I’M LOST IN THE figures for SIP. They are hemorrhaging money. Their overhead is too high, their write-offs are astronomical, their production costs are rising, and their staff— A movement out of the corner of my eye distracts me.
Ana.
She stands at the entrance of the living room, twisting one foot inward and looking awkward and shy. She’s staring anxiously at me, and I know she’s seeking my approval.
She’s stunning. Her hair a glossy mane.
“See! I tell you he like it.” Franco has followed her into the living room.
“You look lovely, Ana,” I say, and my compliment induces a fetching flush on her cheeks.
“My work ’ere is done,” Franco says, clapping his hands.
It’s time to see him out.
“Thank you, Franco,” I say, and attempt to direct him out of my living room. He grabs Ana and kisses her on both cheeks in a rather dramatic display of affection. “Never let anyone else be cutting your hair, bellissima Ana!”
I glare at him until he lets her go. “This way,” I say to get him out.
“Mr. Grey, she is a jewel.”
I know.
“Here.” I hand him three hundred dollars. “Thank you for coming at such short notice.”
“It was a pleasure. A real pleasure.” He pumps my hand, and not a moment too soon Taylor appears to escort him to the foyer.
Thank God.
Ana is standing where I left her.
“I’m glad you kept it long.” I take a strand of her hair and caress it between my fingers. “So soft,” I whisper. She watches me—anxious, I think. “Are you still mad at me?” I ask.
She nods.
Oh, Ana.
“What precisely are you mad at me about?”
She rolls her eyes at me…and I recall a moment in her bedroom in Vancouver when she made exactly the same mistake. But that was a lifetime ago in our short relationship, and I’m sure she wouldn’t let me spank her right now. Though I want to. Yes. I want to very much.
“You want the list?” she says.
“There’s a list?” I’m amused.
“A long one.”
“Can we discuss it in bed?” Thoughts of spanking Ana have gone to my groin.
“No.”
“Over lunch, then. I’m hungry, and not just for food.”
“I am not going to let you dazzle me with your sexpertise.”
Sexpertise!
Anastasia, you flatter me.
And I like it.
“What is bothering you specifically, Miss Steele? Spit it out.” I’ve lost track.
“What’s bothering me?” she scoffs. “Well, there’s your gross invasion of my privacy, the fact that you took me to some place where your ex-mistress works and you used to take all your lovers to have their bits waxed, you manhandled me in the street like I was six years old.” She’s on a roll with a litany of all my misbehavior. I feel like I’m in first grade again. “And to cap it all, you let your Mrs. Robinson touch you!”
She didn’t touch me! Christ. “That’s quite a list. But just to clarify once more, she’s not my Mrs. Robinson.”
“She can touch you,” she stresses, and her voice wavers, full of hurt.
“She knows where.”
“What does that mean?”
“You and I don’t have any rules. I have never had a relationship without rules, and I never know where you’re going to touch me. It makes me nervous.” She’s unpredictable and she has to understand that her touch disarms me. “Your touch completely—it just means more. So much more.”
You can’t touch me, Ana. Please just accept this.
She steps forward, raising her hand.
No. The darkness squeezes my ribs. I step back. “Hard limit,” I whisper.
She masks her disappointment. “How would you feel if you couldn’t touch me?”
“Devastated and deprived.”
Her shoulders fall and she shakes her head but gives me a resigned smile. “You’ll have to tell me exactly why this is a hard limit, one day, please.”
“One day,” I answer. And I push the vision of a burning cigarette out of my head.
“So, the rest of your list. Invading your privacy. Because I know your bank account number?”
“Yes, that’s outrageous.”
“I do background checks on all my submissives. I’ll show you.” I head into my study and she follows. Wondering if this is a good idea, I pull Ana’s file from the cabinet and hand it to her. She glances at her neatly typed name and gives me a withering look.
“You can keep it,” I tell her.
“Well, gee, thanks,” she sneers, and starts flipping through and scanning the contents.
“So, you knew I worked at Clayton’s?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t a coincidence. You didn’t just drop by?”
Fess up, Grey.
“No.”
“This is fucked up. You know that?”
“I don’t see it that way. What I do, I have to be careful.”
“But this is private.”
“I don’t misuse the information. Anyone can get hold of it if they have half a mind to, Anastasia. To have control, I need information. It’s how I’ve always operated.”
“You do misuse the information. You deposited twenty-four thousand dollars that I didn’t want into my account.”
“I told you. That’s what Taylor managed to get for your car. Unbelievable, I know, but there you go.”
“But the Audi—”
“Anastasia, do you have any idea how much money I make?”
“Why should I? I don’t need to know the bottom line of your bank account, Christian.”
“I know. That’s one of the things I love about you. Anastasia, I earn roughly one hundred thousand dollars an hour.”
Her lips form the letter o.
And for once she remains silent.
“Twenty-four thousand dollars is nothing. The car, the Tess books, the clothes, they’re nothing.”
“If you were me, how would you feel about all this…largesse coming your way?” she asks.
This is irrelevant. We’re talking about her, not me.
“I don’t know.” I shrug because it’s such a ludicrous question.
She sighs as if she’s had to explain a complex equation to a simpleton. “It doesn’t feel great. I mean, you’re very generous, but it makes me uncomfortable. I have told you this often enough.”
“I want to give you the world, Anastasia.”
“I just want you, Christian. Not all the add-ons.”
“They’re part of the deal. Part of what I am.” Who I am.
She shakes her head, seeming subdued. “Shall we eat?” she asks, changing the subject.
“Sure.”
“I’ll cook.”
“Good. Otherwise, there’s food in the fridge.”
“Mrs. Jones is off on the weekends?”
I nod.
“So, you eat cold cuts most weekends?”
“No.”
“Oh?”
I take a deep breath, wondering how the piece of information I’m going to give Ana will go down. “My submissives cook, Anastasia.” Some well, some not so well.
“Oh, of course.” She fakes a smile. “What would Sir like to eat?”
“Whatever Madam can find,” I reply, knowing she won’t get the reference.
She nods and exits my study, leaving her file. Placing it back in the filing cabinet, I catch sight of Susannah’s file. She was a hopeless cook, even worse than me. But she tried…and we had some fun with that.
“You’ve burned this?”
“Yes. Sorry, Sir.”
“Well, what are we going to do with you?”
“Whatever pleases you, Master.”