It's nearly midnight when I finally get home from the office. Between three big deals currently under negotiation, a threat of a week-long business trip looming in the not-so distant future, and my inability to sleep more than three hours a night, I am completely fucking exhausted. And it doesn't help matters that Ana and I still aren't speaking after our most recent argument about her returning to work. She keeps insisting that she wants another child, but in the same breath, she wants to return full time to Grey Publishing—can't have both, sweetheart, pick one or the other. Of course I want to give her everything she wants and more, and of course I want to make her the happiest woman in the world, but there are times when she can be so unreasonable. She tells me how overbearing I'm being when I insist on her taking security wherever she goes, when I just want her to be safe. She tells me she wants us to do more things together, as a family, and that I work too much. I tell her I work to ensure she and our son will never have to worry about anything.

Half the time, I don't have a fucking clue what we're even arguing about. All I know is that I've slowly begun to lose control over my home life over the last few months and I need it back, more than anything, or everything will fall apart around me. Little by little, I'm starting to regain some of it, and honestly, I can't remember being happier.

The high that comes along with the control starts to dissipate whenever I walk in my front door, though; that's when the guilt starts to set in. I try to push it aside, and sometimes, I'm successful, especially when Ana is still pissy with me. It's the nights when I come home after one of our fights and she's waiting up for me to apologize in some way that always tends to end up with us fucking each other into oblivion that really leave me feeling like an asshole. I love those nights, but when she's falling asleep against my shoulder, whispering to me how much she loves me, I feel like the biggest fucking prick in the world for what I'm doing to her. On the mornings following those nights, I swear to myself I'm going to stop what I'm doing and treat my wife the way she deserves to be treated. But something always happens—she finds something else to bitch about and I find myself needing to let off some tension and frustration and hurt.

One part of me, my conscience maybe, if I actually have one, keeps telling me I'm looking for reasons to continue on the way I have been. The rest of me thinks I've spent way too much fucking time locked up in a small room with John Flynn over the years.

I sigh heavily as I remove my jacket and loosen my tie, having no idea which direction this evening will go. Given the time, Ana is probably already asleep and I'll be able to crawl into bed beside her, curl myself around her, and get a decent night's sleep. If she's forgiven me for whichever transgression I've committed most recently, she'll let me; if she hasn't, she'll shake me off and try to get away from me, all without waking up.

As I walk past my study to the bedroom, I notice the door is slightly ajar and there seems to be light coming from inside. My brow furrows as I slowly push open the door, wondering if I'd forgotten to switch off the computer. Automatically, I switch on the light and nearly jump out of my skin at the sight that meets me.

"Christ, Ana," I gasp. "You scared the hell out of me." It takes me a couple moments to realize her eyes are trained on me with a look I don't think I've ever seen before from her: cold fury. She hasn't blinked, hasn't smiled, hasn't spoken. I'm unnerved. "What are you doing in here?"

I cross the room slowly when she doesn't reply and stop in front of my desk.

"Something you want to tell me, Christian?" she asks evenly.

I blink. "Like what?" I ask, genuinely confused. What the hell have I done now?

In slow motion, I watch as Ana turns the computer monitor towards me and I feel all the breath leave my body as I realize what I'm looking at: It's a freeze frame shot of the security cameras in the apartment at Escala. I see myself standing in the great room wearing a pair of jeans, nothing else, with a woman in my arms. A woman that is not my wife. A woman I had hoped my wife would never know existed. I can't quite pinpoint which of our several encounters this one might be, but the pair of us is locked in a heated kiss, one of my hands in her long brown hair while the other is shoved down the front of her panties.

Fuck.

I look up at Ana at a loss for words. "Ana..." I say weakly.

She silences me with a glare of what seems to be pure hatred and disgust. "Don't," she growled. "And don't you fucking dare try to tell me this isn't what it looks like, because I've seen the rest of this video, Christian, and it is exactly what it looks like."

I can't think. I have no idea how to respond or handle this. I hadn't ever believed she would find out. Still staring at the computer screen in absolute terror, I try to get my brain to connect with my mouth in order to find a way to fix this. I don't even realize I've spoken until several moments after I ask the question, "Where did you get this video?"

Ana is staring at me in incredulous anger. "That's your response to this?" she demands. "Who is she, Christian? Is she a sub?"

I can't breathe. I feel my entire world crashing down around me. "No," I choke out.

I watch as realization dawns on my wife's beautiful face. "No?" she repeats in a whisper. "Who, then?"

Sighing I run my hands across my face then fist them in my hair. This wasn't supposed to happen... "Ana, please, just listen to me."

"I am listening, Christian," she replies, blinking rapidly as she fights tears. All I want to do right now is take her in my arms, beg her forgiveness and make this right again. But I'm frozen on the spot. "Tell me. Who is she?"

I sigh shakily. "I met her at the gym," I tell her quietly, unable to look her in the eyes. "She was one of Claude's clients and we did a bit of training together."

"Yeah, I bet you did," Ana mutters sarcastically. I try to glare at her, warning her about her smart mouth, but I can't quite make it work. Her tone when she continues speaking is bleak. "How long?"

My eyes close of their own accord, because I know how she's going to react to this. "Five months."

She let out a gasping sob, but only one, after which she composed herself. "Why?" she whispered to me in a begging tone, her blue eyes dull and too big for her face.

I don't have a good answer for this. Is there a good answer? Doubtful. I say the first thing that comes to my mind, hoping it will be enough to get us on the path back to where we once were. "I needed control," I say. "Nothing has been in my control lately and I needed that back. Ana, I never meant to hurt you. I love you more than anything, and—"

"If she's not a sub," Ana interrupts, "what is she? Can't have been a one-night stand on a whim if it's been going on for five fucking months. Are you giving her more, Christian? Maybe she was some innocent, wide-eyed virgin who fell for your charms? Are you in love with her?"

This should be an easy answer—I should tell her the only person I'm in love with, the only person I have ever and will ever love is her—but I can't lie to her. I'm not saying I'm actually in love with this other woman, but I honestly don't know what I feel right now. Everything is so confused and warped, and this all has to be just one big fucking nightmare.

"Dammit, Christian!"

Apparently my silence is enough for her. The fact that I didn't immediately tell her that woman doesn't mean a goddamn thing to me is probably the last nail in the coffin that is our marriage. I have to say something, anything, because if I don't, I will lose her.

She stands suddenly, fisting her hands in her hair as she screams words at me, words I can't hear. All I know is that my wife is absolutely hysterical right now. My muscles are regaining feeling as my brain registers this and I start to move forward until my left hand is against her cheek. She slaps it away and I hear her next words clearly, "Don't you fucking touch me, Christian. Never again. I'm done. I'm done with you; I'm done with all the hurt... I'm just fucking done."

My heart is ripping apart, but of course, I know it's my own doing.

"I have given you chance after fucking chance, and every time I think you've finally got the picture, you do something to prove you haven't changed and that you never will change."

"Ana, no," I beg in a whisper, tears streaming down my face. "Baby, I can fix this. Please let me."

"No, Christian." Her voice is resigned. "No more please let me fix this. We both have to realize that this can't be fixed." She swallows a lump in her throat, her eyes drifting around the room as though she's searching for strength to get through this. "I have loved you with everything I have and all I get in return is more pain. I will not let my son grow up like this, with his mother reduced to a shell of misery and his father making excuses and breaking promises at every fucking turn."

"What promises have I broken?" I hear myself shout. Anger. Good. Much better than the sadness and despair.

She actually laughs at me, but it's not the laugh that tends to make me hard within seconds. It's cold and mocking. "You have got to be kidding," she declares. "How about the most obvious one? The one about staying faithful to your wife?"

Fair point well made, Mrs. Grey. But anger is becoming my primary emotion and I can't control what's coming out of my mouth next: "Maybe if my wife took better care of her husband's needs." Immediately I am horrified by my own words and am mentally grasping for them to pull them from where they hang in the thick air between us.

I should have seen it coming a mile away. But I don't even react as I see her hand rising as though in slow motion, swing back, and slap me in the face. My brain automatically betrays me by recalling the last time a woman slapped me, back when I was a fifteen-year-old horny little bastard. The slap turns me on, but I'm somehow able to control that physical response to stare at Ana's furious face.

"How fucking dare you," she growls. "Never have I turned you down, Christian. Since the very beginning, I've let you do things to me that I never thought I would ever let happen." She swallows, looking as though she might be sick, and my irrational, reflexive behavior abates, turning into concern for her. But she composes herself almost effortlessly and I know she's fighting not to seem weak in front of me. "I always told you I could never be enough for you, Christian. And every time I said something like that, you told me I was wrong, that I was everything you could ever possibly want and more. I tried to let myself believe you, but I always had that concern in the back of my mind, and here you are, confirming everything I always feared most." She blinks her eyes rapidly, wrapping her arms around herself. "So thank you, Christian, for finally being honest with me. It will make all of this so much easier for both of us."

I want to ask what this is, but I can't speak, I can't move, and I can only watch as she looks at me again, her eyes dull and lifeless, then leaves me standing alone in my study with a stinging cheek and a new sense of self-hatred.

On Monday morning, I walk as sedately as possible into the small café where I'll be meeting my predecessor and immediate boss. Despite Teddy leaving, my weekend was wonderful. I actually forced myself to go out shopping for a new wardrobe, had my hair done and had a manicure and pedicure. As I walked around London, I even found a possible new apartment. It's not far from the current one, but from what I could see, much nicer. I have an appointment later this afternoon to check it out and I'm beyond excited.

Of course I would never be able to do any of this without the deposits Christian insists on making to my bank account. I had made a vow to myself that I wouldn't dip into those funds unless it was absolutely necessary, but my son deserves more than what I've given him over the last six months. He needs room to play and to be himself. And if I'm honest, I feel like being a little selfish for a change. I've never been interested in Christian's wealth, even from the very beginning, even when he told me exactly how much he makes in an hour, and that's still true. But I can justify this by telling myself Teddy needs as much as a happy childhood as I can possibly give him, especially if worse comes to worse and Christian and I never reconcile.

Christian. Talking to him last night was a bittersweet end to my day. It had taken me a few glasses of wine, procrastination in the form of cleaning, bathing, and whatever else I could possibly come up with in order to avoid placing the call, and in the end it was only the reminder that I'm calling to speak with my son, not his father, and I could put up with talking to him for long enough to get Teddy on the phone.

I have to admit, though, it was incredible hearing his voice, hearing him talking directly to me, answering my questions... I tried my very best to keep us on track, talking about our son, and I wished I didn't have to be so cold to him, but what other choice did I have? What other choice has he given me?

I could hear the pain in his voice—either that or I was just hearing my own pain, maybe hearing what I wanted to hear. I know I'm putting him through hell right now as I'm putting myself through hell, but again, what other choice did I have but to leave after what he did? To this day I still don't know all the details of his affair; I'm not sure I want to know. I saw enough on that fucking video to give me a lifetime of nightmares. I don't know who she was, I don't know if he still sees her, I don't know if she was a sub or something else. The worse part about it is I've wondered hundreds of times over the last six months whether it would be better or worse if the other woman was a sub. I might be able to come to terms with it if that were the case. It certainly wouldn't change the fact that he betrayed me, betrayed my trust, but at least then I would know there wasn't any emotional attachment, at least not on Christian's part.

Maybe I'm better off not knowing. Maybe I'm better off living here in London, preparing to start my new job, thinking about moving into a much nicer place, raising my son. I certainly wouldn't ever dream about keeping Christian out of Teddy's life. Teddy adores his father more than anything. Those two are practically best friends. It would absolutely crush Teddy to not see his father as often as possible; I've already seen the effects of this. I can only imagine how it's going to be when he returns here to London next month; I have a feeling I'm going to have a depressed little boy on my hands.

We can get past this, I try to convince myself. It's much more difficult to believe this than it seems and when I reach the restaurant, I have to take several minutes to improve my expression for my meeting. I'm about half an hour early, but it's fine; what else do I have to do for the next couple weeks but wait? I give the hostess my name and tell her I'm meeting people, but not for a little while longer, so she directs me towards the bar where I order a glass of water and commence waiting.

I'm starting to get very excited to start my new job. I haven't really worked since a couple months before Teddy was born and I missed it. As promised, Christian signed over Grey Publishing, formally Seattle Independent Publishing, to me on our first wedding anniversary. For a while I worked from home as I learned how to run a business. It allowed me to care for my infant son and gave me an outlet from being solely the wife of CEO Christian Grey and spending my days in our enormous house, essentially alone. True, I had Gail and Sawyer and Ryan on occasion, but it didn't make me any less lonely. When Teddy got a little older, it gave me a little more freedom to work a few hours actually in the office. After Teddy's third birthday, I slowly increased my hours at the office until I was working full days. This went on for six months and I was beyond happy. Initially I'd been reluctant to take on the role as CEO of a company, but Christian's tutelage instilled a confidence in me that I didn't know existed before then.

But then I noticed him becoming a little more critical of my work and my hours until it all came to a head one night in February. I don't remember what sparked the fight; all I remember is the two of us standing across the bedroom from one another and shouting things at the top of our lungs. He threw out something about me not spending enough time with our son and how I was the one who wanted a family and how did I expect to care for a newborn if I'm in the office nine hours a day. Of course my reaction was along the lines of how he'd been telling me for two years that we weren't ready for another child and how he was the one who wanted me to run Grey Publishing in the first place. I didn't know it then, but that night was when things began to deteriorate between us. To avoid any further arguments, I gave in and cut back on my hours, and I was resentful towards my husband for that. He felt it, but made no move to apologize to me for forcing me into doing it. If anything, he was smug with the knowledge that I did what he wanted, that I obeyed him.

It took me leaving to realize all the subtle changes he seemed to make for me. He took away my independence, the confidence that he built up in me, my eagerness in life. My leaving him was about so much more than an affair and I don't think he has any clue.

And he won't, if you don't tell him, my subconscious tells me curtly.

"Ah, Anastasia!"

I look up from my glass of water in surprise. It's still about fifteen minutes before my meeting, but it seems my new boss has arrived early as well. Thomas Canton is a few years older than me, I'd guess the same age as Christian, and I liked him for the onset. From our first meeting he was kind and genuinely interested in learning about my credentials and why I was interested in working at the publishing house. I tried to downplay my role at Grey Publishing, even going by Steele when I applied for the job rather than Grey, but it seemed my new boss has the same powers of information digging as my husband. After my interview he pulled me aside to let me know he knew who I was and I got the job nevertheless. For days after I worried that I got the job because of my husband, but from the research I've done on Thomas and the publishing house, he's not exactly a fan of Christian's. I suspect a bad business deal, but I probably don't actually want to know.

Thomas is tall and slender, though clearly he works out. He wears his brown hair short and neatly combed, and his brown eyes are warm. When he it came down to it, he wasn't Christian, but I'm finding I don't mind that too much.

My subconscious raises an eyebrow at me, silently asking why I'm comparing this complete stranger to my husband. I shake myself from the thoughts just in time for Thomas to reach me, extending a hand for me to shake. "Mr. Canton," I say, taking his hand. "It's good to see you again."

"Thomas, please, Anastasia," he replies. "And it's good to see you as well."

"Ana, please, Thomas," I say, grinning. He chuckles and gestures towards the main part of the restaurant where he's got a table waiting for us.

For a few minutes, we chat idly while we wait for the third member of our lunch trio. I'm slightly surprised at how easy it is to talk to him; I can't remember the last time I had a boss that was pleasant to be around. But then I remember thinking Jack Hyde seemed nice, which just proves my judgment isn't always to be trusted...

As we chat, I learn he went to school at Cambridge and has a degree in literature. His father opened the publishing house back in the 70s and it has been family run since then. This is a little surprising, since I would have expected someone with that history with the company to be a little higher up in the hierarchy, but it seems Thomas is perfectly happy and comfortable where he is and leaves the running of the company to his younger sister Tracy. In turn, he asks me a little more about my college years, what made me want to get into this line of work. We touch a little on Grey Publishing, but Thomas seems to pick up on the fact that I'm not entirely comfortable discussing anything related to Christian Grey.

When my predecessor, Alvin Hobbes, finally arrives, we order lunch and get down to business. Alvin is in his mid-sixties and has a crotchety old grandpa persona about him. He's nice enough, though, and exchanges banter with Thomas, so it's clear to me he's just a big teddy bear when it comes down to it—actually, he reminds me a lot of Ray. Though he's not quite ready to retire from his career, his wife has fallen ill and needs someone to care for her at all hours of the day.

He hands me a stack of manuscripts that recently landed on his desk, ones he won't be able to get to before his last day with the company, and gives me a rundown on some of the authors he works with most often. Alvin talks quickly, hardly pausing to give me the chance to ask questions, and I get the feeling that if I did have questions to ask and I interrupted him, he'd be highly disapproving. Every so often I glance across the table at Thomas, who is watching us with amusement. Clearly he is more than used to Alvin's gruff exterior, and he actually seems a little impressed that I'm able to keep up with him.

In less than an hour, we have finished our lunches, and Alvin is preparing to return to the office. Thomas says he'll meet him back there and absolutely refuses to take Alvin's money to pay for lunch. Alvin ends up stalking away, grumbling curses under his breath.

"Is he always like that?" I ask, smiling.

"Since the day I met him," Thomas confirms with a roll of his eyes. "At first I thought he might resent me coming in as his boss—he's the last one at the company who actually helped my father open the place—but turns out he was happy to get out of the promotion my father was threatening him with..."

I'm still smiling. I can't remember the last time I smiled this much with someone who wasn't family. Another hour goes by before either of us knows about it. I tell him about Teddy, he tells me about his nephew who is about the same age. He tells me about some of the places I could take my son on the weekend to keep him occupied and even offers to go along with us to the London Zoo, assuring me before I can even protest that it'd help him out a great deal as his sister is going to some conference in Ireland at the beginning of September. I tell him I'll think about it and he beams at me as though it's a done deal.

Of course, this brings up another point I wanted to discuss with him today. "My son is spending the rest of the summer with his father in Seattle," I begin, looking into my water glass and wondering why I feel guilty all of a sudden. "And a few days before he's scheduled to return here, my mother and father-in-law are planning some sort of little family reunion."

"Ah," Thomas says in realization. "And you would be gone for how long?"

I blush. "A few days at most," I reply. "I realize I haven't even started yet and I'm already asking for time off, but—"

"No buts," he tells me firmly. "Family is most important. Email me the dates you'll be gone and I'll make arrangements."

I smile in relief. "Thank you so much," I tell him empathetically. "It won't become a pattern, I swear."

"No worries, Ana," he says, waving me off. With a sigh, he glances at his watch. "Well, unfortunately I have to get back to the office. An unsupervised Alvin never results in anything good."

We stand, he refuses my offer to pay my share of the bill, and we say our goodbyes. I assure him I will call him if there are any problems with the manuscripts Alvin has passed on me and we leave the restaurant with him reminding me of my first day and to email him the dates I'll be in Seattle.

As we go our separate ways, I head in the direction of the new apartment and think over the last couple hours. It's a little unnerving how comfortable I felt with a relative stranger and I can't quite remember the last time that happened. Something in the back of my mind tells me I haven't felt that since I met Christian, and now I'm really unnerved.

My brain is telling me I'm over-thinking, that Thomas is my boss and, friendly as he is, it won't be going any farther than that. I try to believe my brain's words.

The last thing I need right now is another man in my life.