A/N: Thank you all for your lovely reviews and support! It means the world to me :) I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

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Chapter 2: Luxury Country Homes

~5 days later~

Christian sat in the backseat of his SUV as Taylor drove them toward GEH this early Monday morning. Rush hour had already begun, and the city streets were filled with cars heading to work for the day; GEH was usually less than ten minutes away by car, but in this traffic it would likely take twice that time. Christian took the extra time to check emails on his phone, impatient to get into his office so he could get some real work done.

Today was already going to be a bit of a headache, Christian could tell - the Luxury Country Homes project wasn't turning out to be as "smooth sailing" as he and Elliot had initially expected. The land that Elliot had found turned out to be next to a small town that was apparently taking issue with them building on their land. Some problems had arisen because of this, and construction had been delayed for the past few days. While Christian had dealt with similar difficulties with other projects like this in the past, it was annoying to have to put up with nonetheless.

Taylor finally pulled into the underground garage at GEH, and parked in the specially-marked spot near the front. Christian picked up his briefcase and stepped out of the car, straightening the lapels on his suit jacket as he waited for Taylor to walk up next to him. They headed over toward the elevators together, and just as the doors slid open, Christian's cell phone rang with an incoming call.

"Grey," he answered.

"Yo, are you at GEH yet?" Elliot asked.

"Taylor and I just parked and we're on our way up. Why?"

"I'm in your office right now - we need to talk about LCH," Elliot said, letting out a sigh. Christian knew this wasn't going to be a good talk. "This shit's been getting out of hand, and we need to figure out how to move forward from here."

"Agreed," Christian said resignedly. "I'll see you in a minute."

"Cool. Laters."

Christian hung up without saying goodbye. The elevator doors then opened to reveal the hallway off to the side of the front lobby, and he and Taylor stepped out and headed over to the main elevators, which would take them up to the twentieth floor where Christian's office was.

As Christian and Taylor waited for the elevator to take them up, Christian couldn't help but think about this new endeavor he was pursuing with Elliot - he had never done anything business-related with any of his family members before, at least not to this extent, but this was his honest attempt at reaching out to his brother a bit more. It was working pretty well too, for the most part, so he really wished he didn't have to deal with these land dispute problems regarding their new construction.

Elliot had been one of the few people who had stuck by Christian's side through all the shit that had happened to him this past year… in that all the dirty details of his past had unexpectedly come to light and he felt as if his world was about to fall apart because of it. The Seattle PD had apparently been investigating one of his mother's long-time friends, Elena Lincoln, on the belief that she had been grooming teenage boys and introducing them to a kinky fetish BDSM lifestyle. Last spring they finally got the proof they needed, and she was publicly arrested and brought up on multiple charges of sexual assault and child abuse. The news of her crimes were plastered all over the local Seattle media, and while the names of her underage victims were hidden from the public, some of the names of her adult victims had come out… most famously among them Christian Grey.

Christian had never wanted his family (nor indeed the rest of Seattle) to know the details about his introduction to sex, but it had quickly become public knowledge and he had to deal with the fallout. His parents were understandably horrified by this news, and his little sister Mia was very confused and upset, but Elliot was surprisingly calm about it all. He was extremely supportive of Christian throughout this whole ordeal, and Christian was inexplicably grateful for his unwavering support. Elliot confessed to him in private that Elena had tried to seduce him once when he was younger, and Christian realized he had more in common with his brother than he had ever previously thought.

He realized that if he hadn't closed himself off from his family for so long, perhaps none of this would have gotten so out of hand. For years, Christian had thrown all his time and effort in growing his company and hiding his secret lifestyle from the world, so much so that he had almost completely isolated himself from his family - the people who had always meant the most to him. After everything that had happened this past year, Christian knew he needed to show his family how much their support meant to him. Helping his brother start a new company seemed like a good place to start… it was better than nothing, at least.

The elevator doors opened and Christian stepped out, greeting Andrea before walking into his office. Sure enough, Elliot was already there sitting on one of his lounge chairs, reading some papers while relaxing with his feet up on the coffee table.

"Hey, what's up?" Elliot asked, glancing up at Christian before turning back to his papers. "Get me a coffee, will you?"

"Funny," Christian said dryly, moving toward his desk. "You wanted to talk about Luxury Country Homes?"

"Yeah - the locals are giving my construction guys more problems," Elliot said, sounding annoyed as he got to his feet and followed his brother to his desk. "Now they're stating that the lake near the construction site is a nature preserve, meaning it would be illegal for us to build near there."

"Are you serious?" Christian asked, exasperated. "This is getting ridiculous."

"Tell me about it," Elliot said, grimacing. "I think it's only going to get worse if we don't address the problem head-on. I can't afford to delay construction any longer… it might be necessary for us to go down to Easton and try to resolve this in person."

Christian figured Elliot might bring up going to this town and try to negotiate with the people there, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "Both of us?" he asked skeptically. "This is your crew - why don't you just go down there yourself?"

"This project is both of ours, and you're the acquisitions guy," Elliot insisted, plopping himself down in the chair in front of the desk, and Christian sat down too. "I'm just the ruggedly-handsome construction guy who buys the land and pays the workers. Isn't negotiations the kind of stuff you do everyday?"

"I acquire businesses - I don't settle land disputes," Christian said firmly.

"It's all the same. Hell, if you can talk a company into selling itself to you, surely you can talk some disgruntled townspeople into letting us build on their land," Elliot stated begrudgingly, tossing his papers on the desk in front of Christian.

"Elliot," Christian sighed exasperatedly, shaking his head. "I really don't have time to leave work and go down to a construction site. Wouldn't it be easier for you to just find some new land that isn't near this town?"

"I already purchased the lot, and my team had already begun excavating the land - they were about to start construction when the townspeople intervened," Elliot explained. "I really don't want to have to give it up, Christian - this lot's in a great area with a ton of open land, and it's around where my crew are going to be building homes. This place is ideal for LCH."

Elliot sounded determined to keep this land, and Christian finally conceded. He let out another sigh. "Alright, how about this - I will go down to Easton tomorrow and try to talk to some of the townspeople, and if we don't reach an agreement within two days' time, we'll find another piece of land to build on somewhere else. Okay?"

Elliot nodded, looking slightly relieved. "Okay, that sounds fair. But did you want to go alone or should I come with you?"

"I should probably do this myself - all this negotiation stuff may be a little too difficult for your tiny brain to handle," Christian smirked over at his brother.

"Hey, I may not be that smart, but that's only because I'm the brawn of the family," Elliot lifted his arm and pretending to flex his bicep. Christian chuckled.

"Believe what you want, Lelliot."

Elliot grinned before getting to his feet. "I appreciate this, man," he said, suddenly sincere. "I don't know how I would be able to start this new business without you. If you want, I can start a preliminary search for a new lot to build on, just in case we can't keep this land."

Christian nodded, smiling. "Okay. I'll give you a call tomorrow once I get to Easton."

"Sounds good," Elliot said, gathering his papers together. "Hey, when you get back maybe we can hang out? We'll finally go out on that double date we've always been talking about."

Christian rolled his eyes - Elliot often made the joke of going out on a double date with him since he knew it was never going to happen. Christian had a submissive he refused to introduce to the rest of the family, even though they all knew he participated in the BDSM lifestyle, and Elliot rarely kept a girl around long enough to introduce to the family anyway. Therefore, double dates were out of the question.

"So what's your girl's name again? Leila, or something?" Elliot asked, smirking knowingly at his brother. "When can your dear old brother finally meet her?"

"Never," Christian said with finality. "Goodbye Elliot."

Elliot laughed as he turned and walked out of his office. "See ya, Christian."

Christian didn't look up as he heard his office door close, and he sighed to himself - a couple weeks ago, he was stupid enough to reveal the name of his latest submissive to Elliot. Since then, Elliot had been coaxing him to tell him more about her, which Christian was extremely reluctant to do. While Leila was an excellent submissive who he had kept under contract for the past five months, she definitely was not the type of girl he would bring home and introduce to the rest of his family. Elliot may joke about wanting to meet Leila, but Christian knew it was never, ever going to happen.

Christian picked up his BlackBerry and texted Taylor to come into his office ASAP. Moments later, he entered.

"You wanted something, sir?" Taylor asked.

"Yes Taylor. It looks like you and I need to head down to Easton first thing tomorrow morning to settle this land dispute," Christian explained. "We can fly there - be sure to call up Stephen and have him prep Charlie Tango for takeoff tomorrow at eight o'clock. Once you've done that, you and Sawyer go look up the people running the town and do a background check on them. I'll review the files before we leave tomorrow."

"Yes sir," Taylor nodded before turning to leave.

"And tell Andrea to come in here," Christian added. Taylor nodded before walking out the door.

Once alone, Christian got up from his desk and walked over to his floor-to-ceiling window, gazing down at the city below. Far in the distance, beyond the buildings and skyscrapers, he could just make out the Cascade Mountains sprawling along the horizon. From his vantage point, they almost seemed within reach.

A soft knock came from the door, and Christian turned around to see Andrea enter his office.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes, Andrea - it looks like I won't be in the office for the next few days," Christian said, walking back over to his desk. "I'll need to reschedule some things."

A/N: So we got a little back story on Christian now - next chapter, we'll see him and Ana meet. If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a review :)

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