I am looking into the eyes of the woman who left me to fend for myself. The woman who said she would be there for me but left without telling me. Never thought I would see Elena Lincoln ever again. I wish I hadn't.
I glare at her and she just sits there, no emotion crossing her pathetic face. She's had a lot of surgery since the last time I seen her. Her face looks as if she was one of those Barbie dolls. She is still wearing her dark red lipstick as usual. I think I see pain in her emerald green eyes. Good. Why is she here though?
"Anastasia, I-" she tries to speak but I stop her.
"Thanks for the notice. As if I wasn't broken enough." I snap. She closes her mouth but tries to speak again. I ignore her and go back to the quarters.
I hand Luke is drink and sit down. I keep eating, but feel very sick right now. I take a sip of my tea to try and calm down. Why am I being like this, it's not like I care anymore.
You will always care..
That bitch is so damn irritating. I block my subconscious out and keep trying to think of other things.
We all finish our plates, Gail and I take them up and walk back to the kitchen. She tells me to ice the cake while she cleans up the dishes. I get the fun job. As I begin to put the icing on, a finger comes down to gather some up. I slap the hand away. I look up and see that it's Mr. Grey. He is looking at me with a grin sketched onto his perfect lips. I look higher and notice his beautiful gray eyes looking down at me. His long eyelashes are almost able to hide them beneath. He has a slight stable along his chiseled jawline that makes him look even sexier. You're working for him, remember that. Stop fantasizing! I shake my head and clear the thought away.
"You can wait. You may be the boss, but that doesn't mean anything." he lets out a deep chuckle. Oh, fuck me sideways..
"Wow, nice to know that you think that way. How do you know Elena?" wow, he is straight to the point.
"We were friends awhile back." I look over my shoulder and notice that the two women are gone. "What about you?"
"She's a friend of the family." he shrugs. A serious look crosses his face.
"Is she gone?" I ask quietly. He gives me a simple nod.
"They both are. We can begin the writing process as soon as I can have a piece of this." he says in a husky voice.
I really hope he is talking about the cake, because I would fuck him in a heartbeat if given the opportunity. I raise the cup full of icing to him and he gets some that is left on the side. He slides his finger into his mouth and sucks it off. Maybe I should put icing on myself.. Away dirty thoughts!
He notices me looking and smirks. I just shake my head and cut the cake into pieces. I hand him a piece, and he looks like a just made his day. I make plates for the others and take it to them. Grey let's us all come to the bar and eat since Leila is gone. Is he her bitch? I hold back a laugh.
We are all chatting and they compliment me on the cake. I have to say that they're right. It tastes really good. Grey has chocolate all over his face, causing us to laugh. He looks so young right now. I wonder how old he is?
As Gail and I clean up, the guys talk amongst themselves quietly. I dry my hands off on the towel by the sink and walk over to everyone else.
"Follow me, Ms. Steele." Grey orders. "I will show you the study." he stands up and walks towards the stairs, and I follow him.
We walk up to the third floor and walk down the hall. He tells me that when he's busy I can go to the gym, pool, library or out back to the barn. I want to check out the gym.
"I bet I could kick your ass in the gym." I nudge him. He looks at me in amusement.
"We'll have to test that theory later. First, let's get to know one another to make writing the story much easier." I nod.
We reach a door on the left at the end of the hallway and he opens it, letting me go in first. The study is simple and artwork is hanging on the walls. Ones a picture of the water and the sun is setting in the background. Whoever took this picture did an excellent job.
"That picture was taken on my boat. The view was just perfect that the picture couldn't be missed." Grey tells me.
"It raises the ordinary to extraordinary. The angle is perfect that it's getting the light that's hitting the water. Even the colors or flawless." I point out.
"Since I'm in here or outside most of the time, I thought it was perfect enough to stay in here." I nod in understanding. "Let's sit down and we can ask each other questions."
He walks over to the brown leather couch and sits down with such grace. As I start to take a seat, I feel my phone vibrating in my back pocket. I pull it out and see that it's Kate. I roll my eyes.
"Sorry Mr. Grey. It will just take a second." he nods and sits back.
I answer it and hear Kate's voice yelling through the phone. I have to pull the phone away to make sure I don't have much damage to my eardrum. Kate sounds upset. What now?
"What's wrong Kate?" I ask, but she's still going on with the rambling. "Would you shut up for one second?" the line goes quiet. "Thank you. Now what's wrong?" I hear crying. Now I'm worried.
"He broke up with me." she's sobbing.
"Woah. Kate, breathe for a minute and say that again."
"The bastard broke up with me."
"Did he say why?"
"He said it was because he found someone much better than me." she growls into the phone. I sit back and sigh. I look up and see Grey watching me. I give him a weak smile.
"Kate, you're hot as hell. The girl is probably some stripper he picked up. Remember what you told me about Alex?"
"Yeah." she chokes out.
"It will hurt for awhile, but you have me and Hannah. Okay?"
"Thanks Ana." she whispers.
"No problem. Now, I need to get back to work. We can watch sad movies and eat ice cream when I get home." we say our goodbyes and hang up.
I look up and see Grey staring at me.
"Sorry about that." I say apologetically.
"You're fine. Do you want me to ask the first question?" he asks. I nod. "Is Seattle where you're from?" I shake my head.
I go onto explain where I'm originally from and why I moved here. I tell him the college I went to and why I wanted to go into publishing. He is listening intently to what I'm telling him. He asks me what my favorite book and author are. I also tell him about Ray and Jason, which surprises him. I know how he feels. I inform him about my mother and her many husbands. I don't tell him the details about husband number three or give up any information about Elena. I don't want anyone else's pity, and Elena did help me.
I ask him basically the same questions. He tells me about how he was born in Detroit and it wasn't his best years. The only reason he is telling me this information is because it's going to be in the book. I just go along with it. He starts to tell me about his birth mother, and how she was a crack whore. He then explains to me how she let her pimp abuse him just so she could stay out of harm's way. Going on, he tells me about how he was left with her body for days and how his adoptive mother saved him. I choke up a little while he tells me this. It's upsetting knowing that this happened to a small and fragile four year old.
He goes on to talk about how he didn't speak until his baby sister Mia came into the picture. What surprises me, though, is that his teenage years are almost exactly like mine. Telling me how this woman helped him, that when she came into the picture the fighting and drinking stopped. He even opened up to telling me how she did it and how much older she was. She is almost twenty years older than him.
I can't say anything about that though. Elena was way older than just twenty when she helped me. I think I surprised him when I didn't react to the news about the woman. How he started his business was because of the woman and donating a large amount of money to him. He tells me how he shares a chain of salons with her. They still talk?
"You still talk to her?" he nods. That pisses me off why couldn't Elena be like that?
Stop thinking about her and get over it.
It's kind of hard not to!
"Why?" I hear him ask. I shrug.
"It doesn't matter." I can't keep the pain out of my voice. He looks up at me, confused.
"I don't want you getting the wrong idea Ms. Steele. This woman helped me." he says, and I just roll my eyes. I hear a sharp intake of breath. I look up and see that his eyes have darkened.
"I know that Mr. Grey. I'm not judging you." might as well say it. "Someone helped me as well when I was younger. They same way they helped you. The only thing about my situation is that she left and didn't even give me a warning." I feel a tear run down my cheek. I quickly wipe it away.
"She?" he asks. I nod. "Are you..?" he trails off.
"Oh hell no. I like having a man work my body more than a woman." we chuckle.
"What was her name?" I shake my head.
"You know I can't tell you. Just like you can't tell me."
"Fine. Anymore questions?"
"How is Leila part of your life?" I ask.
"She's was subbing for me. I decided to do the whole relationship thing, but she's very clingy and rude to everyone but me."
"Why did you suddenly decide on a relationship?"
"I started getting bored with the lifestyle. Getting subs who are always falling in love with me or who behave too well. I know that's what a Dom wants but after seven years of this, it gets boring."
I miss the lifestyle. How could something like that get boring? One part about mine and Alex's relationship is that we always went to one of the clubs and played. It's fun and not the plain boring stuff. Maybe Grey needs to find a sub who would defy him at times.
"You need to find a sub who will not always obey you. Maybe that's why you got bored. You want a challenge." he rubs his hand along his jaw.
"Basically. Leila has decided she doesn't want to participate in scenes anymore. I can't make her." he looks irritated.
"At least you're able to fuck her. It's not the canes, whips, and flogger but at least you aren't having a case of blue balls."
"I haven't fucked her in two weeks. Trust me, I have a bad case right now." he grumbles.
"Ouch. Why haven't you two done anything?"
"She doesn't feel like it." he rolls his eyes. "People at work are getting pissed at me because I'm yelling more than usual. It's not like I can blame no sex for that."
"You could, it would just be weird." I grin. "Why don't you jack off?"
"I haven't done that shit since I was fifteen." I laugh.
"When you're in the shower, do it. You'll feel a whole lot better. Trust me." he eyes me skeptically. "I'm giving you options. Either jack off, or find someone else to fool around with. Leila doesn't seem to be working out."
"Okay." he gives me a wicked grin.
"Okay?" he doesn't say anything, he just walks over to the desk and starts up the laptop. I watch him as he types something onto the computer and moves the mouse around. He then points to the chair.
