Ros is the literal definition of a dog with a damned bone.
I know she won't give in and so my glare and pointed brow are both pretty pointless, but what her tantrum is in aid of, on the other hand, is utterly unachievable. She wants me, Christian Grey no less, to go down to the local hospital. To go into the pediatric ICU of all places and do some sort of a song and a dance to "repair my image in the community." With much fanfare and media, of course. Give me a fucking break. I keep food on the table for this community, I employ the good-for-nothing breadwinners that bring home the bacon. The bacon I might as well give away for free considering how useless my staff seem to be. What more does she want? I'm a businessman, not a man of the cloth.
I won't do it.
"Ros. The answer is no. The answer is no, nope, never going to happen. I don't agree with your views that I need to repair anything regarding my reputation in this city. I laid people off. Grown up people, people who surely know how the world works. That site hadn't been profitable in two years, I couldn't justify carrying it any longer. Every single one of those men and women got more than a fair severance package so no, the answer is no. I'm not playing Santa Claus. End of discussion."
She's not leaving.
I hate it when she doesn't leave.
"You are dismissed," I add through gritted teeth, trying to keep a hold of my temper. As annoyingly stubborn as Ros is, I will admit in the privacy of my own mind that I need her. That she adds something I couldn't replicate so easily to my business. But she doesn't need to know that and so when I look up from my wildly expensive desk and see her still scowling like a rat with its tail in a trap, I feel myself beginning to get very pissed off. Very pissed off indeed.
"Christian-"
"Mr Grey," I correct tersely. Sometimes, actually more often than not, I prefer Ros to call me Christian. She's in my inner circle. Her and Jason, maybe Sawyer if I'm feeling generous. The three of them have my trust and grudging respect. But when I want to put her or any of them back in her or their place, which is tiresomely often, I remove the first name basis and she or they generally snap back into line.
Apparently, not this time.
"Mr Grey," she corrects with saccharine sweetness that hardens my nipples with irritation, "With all due respect, I think you're making a mistake. I appreciate that the Seattle site was loss making, but it was one of your flagship sites and letting so many people go, this close to Christmas-"
Ah, here we go again.
This bullshit.
Christmas.
Words cannot describe how much I loathe Christmas. Everything about it, from the gaudy tinsel to the stomach turning Hallmark movies. I hate the forced interaction, the mindless gift giving and the nausea-inducing festive cheer. My earliest memories of the season, pre-Grey status, are... well, they're not exactly of throwing a jaunty paper hat on my head and pulling crackers with my nearest and dearest. Grace continues to lament my disgust for the holiday season and tries every year to drag me into the spirit of Christmas, without success. Elliott and Carrick have wisely accepted my aversion. Mia... well, Mia is Mia.
"I am running a multi-billion, intercontinental enterprise, Ros. Not the North Pole. That's enough."
She's frowning bitterly now.
Never a good sign.
"Mr Grey. The Seattle community is important. Your reputation and image is a huge part of what makes you successful. If you don't have your grass roots at home, you have nothing. Your workers are dissenting, disgruntled. That's a bigger issue and that's gonna take some internal workaround to solve. But the community, externally, is the most pressing issue. We're a publicly traded company and you know as well as I do that if you don't have happy shareholders in your own back yard, well... then you got some serious problems. We need the Seattle public to continue to hold you on a pedestal. Especially with the planned restructuring coming down the lines."
She says many words.
So many, many words.
It makes my head hurt.
"Ros," I groan, "I don't give jack shit what the people outside these windows think of me, think of the way I do business. This is where you and I have always differed. You think people need to want to help you, I know that you can make them help you, whether they want to or not. So, for the final time, the answer is no. I am not going anywhere near a bunch of infected kids for a photo op. Do you have any idea how much I hate kids? Almost as much as I hate Christmas. Combining the two is not my idea of a good Friday night. Dismissed."
She cannot possibly have any more to say on the matter.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see she's moving, still scowling but that's fine, she's moving...
Annnd she's stopped.
"Chit."
I stare up at her, a millisecond away from firing her ass.
"I beg your pardon?"
She doesn't miss a fucking beat, then again, she never does.
"Our late night poker game in Lebanon, Easter two years ago, I won large and you lost hard. I said I didn't want money, I wanted a chit. A favor that I could pull in from you, of any size or description, at any time and for any reason. I'm pulling in that chit. I want you to go to the hospital tonight and do what I am asking you to do and then my chit is called in and discharged. Never to be spoken of again."
This bitch.
This clever, conniving and altogether impressive bitch.
This is why I can't fire her. She always gets what she wants.
"You really want to play this game with me, Ros?" I snarl. "Bearing in mind the degree to which I can make your life a misery? Why is this so important to you? It's like a vendetta, you've been in my ear for the last week, driving me crazy. Is there something beneath the surface here that I should know about?"
She doesn't blink.
"Mr Grey," she says slowly and clearly, "I am calling in my chit. Are you going to honor it or are you not?"
There is no way out of this. Honor is something, maybe the only thing, that I don't compromise on. My word is quite literally my fucking bond and I did it, I gave Ros that chit to be used at any time and for any reason, no comeback. I'd basically all but forgotten about that night, cooped up in that hotel lounge for hours on end. My blood is boiling right now but she's played her game perfectly. There is nowhere to go from here. The only thing left to me is to save face, something I'm about to put great effort into,
"You're going to pay for this."
It's a macabre warning, perhaps, but she still has the gall to smirk.
"Part of that chit agreement was that there were to be no comebacks, Mr Grey. Now, it's... five thirty-five right now, the ICU is expecting you from about six onwards so you might want to make a move. I had the press on standby and so I'm going to get them to meet you there after you've had a chance to settle in. Would you like me to go with you or are you ok to go on your own?"
If I were a psychopath, I would just kill her.
Right here and right now.
I envy psychopaths the clarity of their lives.
"No," I snap. "I think a little bit of distance between you and I would be best right now, Ros, because all I can see when I look at you is a god damned pink slip and a stress free lifestyle thereafter. Have Jason meet me downstairs ASAP. Sooner I get to this hellhole, the sooner I get out. Be warned, I will never give you a chit again. You're a liability. You could have called that chit in for half a million dollars and that would have been absolutely fine, but that would be too easy. I give you an inch and you take seventeen and a half thousand miles."
I'm still snarling when I storm from my office and she smiles all the more widely at my departure.
Heathen.
...
"Jason? It's Ros. Can you meet Mr Grey downstairs ASAP and bring him to Seattle Med please?"
The humored silence on the other end of the line makes me grin.
"You call in your chit?"
Taylor's a lot more omniscient than people give him credit for. Must be a drivers thing.
"How did you know?"
I can see his shrug.
"I just know Mr Grey's feelings on Christmas, that's all. What I don't know is why it's so important to you that he go to this thing that you'd cash in something as valuable as your chit? A lot of people would kill for that kind of pull. What are you trying to get out of this?"
I catch the tail end of Christian's furious entry into the elevator and feel the familiar sadness I incubate for him tug at my heartstrings, speaking quietly and praying to god that something good, no matter how small, comes out of his visit to the hospital, to the kids. There is no press. I would never photo op through sick kids, but he'd have been too suspicious otherwise.
"I'm trying to pull him back of a ledge, Jason, before he becomes too hard inside and it's too late."
This time, he doesn't understand.
"Huh?"
I don't answer and softly end the call, knowing that the ledge Mr Grey is on is the most dangerous ledges mankind can teeter upon and he's been walking a fine line for months now, growing seemingly colder and angrier with the world as the days and weeks trickle by. I know, from experience, that someone like Mr Grey can only balance on this kind of ledge for so long, before falling to one of two sides and staying there for a lifetime. That's why it's imperative I at least try and get him to reconnect, to pull him back from that ledge...
The edge of loneliness.
...
Having had the chance to update all my stories bar one, I wanted to get this short Christmas themed story going. Not a long one, but a special one to me personally for strong personal reasons so I hope you all enjoy x