My dear little broccolis 💚💚💚

💚 So remember that this pic is RATED M, and it is not only for the sexy times. Some dark moments will be approached in this story, and they can trigger some people. This is a fair warning to remind you that this story sets place in a dark world, which means it is bound to mountains dark themes.

Love, Mina 💚💚💚

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Chapter 42: Complications (4,0K)

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Christian's PoV

Two days after Raymond's annual couple of days off, Christian and he were in his office, talking about some activities in Italy that were becoming troublesome. The activity in itself wasn't that bothering to Idris, after all, Raymond had contemplated doing some wind energy himself, before abandoning the idea for a lack of trusty people abroad. But the Mazarati were starting to gain too much money for Raymond's taste, and therefore they started to get cocky and try to mix with businesses where Idris already had full control over.

Raymond wanted to settle this thing in a diplomatic fashion, while Christian was rather leaning toward a brutal and frontal blow. Something curt and decisive that would make Luca Mazarati think twice before trying to steal business from them. still, by the end of their conversation, Christian had agreed to bite his bone and to try Raymond's way who preached that direct violence wasn't always the way.

A part of Christian thought it was rich coming from a man who killed his own son without even trying to get him help, but he could also see that if he wanted to entertain a somewhat business relationship with the Italian family, he would need to indeed, sometimes go for the diplomatic option. Moreover, he was due to go to Japan within the next week to settle some business with the head of the Yakuza, and he couldn't possibly be in Italy and in Japan at the same time. Japan being the more pressing matter, he would have to forgo his first instincts and simply let this one go.

As the conversation slowly drifted to their investments in South American most notorious products, Raymond received a text that he was clearly not expecting. Christian saw disappointment on his boss's face before he was proposed,

"How about you join me for dinner? I've been ditched for the third night in a row, and Gail probably already cooked for two."

Though he did not show a single emotion, Christian was still surprised by this piece of news. Ana had not come to see him since he left her to the cemetery five days ago, and he knew that she was reluctant to interrupt her best friend's post-wedding bliss.

He was tempted to refuse Raymond's offer, a part of him hoping that Ana would surprise him back home, but decided against it. He still had some things to see with his boos concerning his upcoming trip to Japan, as well as some things he wanted to change about the way their Columbian products were imported, and Christian had never been one to procrastinate.

So with a simple nod, he followed Raymond to his kitchen, still discreetly checking his phone when the older man wasn't looking. Once seated, Gail served them some stuffed squash, with a little bit of lettuce on the side. She opened a bottle of white wine and disappeared before Christian could even say a word.

He watched the door through which the young maid had vanished, his brain slightly analysing how the blonde had been acting around him ever since he came back from Macau, and with a small smile, he told his boss, "I think your maid isn't really fond of me."

"To be honest, no one is really fond of you, Christian. You scare people," Raymond said the most naturally in the world, serving himself a generous glass of wine before typing something on his phone and digging in his food.

"Because you don't?" Christian snorted. Raymond spared him a compliant smile.

"Well, it is in the job description, isn't it? What kind of businesses would I be running if I didn't scare people a bit? But I lost all my credibility with Gail when she saw me with her kids."

Christian nodded, not commenting that he thought that children were Raymond's weakness. A part of him had always wondered why Raymond had such a huge place when it was only his daughter and him. And the more he was hearing Ana talk about her father and how he treated her, her late-brother and his Godchildren, the more Christian was convinced that Raymond had had the hope to have a numerous family before his wife died.

And Christian had already seen glimpses of Gail's twins every now and then. They were both well mannered and downright adorable, that he had no doubts that Raymond's scary facade completely cracked whenever he was around the two kids.

Raymond's phone buzzed, making him purse his lips slightly, which Christian had learnt over the years was a sign of his irritation.

"I truly wish that when you will have kids, you will be blessed with only boys. They are less worry and less maintenance," He said with a sigh, and though Christian knew his boss was talking about the woman they both loved in different ways, he did not bounce on the matter.

Ever since Christian had started working closely with Raymond, he had had the habit of hearing his boss complain every now and then about his daughter. Even more so when she started to grow up and wanted things such as boyfriends and sleepovers that did not involve a member of the Kavanagh family.

"Does Luke report to you about her whereabouts in the city?" Raymond nonchalantly asked.

Though he was aware of the pact Raymond made with his daughter through Ana and the man himself, Christian knew very well that Raymond would never be able to let the control he had over the security of his daughter flaunter so easily. And there was the moment he had been expecting ever since Ana let him know the promise her father made. Everything was in the fine print. Raymond promised not to ask directly to the person that would be following her, and he wasn't. He was using Christian as a buffer.

And would he have not been in a relationship with the girl, Christian wouldn't have minded. After all, this arrangement was giving peace of mind to the two Steele, giving the two of them the impression that each had the control over what they felt was important. Raymond, his daughter's security, and Ana, her freedom.

Christian was no fool, and though Ana never mentioned it, he was absolutely sure that she and Luke had a deal of some sort where he wouldn't have to actually follow her everywhere and all the time. He was sure of that because any person tracking Ana properly would have come to Christian to ask him a few questions. For instance, why would she so regularly come to his building, when sometimes she would come when her best friend was gone. That definitely implied the presence of a secret boyfriend, and Christian knew that any man working for Raymond would come to see him first, before going to their boss to tell him that his precious daughter had a secret lover. After all, Raymond was not known for his diplomacy when it came to his daughter.

So after swallowing his fork of delicious squash, Christian looked straight in his boss's brown eyes, and told him, "You had an arrangement with your daughter, and I'd rather not come between you and your daughter."

Raymond made a small sound with his nose, resuming eating his food as he nonchalantly said, "Speaking of which, Ana came to visit her mother's grave a few days ago."

Christian rose an eyebrow as if asking where was the correlation in all of that, and Raymond explained, "It was something I did not expect. For fifteen years, it has always been me. Even Eric and Michael came on a different day. And Ana stopped going after Michael 'disappeared', no matter how much Eric tried to make her go with him.

So imagine my surprise when I saw my daughter stumbling her way through the gravestones, and telling me that she decided to pay a visit to her Mom. She looks so much like her mother, that at first, I thought it was a ghost."

"Is there a question somewhere?" Christian asked, his tone placid. He knew that if Raymond asked upfront if he had been the one to bring Ana to the cemetery, he would honestly answer him. But what he did not care for, was playing a game of cat and mouse where Raymond would have plenty of innuendoes, hoping to make him slip up.

Raymond briefly looked at Christian who kept his poker face on, waiting for his boss to ask the ultimate question. It was in moments like that that Christian felt that Raymond had a fairly good idea of what was happening between him and his daughter. It was in moments like that that Christian remembered that Raymond was a very powerful man who had the whole city of New York in his pocket, and who loved his daughter above everything else. But there was always one thing that didn't add up.

Raymond was not a patient man, nor a forgiving man. If he would to ever find out that Christian was seeing his daughter, he wouldn't patiently say nothing and pretend he was ignorant of the situation, all the while training Christian to replace him when the time would come. He would most likely confront Christian, before feeding him to the pigs for going after his daughter, and behind his back.

Raymond Steele wasn't a man that would simply let things be. He would take actions. Lethal actions. And nothing in his demeanour let Christian feel like he was about to die.

After a small moment during which the two men stared at one another, Raymond finally said, "No, I guess not. I was just surprised to see my daughter there. But in the end, it was worth it. Never prior to that day, I would have even imagined talking to Ana about her mother."

They kept on eating, discussing their various businesses that were to take place, and Christian passing on the desert as usual. Just as Raymond was pouring himself a second cup of coffee, Christian sipping on his usual herbal tea, Ana made an apparition, accompanied to Christian's greatest surprise by Jack Hyde.

The young man politely nodded his head toward both Raymond and Christian while Ana went to her father to kiss his cheek, and check on his desert.

"I see that as soon as I'm not here, you're having cake," she accused, pointing the remain of the piece of cake in front of her father.

"Carrot cake, my dear. It is still on your 'allowed-list' if I recall."

The young girl humphed, caught in her own web and not happy about it. She glanced briefly at Christian, not meeting his eyes, as usual when her father was around, and said, "Well, we'll leave you to whatever you were talking about, and I will find Gail to tell her that Jack and I will be having coffee in the library."

Christian watched his girlfriend leave the kitchen, Jack Hyde short on her heels, a new and powerful feeling rising within him. If he were to listen to his guts, he would have gotten up and quickly put a stop to whatever was going on. A thousand questions whirled in his mind, all with Ana and Jack as the main components. He wanted nothing more than to march to them and clearly state to Jack that he was not to mess with his girlfriend.

And this was exactly why he didn't do it. He was too surprised by this foreign feeling of possessiveness and anger that it grounded him, rending it impossible for him to move or say anything. He was not used to feeling so in lack of control of his feelings, and therefore himself.

When he finally took back control of his emotions, putting anything raw and new in a mental box to deal with it later, he sipped again on his tea, noticing just then that Raymond was still looking where his daughter had disappeared with her friend. And that's when something lit up in Christian. Why didn't Raymond say anything about his cherished daughter bringing a man home?

"I don't think it was a good idea taking Jack to replace his father," Raymond finally said, drinking from his coffee, his eyes still on the empty space his daughter used to occupy.

A week before going to Macau, Christian had convinced Raymond that working with Jack Hyde would be a good investment. And he was. He had brought the company a multi-million dollars deal that Mr Kavanagh had been trying to snatch for months. And so, Christian helped the young Hyde in return, giving him all the information about his father and his double life.

As Christian expected it, Jack did not hesitate to rat his father out to both his wives who were now both suing him for half his fortune each. If Christian could say anything about Jack from the few interactions he had with him, it was that the young man was ambitious, and did not care for his father. When he learnt about his father two-timing his mother, he was more worried about how he would break the news to his mother, than about how this could destroy his father's life.

If he were honest, Christian actually was starting to like the man for he seemed to be someone interesting, even outside of business. But now that he was seeing him outside of the Robinson Inc' building and businesses, he did not like what he so.

Still, that him being around Ana did not stop Jack to be a good businessman that would rather valuable to the company.

"He's good. He's actually better than his father," Christian said with a monotonous tone, though every fibre in him was screaming at him to agree with Raymond, and unleash the fury that was starting to show on his boss's face. He was sure that if he validated the older man's thoughts, Raymond would not hesitate on marching starlight to the library and drag Jack out of his house by the ear.

Raymond started drumming his fingers on the table, his eyes having never left the door. Then with a heavy sigh, he looked back at his dessert, disregarding it, before planting his eyes on Christian. "As I said, boys are less worry and less maintenance."

"But girls take better care of you in your golden days," Christian contoured, quoting an old adage that he heard Mrs Parvati say over and over again when she would brag about having only girls.

With those words, Christian got up, not wanting when Raymond's patience would wear thin and he would barge into whatever was happening in that library. Or that's what he told himself, avoiding to think that it was his patience that was wearing thin and that it would be him barging in that library.

During his ride home, Christian did best to ignore the gnawing feeling that was growing inside of him and showing him a side of him he was not sure to like, but when he was finally home, his mood had done anything but improve. He tried to wash away his new emotions under the shower, but his mood was even more sullen once he was dried.

And this was why he decided to call Ana. Usually, it was the other way around, but usually, Christian would be working late, and Ana wouldn't be entertaining young men in her house. She answered at the third ring, her voice cheery and oblivious of the bundle of nerves that Christian was at that moment.

"Hey! What a nice surprise to have you call me."

"How was your night?" Christian asked without preamble, realising as he said those words how cold his one had been. Ana didn't seem to pick up, because she gushed,

"It was wonderful! Jack and I went to a new production of Les Misérables and it was so good. I cried when Eponine died. No matter how many time I see that musical, Eponine always makes me cry."

And that's when Christian finally understood what was happening to him. He was jealous. It wasn't much that Ana had been with Jack (though he would like to have an explanation on that), but it was more that Jack had been able to take her out, in the open and that she thoroughly enjoyed it when she would always get upset when he would try to bring their relationship to the open.

"So, Jack Hyde has the right to take you out on shows, whilst I can't?"

"Christian." He could almost picture her rolling her eyes. "You don't even like Broadway shows."

"Because you think that I wouldn't suck it up for you once in a while? Do you think so little of me?"

"No. I never said or implied that. It's just … well, you're working a lot, and I wanted to see that show, and Jack was in need to get out of his house for a while. I know he pretends he's fine with this thing going on with his Dad, but he's really affected by this whole mess. A few nights out did him some good."

"I don't mind that you're seeing him. I mind that you allow him things that you don't allow me," He snapped, realising that once assured that there was nothing going on but friendship and moral support, the only thing still eating him was what he just accused her of.

He heard her sigh. "I don't want to argue with you. Even less over the phone. But what you're saying doesn't make any sense. I allow things with you that I certainly don't allow other people to do. I'm not hearing you complain about that."

"It's not the same."

"And how so?"

"Because I don't like not being able to take my girlfriend to a fucking show when the rest of the whole wide world get to do so!" He snapped, surprising himself first.

He did not expect to burst like that, and it was the first time in a long time that he lashed at someone based simply on raw emotions. And he did not like it one bit. He liked even less that it was Ana who had to suffer the blow, and that they were having this conversation over the phone.

"Well, if you don't like it, maybe it would be best if we stopped," She retorted with the same snappy tone, and those words had the effect of a cold bucket of ice on Christian. "I mean, this had been fun and all, but —"

"Do you want to quit on us?" He asked, his face livid while his insides had ceased to exist all of the sudden.

"No. But you're the one complaining about us, right now."

"I just want more us," He argued with a soft voice, calculating his tone and his words carefully, for he knew that one wrong word could mean the thing he dreaded the most.

"Well, that can be arranged. Us doesn't mean that we have to be out. I want us to be just us, is that wrong?"

Though Christian wasn't sure if Ana was aware of it, he knew that she had played him masterfully. She had given him the impression of giving him what he wanted, but without really doing it. This was something her father was expertly skilled at. And whether it was from experiencing it, or witnessing it, Ana had picked that skill.

"No. Of course not," Was all he said, admitting to himself that, though Raymond was weak when it came to his daughter, he himself was no better.

.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

Christian's PoV

Three weeks after his telephonic confrontation with Ana, Christian had to admit that one good thing came out of it, Ana came more often than once a week. In fact, he was the one missing out on their time together due to some business trips he could not postpone. But both times he came back from abroad, he found Ana waiting for him with a meal of her cooking (more or less good).

They never breached the topic of officialising their relationship again, and with the way things turned the last time, Christian had decided that as long as Ana would not decide by herself to take them out of the closet, he would not talk about it again. He would rather be her secret boyfriend, than her nothing.

A part of him wanted to talk to Mia about it, to have a feminine inside on Ana's brain, but he never did. Mostly because he knew what she would say about him being so compliant over something that was bothering him. It wasn't how healthy relationships bloomed. And it wasn't even healthy, to begin with. But no matter how weak it made him, he would rather have this tiny bit of a relationship with the redhead, than none at all. And honestly, it wasn't as if he were unhappy. On the contrary, he was very happy when he spent time with her, even more, when he made her see the stars.

And there was the issue of his feelings for Ana. He was very well aware that he was in love with her. And he had told her between lines how he felt about her, though he had always been careful not to say the three words to her. At first, he had convinced himself that he was just waiting for the right moment, but the more time they spent together, the more he actually wanted her to say it first. awake, aware and looking at him in the eye.

She was holding back the officialisation of their couple, he was holding back the next milestone of their relationship. It might be childish, borderline twisted, but he would not make that step as long as she would not make it first, or take the step she knew he wanted to take.

With a shake of his head, he came back to the present time, only to see with displeasure that Agent Taylor was walking in his direction. For a brief second, Christian had to admit that he was surprised to see Jason Taylor approach him in the open, just in front of Robinson Inc', but after thinking about it, he realised that it was the only safe place where the FBI agent was sure to find him.

Still, he was in no mood to entertain the agent's disillusion, "Whatever you have to tell me, I am not interested."

The man held up his hands with a friendly smile that did not fool Christian, and told the young criminal, "I realised the other day that I have been going on the wrong foot with you. I have been trying to turn you against a man that took you under his wing at a young age … almost a father figure to you."

Christian ignored the taunt of the man, still walking away from the Robinson Building, without any purpose in mind. Like he said before, he was in no mood on that particular day. It was extremely hot, the Mazarati were still bugging his mind, and one of their shipment from Brazil had been 'lost' before reaching New York.

"I have been trying to diss your father when I should have asked you, what would your real parents think if they knew what their son had become? I don't think Grace and Carrick would appreciate hearing me tell them all about their son working for a criminal organisation …"

.

.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

‼️PLEASE DON'T BE A SILENT READER AND LEAVE A REVIEW

IT REALLY DOES HELP‼️

.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

💚Your thoughts and opinions are always welcomed💚

~ Anyway, question time:

💚 Does Raymond know? I know this is the billion dollars question!

💚 How do you feel about this tiny conflict between our couple?

💚 How is Christian going to react to this last sentence?

💚What did you think of this chapter overall? And what do you think will happen next?

💚What was your favourite part?

💚Anyway, E L James owns the names of the characters from the Fifty Shades franchise, everything else is mine.

Love, Mina💚💚💚