when my heart broke and never got fixed. I gave up on friendships when I realised that reaching out to Faisal would do nobody any good. I gave up on people.

That night in the cemetery, I was done. I did what I wanted to do. I didn't care if my father blew through my inheritance, I had nothing to live for. I wasn't suicidal but I was done. And right at that moment she came into my life.

Running towards me. She looked at the blood on me and still asked for help. She looked so scared, so broken. I had purpose again. I had something to do. I had her, and she needed me to protect her. She trusted me to do so even when I was a stranger.

My wife saved me even before I had a chance to save her. I still don't know who she was running from but I will hunt people down if she wants them gone.

She wonders why I want to save our marriage? It's all I have. She, is all I have.

"Because I don't want to lose you, darling."

~~~~~~