Chapter 8: Safa, still seething from Qamira's insults, demands Amartya block her number—when he hesitates, she shoves him against the refrigerator, her nails digging into his wrists as she claims him with teeth and tongue, their anger transforming into primal need.
The room was dark, save for the city’s neon glow painting shifting blues and reds across the ceiling. Amartya lay on his back, Safa’s head a warm weight on his chest, her fingers tracing idle patterns through the sweat on his skin. The air smelled of them, of sex and her jasmine lotion and the faint, clean scent of the linen sheets she changed every third day without him ever asking.
“She really called you pretty?” Safa’s voice was a murmur in the dark, languid but with a sharp, almost invisible edge.
He’d told her everything about the summit. The milling crowds, the too-bright chandeliers, the way Qamira had approached him by the refreshment table, a crisp silhouette against the floor-to-ceiling windows. He’d recounted it like a funny story, an anecdote.
“Not in those words,” Amartya said, his hand stroking her bare shoulder. “She said I had a ‘polished look.’ Said it like it was an insult.”
Safa made a soft, dismissive sound. “She was looking. They always look.”
“She was mostly being a headache. Going on about market saturation. Then she asked about the Patel deal again.”
“And you told her you had a girlfriend.”
“I did. I said, ‘My girlfriend is Arabic, and I guess I expected you all to be sweet and pretty like her.’” He chuckled, the memory playing out differently now, in the safety of this bed. “The look on her face. Like I’d slapped her with a glove.”
Safa was quiet for a long moment. Her tracing finger stopped. “You called her pretty.”
“I called her pretty and rude. It wasn’t a compliment. It was… an observation.”
“But you observed she was pretty.”
He felt the shift then, the temperature in the room dropping a degree. He turned his head, trying to see her expression in the dim light. “Safa. Come on. It was a tactic. Throw her off balance.”
“Did it work?” Her voice was cool, detached.
“I think so. She got quiet. Then she started asking these weird questions.” He hesitated, knowing the next part was a minefield.
Her head lifted from his chest. He could just make out the gleam of her eyes. “What questions?”
“Just… things. Trying to get under my skin. Asking if my girl was ‘satisfied.’ If I could make her happy.” He laughed, a forced, nervous sound. “It was so transparent. She was just jealous.”
“Jealous of what?”
“Of you. Of me. Of the Patel deal. Of everything working out. It’s what she does. She tries to find the crack.”
Safa sat up, the sheet pooling around her waist. The neon light cut across her back, highlighting the tension in her spine. “And is there a crack?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“You said she asked if you could make me happy.” She turned to look down at him. Her face was in shadow, unreadable. “Can you?”
He reached for her. “Safa. Baby. You’re lying here in my bed. You cook honey chilli potatoes when I have a bad day. You’re… you’re everything. You’re happy, aren’t you?”
She didn’t move into his touch. “I am your everything. But am I your everything? Or am I just the sweet, pretty Arabic girl who takes care of you?”
The question hung in the dark, sharp as broken glass. He hadn’t expected this. He’d expected her fury, like before. Not this cold, surgical doubt.
“Don’t do that,” he said, sitting up to face her. “Don’t twist my words. You know what you are to me.”
“Do I?” She finally took his hand, but her grip was tight, almost painful. “You see her. You talk to her. You notice she is pretty. She asks if you are a good man for me. Why does she care? Why does she think she has the right to ask?” Her voice was rising, losing its cool edge, heating into a familiar, possessive fire. “She is looking for the crack because she wants to be the crack. She wants to be the one who knows if you are satisfied. She wants to be the one who questions your happiness.”
“That’s insane. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” Safa hissed, her nails biting into his palm. “She is obsessed with you. Your success. Your life. Your bed. I can hear it in the words you said she used. That is not the language of a business rival. That is the language of a woman who is measuring herself against me.”
Amartya was silent. The hum of the city filtered in. He replayed Qamira’s questions in his head, her intense gaze, the way her anger had seemed to flicker into something else when he’d mentioned Safa. Could there be a sliver of truth in what Safa was saying? No. It was just more of her possessiveness, magnified by the dark and the intimacy.
“There is nothing there,” he said, his voice firm. He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her rigid form. “She is noise. You are the music. I don’t even hear the noise when you’re around.”
He felt her resistance melt, muscle by muscle. A shudder went through her, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck. “You cannot let her in,” she whispered, her breath hot against his skin. “Not even a centimeter. You promise me.”
“I promise.”
“You are mine.” It was a statement, a decree.
“I am yours.”
She kissed him then, a seal on the promise, hard and desperate. It was an argument ended not with words, but with possession. They slid back down into the sheets, the outside world—the summit, the rival, the veiled threats—shut out completely by the walls of their making.
Later, as dawn began to bleed pale grey light at the edges of the curtains, Amartya slipped out from under Safa’s sleeping, entwined limbs. He padded quietly to the kitchen for a glass of water. His phone, charging on the counter, buzzed silently with a notification.
He picked it up, squinting at the bright screen.
A LinkedIn message. From Qamira Al-Rashid.
The preview text stared back at him: About Patel Pharmacies. There’s a logistical flaw in your rural distribution model you haven’t seen. A costly one. Coffee tomorrow? My treat. No insults.
His blood went cold. He looked back toward the dark hallway leading to the bedroom. He could hear the soft, even sound of Safa’s sleep.
He read the message again. A flaw? Was it a bluff? A trap? His mind, still fuzzy with sleep and the ghost of Safa’ perfume, scrambled. If it was true, ignoring it could sink the deal he’d worked so hard for. If it was a lie, meeting her was a betrayal of the promise he’d just made minutes ago, whispered into his girlfriend’s hair.
His thumb hovered over the screen. The city outside was waking up. Somewhere in it, Qamira was probably already awake, sipping coffee, waiting to see if he’d take the bait.
He deleted the notification. Placed the phone face down on the cold quartz.
But the message was still there. And so was the knot of cold, hard curiosity tightening in his gut.