A/N: Thank you for following along on this crazy journey. This story will be wrapping up in three to four more chapters. I would happily keep this story going on forever, but one of the goals that I established before setting out to write my first fanfic is to stay true to my original plot outline. Along the way, I have really come to like this version of the original characters. Perhaps I will get the chance to write another story with this band of merrymakers…
Thank you to everyone who takes the time to like, favorite, and review this story. You are the steam in my engine!
Chapter 21
Villains and the Superhero
After having sex in Kate and Elliott's bed, Christian and I return to the treehouse where we are able to sequester ourselves for two glorious days. Our meals are dropped at the front door by the CPOs. Sadly, our sexy time is interrupted when Elliott, Jose, and Ethan show up and make a racquet on the boardwalk below the balcony.
I howl with laughter when Christian yells "Go the fuck away!" to the three drunkskateers.
"Never!" Ethan bellows.
"What do you want?" my personal sex toy growls to them.
"Booze, we need booze!" Elliott declares.
"Ha!" Christian retorts. "I bet you assholes wish that you had shared the baby blockers with me before Ana talked Mia into making a trade. You are too late, fuckers." He turns with glee to head back inside.
"Wait," Elliott calls. "How many condoms did Ana actually get from Mia? 7, maybe 8? How long do you think those are going to last you? Hell, we can set our watches by the frequency with which you have Ana screaming your name over here."
Christian grins from ear to ear. I, on the other hand, want the ocean to swallow me whole just so I can end this conversation. I turn into Christian's bare chest while hiding behind my hands.
"Really, Banana? You choose now to be self-conscious?" José goads. "It sounds like you two have been recording a porno soundtrack over here." I die a little bit inside. Christian chuckles with satisfaction.
"Don't be embarrassed," Elliott calls to me. "It just sounds like maybe you two are close to running out of rubbers up there. We three gentlemen have come to make you two lovers an offer you can't refuse."
"You have 30 seconds to offer up your trade," Christian goads his brother.
"We come bearing more condoms," Elliott explains. "We would like to negotiate a deal - rubbers for liquor."
"What's the rate of exchange?" Christian inquires. There's my sexy CEO working a deal for us. He is so hot when he is all business.
Elliott flicks his wrist to display a full sleeve of pink condoms.
"Jesus, how many condoms did Mia think she was going to need?" Christian mutters under his breath. He heads inside for a moment and returns ready to barter with a bottle of Grey Goose.
"No way, asshole," Elliott calls out. "One condom per bottle."
"Absolutely not!" Christian retorts.
"Uh, uh," Elliott says wagging his finger back and forth. "These little fuckers have more value than what you are putting on the table."
"I do not negotiate with terrorists," Christian spits back although I can tell his mood is jovial. "You will not corner me into making such a crap deal. One sleeve for one bottle of liquor, final offer."
Watching Christian negotiate is making me crazy hot. I start running my hand across his bare abdomen. Is the humidity rising out here? I feel all hot and tingly.
"Make a deal," I pant into his chest for only him to hear.
"Trust me baby," Christian whispers back, never breaking eye contact with his brother. "We have the upper hand here. Elliott's blood alcohol level has not dropped this low since his junior year of high school. We have him right where we want him."
I nod in agreement with Christian while getting more turned on by the second. I bite into his chest in hopes to mask my increasing need for him to replenish our dwindling supply of baby blockers.
"Come on, Christian," Elliott taunts. "How many more rubbers do you have left? 1, maybe 2? What are you going to do when those are gone? We'll up our offer. 2 rubbers per bottle. You know that you are going to need these." Elliott is waving the pink sleeve of 8 condoms back and forth.
"I'll put twins in Ana before I agree to your deal," Christian retorts.
"Like, hell you will." I hiss.
"Last and final offer, Smelliott," Christian calls down to his brother. "One bottle for one sleeve."
"Deal!" Elliott, Ethan, and Jose say in unison. They punctuate the agreement by flashing at least 15 sleeves of pink condoms between the three of them.
"Mia!" Christian and I groan together. Seriously, how many condoms did she pack and why?
Elliott begins tossing the sleeves of condoms up to us like it is Mardi Gras. Ethan pulls a slip of paper from his pocket and begins reading aloud, "Ok, we are going to need 4 bottles of coconut rum, 6 Grey Gooses, 2 bourbons…hum, José can you read this writing? What does this say…" I am busy catching the pink foil ribbons while Christian starts tossing down their order.
"Pleasure doing business," Elliott cackles as Christian and I turn to retreat back into our love nest. Christian responds to his brother with a middle finger over his departing shoulder. He scoops me up and races me and the pink condoms back to the bedroom.
Sadly, Christian and I cannot stay locked in the treehouse forever. We emerge the morning following the balcony condom negotiations. Following breakfast, Christian and Elliott resume their usual routine of squirreling away in the office until dinner. The rest of us collect on the beach. Morning drinking amongst non-Grey employees is now a given.
"Come on, it has to be them," Ethan says to Sawyer. The two guys are on the beach, both with binoculars.
"There is no way it is them," Sawyer replies to Ethan. The two guys are doing a bit of reconnaissance work as we play our new time-suck du jour. An overarching need for brain stimulation led to the creation of a new game amongst our band of merrymakers. We are trying to guess what famous people are on the surrounding islands.
The game started out innocently enough. Ethan has been getting up to go running with Reynolds and Sawyer each morning. While running, Ethan started helping with their regular safety checks which includes keeping a watchful eye on the neighboring islands.
Yesterday, while I was locked away with Mr. Sex-on-Legs, Ethan mentioned to Mia that one of the islands to the south appears to have a large family with lots of small children. Mia and Kate spent the afternoon brainstorming a list of filthy rich families with lots of kiddos. Apparently, it was hour number six of this brainstorming that led to the guys coming to barter for alcohol last night. At breakfast this morning, it took a nanosecond for Kate and Mia to recruit me into this new obsession.
At first, Mia settled on the idea that our neighbors were the British royals. Not a bad thought – large family, lots of little princes and princesses, and wealthy enough to socially distance in the Maldives. Taylor dismissed this idea. It turns out that he is familiar with British royal safety protocols. Said protocols eliminate the Windsors from our list.
Now, Kate believes our neighbors to be the Kardashians. Her only real evidence is the same as with the first guess: family size, children, and wealth. To prove her theory, Kate and now Mia have created a detailed algo rhythm of vague proofs that the Kardashians live to our south.
Ethan and Sawyer are trying to identify the hair colors of the other island's occupants. Any sane person would recognize that hair color alone does not identify a group. Unfortunately, we are running low on sanity. When Ethan returns, stating that he sees people with dark hair on the neighboring island, Mia declares that the inhabitants of said island are, in fact, the Kardashians. Kate finds a large, nautical map of the Maldives. With a red Sharpie, she writes 'Kardashian' on the island directly south of us. And so we begin stalking the next island in our line of sight.
Another boredom buster that Kate and Jose are currently devoting way too much time to is styling the most Instagram-able photos on Barabai. The fact that we do not actually have access to Instagram, or even the internet, does little to dissuade them. They spend hours lining up kayaks under palm trees and waiting for the exact right location of the sun. Mia jumps on the photo-styling bandwagon and suggests that all the pictures include one left foot. Really? I don't even pretend to understand, yet I find myself volunteering to be the left foot model for said pictures. Elliott and Frederic are roped into providing extra muscle as my left foot appears in photos of tropical birds on patio tables, coconuts stacked seven high on porch railings, and even one picture of my foot hanging from the rafters. Yep, island life is beginning to bring out the best (or worst) in our creativity.
I am impressed/disappointed when Christian gives me a peck on the cheek in thanks for delivering his and Elliott's lunches to the treehouse. I was hoping for more of a horizontal display of gratitude.
Bored, I find Ethan wandering along the island's pathways. He appears equally as bored so we meander together. Eventually, we reach an outcropping of rocks that looks out over the ocean.
"Look," Ethan hands me his ever-present binoculars and points to a black dot on the horizon. "See that boat? That's one of the signal receivers. The security guys send signals to it letting them know we are ok."
"Signals?" I squint through the lenses and see that the black dot is in fact a boat.
"Yeah, like a flashing light or a colored flag or something, I think. At predetermined times throughout the day, each of the guys sends his signal to the boat. Each CPO's signal is different. None of them know each other's signal and time. If the boat fails to receive a signal, there is a whole SEAL team or something ready to swoop in for Operation Rescue Daddy Warbucks." Ethan air quotes the name for the aforementioned rescue.
"What?" I ask. "There is just a boat sitting out there to make sure that everything here is ok?"
"No, six."
"Six what?" I don't understand.
"Six boats. There are at least six boats that I have counted so far. At any given time, there are six boats guarding the island and waiting for signals to let them know Christian is ok."
"Ehrmahgawd, Christian has a whole freaking Navy protecting us."
"No, Banana. Christian has his own private navy, air force, and, I'm pretty sure, the marines. There are ex-Navy SEALS, former military pilots, boat captains, paratroopers. Hell, Reynolds used to be a Special Forces Medic. He can suture a bullet wound while hanging from a helicopter rescue basket under enemy fire."
This seems a bit extreme. "How do you know this, Ethan? Like, how do you really know there are six boats and a SEAL team and all that stuff?" Surely, Ethan is imagining the greatest conspiracy theory of all time.
"Because, Frederic and I have been training with the CPOs. I'm not just running laps with Reynolds and Sawyer every morning. Taylor joins us and we run drills. These guys are fucking phenomenal. They have planned for every possible scenario. Every drill has one goal: protect Grey at all costs. There isn't a scenario you can think of for which these guys are not prepared."
I try my hardest not to laugh out loud. "Why you and Frederic, though? Surely Christian can hire all the CPOs he needs?"
"That's exactly why he needs Frederick and me. If the island were to fall to invaders, the CPOs would be the first threat the enemy neutralizes. Taylor wanted some extra guys along who could learn all the drills but appear less security-ish," again with the air quotes.
Ethan and Frederic as some sort of covert mercenaries? Highly unlikely! Right and next Ethan's going to tell me that Chrisitan is going to single-handedly cure COVID.
"Ethan, this all seems to be overkill. I mean, we are but one island of many that are all inhabited by kahjillionaires. Surely we are at no greater risk than anyone else in the Maldives right now," I conjecture.
Ethan is quiet for a moment before responding. "Christian is working on a way to mass produce a COVID vaccine. He is committing all of GEH's resources to vaccine production. That's what he and Elliott are doing all day in his office. Elliott is re-engineering all of the Grey Enterprise production facilities to be retrofitted for mass pharmaceutical production."
We stop walking. I cannot even begin to process what Ethan is telling me. "Are you telling me that GEH is going to be the company that creates the COVID vaccine?" I ask.
"No, Grey is leaving the chemistry up to the drug-makers. He is waiting for one of the pharma-giants to create the magic formula for the vaccine. Once the scientists develop the vaccine, GEH is going to mass produce and distribute the vaccine world wide. GEH already has state-of-the-art production facilities and transportation networks all over the globe. Hell, Grey even has thousands of people training to rapidly administer the vaccines."
How is the king of the condom negotiations also going to SAVE. THE. FUCKING. WORLD? I mean, Christian is smart enough, he is ballsy enough, and he seems like he is crazy-rich enough, but still...who does that? Who sets out to literally SAVE. THE. WORLD? My boyfriend, Christian Mother-Effing Grey, that's who!
"Isn't saving humanity a good thing? Why would anyone want to hurt Christian for doing that?" I ask.
Ethan gets a smug grin and says, "Because he is going to do it for free."
HOLY. FUCKITY. FUCK. FUCK. FUCKERTON! We are living amongst greatness. I am boning greatness!