The wild look of terror in her eyes was something he would never, ever forget.

The rage that had driven his adolescent brawling drenched him. He stood rigidly. Trembling with anger. He knew he could not touch her. She would absolutely lose her mind. What little of it that bastard had left behind, anyway. His teeth smashed together like colliding tectonic plates. The urge to wound was like acid on his tongue. His own blood was drying into his skin as he pivoted slowly on his heel. The voice that came out of his mouth, he didn't even recognise as being his own. It wasn't the smooth and polished diction of the multi-millionaire Mr Grey. It was the dark, clipped tones of a much older, but younger, Christian.

"Taylor. Escort Miss Steele to the car. Do not touch her in any way. I will join you shortly."

Straightening up after binding a moaning Harry's hands with his own tie, a look of wariness crossed the veteran's face. His gaze wandered over his employer and his brow furrowed. Even as an ex-serviceman and being quite the alpha-male himself, he never second-guessed Mr Grey's orders. But there was something about this one that had him hesitating. Because the order wasn't really given by the Mr Grey he knew. It was given by the Mr Grey he suspected had been buried deep down and a long time ago. He found himself looking from the despicable creature on the floor to a now thunderous looking Christian and knowing in his gut what would happen if he walked out the door.

"Sir, I think it might be for the best if you were to escort Miss Steele."

If the situation weren't so damned serious, the death-drop of Christian's mouth might have been funny. He stared at his right-hand-man as if he had five heads, and was in his third trimester of some alien pregnancy. No-one rebuffed his orders with suggestions of their own. Never. And especially not the taciturn, dependable Taylor. And if he was going to start, now was as bad a time as possible to do it. Shock flowed freely away from Christian's eyes and an even more poisonous anger replaced it.

"I beg your pardon?"

His voice was like the modern-day Mr Grey once again, but his eyes were not.

Those cold eyes belonged to someone else.

No matter how he tried to hide it, Jason knew the tycoon had quite the heart in that icy chest of his.

"If I leave you here with him, alone, you're going to kill him."

The pronouncement blasted around the room like wildfire. And both employer and employee knew it to be true. Glancing down at the vermin on the floor, a fresh surge of terrifying rage lashed against Christian and he yearned to smash the bastard's face off the walls again and again until the magnolia paint ran freely with his blood. He took a deep breath. It did absolutely fuck all. He hadn't been this angry since he was a fourteen-year-old boy, battling to balance his heinous past with his perfect present.

"What I do and do not do, is no consideration of yours. Your only concern is to do as I tell you to do."

His lips pared back in a snarl that somehow made his handsome face even more beautiful.

"And right now," he growled, "I am telling you to escort Miss Steele to the car. Move."

Knowing full well that his very well paid and very much appreciated job was most likely about to end quite abruptly, Taylor shook his head slowly.

"I can't do that, Sir. Someone like you should never serve a life-sentence for someone like him."

Grey eyes bulged in a pool of emotion that even the esteemed Dr Flynn wouldn't recognise.

"And what kind of a person is someone like me?" Christian snapped back, "Enlighten me.

Jason spoke quietly, but held the snarling magnate's gaze with a steady ease.

"A man who is everything he thinks he is not and cannot be."

He gestured towards the silent and unseeing Anastasia, still pinned against the wall, terror lancing through her eyes.

"You are what she needs right now. Not me. Go, take the car. I will deal with this and report to you in due course."

A deafening silence greeted his words.

Christian was rarely rendered mute, but there in that room with all the horrors that went with it, he was speechless. No person in his employ had ever dared question, let alone turn his own orders back upon him. He blinked. Waited for the scathing rage of indignancy to bite him. But it didn't. He blinked again. He was still radiating with rage, but it was for St. James and St. James alone. For Taylor, he felt something different. Something he couldn't define. He glanced behind his back at the pale, silent and utterly traumatised looking Anastasia and knew immediately what is was that he felt.

Gratitude.

Without a word, he turned his back to Jason and crouched down to meet her eye-level. She let out a small whimper at his closeness. He immediately nudged back an appreciable inch. She looked at him with such fear he felt it himself. It took every ounce of strength he had to keep his mind on her and not Harry fucking St. James. When he locked his eyes on her and truly saw her, he instinctively knew what to do.

Even if, in that moment, it repulsed him to do it.

He spoke quietly, but his voice rang with authority.

"I am going to lift you from that bed, Miss Steele. I am going to bring you to the car that is outside this building. I am going to bring you to either my or your apartment, the choice is yours. I am going to stay with you until we can figure out what to do, what you need. None of these things are negotiable. They are simply a sequence of events that, regardless of any feelings on the matter, are going to happen. I do not need you to speak. You don't have to open your mouth if you do not want to. Merely nod your head if you understand what I have just said."

The longest, most pregnant, most heart-pounding moment passed with absolutely and categorically nothing.

Nada, niente, nichts.

He had brokered multi-million-dollar deals with the eyes of the world on him and felt not a fraction of the unease he suffered as he drank her in. assessed her every pupil dilation, hitched breath and nervous twitch. He had carefully blocked St. James from her view with his broad shoulders. All she could see was him. He eclipsed her in that moment. She considered his eyes and feared they would morph into cold blue pools of sadism with every passing second. She stared so intently, her own eyes watered with her intensity. His eyes remained the same. Still the same smoky swirls of grey.

Her head felt impossibly heavy.

Like if it had to take in one more single surprising event, it would explode.

Closing her eyes, shutting out the world, she nodded.

Within a millisecond she was in his arms. The first smell of him was a sedative. His scent was clean, delicate, but it soared down her nasal passages. The calming effect was instantaneous. The warmth of his torso was like a crackling fire. The feel of his strong arms supporting her with a ridiculous ease was a balm, a salve. Before she could prevent it, hot and salty tears poured silently from her closed eyes as the full extent of her ordeal began to truly hit home. She didn't sob, she didn't wail, she didn't make a sound. But the tears came hard and they came fast, dampening the front of Christian's blood-spattered shirt with every drop.

As he walked past Taylor, with a seemingly broken Anastasia safely in his arms, he paused.

Just for a moment.

His voice was low, soft, she couldn't hear it such was her own turmoil.

"The next time you think you're right and I'm wrong and you consider disobeying a direct order…" His gaze lingered over his trusted employee's face and his voice dropped another octave. "Feel free to do so. A hundred times over. Thank you, Taylor."

With that and nothing but that, he swept from the room.

He sat her into the back of the car with ease. Reached around her to buckle her in, before grabbing a blanket from the trunk and draping it over her. She was shivering. He had assessed her as he walked. She had no physical injuries to speak of. Her pain was a psychological one. A hospital would do her no good. He started the car and slid smoothly from the space, realising he didn't know where he was going.

"Would you like to go to your apartment or mine?" he asked softly.

She shivered under the blanket and spoke so quietly he barely caught her answer.

"Why are you doing this? You don't even know me. You don't need to…he'll make you pay."

It took every skill he had not to crash the car.

"Wash him from your mind," he murmured quietly as he unilaterally decided on his apartment, rationalising that any memory of him where not necessary was best avoided, "He cannot get to you. He will never, ever hurt you again. I give you my word, Miss Steele. That…man, will never lay a hand on you as long as I'm drawing breath. I don't give my word lightly. When I do, I mean what I say. You will never have to see him again."

Her chin dropped onto her chest, her eyes closing shut. Her voice had a painful defeated edge.

"You don't know him. You don't know what he'll do to you. He's capable of things you can't even imagine. He could ruin your business. He could ruin your life. You don't even know me. You don't owe me anything. Why are you doing this? I'm not worth the trouble. Trust me. I'm not worth the trouble he'll rain down on your head."

He glanced in the rear-view mirror and felt himself pale.

"I have a very hard head, Miss Steele, and you are worth far more than you know."

She clutched the blanket to her, the tears that hadn't stopped dripping steadily onto the soft wool.

"I knew he'd find me," she whispered, as if to herself. "I always knew he'd find me. I thought I could bury Harper. I thought I could leave her behind and start afresh. Be someone else. Harper was weak and pathetic. She let him do things to her that no woman should ever allow be done to her. She was disgusting, a parasite. I thought if she died in the fire that something better could be born. Someone better. I've always liked the name Anastasia. Since I saw the film." Her mouth twitched. "Disney. I love Disney. I choose Steele because it sounds strong, unbending. I thought I'd be a mix of sweetness, like Anastasia, and strength, like Steele."

She laughed a watery laugh that rang with a terrible sadness.

"It's true what they say. There really is nothing sadder than a fool fooling themselves."

The car idled to a stop at a red light. For the second time in a mere hour, Christian was speechless.

She opened her red-rimmed eyes, still brimming with tears, and drew a shuddering breath.

"I should've known this day would happen sooner or later because I was running from myself, from who I really am." She shook her head, as if trying to throw troublesome thoughts from it, shrugging out of the blanket in agitation. "I'm Harper. I'm Harper Wakefield. I'm his slut. Nothing more. If I'd had the brains to elude him, perhaps I could've been, but he was right. I'm nothing. I'm nothing without him, and I'm nothing to him. I'm nothing. You've been so kind," she whispered, her face paling even further as the hair on Christian's neck rose, "You don't know me and you went up against him for me. The woman who ends up with you is one lucky creature."

Before the light could turn green and before he could blink, her hand shot out to the door.

"I have to get away," she whispered frantically, "I have to go. It's best for everyone. Someone like you should never be tangled up with someone like me. Harper's dead, Anastasia's dead. Someone new needs to be born before it's too late."

The door was suddenly flung open as he twisted forcefully in his seat, constrained by his belt. They locked eyes for the briefest of moments before she was out and melted into the bustling Seattle crowd.

"Thank you, Mr Grey. Thank you for your kindness."

He opened his mouth, jabbed at his seatbelt, but she was gone.

The light turned green.

Horns began blaring.

His voice thundered around the car, spoken to no-one, ringing with conflicting emotion.

"Fuck."

…..

TBC

…..