And soon he was able to recall why he had come to like this smooth-talking man so much during the first days of their acquaintance. There was so much more to him when he wasn’t with his wife. When he wasn’t at her beck and call, following her around like a dog.

What a loathsome creature he became when she was at his side. Showering her with compliments. Playing the willing and adoring slave.

She was like no other woman he had known. Like no other woman on this earth.

When she stepped into his apartment, there were no little games. No fake displays of shame when she walked in. No fake displays of guilt when she departed.

She said nothing to excuse herself. Whereas the others, the women who’d come before—they’d gone on and on, moaning about husbands who failed to understand them or appreciate their fine points or pay them any attention at all. Or they’d tell Muhsin that they loved him in a way they’d never thought possible. Their flimsy excuses told him otherwise.

Celile said none of these things. Celile just walked in

But Ahmet was no longer the generous spender he’d been when he first started making money. For he’d learned now that money needed to work.

In the process, money had lost its old meaning. When he was just a little bank clerk, he’d seen money as a means to buy all the possessions he longed for.

But once he started earning money, he’d discovered what money really was, and how much power it wielded. It was no longer a means but an end.

To have money was to have honor, influence, and respect.

Ahmet did not just love money now. He worshipped it.

His aim now was to increase his capital, using it to finance further growth.

Her eyes fixed on the mirror, she said: “If you asked me not to come again, I wouldn’t come.”

“In that case, don’t ever come again!”

She watched as the face in the mirror registered first surprise and then anguish. That face in the mirror—how it frightened her.

She turned her head. Eyes closed.

A second. Two seconds. A minute, maybe more. Eyes still closed, she sat in silence.

Muhsin still reclining on the sofa, watching.

Watching this woman who was soon to wrap her slender arms around her husband.

Celile felt something cool on the tips of her long eyelashes. Something cool on her cheeks.

She had to keep her eyes closed and her head tipped back, so that her tears would flow back into her eyes.

Could it be true? Had Muhsin really uttered those words?

Such a thing to say. Such a thing!

Had she been accustomed to telling others of her feelings, she would have run across the room to him, thrown herself on her knees and said, “Don’t you ever, ever, speak to me like that again. If you told me never to come again, it would kill me.” She would have said this with no fear of wounding her pride.

For her, Muhsin was not about pride. For her, Muhsin was desire. For her, Muhsin was life itself.

She could not say exactly how or when he’d been erased.

All she knew was that he’d vanished from her heart without a trace. She could no longer remember ever loving him or even feeling close to him.

If she felt anything about Ahmet, it was rage.

Rage that he had come into her life. Rage that they had met.

For now he stood in her way. Simply because he existed and was her husband.

In her mind, he was no longer a husband, but an impediment, a chain…

As she distanced herself from him, cutting the bonds of intimacy one by one, she was merciless, utterly merciless. Not once did she suffer a pang of conscience.

She lived for Muhsin and no one else. She devoted her entire life to him.

She had left everything behind, just to be at his side.

For him, she had withdrawn from society and locked herself up in an apartment.

She had done so for Muhsin.

But Muhsin did not wish to be beholden to her.

He did not know what to do. In spite of all the expensive gifts he had lavished on her, he still felt unequal to the debt he owed her, and this made him feel uncomfortable.

He was uncertain how he should treat her.

And that uncertainty threatened to unman him…It made him feel as if he was not good enough for her.

Even though he was unwilling to marry her because he did not consider her good enough for him.