AN: Dear Grammar obsessed guest reviewer who clearly needs to get a life. This has been the hardest story I have ever written, it has taken a lot out of me emotionally. It gets harder with every re-read. It's just me, I'm nothing more than a fanfiction writer. I use spell check on word and I have Grammarly sadly and clearly, the odd error is still being missed. I don't have the time or the patience to go crawling through the text looking for every mistake, every to/too. If my inability to pick up on these errors bother you so much you feel the need to give me a grammar lesson when reading a subject as harrowing as this, you've clearly come to the wrong place. Your corrections will no longer be approved as reviews because a grammar correction is not a review, don't waste your energy or mine for that matter.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The car pulled into the underground parking lot at Grey House. Ana was bouncing her leg and clutching tight to Christian's hand as though her life depended on it. Outside Escala reporters had continued to hang around and they'd jumped at the vehicle with their cameras as the exited, shouting questions and banging on the car with their hands. The same scene had greeted them at the entryway to the Grey House parking lot too and it made Ana extremely edgy.

"Ok?" Christian asked before kissing her hand, she simply nodded her mouth too dry for words.

When she'd woken this morning, having slept through the entire night with Christian by her side, she had a call from Elizabeth telling her to stay home for a couple of days. Hannah was going to be dropping off some manuscripts later so she could continue to work from home but as SIP was also being watched by reporters it was better that she didn't come in at the moment.

Christian had been relieved that Elizabeth was being sensible about this, as Ana was truly in no fit state to go to the office anyway and the security there wouldn't be enough to keep her safe. Ana had wanted life to go on as normal but at the moment, it simply couldn't.

Grey House was one of the largest sky scrappers in Seattle. They entered an elevator from the underground parking lot and travelled straight up to the top floor. Christian held Ana's hand the entire time, giving her little reassuring squeezes whenever he felt she needed them. Ana was struggling, the way the media was behaving frightened her so much.

They exited the elevator into an open area, clean white walls and massive LED lighting made it brighter indoors than it had been outdoors. A woman behind the sleek black and white arched desk jumped to her feet, her blonde bob bouncing with her movement.

"Mr Grey, Miss Steele." She said hurriedly.

"Good morning Andrea, can you get Monica to my office please." Christian said without actually stopping his stride as they clipped across the polished wooden floors.

The went through heavy white doors at the end of the hallway, Christian holding the door open for Ana. They entered a room that was equal in size to the great room, a granite desk stood off to one side of the room with a huge black leather chair, on the other side of the room a similar L shaped white couch to what was at home with a matching small, square armchair. The room was just as bright as the hallway and Ana felt like she was narrowing her eyes as if the sun was shining in her face.

A clipped knock on the door and Christian and Ana both turned to see Andrea's head pop around the door.

"Monica is on her way, can I get you both some coffee Mr Grey?" She asked.

"Please." Christian nodded and she disappeared again. "Come sit." He said to Ana pulling her over to the couch. "Monica is the head of PR. She will help us put together a media statement." Christian explained, Ana simply nodded, she felt extremely uncomfortable here, it was Christian's office, his sanctuary, she felt like an intruder.

"How many people work for you?" Ana askes nervously.

"We have around six hundred working here in Grey House." He replied and Ana's eyes almost fell out of her head, that was a lot of people! "But in the entire company I have about five thousand employees in total."

"Five thousand?" Ana asked her mouth gaping open. "And they work for you?"

"Well there's a hierarchy and I sit at the top, so while they all do work for me, there are a lot of supervisors and managers between most of them and myself, very few work directly for me." Christian explained gently.

"What is it you do exactly?" Ana asked smoothing her hands down her jeans, she felt incredibly underdressed here.

"For the most part, I do mergers and acquisitions, so my main interest is in taking over smaller companies similar to ones I already own resulting in making my own business bigger, more profitable and so on, I also take over failing larger businesses, again merging them into my own businesses."

"So like if SIP was failing, Bloomsbury would come in and buy it, the company still exists but it becomes just another part of Bloomsbury?" Ana asked and Christian beamed at her.

"Pretty much." He was very impressed that she'd understood that quickly. "So Bloomsbury would then make changes, maybe reduce the level of staff, implement their own way of working, attempt to make the company more profitable." He explained and she nodded just as the door went and a new blonde came in with a tray.

"Thank you Olivia." Christian said as Olivia laid out the coffee, cream and sugar on the coffee table before hurrying out again.

"I think you intimidate her." Ana giggled as Olivia left without a word.

"They're my employees and Olivia and Andrea are my personal assistants, they've seen me at my worst." He said running his fingers through his hair uncomfortably.

"Oh so you mean they've been on the receiving end of your temper." Ana teased and Christian laughed uncomfortably just as there was another knock on the door, and once again Andrea popped her head around the heavy door.

"Monica, Mr Grey." She said before the door opened some more.

Monica was a very tall, slim woman with strawberry blonde hair, and purple lipstick came in with a smile on her face. Ana stood as the woman approached them, she again smoothed her hands down her jeans to try and remove some of the sweat from them before Monica would want to shake her hand.

"Mr Grey." She reached a perfectly manicured hand over to Christian who shook it and gave her a polite nod of his head. "Miss Steele." She smiled turning to Ana with that same outstretched hand, which Ana shook with a thin-lipped forced smile.

"Please take a seat." Christian signalled the armchair and Monica sat down while Christian sat beside Ana on the couch, his hand in her own.

"So Mr Grey, what can we do?" Monica asked, already knowing what this was about because her team had been inundated with requests for comment from every corner of the country's media.

"Well, I think we should put out a statement from myself and Ana, a joint statement as a couple." He explained and Monica nodded while opening her notebook so she could take notes. "Obviously confirming Ana is Annie-Rose and that we are a couple…" He looked to Ana for confirmation she was happy so far and she gave a little nod and a side smile, she didn't want to have to do this but then she understood it was necessary. "I think that confirming we first met when Ana graduated from Washington University would be a good one."

"Miss Steele is there anything you'd like to say about your life before Christian?" Monica asked turning to Ana who wanted to shrink into herself, become invisible because she hated this, it was so outside her ordinary that it made her feel sick.

"No." Ana shook her head. "Please lets not."

"Ok." Monica gave a reassuring smile. "This is your statement, we put in it what you want and leave out what you don't unless we think you're leaving anything out that will be damaging to either yourself, Mr Grey or the company." Ana nodded and glanced at Christian, she felt like a duck not just out of water but completely lost, maybe at sea with no land to be seen for miles.

"Confirm that Ana and I live together." Christian said. "I think that will reflect the seriousness of the relationship." He said giving Ana's hand a gentle squeeze and she nodded softly. "How about that coming to terms with this news will take time and that our family needs our privacy to be respected?" again Ana nodded, she had overheard Christian on the phone with Grace this morning and new the press was outside their house too. They deserved their privacy to be respected.

"Ok, that's great Mr Grey." Monica said closing her notebook. "I'll send you a draft for approval this afternoon."

"Thank you Monica." Christian stood to shake her hand and Ana did the same. Once the door was shut behind her Christian pulled Ana into his arms and kissed her head softly. She relaxed into him, the smell of his cologne comforting her as much as the warmth of his embrace and the sound of his heartbeat against her ear. "You know, maybe we should get out of here for a while, I have a house in Aspen, or we could go to New York." Christian said. "I know you don't have a passport, so we can't leave the country which we do need to rectify as soon as possible, but I'm just thinking to get away for a few days, let all of this die down."

"How many houses do you have?" Ana asked as she pulled away and Christian suddenly remembered back to what his mother had said the previous evening, Ana didn't have a clue what he was worth, just how wealthy he was.

"Sit a sec." He said already tugging her down to the couch. "Ana, Mom said last night she didn't think you understood how wealthy I am."

"Well I know you're rich." Ana blushed looking at her feet but Christian tipped her chin up so he could look into her blue eyes.

"I'm not just rich." Christian said. "I'm a multi-billionaire Ana. I could quit working tomorrow and I'd still die very wealthy. My personal finances, not the companies, I barely spend the interest on the money I have…"

"None of this means anything to me Christian…" Ana said because it honestly didn't make any sense, what did he mean he barely spent the interest?

Christian though hard, how could he get Ana to understand the level of his wealth? He stalked over to his desk and grabbed a legal pad before bringing it to the couch. Ana poured herself a coffee because she had a feeling this was going to take some explaining if he needed a pen and paper.

"Ok, so say you have one thousand dollars…" He wrote the figure on the piece of paper. "Because you have a thousand dollars, the bank pays you interest, as long as no less than one thousand dollars remains in the account. So, we'll say the interest is fifty dollars." He wrote the fifty underneath. "You only spend forty dollars, so the next time they give interest it's fifty-five dollars, but you still only spend forty dollars, so the next time you get interest it's sixty dollar…"

"So you mean the bank gives you money because you have money, you don't spend all of that so they give you more?" Ana asked and Christian breathed with relief, she did understand his rather confusing way of explaining it.

"Pretty much, except I don't have a thousand dollars…" He started adding zeros, a lot of zeroes and Ana just looked wide eyed, she didn't know that many zeros existed on numbers but definitely not with money. Seeing a billion written was very different from hearing the word.

"That's a lot of zeros." Ana muttered.

"It's impossible for me to spend the interest I make Ana, I could by a luxury sports car every week or a house… there are very few people in the world who has more than me."

"But it's just money." Ana shrugged. "It doesn't change who you are to me Christian."

"No I know." He chuckled putting the notebook down on the table. "That's what I love about you, I could get rid of all of this tomorrow and I think you'd stick around."

"Of course, I would." Ana replied worried that he doubted that.

"None of this means anything to me Ana, it's just work, it's just money, what matters to me is you. Your happiness… do you understand that? I would really give this all up tomorrow if it was what you wanted."

"But it's not what I want." Ana replied not quite understanding what he meant by his words.

"I know." He chuckled kissing her head softly, he knew there was no point trying to explain anymore, she had a general picture now and that was all she needed. "You know Ana, I thought I had everything when I made my first million and that million became two and became three and true enough it never felt like enough, so I kept working, millions turned into tens of millions into hundreds of millions but I still felt empty, I still felt like I needed more." Christian sighed, he'd never spoken about this with anyone before, but since Ana had come into his life he'd come to many realisations and he wanted to share those with her. "I pushed my family away, I focused on work, it was all that mattered, but I was incredibly lonely. I couldn't make new friends because I knew most of them were interested in my wallet not my friendship, relationships were impossible, then you came along and my life changed. I stopped feeling the urge to make more and more money, my life started to feel full again, I am closer with my family and I have you…you've made my life complete Ana, filled that gaping hole that at the time I didn't even realise was there."

Ana leaned in and kissed him deeply, his words were so beautiful but it was the way he looked at her, the softness on his features the pure love emanating from his eyes that was making her feel emotional.

"Let's go home." She whispered. "There's nowhere else in the world I would rather be than just home with you, in our bed…" Christian chuckled. "You can take me to Aspen and New York another time, let's just go home now Christian." She said and he nodded, agreeing with her, because it was only home when she was there, it had only become home when she'd arrived and there was nowhere else in the world that he wanted to be either than tucked up in bed with her in his arms.