A/N: Thank you all for your love and support! I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 3: Media

~One Week Later~

"So one Everything bagel, a coffee with sugar no cream, and an Earl Grey tea… that'll be $12.59."

Ana dug into her purse for her wallet before extricating a twenty and handing it over to the girl behind the counter. She rang her up while Ana picked up the paper bag and the to-go tray, balancing it all in one hand.

"There you go, ma'am," the girl smiled as she handed the change back to Ana. "Have a good day."

"Thanks. You too," Ana smiled before turning and heading out of the bagel shop, a bell tinkling as she stepped out the door.

It was a beautiful sunny Thursday morning in Seattle, and the streets were full of commuters heading to work for the day. Ana was in a great mood this morning, so much so that she didn't even mind when her boss texted her to pick him up a bagel and coffee before she came to work that day. His favorite bagel shop was only a few blocks away from Seattle Independent Publishing, which was where she worked, so Ana decided to just take an Uber to the bagel shop and walk the rest of the way to the office, enjoying the beautiful weather today.

Part of Ana's good mood today was due to the fact that her roommate Kate recently took her out clothes shopping. Ana was currently wearing a cute blue and white patterned sundress with a thin silver headband in her long chestnut hair. Even though she spent a little more than she usually would on new clothes, she knew she looked good today and felt it was worth the extra money.

Ana turned a corner and passed by an electronics shop, where a large display window had multiple flat-screen TVs simultaneously playing the Seattle morning news:

"…and in recent news, the homicide of local salon owner and entrepreneur Elena Lincoln last week is still under investigation by the Seattle Police Department," the anchorwoman spoke to the camera from her desk as a picture of Elena Lincoln appeared on her right side. "Evidence has been leaked in recent days that Mr. Christian Grey, owner and CEO of Grey Enterprise Holdings, is connected to Mrs. Lincoln's death. Mr. Grey has put out a public statement this morning denying his connection to the case, expressing his sorrow with her passing while maintaining his own innocence. When asked by reporters, Mr. Grey gave no further comment."

Ana stood at the window watching the news segment for a few moments before continuing her walk toward SIP. The story of that murdered Lincoln woman had dominated the news cycle for the past week or so: a rich socialite woman mysteriously gets murdered in her own home without anything being stolen, and the main suspect is the CEO of some international billion-dollar mergers & acquisitions company. The public interest of this whole story was incredibly high, with most people believing Christian Grey was guilty due to the fact he was rich and powerful, therefore he must be corrupt enough to commit a murder. Ana had to admit the whole story was very intriguing… it sounded like something out of a murder-mystery novel.

Ana finally made it to Seattle Independent Publishing, which was a wide one-story building that took up the entire corner of the block. She pushed her way through the glass front doors into the lobby, where Claire was sitting at her large receptionist desk.

"'Morning Ana," Claire smiled at Ana as she approached. "Ooh I love your dress."

"Thanks," Ana smiled widely.

"Jack literally just came by a minute ago asking if you were here yet," Claire said, nodding toward the doors leading to the main office. Ana rolled her eyes.

"It's not even 9 o'clock yet. He can relax," she said spitefully. "Any messages I need to relay?"

"Nope. But Jack did mention he's going to be out of the office most of the day today," Claire grinned, and both women giggled.

"Nice. Do you and Hannah want to go out to Chino's with me for lunch today?" Ana asked.

"Let's do it."

The two women chatted for another minute or so, making their lunch plans, before Ana headed into the main part of the office. Most people had arrived for the day at this point, and they were all getting settled in at their desks as Ana made her way to the back corner office where her boss Jack was waiting.

Jack Hyde was the acquisitions editor at SIP, and Ana was his assistant. She had gotten this job right after college and she'd been working here for almost a year now, but her dream was to one day have Jack's job. It wasn't that working for him was the worst thing in the world, but Ana mostly enjoyed her job because of Claire and Hannah and all of her other coworkers whom she got along with. Jack just kind of did his own thing, and while most of the time he was an okay boss, occasionally, if he was having a bad day, he would go ballistic and scream at everyone around him at the top of his lungs. Ana dreaded his bad moods, and she sincerely hoped today wasn't going to be one of those days.

"There you are," Jack now said, glancing up at Ana coming into his office. He was standing behind his desk while sorting through some documents. "Glad you got my text this morning."

"Here's your Everything bagel and your coffee, sugar no cream," Ana rattled off, setting the paper bag and coffee tray on his desk. She picked up the second cup in the tray, which was her tea.

"I hope you remembered to save the receipt," Jack said, picking up his coffee and removing the lid, taking a small sip of the hot drink. "There's been some changes to my schedule today, so I'm going to be out of the office most of the day. Can you monitor my emails and call me if there's an emergency?"

"Of course,' Ana said. "Anything else?"

"Nope, that should be it," Jack said. He set down his coffee and reached into the paper bag, pulling out the bagel. "This isn't toasted," he frowned.

Ana hesitated, silently praying he wouldn't start yelling at her, before giving him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, they must have forgotten. I can toast it for you in the kitchen if you want."

"No, it's fine," Jack said petulantly, putting the bagel back into the bag. "Just get to work, I need to head out soon anyway."

Ana nodded before turning and walking out of the office to where her desk was, letting out a silent sigh of relief. Working as Jack's assistant was pretty hit or miss, but she knew she would enjoy work today since Jack wasn't going to be around at all. Today's workload would likely be light or even nonexistent as a result, and she could visit with her friends at their desks without feeling guilty about it.

Fighting back a smile, Ana sat down at her desk and booted up her computer.

Just as Ana predicted, today was going very slow. She monitored Jack's emails as he'd asked her, but nothing serious came up, so Ana spent her day just helping Hannah edit a new manuscript. The two of them and Claire all went out to lunch together at noon as they'd planned, where they sat around a table together sharing a plate of curly fries and talking about the Lincoln murder case.

"Oh, Christian Grey totally did it," Claire said with confidence, dipping a fry in some ketchup. "I mean, they found his DNA at the scene of the crime, didn't they?"

"Yeah, but he's a billionaire and apparently his dad's a super rich lawyer," Hannah stated, shaking her head. "I can already tell you he's not going to prison."

"It's a good thing too. Guys like him are too pretty to go to jail," Claire said with a wink, and the other girls laughed.

"I just wonder what's going to happen to his company with all this going on," Ana said, stirring her iced tea with her straw. "Grey Enterprise Holdings apparently has thousands of subsidiaries all over the world, and these allegations can't be good for their businesses."

"Yeah, it must suck working for a GEH-owned company right about now," Hannah said. "Though not worse than working for Jack, I imagine."

"Oh my God," Ana rolled her eyes with a rueful smile as Claire giggled. "At least you don't have to deal with him directly like I do."

"Thank the good Lord," Hannah shook her head. "I don't know how you do it, girl."

"He hasn't been in one of his moods lately, which is nice," Ana shrugged. "Plus he's been gone all day today, which has been amazing."

"Do you think he and Elizabeth from HR are out hooking up right now?" Claire asked conspiratorially, and the other girls giggled.

"Ew. God, I don't even want to think about that!" Ana laughed. There had been rumors circulating the office that Jack and the new girl Elizabeth used to date before she'd been hired in Human Resources. The rumor mill around the office churned like crazy that the two of them were still an item.

"I heard from Beverly that Elizabeth will be on vacation for the next few weeks," Hannah said, raising her eyebrows judgmentally. "And she only started working here a month ago. Can you say 'special treatment'?"

"So why do you think she and Jack broke up?" Claire asked with a wicked grin. "Do you think Jack couldn't get it up?"

"That, or Elizabeth couldn't deal with Jack's man-crush on Christian Grey," Hannah stated, and the other girls burst out laughing. Jack did have a weird habit of mentioning Christian Grey in conversations and in email chains whenever he could, and Ana as well as a lot of other SIP employees found it to be quite funny. He clearly admired the man for being so rich and successful, but everyone at work liked to think he had a secret crush on the guy. Ana was actually rather surprised Jack hadn't mentioned Christian Grey at all in the past few days, especially with all this public drama going on about him.

"Hey, all he has to do is think about Christian Grey when he's fucking Elizabeth - problem solved!" Claire said with a wide grin.

"Oh my God Claire, you're so mean," Ana giggled at her friend.

"Or maybe you're just too nice," Claire teased, throwing a half-eaten curly fry at her.

"Oh shit, our lunch hour's almost up," Hannah suddenly said, checking her watch. "We should probably head back soon."

Ana and Claire agreed after checking their own watches, and in about five minutes the three of them had finished their food, paid the bill, and headed out the door together.

~/~

The rest of the afternoon passed by relatively slowly, with only a few more emails coming through Jack's account. Ana checked them as usual, and she reflexively kept glancing at the clock, counting down until when it turned to 5 o'clock and she could finally go home.

Jack's email suddenly pinged: it was just a follow-up email from a new author agreeing to a new meeting time for next week. Ana scrolled down the email chain, biting back a giggle when she saw Jack's initial email to the client from yesterday:

To: 'Michael Tillson'
From: 'Jack Hyde'
RE: Meeting Time

Would a 3 o'clock meeting time next week work for you? Definitely want to get a start on pushing this book to publish. Pretty soon you'll start raking in that Christian Grey money!

See you soon, and call our office if you want to reschedule.

Sincerely,

Jack Hyde
Acquisitions Editor, Seattle Independent Publishing

Ana shook her head, smiling to herself. Once again, Jack was bringing up Christian Grey for no reason whatsoever, and to a client no less. Did he just have a compulsive need to mention the man as many times as he could a day?

Ana had an urge to forward this email to Claire and Hannah so the three of them could laugh about it, but she didn't want Jack to know about what she'd done in case he checked his Sent folder. She was, however, curious about how many times he had name-dropped Christian Grey when emailing a client…

Ana checked the clock and noticed it was already 4:30 pm. She didn't have any more work to do for the day, so she didn't feel guilty when, just for fun, she decided to do a keyword search in Jack's inbox for the name 'Christian Grey'.

Ana clicked on the Outlook search bar in Jack's email account, and she giggled to herself as she typed in 'Christian Grey' before hitting enter.

After a moment the search results appeared, and Ana was shocked at how many there were… there had to be well over a hundred emails where Jack mentioned Christian Grey's name! Amused, Ana clicked through the emails, reading all the pitches he made to new authors telling them they'll be as rich as Christian Grey if they sign with SIP.

A bit of an exaggeration, but it does get authors to sign with us.

Ana continued to scroll through the emails, glancing over them as she went. Jack obviously corresponded with a lot of people via email, but she was honestly surprised at how many results turned up when she searched for Christian Grey's name.

Ana noticed in the search results a tiny subfolder linked to Jack's inbox labeled _G. That was odd. Did Jack have a whole subfolder dedicated to Christian Grey? Ana clicked on it.

The subfolder consisted of multiple email chains between Jack and Elizabeth, the new girl from HR that everyone gossiped about being his ex-girlfriend. Ana felt surprised.

Should I even be reading this?

Ana knew she probably shouldn't, but since she was already down the rabbit hole, she felt there was no point going back now. She clicked on the first email.

She read over it, initially confused as to what it meant. But as she scrolled down the email chains, her confusion turned to surprise, and then to shock. Her eyes were glued to the screen as she read each email and response between Jack and Elizabeth; after each line her heart beat faster inside her chest. Her face had gone pale, and her palms became clammy with sweat as she continued to stare at her screen, barely registering anything else happening around her.

She didn't even notice when the clock struck 5 o'clock and all of her coworkers began to leave for the day. All she could do was continue to read these emails that would undoubtedly change her life forever.

A/N: Next chapter, Ana figures out what she's going to do with the information she learns.

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