A/N: We are getting very near the end of this saga, y'all. There are a few more surprises before we conclude but we're on the home stretch—only one or two more chapters. Hope you enjoy this one. Thanks for all your support, as always.

Chapter 44

Over the weekend Christian once again broaches the subject of his proposal, something I've been trying to table to buy myself more time. We've just had dinner when he invites me to sit out on the terrace for an after-dinner drink. Gail brings us Limoncello with lavender and lime sorbetto. It's a peaceful interlude and I feel serene. Until…

"Have you given any more thought to ending my wretched state of suspense? Remember I did ask you a question and last I checked," he stops to pat down his pockets, "no, you still haven't gotten back to me. I believe I've tendered you a marriage proposal?"

I roll my eyes but quickly turn my head so he doesn't see me.

"I saw that," he says accusingly.

"I'm sorry, that was rude. It's just that you've hardly given me any time."

He regards me intently, lips pursed and eyes squinted, and finally asks, "What precisely is giving you pause?"

"Well, I'd like to know more about your mother… but you know that already. And," I say, angling my body toward him fully, "I need to lay some ground rules about where we stand on Kent."

His chin drops and his brows hitch up. "Kent? Where we stand on Kent?" His tongue lingers on the tee in a snarky way.

I jerk my head, allowing myself a deep scowl. "Yesss, Kent. Where we stand on Kent. He's my friend and you give me a hard time every single instance when I want to see him or have lunch with him or God forbid, go out with him. I know you think it's not good for your public profile or whatever but Kent designs dresses and gowns for me and I love going out with him to show them off."

Closing his eyes, he inhales deeply. "Anastasia, I thought you understood clearly the reasons as to why it's impossible." He sits up straight. "All right. Suppose I was to take Kate with me to my next event. Or my friend Nastassja. How would you like that? I'd be photographed with the woman and people would assume she was my romantic partner for the evening. Would that be all right with you?"

Flushing, I can easily see his point but I'm loath to admit it… so I won't. "It would be all right as long as I was comfortable that it wasn't romantic. Why should I care if the media doesn't know?"

"You would care if you had a business reputation to maintain in the corporate milieu and it appeared that your significant other was stepping out on you. It would be humiliating. And," he wags his finger in my face, "I suspect you would care even without it. I believe it's called jealousy and possessiveness… and we both have it in spades, Ana. Admit it. I do."

I might have to concede this point to him but it makes me sad that my days paraded on Kent's arm are over. It made me feel like a fairy princess, wearing his sartorial confections and being showered with praise and attention. On Christian's arm I get daggers from the eyes of women, and snide remarks and snickers—not to mention rude questions from the general media who are not nearly as refined as the fashion police, even if the latter can be a bit more feline.

Allowing myself the indulgence of a long sigh, I wave the white flag. "Okay, you win. No more dates with Kent in public. But in private," I mutter, shooting him a sideways glance, "all bets are off."

He nods slowly and exaggeratedly, as if this is a point/counterpoint match of wits. Which it is, I suppose.

"So… if that's settled, what else?"

A crooked smile is my answer but it's not a happy one. More like one with bitter flavor as wheels turn in that quicksilver mind of his. "Only one thing and that's your obsession with the history with my mother. I've decided that my therapist could explain the whole thing much more satisfactorily than I can."

"You're taking me with you? To see him?"

He pulls back as if I bit him. "Yes, is that acceptable?"

I let my eyes wander around the room as I consider that idea. Isn't that a gross invasion of his privacy? The confidence between a doctor and patient is inviolate. I would feel like an unforgivable interloper… "Are you sure that's a good idea, Christian?"

His hands rise, palms up, in that earnest way of his that always strikes me dumb with how adorable it is. "It's the only way I know how to make you understand. Honestly, Ana, I'm not sure any of it applies anymore. I feel like a different person when I'm with you, entirely rehabilitated. The man… the Dom I used to be? He's pretty much left the room."

My breath catches in my throat. "Oh, I hope not. That man is kind of fun to have around now and again."

His eyes heat instantly, making me giggle. He's such a horndog.

"I'm sure we can arrange to invite him back when the occasion suits, baby."

"Well," I sniff, "good then." I try to hide my grin as I make a show of ironing out my skirt with my hand. "I like his nastiness once in a while."

The only response I get is a wicked grin and a wink. Ooh, those winks speak such volumes.

...

I'm wringing my hands and he notices, reaching over to rest his large one over mine as he keeps one hand on the wheel. "Why so nervous, baby?"

"Why? Why do you think? Because we're going to see your therapist to talk about… important matters."

"I should be the one to be agitated, in that case."

I eye him suspiciously. "Aren't you?"

Sighing he puts both hands on the wheel and his knuckles whiten with his flexing. "What's the point? I'm not going to learn anything new today: you are. I've been here, done that, a hundred times," then murmurs under his breath, "a thousand times." He glances hard at me again before returning his eyes to the road. I notice he has something in his mouth that he's tossing around with his tongue.

"What are you eating?"

He looks at me with a guilty look. "Papaya enzyme."

"Papaya enzyme?"

"Settles your stomach. Something I ate apparently didn't agree with me."

"Or you are nervous."

He doesn't respond right away. When the silence between us widens into a chasm, he tries to bridge the gap. "Look, Ana," he begins, his hand again reaching over to cover mine, patting it reassuringly, "you want to know—need to know—all about me. I get that now. So I'm taking you to John Flynn because he can explain everything better than I can. I've tried to tell you, Ana, I have. Either I didn't explain myself well or you weren't listening hard enough. Either way, I just want to get past this so we could move on… together."

I lean back hard into the seat, a little floored by his naked honesty. Since I've known him, he's always had formidable barricades erected between his emotional self and the world. He was so out of touch with his own feelings that he couldn't even distinguish between them, mistaking hurt for anger on more than one occasion. Now he's somehow comfortable treading on this almost raw elemental level and it's jarring to me. When did this happen? How did it happen?

Mercurial as always, his mood shifts gears faster than the Maserati. A quick sidelong glance from him is now saturated with anxiety. "Ana?"

I hold up my hand. "No, Christian, it's fine. It's all fine. I'm just sitting here asking myself how you made so much progress without my noticing."

"Progress?" His confusion is genuine. "What progress?"

"Forget it. Let's just get there. We'll talk to Dr. Flynn together, Christian. Then we will move on."

I promise him because it's true. I would just tell him now that I'll marry him but I don't want to hijack this effort now to understand him, especially when he's being so generous about it. Later is soon enough.

...

"I'd like to ask both of you—and either one of you may answer—what precisely brought you here today?"

Christian looks to me and I consciously focus on Dr. Flynn. "Christian has asked me to marry him but he's never shared all of his history with me. I know he has… issues… and I feel before I agree to make such a big commitment to him and to us, I need to know what happened. There are things…" I trail off, unsure how exactly to proceed, what words to use, how much is okay to say.

"Things?" he prompts.

I jerk my head and swallow hard. It feels like I have a lump of wet sand clogging my throat. "He… um… seems to have residual problems from his early childhood. Nightmares, phobias… he appears to be claustrophobic… and he automatically shies away from physical contact. It's as if he has to force himself to endure it. As if… I don't know… the touch of another, even someone he cares about, is unpleasant to him, even anathema."

Dr. Flynn just sits there, fingers steepled in front of his lips, listening. It's unnerving since he's not saying anything. After a couple of moments, he asks, "Do you think these behaviors would prevent you from having a happy marriage, Anastasia? If I may call you Anastasia?"

"Oh, yes, you may. Um, no, to the first question, not really. But I'd like to understand him better, I suppose. Marriage is a big—a huge—commitment, after all."

"No doubt about it. But what I'd like to ask you to consider, really think about, is whether or not there's anything I can say within these walls that would make you feel differently about Christian?"

I see where he's leading me… I'll follow the breadcrumbs anyway. After all, it's clearer looking in from the outside than when one is inside with a limited scope of perspective. "No, not really."

"That leads naturally to the next question then: why did you desire to accompany Christian today?"

"He insisted. I've asked him to explain his background to me and he's… resisted."

"Christian?"

He screws up his face impatiently. "John, it makes me uncomfortable to have to say these things aloud, to talk about them at all. You know where I stand…"

"All right. Let me see if I have things straight. Anastasia has asked you repeatedly to furnish her with your background, so that she might better understand the man you've become as a result of that background. Is that correct?"

We both nod somewhat miserably.

"And Christian, you seem to have resisted, even at the expense of the relationship's continuance a few times."

He bobs his head, eyes stuck on the floor.

"It seems to me, Christian, that in your dealings with Ana, you have to be pushed to the flashpoint before you begin to open up."

"Your point, John?"

"I'm merely making an observation, one that I'd like you to consider, perhaps asking yourself why things have to deteriorate to such an extent before you choose to address the problem or problems. Rather than meeting them before they do damage."

"Whatever," he says, his tone and demeanor even sulkier after Dr. Flynn's astute observation.

"Anastasia, what would you like to know about Christian apart from what you already know?"

"I just want to know what happened to him. He blames his biological mother for all of his problems but..."

"But?"

"But… he was a baby when she left. It couldn't be all her."

Dr. Flynn casts his eyes over to Christian and the weight of his attention starts Christian physically squirming in his chair. I've never seen Christian look like this, actually: he looks like a belligerent sixteen-year-old, arms crossed, slouched posture, frown on face, and refusal to meet anyone's eyes.

"Well, Christian. How would you answer Anastasia's question?"

He scrubs his face with both hands in an irritated fashion and leaps to his feet. A caged panther, stalking back and forth, is what he reminds me of as he paces the office. Why does he get so agitated? After a minute or so he of pacing where Dr. Flynn and I do nothing, say nothing, instead merely sit there, he spins to face us both.

"Ana, I was an infant so I don't know what exactly is true memory or not. I'm going mostly on instinct here."

I look helplessly at Flynn, confused by what Christian is telling me. The doctor sedately watches Christian's escalating anxiety until it slows and then shifts his attention to me. "Anastasia, Christian suffers from nightmares and night terrors, and has for most of his life. The dreams revolve around his biological mother primarily, although others get confused into the picture at times. We do try to tease out fact from fiction but truthfully whether these dreams have any basis in fact is in large measure irrelevant since to Christian's subconscious, it's all authentic.

He nudges his spectacles up his nose with his pen. "Over the years, we have considered regression analysis to try to determine exactly what his biological mother did to him but that kind of therapy is fraught with problems and we ultimately decided against it."

"What kind of problems?" I ask in genuine interest.

Flynn turns his hands upward. "For one thing it can create and implant false memories that over time become as real as any genuine ones. This is a very real problem with regression therapy. Another point for Christian is that he would never take legal action against his mother so he feels knowing definitively whether or not she committed crimes against him is not strictly necessary and might be more detrimental than helpful."

"Crimes?" My voice is so weak and reedy it's almost inaudible

"Yes, crimes. Christian has memories of child abuse and possibly even sexual assault."

Before I even finish synthesizing his words, my hand swings over to clap my mouth in horror, making a loud noise. My eyes dart to Christian who has now flopped into his chair, his head hanging between his knees. Oh God. I did not expect this.

I grapple for a working voice and somehow find it. "Does your father know any of this, Christian? Or Grace?"

He unhinges his lower jaw, shifting it from side to side as if it hurts, and shakes his head. "Not to the true extent. Carrick knows that Catherine fucked me up but he thinks it was because she pushed me too hard when I was too young. I never told him about being locked in closets and all the other stuff."

"Can you tell me some of the other stuff?"

When he looks up his eyes are haunted. Glittery with tears, too. My heart splinters inside my chest at the thought of him suffering… and now I'm causing him to revisit the pain. My poor Christian. In my mind's eye I see him, a little boy with a cowlick and a raspy voice, terrified, neglected, abused. I'm going to fall apart into sobs at any moment. This meeting was a mistake.

But he's speaking now and I don't want to interrupt. I'm paralyzed with indecision over what to do, which way to go. My inability to do anything is taken as complicity for him to go on, so he does.

"There were… dark… things. Rituals, maybe. Sexual… activity… with multiple partners. People being held down, beaten. Women wailing, men screaming… naked bodies writhing, in pain or lust. Torches in the dark, bizarre music, incense… I don't know. It's all jumbled in my head. The sights, sounds, smells… everything, every facet of it just coalesced into conventional nightmares. I honestly don't know what's history and what's fiction. I was so young."

I say nothing at first, twisting the ring on my finger first clockwise, then counter and staring at it as if it holds all the answers to the universe. What words can I say that won't sound purely inadequate? Without taking my eyes off my hands, I ask the only question that rises in my brain. "How old were you when she was completely out of your life, Christian?"

"Four. My father was legally divorced from Catherine when I was three and he married Grace a few months later. Once that happened, Catherine changed her name to Renee Rivers and took off for a new life overseas. Grace became my full-time mother. She was already pregnant with Elliot by that time."

"So you were in her clutches until you were four?"

He moves his head from side to side. "Pretty much, yeah. Not too often at the end but I did spend time with her right before she left the country. She talked to me a lot during that time—I don't think there was too much of the other… drama."

Drama. God, if I'd had an inkling what he'd been through... I've led this sheltered suburban life and can barely even imagine the horrors my poor Christian went through. No wonder he's so addled about his feelings, the poor baby. His start in life was filled with contradictions: benign and intentional neglect, a mother overbearing at times or downright abusive at others. And what if she and her friends assaulted him sexually? Is that why he needs extreme kink to feel sexually satisfied? Did such an early abuse somehow warp him?

Dr. Flynn clears his throat. "Since I have both of you here today, I'd like to ask you a very personal question. You may choose not to answer, of course, but it will help inform your therapy, Christian. May I?"

"Of course," I say and look to Christian. He just jerks his head, his face grim.

"Anastasia, you are aware of Christian's lifestyle choices—he's asked you on occasion to join him in it. What I'd like to know if whether or not you as a couple indulge in traditional sexual intercourse, what Christian refers to as vanilla sex or is your interaction restricted to the dungeon?"

My face goes hot, of course, and my eyes bounce over to Christian to let him tackle the answer. He looks straight at me and gives me the barest of smiles. "Yes, John, we do have vanilla sex."

"Do you enjoy it, Christian? I would appreciate your being candid since this directly affects Anastasia and your relationship together."

Christian sits up straight now, leans his back into the chair, and crosses his leg. In other words, he's coming into his own again. "As a matter of fact, I enjoy it more than I ever thought I could. Anastasia has changed me in ways big and small." He blows me a kiss and I smile warmly at him.

"Good. I'm glad to hear it. So going forward, while the two of you might indulge in trips to the dungeon, is it fair to say you will also maintain a loving sexual relationship?"

"That's how I see it happening," Christian is looking the doctor right in the eye. I don't know how he does it because my face is flaming red from having to talk about such personal stuff.

"Has it occurred to you, Christian, that this fact is a significant turning point for you? You've never been able to indulge in much less enjoy regular sex with any other woman. When one tried…"

I perk up when I hear that. Christian glances at me guiltily. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly at the doctor and Flynn smoothly stops. Oh, no you don't, Christian.

"Please finish your sentence, Dr. Flynn. I'm interested in hearing what happened when one tried."

"Ana," Christian says impatiently, "I've told you some of my subs tried for more and I quickly terminated the contracts. That's all."

"I think there's more, Christian. What aren't you telling me?"

He shoots a dirty look at the psychiatrist before turning back to me. "I just think that some things could cause more harm than good, Ana. Have you really shared every aspect of your life with me? Have you kept back no secrets?"

"Christian, in all honesty, I have no secrets. So, no, I haven't kept anything from you. I think you should just take this opportunity to come clean with me, on everything."

He again looks to Flynn, this time with anxiety rather than annoyance.

Flynn inhales loudly through his nose and begins to speak to his patient in a soothing voice. "Christian, would you like me to give the two of you some privacy? I can step out of the room, if that would be easier?"

"No, John, please stay. I don't know where to even begin."

Flynn, about to say something, decides not to and covers his lips with clasped hands. I watch Christian carefully, noting his nervous demeanor. I cannot imagine what this big secret is and why it has him so upset but I believe I need to know it so I wait quietly, trying not to add to the nervous energy of the room—all coming from Christian. Finally, he shifts his body toward me.

"Ana, I'm just going to blurt it out or I'll never get through it. Please don't interrupt." He swallows hard and closes his eyes. "I've told you about my relationship with Irina, how I stumbled upon her party and convinced her to let me join in, etc. What I didn't tell you was the evolution of our relationship, mine and Irina's."

I wait, saying nothing for he asked me not to interrupt but my heartbeat just went down the runway and took off for fucking Cuba. In order to do something, I sit on my hands to keep my own agitation from showing.

"You know I began as her sub and eventually we changed places. I was always what's known as a switch since I wasn't submissive by nature. A switch is someone who is submissive to some, dominant to others. Irina insisted I submit to her but allowed my dominant nature rein at times. By the end of our association, I was turning the tables on her without her permission, forcing her into subjugation at my whim."

He's staring into space. "It was nothing more than a game to me."

Again, he stops, looks at his hands that are clasped and between his knees. I can see the hard part is upon him—it's very plain. He looks up at me.

"What I didn't know, however, was that Irina had fallen for me." He starts scratching his eyebrow with his thumb, his personal nervous tic.

Silence. He seems to be waiting for me to say something but he told me not to interrupt so I just look at him helplessly. Irina? Had fallen in love with him?

Well, that's not really surprising, apart from the age difference. Why not? He's easy to love.

"Irina is eighteen years older than I am. When I met her I was nearly seventeen and she was thirty-five. By the time this went down she was nearly forty. She had no children, the clock was running out, and she wanted one."

I feel my lower jaw drop. Children? What is he going to tell me? Beads of perspiration break out on my forehead and the palms of my hands, currently being squished under my thighs. Revelatory.

"She," he stops to clear his throat, "wanted my child, to be precise. She asked me and I said unequivocally no—I didn't want children, especially at that young age. I had my first sub under my authority already and was heavy into that exchange. Another obvious detriment was that Irina is nearly old enough to be my mother." He holds his hand up and looks me in the eye. "Just to be clear, the age gap didn't bother me in our sexual relationship but it would have presented real problems in a situation where children were involved. So naturally I refused to even entertain the notion.

"What I didn't know and she didn't bother to tell me was that she was already pregnant. It was an accident, so she said, but she was thrilled by it. She'd never been able to conceive with her husband. He pinned the blame on her but they never went for definitive testing since neither wanted to reproduce all that badly. Despite wanting kids, Irina had no desire to bring innocents into that corrupted house.

"Anyway, when she broached the subject to me, she was six or seven weeks along. I said no. She terminated the pregnancy and left me."

All this time he's looking down, up, at his hands—in other words, anywhere but my face. My stomach feels jammed with lead and my heart is heavy too. After hating Irina for the past week or so ever since I found out about their relationship, now I feel real sympathy for her. While she shouldn't ever have gotten involved with such a young man, a boy really, one could understand how the rest unfolded. And it's inexplicably sad for her… an opportunity that will never come her way again at this point.

He's stopped talking and is watching me with wary eyes. I clear my throat, waiting for his go-ahead to speak. When he arches his brows in query, I suspect I have the green light. "Can you explain what you mean when you say she left you? Weren't you through already if you had your own submissive?"

"No," he says softly, "we never planned to permanently part. Cassidy was supposed to be mine, a side piece to put it bluntly, but Irina and I wanted to continue some semblance of our exchange going forward."

"But then she left you? Without explanation?"

"At first. I went after her though. During that period of our arrangement, she was mostly submissive to me—at least that was how it was playing out. When she cut and ran, I hunted her down, brought her to ground. Made her admit everything."

"Had you already known she loved you?" My voice is strangled asking the question because a large part of me doesn't want to know even one more detail.

"No. She told me everything at that point. It was," he pauses and fists his hair at the nape of his neck, "one of the most difficult days of my life. It nearly broke me to see Irina like that, to know that I unwittingly did that to her."

"She did things to you…"

"She did. At my behest, though, Ana." He looks at Dr. Flynn. "Which is what I'm always telling John. How can I lay blame at her feet when I begged for her part in my life? If she caused further damage to my psyche or ego or whatever, I can't fault her for it. Maybe in the long run kinky sex kept me from confronting my fear of intimacy, of commitment, of a naturally evolving sexual relationship. "Who's to say, though, if I didn't have that outlet, that I would have been brave enough to power through it, all the residual shit my mother left imprinted in my brain? Maybe I'd just check out for a while, bury myself in business and working out—as I generally do anyway. Irina just gave me an acceptable, even thrilling way to have sex on a regular basis."

He leans toward me. "I like BDSM. I fucking like it. It turns me on, big time, and no one gets hurt—everything's consensual. Everyone who's there wants to be there. I won't make apologies for it, Ana, but I will put it aside to have you in my life. That's the best I can do."

"I'm not asking you to put it aside, Christian. I never have."

"No, you haven't," he admits. "But I've been afraid you feel pressured into joining me in this lifestyle, Ana. That I wouldn't want."

"Christian, I've told you time and again that I want to join you, that I don't feel pressured. You just choose to be obstinate."

For the first time since we walked into this room, he smiles. "Obstinate? Me? I can accuse you of the same, Ms. Steele."

...

By the time we leave Dr. Flynn's office, we're both emotionally spent, so much so that it translates into physical exhaustion. We decide to go to Christian's penthouse to have a nap, postponing any further discussion between us for later. I'm still reeling over the revelations I uncovered today and I think Christian needs to recover from his admissions. Now I'm beginning to understand why he didn't want to share any of it with me, especially since I know Irina independent of him. It must have felt like he was violating her privacy, as well as his own.

I'm drifting at sea when it comes to figuring out my feelings about Irina. She's been nothing but decent to me—I needed help and she gave it to me, dubious or not. The recently acquired knowledge of the true nature of her relationship with Christian eroded that respect but now, knowing their entire history, I can't help but feel real sympathy for her. It hunkers uncomfortably in my soul because my instincts push me to detest her for what she did with him… and also because I'm unreasonably jealous of any woman who came before me. Natch.

I need time, time to synthesize it all, figure out right from wrong, and everything else. Whatever I come up with, I know I won't blame Christian for anything. Nothing he did will change the way I feel about him so in a very real sense, this whole thing was an exercise in futility. I'd probably have been happier without the knowledge and not for the first time in my life, I realize the truth in the saying "ignorance is bliss."

Amen to that.

...

I'm getting married.

I've accepted Christian's proposal with eyes and arms wide open. I love him and I know right down to my bone marrow that I will never love anyone like I do him. He's part of me now, on a molecular level: I feel him pulsate in every cell of my body. If I had to live without him, I'd wither into petrification. I think he feels the same way about me—by some miracle—so we belong together and together we shall be.

I'll never as long as I live forget the look on his face when I told him. We'd just awoken from our trauma-induced nap after the emotionally wringing session with John Flynn.

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes into the dim afternoon light and saw he was still asleep. The first thought that knocked at my mind was to notice how long his eyelashes were. I'd never noticed before but eyeing him closely while he slept, chin in my hand, I took a moment to study him, really try to comprehend his physical perfection. One good look and I could see they were thick and long. When he unhinged his closed lids and those eerie light eyes shone from within, contrasting sharply with the lush fringe of dark lashes, the effect was body tingling.

"Hi," I whispered and ran a single finger from his temple to that villainous jaw he uses to such personal advantage. He was dressed in blue jeans with a black cotton slim-fitting shirt, sleeves rolled to display the sexiest forearms known to womankind. Every part of Christian could be bottled as an aphrodisiac. No wonder I've become so wantonly slutty. Clearly it's not my fault.

"Hi." He reached over and stroked my hair back out of my face. I knew it must be a mess but I had other more pressing things on my mind. Namely admiring my man who I now knew would be my husband soon. I marveled at the fact that I got someone so beautiful, so brilliant, so… everything. Imagine if I had known… what was it? A year and a half ago, at Irina's party, when my dark-haired beauty sauntered over to me that I had just met my husband? I wonder what that Ana would have thought of the notion. I'm a different Ana now. I'm his Ana and he's mine.

What's different about me?

For one thing, I'm calmer and I've learned how to take things one at a time. I've endured heartbreak, my own and my friends' too.

Losing Christian for those seven months forced me to grow up and become more forgiving of others. I've also had to bear witness as I unavoidably hurt Hans, a man with a gentle soul even if he's trouble with a capital T, and that affected me too.

Kate and Elliot are no longer together and may never be again. Kate was stupid enough to cheat and get caught. I'm not making excuses for her but she didn't sleep with the guy—just kissed him—and that's just been the way Kate was made for so long it was hard for her to break out of the mold. Elliot was man enough to accept that maybe it all was part of his karmic paycheck for the numerous women he'd played dirty but he wasn't big enough to overlook it. Especially since Christian and I were there when it happened. Kate was idiotic enough to kiss the guy while standing in the window of our condo. The three of us watched them in silhouette so in addition to pain, Elliot suffered from humiliation. That won't be so easy to brush off.

Minx also had low times, falling for a Dom client who then dumped her. Sound familiar? I thought it reminded me of someone else I know and love, and how he used to treat his subs.

I'm also different because I've become Christian's lover and have joined the ranks of womanhood. Besides that, I've been brave enough to explore my sensuality in Christian's dungeon and found that, independent of his desires, I reveled in the experience. If and when I venture within those walls, it will be for my own satisfaction as much as his. Besides, I don't think it's wrong at all for a person to make concessions for someone she loves.

All of it, this kaleidoscope of potent emotion was swirling in my fevered brain when I looked at Christian and in my non sequitur-ish way simply said, "Yes, I'll marry you."

He'd just been yanked from the cobwebs of sleep, his eyes opaque and his face bearing charming little creases from the bedding he'd leaned on… but with my startling words those mercury irises brightened immediately.

"You're sure?" he asked, a tentative smile poised and ready on his sinfully sensual lips.

"Hmm, I should really think about it some more, shouldn't I?" I tap my lips and search the ceiling for the right answer. "Okay, yes, I'm sure, Christian. I love you. Easy peasy."

"Even after all you learned about me today? About what a callous, selfish bastard I am?"

"Callous? Selfish?" A bitter chuckle escapes me. "That's not how I see it at all, Christian. You were a young man who really should not have been forced into that position. Okay, wait," I hold up my hand, seeing his protest primed and ready to roll off his tongue. "I know you weren't forced. Poor choice of words—my bad. What I mean is that you should never have found yourself in the position of having to even think about kids at that tender young age."

Now it's his turn to laugh acidly. "Tender young age when one cannot see past his own ruthless ambition and cosseted self-gratification, you mean?"

"Exactly." I nod my head in self-satisfied fashion and he laughs again.

"Okay, whatever it takes to scoot your tight little ass down that aisle, I'm in. What a spectacular bride you'll be, my Ana."

...

I can't wait to tell Kent. He's the first person with whom I share the big news, since my parents are traveling in the Caribbean right now and Kate's been in self-enforced seclusion, poor thing. Sharing my thrilling news with her is probably the last thing she needs, like rubbing salt in a bleeding wound. I have to figure out a way to help yank her out of her slump but so far I haven't come up with anything other than kidnapping Elliot and dragging him to her lair.

Instead, I visit my lovely Kent and Jared.

Kent's reaction is typical Kent. He claps his hands quickly, his eyes already focused on something only he could see. "I'm designing your wedding gown. I'm sure you know that's a given, Ana."

I'm wearing an ear-to-ear shit-eating grin and can't close my mouth if my life depended on it. "Kent, what could I have possibly done in this life or any before that was so noble that it warranted me your priceless friendship? You are a golden treasure in my life, you know that, right?"

"Oh, stop it. It's all about your dimensions, Ana. You know that."

"Yeah, yeah. Come give me a big, sloppy wet one."

He nearly runs to me and sweeps me into his arms, lifts me up, and spins me around. I think he's happy for me.

"You are going to be the bride of the century. Have you any idea how magnificent you'll be?"

Shaking my head, I can only smile as I try to picture the big day. "Only as magnificent as your dress will make me, Kent. I can't wait. You know," I say, wagging my finger at him, "if it weren't for your sage counsel and friendly little shoves in Mr. Grey's general direction, I wouldn't be here. I have you to thank for all the magical things in my life, Kent. You are such a good man," I finish, patting his cheek, my voice breaking on the last syllable. Now I'm sobbing with gratitude because it's just hit me how magical indeed my life has become in the last eighteen months and Kent has been the main catalyst behind it all.

And what did he get out of it? Nothing but me as a hanger-on for the rest of his life.

Funny thing is, he thinks he got a good deal.