Dreaming of Chocolate and Grey: Chapter 1, a fifty shades trilogy fanfic

DREAMING OF CHOCOLATE AND GREY:

SOME OF IT IS GOING TO BE HARD READING, SOME OF IT IS GOING TO BE HAIR TEARING, SOME OF IT WILL HAVE YOU QUESTIONING MY SANITY, NO WORRIES, I DO THAT ALL THE TIME...

I DO NOT MIND CRITICISM BUT I WILL NOT BE BULLIED EITHER

IF IT IS NOT FOR YOU DON'T READ IT:

ENJOY IT OR NOT THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

This is based like my other stories, around Fifty Shades of Grey. It is not at all like it, I use the character traits to create a similar story. Some places are the same, some names are the same, and others are missing altogether and some do not do follow the same career path, my Ana is a master chocolatier, she is almost 25 when this story begins, just to make Ana's career path work, so she was born 1990 and the current year is 2015. Ana uses her father's name of Lambert. The Steel's (not misspelt) in the story are Ana's maternal grandparents and their family, their surname is D'Acciaio. (Steel in Italian.) They are a large and loud Italian family of bakers. Ana's mother is a model Carla Steel, an actress, a kept woman and disowned by the D'Acciaio's.

Christian is 32. Elliot is 34. Mia is 23, they are all slightly older, but their jobs are the same and Mia is a chef in training and she is in awe of her cooking idol Anastasia D'Acciaio. I am taking a lot of liberties with the fifty story and with the places of fiction I have mixed with the places of fact. It is after all a fan fiction story and I love the bad boy billionaires and their lives and I love the BDSM theme of fifty, and so I wrote this one, it is one I have been thinking about posting for awhile, in fact it was written way before fifty falls, I am just re polishing it.

I still have the grammar issues I always will have, I am dyslexic and yes I'm English, yet still I can't master the written English word, and I am 52 and such I am unable to do any better than I do now, I am improving, but I have a way to go, yes I have been around the block a few times, so don't go sassing me with bad remarks, if you don't like the change in the story, please do not read on.

Ana and Christian are not the same, far from it, there is still the Jack and Elena involvement and Christian does still use submissives, Ana too has another relationship, and it won't be a popular one with you diehards. I am not saying it is a HEA, but it is not a cheat story either, but it will be a tissue tear jerker or two and I will warn you prior to posting if the chapter has triggers, yes there will be some... Now all that said, read it and tell me what you think...

Dreaming of Chocolate and Grey:

Chapter 1:

Anastasia Rose D'Acciaio-Lambert, explained.

If someone tells you, that you remember your first love forever, they are right, you do. I met mine when I was but a wee young girl in Bonny Scotland; he was the son and grandson of a client of my grandfather. They came to stop on Otter Island one summer, when I was far too young to know who they were. They however liked it so much that first time, that for many years after, it would become their regular once a year, guys only week for golfing. The funny and kind double act of father and son-in-law golf mad duo, were and are, Mr Theo Trevelyan and Mr Carrick Grey. They brought with them Carrick's sons and obviously, Theo's grandsons, Elliot, who was a goofy eleven year old, hyper and talkative nice boy, who made me laugh, he was funny and stupid too and as I said kind of goofy. He called me Wisp, because I was wild and never still, much like 'Willo The Wisp' I was here, there and everywhere. The other son was nine and called Christian, now he was totally different, well he was compared to his brother Elliot anyhow, he was moody and sullen, he hardly spoke, he fought with Elliot all the time and was quite frightening at first. He would fly into rages and break stuff, but only when he was touched. He let me touch him a couple of times when I was the wee two year old and harmless, but as I got older I didn't dare, he would push me away and scream at me.

Our humble beings are well documented, they are all on video film, which my papa took of us, me and the boys and it continued for many, many years, I still have them. They are part of my history with the Trevelyan Greys.

As Christian grew up, his demeanour didn't change much, in fact as he got older he drank and smoked and swore a lot. To me he was the epitome of what a street fighting bad boy American would look like. But and this is the big but, he was amazingly gorgeous, he always has been and that bad boy persona he had as he got older, it intensified, it had the twelve year old me hooked on the nineteen year old Christian Grey, yes I was in love with the much older bad boy, a whole seven years, two months and twenty three days older, is in fact the difference in our ages. The copper haired hard case, who I saw once a year for one week only, was in my life and my dreams for as long as I can remember, he captured my heart and I couldn't wait to see them every year. I think about my following him around all the time and wish sometimes that I had now avoided him like the plague, or fucked off out of his space, as he so eloquently shouted at me as I spied on him, but in his defence, I did do it all the time.

What I should do is get my head out of the clouds and focus on the meeting I'm heading into. I don't really want to sell Otter Island, I love the castle and the golf course, but I can't handle my career and all that Otter Island has going on. I have worked for years with a number of managers, but they all have been useless and or were missing something, but all of them have managed to slowly ruin the exclusive and secret reputation that my grandfather had taken over fifty five years to cultivate and to get the exclusive and ultra secret membership we have here, did I say it's like a secret big boys club?

I am way out of my league even trying to run it like Papa Frank did. I have tried to do it justice, especially since Papa died, and I have tried extra hard in the last two years actually, tried hard to get better people in and still it is failing. My love of the place is nothing compared to my love of my chosen career, and because I am selfish, my need to fulfil my own dreams has I will sorrowfully admit it taken precedence over Otter Island and the estate. The island hideaway it's slowly dying and it is me that is killing the place, me with my dire and selfish need to keep it because it was my families, yet I am failing it miserably by not knowing all I should do to run it as Papa did. I realised I needed to let it go to someone who loves the place as Papa Frank did, and I think today I will be able to do just that, because today, Grey Enterprise Holdings and Leisure are buying the golfing retreat from me.

I take a last look in the mirror and as I skim my hands over my tailored suit, I head in, if he wants the place he will pay for it. I say to the Sassy lassie in the mirror of the restroom. A girl in her gray smart office attire and ridiculously high shoes walks me to a glass door. She is about to open the door when I ask for a moment. She nods and stands behind her desk, she speaks into outer space and tells me to go in when I am ready, will I ever be ready to part with my granny's ancestral home, my first home and my papa's dream?

It's the best place in the whole of Scotland, it is a secret golf course set over many little islands, sure it may not be as famous as St Andrews, but its course is just as good as theirs. What makes it special is the secrecy and select membership it has. It is a well hidden hideaway gem, a gem that is known only to the people who want to golf in peace and quiet, who want to escape from reality for as long as they are guests there. They are cloaked in a veil of secrecy, and that's just one of the many things about this place that I can't seem to fathom out, I surmised that they are members of the secret Masonic Society? Do they get their membership here with a secret handshake and code passed down through the differing Masonic Lodges? Because believe it or not I have never had to advertise, and I never run out of new members, yet none of the members would tell me how it worked?

Otter Island was long ago a hideaway island for the rebellious Clan McKenzie, who were my Granny Mimi's ancestors, they were known Jacobites and were almost wiped out in the Clan uprising against the Sassenach King, in fact, the castle they lived in is now a hotel and built of my Papa Frank, who was a retired millionaire property mogul born in America, to Ellis Island immigrant Italian parents. Long before I was born, he and my grandmother, the canny Scott he married Mimi McKenzie, returned to her ancestral pile when my father was five, unfortunately it was an actual pile of rubble. She lured him away from America, with the intentions of having him rebuild her ancestral castle and because he loved her, he did. He often told me that he loved its location and the peace and quiet it brought to his crazy life, and later on in life it got them well away from my father's crazed fans too. Because of its seclusion and the hard to get onto location, there would never be a fans foot land on the island.

All thanks in the main to its quirky, small, barely connecting island formation it wasn't accessible from the mainland and Otter Island's bulkiness and heavily tree lined frontage, helped to hide those small stepping stone connections, and remain hidden they did. The smaller islands were big enough to have on them vastly differing greens. Papa Frank, he had purchased all the other long abandoned islands, which weren't by that time McKenzie land when they moved into the newly refurbished castle. Three of the outer islands were to become homes to a flock of sheep and a small herd of cows, that the islands one farmer and his son, raised for meat and another farming islander grew vegetables to fed the hotels privileged guests, the island is as self sufficient as it gets. Papa Frank, he too loved and valued his privacy, and because of his refusal to build a bridge to the large Otter Island, there was no road or foot access, it was and still is only accessible by boat, seaplane or helicopter. The outer ones however are connected by small bridges and stone roads, all of them linking the outer links to those on Otter Island. I love my home and it's a very labyrinth like hideaway, a little girl's haven in the sea.

I was not born there though... No, I was born by accident in Hollywood. My father, Franklin Lambert Junior, he with the awesome stage name of Lenny Lamb, was touring America with his band, Of Wolves and Lambs, when he met my mother the fashion model, Carla Steel (real name Carlotta D'Acciaio) they had a wild and passionate hook up in his dressing room once after a concert, a one time hook up that resulted in me happening. From everything I know about her back then and what I know about her now, she was a fame and money hungry bitch, and she was a famous English model, well she was until she fell pregnant with me and her star studded life had to put work on hold, my mother was not happy, but my grandparents, both maternal and paternal, insisted that she had to be a mother first, my father insisted on it too, whilst he continued to be the rock star, groupie screwing, lead singer of a rock and roll band. He said children had to have a stay at home mother, as he'd had with Mimi.

He sounded fantastic from everything his parents told me, I doubt they took much heed of the groupie screwing though. I wish I had known him; I have some great mementos of him, which is better than nothing. He sounded so great on all his albums and the videos I have, he looked like your stereotypical rock and roll star, tattooed, long haired, muscled and sexy I guess? He was a very smart business man, a great song writer, who was canny enough to own all of the bands master tracks and copyrights to the songs he wrote, that was until that was he met Carla and they had sex.

He died because of me. He was there in Hollywood to do a concert at the Bowl, only the day before it happened, I decided to make my appearance. He was driving my mother, her mother and his mother to the hospital to have me and they were in a car accident, he lived for just one short day after the crash, after a failed operation to fix his broken head, he was declared brain dead and his machines were turned off and his organs donated. His death was the fault of that drunk driver who hit them, he was driving his car on their side of the road, so the rock world lost a legend, I lost my father, his parents lost their son and my mother gained a meal ticket, me! She didn't care too much for the baby she birthed, but she loved that he had made me his heir, subject to certain terms conditions and a positive blood match. As I said, he was a great business man my daddy. Now despite the crash, I was born healthy and I was instantly loved by both sets of my grandparents. My mother, wow she was a different case.

After the funeral she and I parted ways, after the DNA confirmed that I was Franklin Lambert Juniors daughter, I was sold to my Papa Frank for a mere million dollars, after she found out much to her dismay that I wouldn't inherit until I was twenty five and his father was the executor of his huge estate and that she got nothing, nothing that is but a thank you and a kiss his ass letter from beyond the grave, along with his iron clad NDA he had her sign before they fucked, yes crass, but it was there in black and white, so she couldn't even do a kiss and tell without losing her shirt. I didn't know this though until I was much older, when she came back for me. That's another story for my tell all autobiography, I think?

She left me with my paternal grandparents Papa Frank and Granny Mimi Lambert, and so as a consequence of the sale, I was thankfully raised by them on Otter Island. Later on when I was twelve, I lived in Soho London and was then cared for by Nonno Santino; my grandfather and Nonna Vita, my grandmother, the D'Acciaio's and Carla's parents, my mad for baking Italian grandparents, who had plenty of visits when I was on the island, they were and are still the biggest part of my life. I was shown so much love and attention from all four of my grandparents and uncles, that I didn't miss her at all. You can't miss what you have never had right, a mother's love?

My confused and different upbringing made people who knew me envious, I might add with no good cause to be so, they were jealous of the places I could be, and the people I could have in my life. I was rich if I wanted to be. I could mix with movie stars if I wanted to. Sing with big named singers and bands if I had half a mind to do so. It was a world that was alien to me and a world that was never really me. My head always thought, 'what is the point in being mega wealthy, if all I am is mega sad?' All the time never knowing if people liked me for me or for the people my parents knew? My mother was wrong, money does not bring you happiness, because if it did, I would be euphoric all the bloody time and I wasn't, not anymore. My life so far said it all, I was at best, blessed or at worst, cursed, and the latter was the more appropriate accolade I had achieved. They say that life's a melting pot of people and experiences; then heck yes I agree, because my life pot is all that and more, so much more.

So, here I am selling the place I was raised in and though I want to keep it, it also holds some painful memories for me too. The man in question, and the one causing most of those horrid memories, is who I am about to go head to head with, I doubt he even remembers me anyway. I however knew him and I loved him and I think I always will, because they say you remember your first and he was the one man who had shared my firsts, all of them, I would agree you do remember your first...

I head in and he and his team are sat at the end of the conference table in his offices here at Grey House in Seattle. They are about to rise from their seats and I nod my head and wave my hands for them to stay put. He scans my body and his eyes don't miss a curve or a line. I keep my head held high and keep him in my eye line, and I say to myself I will not bow down to this man. I will be strong and I will not cry. Yes cry, because seeing him again has all those damned old feelings coming right back and it hits me suddenly and without warning, like a tsunami, and they overwhelm me. I sit down before I fall down. I keep looking at him and hope for some sort of recognition, I mean he came to the island for so many summers, summers I spent with him and still he does not remember me. Great...

"Miss D'Acciaio-Lambert, welcome to GEH. You will see before you the proposed agreement for us to buy Otter Island from you, your asking price is fair and I have agreed to it. I spent many summers there and I was sorry to hear that your grandfather passed away, he made the place special." He remembers us then, great?

"I know, and he looked forward to seeing your grandfather and father every year, they were happy summers." I say, keeping it civil.

"I remember them well, I remember you too. You were a mere child back then." He says with a smile.

"I was two when you and Elliot first came to play golf and you were only a child yourself, nine I believe?"

"I remember, yes I was. That is why I want the island; it was and still is the only place in the world that guarantees my privacy and it was a calming place." Right, what are you remembering, because I don't remember you being very calm? He even screamed like a wailing Banshee in the middle of the damned night.

"You still go each year? I didn't know that. Of course I haven't been there much over the past few years. I have had my own businesses to run. Hence me deciding to sell, I might add hesitantly because it is my ancestral home. I am doing it more harm by not being there and if you have been there recently I am sure you noticed the slip in standards?"

"I had, your grandfather has had managers in running it for many years. His personal touch and care was what was missing. It is still an excellent place to be, in fact I went there early this year for a few days, we all did, and it was just as I remembered it." I wonder, do you remember everything Christian? Like I do?

"I stopped going back when we brought Papa back to America. He never recovered after Granny Mimi died when I was twelve, he was a mess for years, he couldn't cope with me and I was sent to live with my mother's parents, the D'Acciaio's in London. I was just eighteen when he had his stroke and then I had to cope alone with the island for over four years, I was too young at eighteen to understand it all, and the managers I got in thought I came down in the last shower, they learned I didn't, the hard way, I fired their asses and did it again and again." He laughs; which shocks the lady to his side. Her throaty cough and her gravelly laugh, it catches me unawares. I'd thought the fiery, red haired COO of his would be a little more lady like at least?

"I didn't know you were alone and going through all that."

"That and much more, because by then there was the legal stuff with my father to deal with and my dead beat mother too and it was hard doing both my studying and running the island, when Papa Frank died something in me died with him and I lost my love of the place and didn't go back again."

"You should have asked for help."

"I was too strong headed and too stubborn. I thought I could do it all myself. I had to choose, and I did then what I am still choosing to do now, and that is to follow my own career."

"You are a confectioner are you not?" Ha, really Mr Grey? That is like saying you run a scrap yard or a one stop property shop or a travel agency. At the grand age of twenty four, I'm a Master Chocolatier of some worth and those are not my words, but those of the good men and great bakers and chocolatiers who have taught me all they know. I keep it civil, which is hard, was he always such an ass?

"Yes Mr Grey, I make confectionary treats, if that's what you care to call owning the best chocolate shops in the world?"

"I did not mean to offend you Miss D'Acciaio-Lambert." God my name sounds so sexy coming from those lips.

"You didn't, sorry I have had a bad day, coming in on the red eye hasn't helped, and I need to be going as soon as business is done here, I am opening my latest shop in New York tomorrow."

"Business is booming then?"

"It is, The House of D'Acciaio Chocolates, is flourishing and because of the rise in my chocolates popularity, I hope to open more stores here in America too, including one here in Seattle in the spring, if I find the right building that is! Have you got the copy of the documents for me to look over?" He is still staring. He has the moo-eyed girl bring me my copy and I look through the paperwork, inspecting each and every page, I have already had the emailed version and he is sticking to the asking price and all my terms have been met. I look up and I see he is texting. I sigh and sign. It's over and it is the end of an era, Otter Island is no more, and I suddenly wonder will it still be Otter Island or will it be Grey Island or even GEH Island? Who knows?

"So, it was a pleasure seeing you again. I hope you have everything you need from the island?"

"I took what was the family stuff years ago. There is just the oil painting of Papa, Mimi and I, if you do not want to add it to the portraits of the previous McKenzie's, portraits I might add that Papa thought were Mimi's relatives, but I doubt they are, then please let me know and I will have it and the others shipped to London. My head office there will deal with it."

"Have you time to go for a drink Miss D'Acciaio-Lambert?"

"No, I am sorry I don't, as I said I have to be in the air in an hour and head over to New York. We are premiering the new line of chocolates tomorrow and I have to see that the factory is set up correctly to accommodate the new flavours."

"All work and no play Miss D'Acciaio-Lambert..." Hearing my name is now pissing me off.

"...I play, and hard Mr Grey, I just work harder. Please call me Anastasia or Ana; my name is a mouthful. I tend to be D'Acciaio if it's chocolate related, and Lambert if it's not, because I did not and do not want to cash in on my father's name. If you need anything then call head office. I am sure they will put you through to me." Unlike your office, who blanked me when I so desperately needed you! He gets up to shake my hand and as he does he still has that swagger about him, cocky and arrogant almost. I walk towards him, shake his hand and that of his COO Rosalind Bailey; she has been the one dealing with the sale and has been good to me. I head out and he follows me to the elevator.

"Have I offended you Anastasia?"

"No, what could you have possibly done to offend me Christian?"

"I don't know? That's why I was asking you, had I done anything."

"Christian, the last time I saw you I was eighteen and a stupid girl, it was the same night Papa had a stroke, coincidently the same night you and Elliot left without bothering to tell me why."

"We were called back home our mother was in an accident."

"So a goodbye was too much to ask for after what I, what we, what we did that evening?"

"What did we do? If I remember rightly I was drunk from getting there, to going back home. Did we do something terrible?"

"No, no we didn't, but you made it dirty by leaving. So I am going to go before I punch you. Goodbye Christian, I doubt our paths will cross again. I don't think GEH want to acquire either D'Acciaio House of Chocolate, or the Dark Hearts Chocolate Range, or do you?" Why did I do that, why did I have to remind him of what we did? I am angry at myself for slipping.

"No, I am not in the market for your little chocolate empire, I would like to know what I did, you have me puzzled. Did I do or take something from you, I did have a habit of pilfering the odd souvenir or two, whilst drunk, but I was twenty five back then, so I would have thought I was passed that, but again I was drunk, sorry if I took something from you or behaved in an unsavoury manner, I can tend to be an ass when drunk?" The elevator doors swish open.

"Oh you took something precious that evening, well to me it was. Goodbye." I say under my breathe...

I get in and the doors shut and I leaned against the wall of the elevator and finally let go of the anger I had buried deep inside me. I was right; he was too drunk to remember, but god how I wish I could have used that excuse to try to forget. I head out and the car service is there to pick me up, get me out of this bloody god awful place I tell my driver. He smiles and asks me where I want to go, okay yes that would be good.

"Sea-Tac, I have to catch a plane to New York please. What's your name? Sorry, I should have asked."

"Taylor. Jason Taylor Ma'am."

"How long have you worked for Grey then Taylor?"

"I have been with him a while, actually shortly after he started GEH proper, just over seven years ago actually." So he started GEH a little before he came to the Island, that was the last time I saw Christian Grey, before today that is.

"Is he always so aloof?"

"He is an oddity Ma'am, but alas as I signed a strict contract, I cannot speak to your about him."

"No worries, he was an ass growing up, and I doubt he has changed much."

"He hasn't Ma'am." I spend the next forty minutes texting and messaging New York. I could have done without today. Apparently the big guy Grey is away for a month in Europe, so I had to divert to Seattle to sign today's deal. When we arrive at the airport, we head through the gates to the private jets.

"Why are we going this way?"

"My boss has arranged for you to travel to New York in his corporate jet, he realises he made you divert to Seattle and this is his way of an apology." How thoughtful, it's a good job he didn't have to compensate me after he left me that last time, because he'd be a broke ass of a man.

Christian Trevelyan Grey Explained:

I have been waiting for Anastasia D'Acciaio-Lambert to accept my proposal for Otter Island since her grandfather had the stroke over six years ago, and one that eventually killed him two years ago. I asked her time and time again to sell to me, or rather I asked the managers who were ruining the island, because she has been hard to catch, in fact using a net to catch oil would have been easier than getting to see her, I always seemed to have just missed her or she was unobtainable whilst sourcing ingredients in deepest darkest Peru, but as my father told me time and time again, when she was ready to sell her heart, she would, and she is doing so today. I hope, because Andrea has just informed me she is wavering outside and looks worried. I am tempted to run and see why she is not coming in. I however sit and wait patiently, something I am not known for. I text Suzie and tell her to be at the apartment at six. I may need to take out my frustrations in her, if this deal fails.

Miss D'Acciaio-Lambert walks into the room and I swear my mouth is open and my eyes stare, I don't remember her looking this hot before? Was she ever hot? Charming perhaps, annoying as a kid definitely, but all in all she was just Papa Frank's granddaughter, who spent her summers running around the place like a wild hellion. Her grandfather spoiled her and her grandmother worshipped her. I of course didn't realise for many years her father was dead, because he was never spoken about, actually I always presumed she simply came for the summers to stop with her grandparents. I never equated Lenny Lamb, to Franklin Lambert and I never would have, had I not decided I wanted the island badly and wanted damming leverage to use. I was screwed if I thought she was having monetary problems, because she was far from poor. She was rich in her own rights and she was heiress to both her grandfathers estate and her late father's estate. I had to have the islands at any cost because to me they are and they were the most relaxing place I have ever stayed at.

I continue to stare and we have a pleasant exchange of words, I get a text from Suzie, she is ill again and is unable to come to the apartment for any of the weekend, fuck that's two weekends back to back, she needs a physical done and ASAP. I will have to go hiking with Elliot I guess? She scowls at me, then looks through the paperwork and signs it. I breathe a sigh of sheer relief. She refuses to have a drink with me later. As I stare at her, yes I stare, I may be a fuck up, but I am not a blind fuck up, I see something of myself behind those glazed eyes, a darkness a sadness almost. After she shakes my hand and those of Ros and the others, I escort her to the elevator and there is a distinct chill in the air. Does she want to back out of the deal?

"Have I offended you Anastasia?" I ask, I don't think I have, the terms she laid down have been met, the price is what she asked for, what could I have done to upset her so?

"No, what could you have possibly done to offend me Christian?" Exactly, my thoughts on the matter too, I haven't done anything to her.

"I don't know? That's why I was asking you, had I done anything." I say like an idiot, she said she was fine, so leave it Grey, I tell myself.

"Christian, the last time I saw you I was eighteen and a stupid girl, it was the same night Papa had a stroke, coincidently the same night you and Elliot left without bothering to tell me why."

What, she is pissed because we left and didn't tell the cook why we had left, why would we? She was the cook wasn't she? At least I think Frank said that's what she did, the cooking, before he went to bed feeling peaky, peaky and off, fuck that was the night he had his stroke, fuck...

"We were called back home because our mother was in an accident. Both Mia and my mother actually, they had been hit by a drunk driver, they were cut out of mom's mangled car barely alive, they had nearly been fucking killed, of course we went home. What did I do? If I remember rightly I was drunk, from getting there to going back home. Did we do something terrible?" I ask, because I was drunk, I was celebrating becoming a multi millionaire, I had paid back Elena and I was free from debt with everyone, I'd secured Escala and all my hard work had paid off and I had made my dreams come true! I was drunk from getting on the plane with Elliot to getting back on it, all I did was drink the castle's finest Scotch with Frank, whilst Elliot played fucking golf in the snow. I wasn't even aware we were on our way home 'till I woke up on the plane going back. How the fuck Elliot and Taylor got me on the plane was a miracle, of course he used his good looks and charm to do it, or I would have spent a couple of days sobering up or having my stomach pumped for alcoholic poisoning and it was the main reason why I don't drink myself into oblivion anymore, it was an awful few days of drunken amnesia and nothingness.

"No, no we didn't do anything wrong, but you made it dirty by leaving. So I am going to go before I succumb to my urge of punching you. Goodbye Christian, I doubt our paths will cross again. I don't think GEH want to acquire either D'Acciaio House of Chocolate, or Dark Hearts Chocolate Range, or do you?" Punch me for doing what, and why would I want her candy stores?

"Oh you took something precious that evening, well to me it was. Goodbye."

She says in barely eligible murmur, what the hell did I take? The doors close and I am lost for words. Hold the front page, what the fuck did we do? I did have light fingers for ashtrays, as I seem to recall, I have acquired quite the collection from my drunken days as a teenager, stashed in my room at Casa Mia. I doubt it was a damned ashtray then, did I take something precious? Is she kidding me? I mean what could I have possibly taken from the castle, her grandfather's lighter, no he gave me that as we lit those cigars, I left it there anyhow, I left it I know I did, didn't I? With doors closed on that strange conversation I head back to my office. Ros comes in and fans her face.

"That was one hell of a pretty woman. How do you know her Grey?"

"She was the granddaughter of Otter Islands owner. I met her when she was a babe in arms."

"She is a babe alright."

"Erm Gwen?"

"Knows I like to look and as long as I do not touch, I am safe. So, she is mad at you then Grey, actually I would have said mad as hell."

"How..." I ask my COO.

"I read pissed off women well, and that was as pissed off as I have ever seen."

"She can't be pissed at me, we barely spoke in all the time we went to the fucking island, let me tell you seven years age difference is a lot, I remember when she was eight and I was fifteen, she was clingy and fucking annoying, and Elliot encouraged her to crawl all over me."And I think to myself, that was the very same year that Elena changed my life and me forever.

"She touched you? How is she not maimed?"

"Because Elliot pulled her away before I did damage, then for a few years after she would just spy on me all the time and annoy the crap out of me."

"When did she get that sexy then?" When did she, it's a good question, and one I ask myself that too.

"I didn't notice she had actually."

"Liar, I mopped up the drool, you may have found the one to change you Grey." I laughed. "So, what was she like as a teenager then?" She thinks I am an in the closet gay, and I let her think I am, my private life is just that, private.

"She was quiet, she cooked a lot as I recall. She lived with her other grandparents in London after her grandmother Mimi died. Frank, he wasn't able to see to a teenager girls growing needs, not after Mimi died, she was his wife and adored Anastasia. I think Anastasia was twelve when she went to live in London. She returned for all the holidays and she was adored by Frank. Do you know her father was Lenny Lamb?"

"Yes, he died the same day she was born, or the day after, if you count keeping him alive for the harvest? Do you never read Rolling Stone? His band are doing a twenty fifth concert to remember him and they are releasing a new album of undiscovered songs, I can't wait for that."

"They are, where?"

"It's taking place next month, after her 25th birthday, the day after actually, the 11th of September, the day that twenty five years ago they were supposed to perform to a sold out set of concerts at the Hollywood bowl. I remember the night well, I was a local and a mere snip of a rebel chic fifteen year old pain in the ass and full of attitude, those were the days. Anyway the hills behind it were awash with candles and fans who couldn't get in, fans waiting for updates about his condition, I was one of them, and so we mourned his loss instead of listening to him, the band piped music and we held a vigil. Rumour has it she will sing her father's last hit song, you know the one, the cover he did, they did sorry. Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, have you heard it? The band released it after he died, it was very moving and his death brought about a curious revival of his work and his songs?"

"This year? And yes it's on the top of my play list!" I say sarcastically.

"Really Grey, you do surprise me." Seriously?

"No Ros, but I have heard of it and the group. However, I am not a rock and roll fan, but I am shocked you are!"

"Okay Boss, I liked my rock chic years and I play a mean set on the drums! Anyhow, this year she gets all her father's estate in its entirety, and then she becomes a mega wealthy woman. They reckon she is already worth nearly a billion, and that's just from chocolate, then add in her father's estate she's loaded as in worth as much as you, if not more. Her grandfather looked after her inheritance and very well too, until he passed it onto your father's friend, the investment banker and his boy, who you are friendly with."

I know she thinks Ethan Kavagnah and I are gay lovers, but he is just my friend and he gives me great advice on what should I sell and what I keep when I take over a business. If he is looking after her money it's in safe hands. It also explains why I couldn't get all her financials; Ethan is as tight with his clients wealth as he is with his own. Her own wealth is pretty good too. Chocolate or should I say her chocolates are in high demand. But for now I have to see Elliot and see just what I did to upset Ms D'Acciaio-Lambert, when I was drunk and being a bad bastard...

IF YOU HAVE READ MY OTHER WORKS AND THERE ARE A FEW. AS YOU KNOW I BUILD UP AND SNOWBALL & THE CHAPTERS THEY ARE LONGISH ONES... READ AND REVIEW AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY...