CHAPTER 3

Christian rose from his seat to look at the world outside from his empire. A lot was running through his mind and he was surprised that his brain hasn't exploded yet. As soon as his ass touched his chair as he came from his usual Monday morning meeting with Ros, Margaret from HR came bolting inside of his office and delivered something that he didn't quite expect for his Monday morning.

"Sir, we found John Cooper stealing money from the company sir. Our junior accountant, Anastasia Steele, investigated the GEH accounts after she found something fishy with the numbers." she said hastily that Christian might get a whiplash.

"I'm sorry, please repeat. I didn't catch you." he said as he stood up, with his arms on his side.

"John Cooper sir, he was embezzling money from the company," she said slowly whilst holding her breath. You may never know what might come out of Christian Grey's mouth.

Christian drew in a long breath, a technique that his psychiatrist taught him. He could feel the anger bubbling inside of him, waiting to blow up. Margaret is undeserving of his anger and he said quickly with disgust, "Tell Andrea to book a meeting at noon. Don't fire him yet, I will do it. I need to properly discard garbage from this company." He soon dismissed her and as soon as the door closed, he threw his phone against the wall, echoing a satisfying sound across the room and cussed loudly, "Fucking hell!"

'So what to do,' he questioned himself as he leaves his office and heads to the conference room to the meeting. 'Fire him obviously,' he answered his own question but Christian thirsted for something. Since he was dedicating his lunch break to some fucker who was busy embezzling money from his company, he needed some drama, something to humor him for his bad day. And so then as he was entering the accounting floor conference room and saw that motherfucking bastard, he knew what to do

"So how do you defend yourself," he asked, his tone much more colder than the Artic, assessing John's reaction carefully.

''I was desperate," he muttered looking down on his intertwined fingers.

"I asked you a question and I expect an answer," he demanded, folding his arms on top of the table.

"Mr. Grey, I needed the money. I needed to pay my son's medical bill." John said desperately. Collective gasps echoed the room as Christian's sardonic laughter filled the room as John glared at him.

"What a nice story," he said flatly, "unfortunately, it is not deserving of an award."

"Sir, I don't understand."

"Answer my question," Christian said slowly, enunciating each word as if speaking to a small child.

"Christian this is uncalled for," Ros reasoned with him but with those words, Christian didn't slow down. Before he could utter another word Ros continued, "Listen to him. Maybe he is talking the truth."

"Nope!" Christian exclaimed feigning humor. Ros sighed and slouched on her chair as she watched the outrageous show happening before her as Christian turned to face John. 'Poor John,' she thought to herself and braced for the worst.

"Answer my damn question Cooper!" he roared, slamming his fist on the wooden table. He then continued, "Or are you that stupid that you can't say the truth as lies continue to spew out of you?"

"No sir, I am telling the truth," he stuttered. Christian watch the poor man break apart as nervousness took control of him as he sweats his ass off and constantly tucking his long blond hair behind his ear.

Christian called Andrea to his side, who is also mortified by the exchange, and asked her to distribute the report drafted by Barney. He might have shocked them the last time as they read the report.

"So Cooper, let us confirm that you are telling the truth. So number one, yes you have a son. Two, yes you are horribly broke. Three," he paused, releasing an audible breath, "you received a vast amount of money from an unknown source which is us. And four, that money didn't go to any medical institutions. Cooper do you think I am dumb enough to not see that? Every employee who works in my company has a medical aid for five fucking people and you go on and tell me your shit! What did you do with the money!" he raged and if it would have been him and Cooper in the room, he could have ripped his body to pieces and he could have had a wondrous dinner tonight.

"Sir-" John trailed off, lost for words and in that instance Christian asked for Anastasia Steele to be brought here.

*#*#*#*#

Ana sat in her desk in her cubicle lost in thought. She wondered what was happening in the conference room that is a few doors away. She felt proud of herself by catching a thief whilst a feeling of guilt plagued her as there is a likelihood that John Cooper might be fired, all because of her, and yet, she didn't care so much. When a pale Andrea approached her and said that Mr. Grey was needing her in the conference room, her heart hammered as she expected the worst. This was the first time Mr. Grey had called for her and she was beyond nervous.

She dragged her feet to the conference room and when she entered all the pep talk she said to herself seemed to have disappeared in air. When she caught Mr. Grey's gaze, all air evaporated from her body as he eyefucked her with his grey orbs. She was caught in their embrace as they were very similar to the ones she saw on Friday night...

Christian cleared his throat and said, "Ms. Steele. Explain how you caught this sleazebag." Ana watched the way his mouth move and she was practically hypnotized, it took her ten full seconds to garner up her strength and speak.

"I was going through the all the transactions assigned to me when I noticed something different. The one I calculated was not equal to the one we have on record."

"So what did you do?"

"I went back and calculated again and again and still found the same result. So I asked for the transactions as they are before they were totalized and started from scratch. It balanced on the trial balance but when I compared on the other amount I found out there is a missing amount so I asked around."

"Then how did you come to the conclusion?"

"I went to Barney so that he can show me transactions where GEH was paying out money and investigated each individual or company and one that stood out was James Tech industries because their contract with us ended three months ago. So we were able to track where the amount went and it lead us to James Cooper sir." she said nervously, fidgeting with her fingers.

"Thank you Ms. Steele. You may sit down," he tilted his head to an empty chair towards the end of the table. James shot daggers at her as she went to sit down. As soon as she was settled, Ros stood from her seat and left the conference room and went to attend an important meeting with the Chinese.

Minutes went by with nothing but silence as Christian continued to scribble down on dozens of papers before him. Out of the blue he stated in a low voice, "You're fired."

"What!" James shrieked standing from his seat.

"Seat down," he articulated in a menacing tone and when James didn't do what he said, Christian also rose from his seat and repeated his words in a more frightening tone and that did the job.

Ana squirmed in her seat as she watched her boss' frightening interaction with James. She felt sorry for him to face the wrath of Christian Grey, and if she were in James' shoes she would standing her ground, not allow herself to be that intimidated by him. She watched with amusement now as she watched him suffer and it were times like this she wished she was in the dungeon with her sub.

"I have got an ultimatum for you," he said in his usual cold demeanor, "I will give you your months salary just because I pity your son but not you. The catch is that I will give you half of your unemployment fund and pension fund if I write why I chose to fire you. Or you may choose 5% of the funds I mentioned and I don't write anything on your record but you must not use us as reference."

"And if I choose not to do so," James asked in a low voice.

"Easy. Jail time. I don't want to see in my building in the next hour." he handed him the papers and turned and said to Ana, "Ms. Steele can I talk to you for a moment?" Ana nodded and followed him outside.

"Mr. Grey. How can I help you?"

"May you join me for lunch today."

"Mr. Grey I have return to work in fifteen minutes," she said as he started to leave.

"It's a command then."

"Aren't you cocky," she muttered. When her boss turned to face her, she saw pure anger on his face but he turned to ignore it as he made his way to his office and Ana followed him