ANA
He looks positively bored by the conversation, but all of a sudden he goes as white as snow, and not the Snow White perfect skin type of white. "Christian," I call softly trying to get his attention. He looks down at me, and all I see is fear, primal fear, and then he starts shaking. "No, no, no, no, no, no." He keeps mumbling.
I take the phone from him. "Taylor, he will have to call you back."
"I understand." The tone of his voice only serves to add to my concern.
"Christian." I try again, and he just stares at me.
"Please, don't leave me." He sounds so much like a child it's heartbreaking.
"Christian, we already had this conversation." I try to remain calm, but I'm fast losing my composure.
"That was before this." He pulls on his hair so hard I wince.
"Before what?" I ask sitting up and he pulls me onto his lap wraps his arms around me in a bid to keep in me on his lap.
"Taylor and team are looking into the subs and have discovered that one of them has a child that is possibly mine." Whatever I thought he was going to say this wasn't it.
"How long ago?" I ask as calmly as my voice will allow, how could she have kept this from him.
"Four years ago, she is three years old according to Taylor."
"And she didn't tell you… made no attempts to tell you." He looks down and takes a deep breath.
"She tried, but I had my legal department send a letter threatening her if she didn't stop." He did what.
"Let me up," I say barely above a whisper.
"Ana?" His voice shakes, but he slowly releases me.
"You sent a threatening letter to a woman that was trying to tell you she was pregnant with your kid?" I ask because I'm not sure if I heard him the first time.
"It is part of the contract... after the contract ends my subs are not to contact me under any circumstance." His voice trails off realizing what he just said.
"And that includes them being pregnant with your child. Worse, she tried to tell you, and you didn't have the sense to have the legal department contact her to find out why she wanted to talk to you." This appalls me.
"I didn't know." He argues.
"Because you didn't want to." I find myself pacing the room. "How could you put such a stipulation in the contracts. I mean seriously did something like this being a possibility never occur to you."
"I made sure the subs were always on the pill or getting the shot."
"You do know no contraceptive is one hundred percent effective?" He nods.
"And yet you didn't think this was a possibility. Are you impotent?" He looks at me in disbelief. "Well?"
"No…"
"I will ask again… and yet you didn't think this was a possibility."
"I was just starting GEH, I knew if it came out that I took part in BDSM, a lot of the companies I was working with would pull out. Hell, I have a morality clause in my contracts. I would never associate myself with a company where the CEO is known to practice some alternative sexual lifestyle. I know it makes me sound like a hypocrite, but I have seen first hand what happened to CEO's when it is revealed their lives aren't as wholesome as they portrayed. I was more interested in keeping my lifestyle under wraps. I gave my subs so much and used it as leverage to keep them in line. Those NDA's I have them sign would not send them to jail if they broke it. I mean if one of them went to some media outlet before I could do anything we both know the damage would already be done."
"What has that got to do with that stipulation?" There is more, but he's reluctant to say it. "Having ex-subs come and go freely in my life was only ever going to be a recipe for disaster. Above all else, I was… ashamed, I hated those women half the time for letting do all those things to them. I was introduced to a lifestyle I was told would benefit me, at the time I believed it did, and at the same time, I was made to feel ashamed for needing it. The last thing I wanted was for any of them coming back to disturb me after they were gone. I didn't need a reminder and certainly didn't need the trouble they would most likely have brought." It's tantamount to being introduced to drugs, and yet the person that did so makes you feel ashamed for needing it, even though they themselves take copious amounts of it.
"I'm being honest here. Ana… had I known I had a kid I would have taken care of her financially, but that is as far as my involvement would have been." He looks up at me, and I suppose he's waiting for my look of horror, disgust and me telling him to leave. Except, I understand it, I truly do, this man believed himself to be a monster, a man not worthy of love. How could such a man love another when he didn't believe in the notion? So yes, him not wanting to get involved in a child's life makes sense. He more than likely believes he would fuck them up with his involvement. It's incredibly sad, but it is the reality of his life.
CHRISTIAN
She sits down and says nothing for what feels like an eternity. "First thing first, we have to find out if the child is definitely yours." This is not what I want to hear from her. I want to know if we are okay. I want to know if she thinks less of me because I want nothing to do with the child. Whether it is mine or not is not something I'm concerned about right now. I want to know if the life I have just discovered is about to be snatched from under me.
"Does this change things between us?" I take a leap and ask.
"Do you want children or do you still feel…"
"With you… yes, if the time comes and if you want kids. I know this sounds callous, but I don't want a child conceived while I was punishing some woman for something a dead girl did. So even if she turns out to be mine, I'm not all of a sudden going to become a father, and please… don't ask that of me." I feel like I'm digging my own grave, but lying right now will only make things worse later on.
"No, it changes nothing between us, and no I'm not going to force you to do something you don't want to do. Thing is… you are the one that has to live with that decision if that little girl turns out to be yours." She says sadly.
"You think less of me, don't you?" I would if I were in her position.
"No Christian, I don't think less of you. I understand you not wanting a reminder of a past you are working very hard to overcome." She says with a sigh and moved to sit back down on my lap. The move goes a long way to assuage my fears about her possibly deciding I'm not worth it. "But, what if years down the line your past isn't so much of an issue will you regret this decision?" I look around for my phone and find it on the couch next to us. I dial Taylor, as I need to know or at least have some idea.
"Taylor, do you have her number?"
"Yes, sir."
"Text it to me," Ana says nothing just runs her fingers through my hair as we patiently wait for the number. When my phone vibrates with the information, I feel my heart rate pick up, and the sickening feeling in my stomach gets worse. "There is no time like the present," I call the number, and her voice comes on the line after three rings.
"Hello."
"Miss Mills, it's Christian Grey." Her sharp intake of breath cannot be missed.
"Mr. Grey…"
"Is she mine?" No point in beating around the bush.
"I don't know." That takes me by complete surprise. Considering the emphasis I placed on monogamy I expected this child to be mine. The entire time Ana and I were talking I was under no illusion this child was mine.
"What do you mean by you don't know?" I growl.
"If you recall there was a weekend I couldn't make it because of my sister's wedding. I run into an old flame, and one thing led to another… there is every possibility she could also be his."
"I do understand you could not inform me when you found out, but you could have still eliminated him or me by getting a DNA test using a sample from him." I take a deep breath. "You know what it doesn't matter, but I want a DNA test done…"
"I'd rather not." She says interrupting me. "When I tried contacting you four years ago, I wanted to do the right thing by my daughter, and in the subsequent years, I have. I'd rather not disrupt her life and my family's life with this. I am married to a man that adores her and treats her like her own..."
"Good for you, but I am not going to live the rest of my life wondering if she is mine or not. You don't want your life disrupted… what do you think this information has done to mine? You don't have a choice, I have a right to know." She says nothing for a few seconds then sighs in resignation.
"I will have…" Who does she take me for?
"Someone will be around tomorrow to take a sample." With that, I hang up.
"I'm so sorry about all this," I mumble.
"I'm beginning to realize my saying I'm not going to leave you or saying I love you is not enough," Ana says sadly possibly realizing just how fucked up I truly am.
"No, Ana it…"
"Christian, years of having your self-worth trampled on aren't going to be undone by a few weeks of this. I think you need to see someone about this because your therapist telling you to go with the flow isn't going to cut it. This has been an eye opener… you don't think much of yourself because despite everything I'm saying you are so sure I'm going to walk away." She leans back and looks me in the eye. "I'm going to say this now, so you know I mean it when the time comes. If she turns out to be yours… and you decide you want to be in her life, I will support you and welcome her with open arms." I know me and I know I'm not going to change my mind even if she turns out to be mine. Jennifer knows well enough to not want me anywhere near her child. If she really wanted to let me she would have found a way. The girls all get an email address just in case of an emergency while they were my subs. Why didn't she use it? I'll tell you why... she didn't want my fucked up self anywhere near her daughter and who can blame her. Who wants a man who beats women who looked like his dead crack whore of a mother as their child's parent.
I banged on the door as loud as my fist would allow, after leaving Ana's I found myself here without meaning to. "What is the meaning of…" her words trail off and I guess she just saw me through the peephole. The door opens, and she looks as surprised to see me as I am to be here. "Christian, this is unexpected."
"Can I come in?" I ask wondering what good my being here would do.
"Yes, of course." She opens the door wider allowing me in.
"I just found out I might be a father earlier tonight…" she gasps. "And you know the first thing that crossed my mind was Ana leaving me. I wake up every morning surprised to still find her next to me. I finally let it slip that I am just waiting to screw things up with her and have her leave me." I look up at her, and she's just staring back at me. "When we finally spoke about it I was left feeling assured of her love for me." She sways in her spot, and I'm not shocked by it. "Oh yes how could I have forgotten… love is for fools in your world." I sneer.
"Do you believe it is worth you questioning yourself all the time?" She snorts in derision.
"She speaks," I say with a humorless chuckle. "I don't want the kid, I want nothing to do with the kid because for so long you led me to believe I was unworthy of love… that the Grey's would turn their backs on me when they found out. You had me thinking so little of myself that I can't immerse myself in a loving relationship." I feel the tears run down my cheeks. "You really did a number on me. What good did your brand of discipline do for me except show me how to fuck? You fucked me up, I was a mess when you got your hands on me, and somehow you managed to make it worse. WHY?" I bellow.
"You'd be dead if it weren't for me. What good did my brand of discipline do for you? Look at you…"
"I'm a mess, I'm a fucked up individual with nothing but money… aside from the money what do I have? Elena… what the fuck else do I have… name one more thing I have aside from money. Tell me all about my friends, tell me about my social circle, tell me about the time I spend with my family." I bend over with my hands on my knees and let out a sob. "I have a child I don't want, I don't want her because she is the product of a life I do not want to remember and having her in my life would be nothing but a constant reminder of it. I was fifteen… fifteen Elena. You should have left me alone because in the last year there have been days where I wished I had died in an alley somewhere as you kept saying." She looks at me in horror. "Yeah, that is how much you have fucked me over. Over a decade of lies… telling me my family would wash their hands off me… why, why… answer me… just that." My eyes are swimming with tears to the extent that I can just about see her.
"What do you want me to say?" She has the nerve to sound angry.
"The truth would be nice," I whisper.
"First, I couldn't have you running to them if you changed your mind… and then you built GEH, and I wanted to be the only person you came to. I needed you to need me, especially after Linc left me with nothing… I needed you and your money more than ever." She admits.
"It really was all about you, who gives a fuck if it damaged me in the process." I wipe my tears with my shirt. "You destroyed every semblance of humanity in me for your own ends meet. You conditioned a fifteen-year-old boy for your pleasure and when I tried to make something of myself you… ooh." I take a deep breath as more tears escape. "You knew exactly what I'd already been through, and you used it against me. You about the years of abuse, the nightmares... my self-loathing and used all that against me, magnified it... all for money." I wipe my eyes and stare at her in shock. The worse part is, there isn't a single ounce of remorse to be seen. "There is a special place in hell for people like you." I choke out with all the revulsion I can summon.
I stagger to my car and just about manage to get in. My head falls on the steering wheel as I weep bitterly. I hate the fact that she saw me so broken and weak, but I had to let her know she was responsible. I don't know how long I sat there for before a car pulled up behind me. I don't pay much attention to it until my car door opens and Ana gets in. She quietly takes my hand in hers and gently squeezes it saying nothing. I know Taylor called her… when he got here and knew just what to do it is beyond me right now. I sit back in my seat and take a deep breath, but the tears don't stop.
She created a monster, took a broken boy and under the guise of healing broke me further to create what she wanted. Now that I realize I can be who I want not what she wants, I find that fifteen-year-old broken teen is still there. I will heal, with the help of my family and the woman holding my hand… I will heal.