Taylor stared in mounting exasperation. He'd worked for Mr Grey long enough to have become accustomed to the stream of beautiful women who flooded in and out of the penthouse. But upon the return of Miss Steele, whom he'd always harboured a soft spot for, the line of Grey-bitten women had dried up crustier than the Sahara. But this woman, whom he vaguely remembered, wasn't about to take no for an answer. She was borderline hysterical, jabbering on about some kind of tape and demanding to be shown up to where Mr Grey and Miss Steele were sitting down to lunch. Just as he was resigning himself to using gentle force to remove her, her words struck a chord.

"If you do not let me see him Taylor, Elena Lincoln is going to destroy him."

Jason hesitated. Very few people knew of Mr Grey's and Mrs Lincoln's past. Even he had only a surmised view of matters past. He swallowed uncertainly. He was under strict orders not to disturb. Mr Grey didn't take kindly to defiance of orders, especially where they concerned Miss Steele. But the look in Diana's wild brown eyes held a certain degree of sincerity and it wasn't for herself. Hoping he wasn't making a mistake, he sighed and called up to the penthouse.

"What?"

Christian's voice was tense and snappy.

He really did hate to be disturbed.

"Mr Grey, my apologies for the intrusion. There is a young lady down here by the name of Diana Bennet. She claims to have urgent business with you and that she needs to see you immediately. I have tried to turn her away but…well, she says that if you do not meet with her, Mrs Lincoln is going to cause you some degree of difficulty."

Silence crackled through the receiver. Christian's stomach instantly contracted with an untold degree of pain. Taylor's voice wafted around the apartment on loudspeaker and he watched with darkening eyes as Anastasia stiffened at the sink and twisted her head to stare at him. He raised a brow in unspoken question and she gave a sharp, short nod of her head. Resigning himself and feeling anger bubble up in him, he sighed and turned back to the phone.

"Send her up. No more interruptions."

"Yes Sir."

Striding across the room he gently prised the bottle of Sancerre from an unnaturally impassive Anastasia's hands and took her into his arms. Nuzzling into her neck, he held her against his warm torso with a tightness that took her breath away. His copper hair tickled her earlobes as he whispered gently into her ear.

"Whatever this is, we'll deal with it together. Agreed?"

She slid her slender hands over his and nodded, embracing his warmth and his clean scent. All the things that were hers and hers alone. The old Anastasia would have burned with insecurity at an ex turning up during lunch and clutching a grenade with an Elena Lincoln trigger. The new Anastasia would simply stand by her man and fight off attack after attack until the offence didn't have another forward surge in them.

"Agreed."

He released her with a soft kiss to her temple as the elevator pinged into action. Stepping out and forcing herself not to scream with envy at the domestic sight that greeted her, Diana advanced slowly into the kitchen. Automatically, Christian reached down to clasp Anastasia's hand in his and walked slowly with her by his side to meet the girl he had shunned. In truth, he knew he deserved to feel a degree of shame for the way he had treated her. But he didn't. It was unfortunate, sure, but nothing and no one could've come between him going to New York that night. Diana was merely collateral damage to a much bigger picture.

"Sir."

He cringed. Anastasia stiffened.

"My name is Christian," the uncomfortable millionaire muttered, "Call me Christian. And tell me what you need to tell me and leave. We were in the middle of lunch. So, unless you also have some sort of phantom child that just happens to be mine, we'd really like to get back to it. And if this is just another of Elena's schemes, you can get out right now. I am in no mood for that woman's bullshit."

Diana stared at the hand-holding couple and felt a crushing jealousy.

But somehow, she managed to swallow it down.

"I don't want to be here any bit more than you want me here. This could cost me everything. But it's the right thing to do. I know the pregnancy thing with Michaela was wrong and I'm sorry for that. To both of you. But there's something you should know. Something you really need to know. And it's going to make you angry and it's going to make you want to throw me out on the street, but you need to know."

As Ana's eyes widened and Christian's darkened, Diana drew a deep breath.

"When Elena set me up with you Christian, she explained that you had been unpredictable. Told me that you had gone off the rails since Anastasia left you. She said that it was in my best interest that I have an insurance policy. Something to use in case you treated me poorly and I needed recompense. She gave me a contact lens camera that I wore on my first visit here. Mine is not too incriminating, the night you threw me out was to be our first real night. But I have the negotiation of the contract and all the particulars. But I'm not the only one she gave the camera lens to. Michaela has one, and about four or five others. There's footage of the playroom. Of extreme activities in the playroom."

She took a nervous step back as Christian's face took on a positively terrifying hue. His lips pared back in a feral snarl and Ana had to physically restrain from pouncing forwards in a lithe attack. His chest heaved momentously under the shock that deafened his ears. His throat burned, his eyes bulged and the room was closing in. Diana swam in and out of focus. This couldn't be happening. This could not be happening. GEH was his child. His brainchild. Aside from Anastasia and his family, it was all he had. All he had built. And Elena was going to unleash an attack it couldn't survive. Washington was a conservative town and images of its most aloof and reserved CEO fucking and flogging his way through a series of brunette look-a-likes would rock its foundations to the core.

"She met us today for lunch. Michaela and I. She says she has some way around our NDA's, all our NDA's. She says she can make it that there will be no legal ramifications of spilling the news. But she needs our original copies. Duplicate lens feed is poor quality, barely watchable. Definitely not recognisable in terms of faces, voices etc. I have my original, Michaela has hers and the other girls have theirs as well. She wants them. She wants them all and she's willing to pay big money. Christian, you know the girls I'm talking about fell in love with you one by one and were scorned when you ended things with them. They will take the money for the satisfaction of seeing you burn."

Rooting in her winter jacket, she extracted a small USB stick and placed it on the kitchen counter with a trembling hand and spoke in a tremoring voice.

"That's my original copy. She has a duplicate but like I said, it's not worth a thing. That's why she's willing to break the bank to get her hands on the rest of these USB's. Michaela is going to give her hers and she's meeting the rest of the girls over the course of the coming week. She has no idea I am here. You know as well as I do I will never find another Dom in Washington once she finds out what I've done. She will destroy me. But I couldn't do this. Not to you. Not to anyone. It's sick. It's sick and it's perverted and I just want to be done with her and with everything. That's why I'm here."

Her long speech ended abruptly and a screaming silence took its place. Christian was close to hyperventilating. He couldn't speak. Couldn't pair vowels with consonants and syllables with offbeats. His palm grew slippery with sweat in Anastasia's and he paled so hard and so fast that any Doctor worth their salt would have instantly whipped out an ECG machine. Diana looked at both of them with fear in her eyes and it was that fear that snapped Ana out of her stunned reverie.

"Diana, do you want some lunch?"

Christian and Miss Bennet stared at her as if she had lost all and any semblance of her mind. She smiled serenely back at them with her brain whirring into overdrive. Slipping her hand out of Christian's, she offered her already loaded plate of eggs and bacon to a gaping Diana with a small smile. Christian watched with ogling eyes and exchanged a confused glance with the woman who had just dropped an Elena sized bomb in his apartment.

"Anastasia, what are you-"

"Christian, Diana has come here with no upside in sight for her. You and I both know how manipulative Elena is and how easily she can twist things. You, regardless of the merits of the situation, treated Diana poorly and the fact that she's here is something we can't turn our noses up at because it doesn't fit into our bubble. I did warn you. I did tell you. Elena was never going to let you go without a fight. And you can't win a fight with next to no information about the other side."

She gestured to Diana with as warm a smile as she could genuinely muster.

"She has information. Information that Elena doesn't know she's offering. There is no better kind of information and we need to know everything we can possibly know if we're going to beat this bitch once and for all. This can't go on. Waiting for the next insane attempt on our relationship. This woman needs to be taken down and taken down in a way that she can never crawl back from. And to do that, we need Diana and Diana needs us."

She glanced at the two of them, a glass of orange juice in hand.

"Do you both understand?"

Two sets of stunned eyes met hers and two heads nodded in unashamed awe. Anastasia Steele was now a force to be reckoned with when her man was under attack and it was clear from her almost ferally calm poise that there was only woman going to emerge victorious from the oncoming war and it wasn't Elena Lincoln. Turning to face a wonderous looking Christian, she raised a brow and spoke cryptically, not wanting Diana to be privy to his deepest, darkest secret.

"I have a plan. But that plan necessitates telling your family about Mrs Robinson. I know that's going to be incredibly hard and I know it's something you never, ever wanted to do. But for this to work and work in a way that will never require a repeat performance, we need the backing of the Grey family. They will understand and they will support you. And to be honest, it will help them understand and accept me as being back in your life. I will be by your side and I will stand by you when you tell them. The hold needs to be broken. The secrecy needs to go. You do that, and I promise, we'll take care of the rest together."

Diana's mouth fell open at the depth of love she saw between the two.

There was no way in hell she would ever have been able to compete with that. And to her intense surprise, she felt a degree of happiness for the couple as Christian reached out for Anastasia's offered hand and gripped it tightly, answering her plea with a soft squeeze and a swift nod. Still intertwined, they turned to Miss Bennet as one and Christian spoke quietly, knowing there was yet another admission he had to make.

"Diana, I owe you an apology. The way I treated you was abhorrent. You deserved better and I ought to have treated you with a certain degree of decency. What you and Michaela did with the fake pregnancy debacle was despicable, yes, but under Elena's thumb and with the way I dismissed you, I should've seen it coming. We reap what we sow. So, thank you, for coming here today and telling us what you've told us. I know the power Elena can wield in the scene and the risk you're taking. I promise that if you help us, I won't allow you to be harmed. You have my word."

Anastasia's approving smile was warm and sunny as it reflected in his eyes.

Diana gave a tentative nod and squared her shoulders, darting her eyes back to the woman who clearly held Christian Grey's heart in her hands. She could see it. She really could. This woman was a force. One not to be messed with. She returned a shy smile and spoke with a confidence she was beginning to really feel.

"So, Anastasia, where do I come in? I'll do whatever it takes to make up for what I've done and walk away from this mess with my head held high. I can see how happy you two are and no one should ever be allowed to interfere with something like that. I don't like to be used and between the three of is, Elena Lincoln is a dead woman walking."

…

TBC

….