NOTE FROM RIOTTORI: THANKS FOR THE COMMENTS. I KNOW A LOT OF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS AND I'M WORKING ON ANSWERING THEM, I PROMISE. SOME OF YOU HAVE ASKED ME HOW FAR I'M GOING TO TAKE THIS STORY. I THINK THERE'S STILL SO MUCH TO EXPLORE (AND BOY, AM I HAVING FUN DOING IT) THAT I'M JUST GOING TO CONTINUE UNTIL LOOSE ENDS ARE TIED UP AND YOUR QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED. NOW FOR SOME 'MORE':

How did I not know it would feel like this? How could I have been so short-sighted? The other time that I've felt pain like this - so intense it is almost physical - pure pain that I've allowed myself to remember, is when she left me before. That had hurt so much because it was the taking away of my future, and what we could be. This time, it is the taking away of my past, my present. Why did I do it? What possessed me?

We communicate through the cold, distant medium of e-mail. She could always express herself more with the written word. That's no longer true. I can't hear emotion in her messages, they have been stripped of feeling and that's what worries me the most. It feels like she's given up. I try to penetrate the wall she has erected, to try to explain. All messages that are not about the logistics of our lives (our new, separate lives) are returned back. It has taken amazing restraint for me not to follow her. I want to run home, to her office, wherever she is, batter down the door and make her talk to me. I want to prove I will never do anything like that again if she'll just come back to me. But I'm afraid that the cold, sterile tone of her e-mails will be there, in her eyes. And I can't bear to see it. So, I will respect her wishes and I pray that soon, she will be ready to talk, to put back the broken pieces of our life.

I'm not living in Escala. I couldn't bear to go back there. The ghost of the past, the past I had killed, breathed in every room. I'm living in a hotel until Ana tells me that it's time to come home.

We have told the children that we have separated but have given them no indication of for how long. A month? A year? Forever? Even a day feels like forever to me. Teddy is handling it better than Phoebe and when I looked into her eyes when she visited me last week, they were Ana's eyes shining back, awash with sadness. I had done that to my baby girl. What have I done?

I haven't seen Alice since this all began. I contacted her to terminate her work contract and gave her a sizeable payout. She said she didn't want the money, she just wanted to see me. I declined. Our other contract, the one that she hasn't signed yet, lurks in a drawer in my suite. I don't know what to do with it.

I had advertised for a new assistant. It had started as innocently as that. The photograph that was attached to her resume showed her as blonde. That was why she got an interview – I only hire blondes at work. She looked lovely in her photograph, how Ana would look if she dyed her hair. I scheduled the interview and thought no more about it.

She actually fell into the office. I couldn't believe it, I thought it was the intensest daydream I'd ever had; a memory of Ana from all those years ago, a mind-trick. Fate sure had a sick sense of humour.

My body made the exact same path it had 20 years before. I helped her up, put her back on her feet again. I felt an overwhelming surge of desire when my eyes found her face, so familiar yet new. This was the feeling I'd been seeking with each new Sub in The Red Room and hadn't found. Hope bloomed somewhere deep inside.

"Miss Thomas?" She smoothed her skirt down and extended her hand in one smooth movement. I could see her embarrassment and I wondered how she would recover herself.

"Mr Grey," she replied. "Well that was quite a spectacular entrance. I'd give myself 9 out of 10 for amazing first-impressions!" Her voice was self-deprecating yet bold – a beguiling mix. It made me laugh. I watched her visibly relax a little at the sound.

I led her to the chair positioned opposite mine, excitement pulsing through my veins. I sat down but she didn't. She was waiting for me to tell her to sit. I took in a deep breath to calm myself and gestured for her to be seated.

"You're brunette," I said, my voice steady and controlled.

She blinked at me, confused for a second, then her hand went up to her hair. She pushed it behind her ear on one side allowing me access to a view of her high cheek-bone, a little more of a look at her face.

"Oh, you must have an old photo." She'd groaned then, a sound that was out-of-place in my office. It sounded intimate. "I had to dye my hair for a part in a play. Needless to say, I made an awful blonde. I can't believe that's the photo I sent." She rolled her eyes. The action invoked a visceral reaction in me.

"You're better brunette," I said. I'd spoken softly so she'd had to lean in to hear. And then she'd giggled and she was just like Ana, before she was mine. And I had to make this girl mine. I had to.

I couldn't sleep that night. I lay beside Ana, heard her steady breathing, untroubled. The guilt of something I hadn't even done was unbearable. What bothered me the most about my recent trips to The Red Room was that I didn't feel that bad. It had taken me sessions with Flynn to admit this. He explained why: I had become two different Christians: Old and Evolved Christian. Old Christian, the one who still craved control, who needed to visit The Red Room, and Evolved Christian, who could be touched without flinching anymore, who was a happily married father of two. For me the Two Christians were so separated, their territory so clearly defined, that I didn't feel guilty. I wasn't giving the Subs any of Ana's Evolved Christian, only the Old. That's why I could look her in the eye over the breakfast table, when we made love.

I'd felt better. Flynn always had that ability.

But with Alice, the Two Christians were blurring, edging into each other's territories. Could I stop it before it became too late? Before the Two Christians became One?