Hi Ladies, I just wanted to clear a few things up... so there will be no cheating in this story, nor will one of them be with someone else why they are not together and there won't be any kind of month or year long separation between them...
As for Pinterest, you can find the board under the following link: www - pinterest - com / sfanfiction / the - beginning - in - the - end / Just remove the spaces and the link should work, if not send me a message and I will sent the link to you this way...
Christian
"Sir, Mrs. Lincoln is here to see you." Taylor announces and I nod. Fuck, what the hell does she want now?
I watch as Elena enters the great room, as always dressed completely in black. I want to say that she looks stunning for a woman her age, but sadly it's not true. Over the last four or five years she had a few plastic surgeries and that in combination with botox makes her look like someone hit her in the face with an iron.
"Christian, darling. You didn't call me back. I was worried about you." She says with a pout and I scowl at her.
"I've been busy."
"You are always busy, but it never stopped you from making time for me." She says and orders Gail to bring her a glass of wine. Her tone alone pisses me off, no wonder Gail always looks at with distaste.
"So, since things between you and Anabelle are..."
"Anastasia!" I snap... she fucking knows her name!
"Right, sorry... anyway, I have a few subs lined up who will meet your standards. Do you want me to set up appointments at the club for you to interview them?" She asks.
"No, Ana and I will start over soon." I reply and her mouth drops open.
"But you told me she left. It's over Christian."
"No, it's not over, Elena. Ana doesn't want to be a fulltime submissive, that is fine with me. I will offer her a relationship without contract." I confess and Elena starts to laugh.
"Darling please, you want to enter a vanilla relationship; you are not made for an ordinary relationship."
"That is not what I meant. Ana has no problem subbing for me in the playroom, she just wants to be herself outside of it and I enjoy spending time with her without us sticking to our roles."
"That's ridiculous and who says she will agree to that anyway? You are making a fool out of yourself by trying. I can tell exactly how this will end. The moment you enter this kind of relationship with her, she will want to seal the deal. She will probably get pregnant right away and then what? You can't be father, we both know that and you will end up with a fat wife. Now does that sound appealing to you?" She hisses and I am taken aback by what she is saying.
"Ana is twenty-one. She doesn't want kids yet and she is not the type of woman to trap a guy by getting knocked up on purpose."
"She is a fucking gold digger, Christian. My god wake up! As your friend I'm telling you, stay away from her or things will become ugly." She says and I push to my feet.
"Are you threatening me Elena?" I ask her and she gets up as well trying to stare me down... to get me to submit.
I stare at her horrified. What the hell is she playing at?
"Elena, thank you for stopping by, but I believe that it is time for you to leave now." I say my voice icy cold and she turns beet red with anger.
"You are kicking me out?"
"Yes, I don't want to fight with you, but it's time for you to leave. As a friend you should support me and not try to talk me out of getting the one woman who makes me truly happy back."
"You won't get her back no matter what. Call me once you have come to your senses." Elena hisses and storms out of the great room.
"Sir..."
"Not now." I snap at Taylor and storm into my study. I will show her, I'll get Anastasia back no matter what.
The next day I can't wait for lunch time to come around. Surely by now Ana will have made the decision to give me a second chance. So, when it's finally time I have to control myself not to run into the building that houses SIP, but I can't see Ana anywhere.
"Excuse me, I'm here to pick Anastasia up, is she still working?" I ask the young woman behind the welcome desk who stares at me open mouthed.
"I... I'm sorry, Mr. Grey... Ana called in sick this morning."
I don't even reply and head out of the building and get into the car.
"Miss Steele's, Taylor. She called in sick this morning."
At Ana's apartment I knock for several minutes, but she doesn't open. I try to call her, but my calls go straight to voice mail.
"Open the door, Taylor." I order and he looks as if he wants to argue, but finally picks the lock.
Inside I call out for Ana, but find that the apartment is empty. With my worry and panic that she might have been hospitalized I call Kate who tells me that Ana left the apartment this morning to go to work as usual. When I tell her that Ana isn't home, her phone is switched off and she has called in sick at work, Kate promises to come home immediately.
This is not like Ana and we can't even track her phone to find out where she is because it's switched off.
Thirty minutes later Kate arrives and another hour later Elliot is there too. I have my entire security team searching for her, inwardly cursing myself that I didn't have someone watching her to begin with, at least then we would know where she is.
It isn't until almost six in the evening that Ana steps into the apartment looking anything but sick.
"Where the fuck have you been?" I yell at her not able to control my rising temper.
"Why are you here?" She asks in return and I scowl at her.
"We had a lunch date and when I came to pick you up, I was told you are sick. Naturally, I came here to make sure you are fine and guess who wasn't here. We've been worried sick, Anastasia!" I snap and she has the grace to look contrite.
"I'm sorry, I forgot. José called me when I was just about to go to work and asked me if I was free to help him with a photo shoot. So, I called in sick and went with him." She says and I am appalled.
"You call in sick to have a good time with your friend?" I ask.
"No, actually I did feel sick all morning, but it magically disappeared once I knew I wasn't going to work. Incidentally, it was a great decision to meet with Jose. The photos are for a local magazine and when I told them that I work in publishing, they told me about their open position as editor and I took it." She says with a huge smile.
"What? What about SIP?" I ask and she shrugs.
"I'll quit. I'm starting my new job next week and I guess Mr. Roach will understand that I can't let an opportunity like that go."
"Well, as the owner of SIP, I can tell you that you will have to give us your six weeks notice and work until then." I hiss at her, losing the battle with my temper for good.
"You can't do that." She gasps.
"I can and I will!"
"Fuck you, Christian. That's the reason why I would never want to get back together with you. You are one controlling, egoistic son of a bitch!" She yells at me and storms into her room. Fuck, what have I done?
Ana
I can't believe he is doing this! If it wasn't for him harassing me at work, I wouldn't even have considered taking a job for a magazine, no matter how much they pay... but I can't work at SIP when I have to constantly fear that he will show up, trying to get me back.
What's more so, his outburst clearly showed that everything he wrote in his letter was nothing but him trying to tell me what I want to hear, so he can win me back. He will never change... it's that simple.
"Ana?"
"Is he still here, Kate?" I ask when she steps into my room.
"No, he left. Look Ana. I'm the first to say when he is unreasonable or just a douche, but Christian was out of his mind with worry when we didn't know where you are. Cut him some slack, he overreacted, but he really likes you Ana. He might not see it himself, but he loves you and I know that you love him too. You can work things out." She says and I turn around, so she won't see me cry.
"No. Can I please have some privacy?" I ask and hear Kate leave the room. I curl up in bed and sob into my pillow. But the more I cry the more I start to get angry. That bitch troll made me break up with him, she did this to me... reduced me to a crying mess and in this moment I decide it has to end and I grab my phone.
"Why Anastasia, I didn't expect you to call me." Elena snarls into the phone.
"You made me end things with Christian. Now he is trying to win me back and I can't take it anymore... make him stop." I hiss into the phone and hang up. Holy fuck! Why did I do that? I just poked a sleeping bear and now things will become ugly.
It only takes two minutes for my phone to buzz again. I think about letting it go to voicemail, but decide against.
"What?" I snap.
"Miss Steele, you and I need to have a private conversation." For a moment I have no idea what is going on, the male voice sounds familiar, but I just can't place it.
"Who is this?"
"It's Taylor, Ma'am. I would like to meet with you, there is something we need to discuss." He says and my heart sinks. OMG, I just called Elena Lincoln and then Taylor calls me back... what if they are working together... will he harm Christian?
"Why?"
"I will tell you once we meet. There is a small pub two blocks from Escala. Can you meet me there in an hour?" He asks.
"Yes, I'll be there." With that I hang up, wondering what Taylor wants from me.
An hour later I enter the pub and find Taylor sitting at a table in the far corner, which is partially hidden by a huge potted plant.
"Taylor?"
"Please, have a seat Miss Steele." He says and I sit down.
"Miss Steele, as you know it is my job to keep Mr. Grey safe. Yesterday, something happened that in my mind was a clear threat. So, I have taken the liberty to investigate. Miss Steele, what is your connection to Elena Lincoln? She has called you quite often in the past six weeks." He says and I have no idea what to do.
"I don't know what you are talking about, but I have to leave now." I get out in rush and push to my feet.
"I won't stop to investigate until I find out the truth, Miss Steele. Now sit down." He snaps and to my own surprise I plant my butt back on the chair.
"I don't believe that you are working for Mrs. Lincoln. I believe she has something on you or Mr. Grey and she used it to make you end your... um... relationship with him." He says and I stare at my hands. What the hell am I going to do now?
"Miss Steele... Ana... you can trust me, I'm trying to help you, but if you are not forthcoming I have to share the information I have gathered so far with Mr. Grey." He says and I know I can't let that happen.
"You can't tell him." I whisper.
"Then talk to me."
"About six weeks ago Mrs. Lincoln approached me after work. She said there was something we need to discuss. I didn't really want to talk to her, but at the same time I had this really bad feeling that if I didn't things were about to become ugly. So I went to a restaurant with her and she told me in no uncertain ways that she didn't approve of my relationship with Christian. I told her that I don't care about what she thinks and just left. That's when she started to call me, demanding for me to break up with him and a week before the contract between Christian and I ran out, she approached me again. She dragged me into her car and again demanded for me to end things with Christian, I was just about to get out of her car when she showed me a picture."
I stop, trying to get the imagine of the picture out of my head.
"What kind of picture?"
"A picture of Christian from the time he was her submissive. She has tons of pictures of him. Some so disgusting, disturbing and humiliating that it has given me nightmares... but there are others too. They must have been taken later, when he was already a Dominant himself. Pictures of him whipping and caning petite woman. They haven't been taken in his playroom, it's a different setting, but it is him."
"Why did she show you the pictures?" Taylor asks ashen faced, he knows as well as I do that these pictures could destroy Christian's reputation forever.
"She threatened to leak them to the media if I would continue to see Christian. We argued and in the end we made a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"I told her that I wouldn't sign a new contract with Christian if I would get the pictures in return. I was so stupid, of course she gave me the pictures, but she still owns the negatives and she won't give them to me unless Christian has moved on with a sub of her choosing. And I made things worse tonight."
"How?"
"I was so mad at Christian and I... I might have called her and demanded for her to make him leave me alone and then hung up on her." I admit.
"I need to see the pictures Miss Steele and we need to tell Mr. Grey what is going on."
"Like he is going to believe me that Saint Elena would do something like that." I huff and Taylor sighs.
"Miss Steele, I firmly believe that you are the only one who can convince him that Elena Lincoln is a vile person. Please let us get the pictures and see Mr. Grey.
I stare at Taylor not sure what to do, but in the end I know he is right, Christian needs to know what his so-called friend is doing.
After getting the envelope with the pictures from my apartment we drive to Escala and I follow Taylor into the elevator. I'm really nervous about this, I don't want Christian to believe that this means we can just continue where we left of, because we won't, but he has to see that Elena is pure evil.
Stepping out of the elevator I follow Taylor into the great room and stop abruptly not believing the scene that is playing out in front of me.
Elena is kneeling naked in front of Christian and she is about to undo his fly. For a second we just stare at each other, but then my brain starts to work again and I make a run for the elevator.
"Ana... wait, I can explain." I hear Christian call out after me, but I'm already in the elevator and press the button so the doors close.
I don't ever want to see Christian Grey again...