I picked at the skin around my thumb until it bled, and even that was hardly a distraction from God knows what was happening with Christian and Gideon. It had been nearly an hour, and while I didn't hear any yelling or the sound of expensive things breaking, I still couldn't shake the feeling that they were not getting along. They were both rich and powerful, they were both arrogant and stubborn. Both of them cared about me, and I was sure they would leverage that fact against one another. My mind raced to all the things Gideon could use against Christian about me: moments that we shared while we were both single, but moments that could cut Christian to the core. I had to have faith and trust that the bond of friendship he and I shared outweighed his contempt for Christian. Jesus Christ, what a mess. Neither one was particularly good at holding their tempers, though Christian really was working on it. I could tell he was thinking before he spoke, before he acted—except that night in Mexico. I was trying to push that entire night out of my mind. I reacted badly, and I didn't want to face that fact. I didn't want to analyze why I decided to run away instead of confronting the issue head-on. I thought I had made progress in the last year. I thought I was able to make clear decisions when it came to Christian. Sure, I had been drinking, and it didn't help the situation, but in my heart, I knew I would have done the same thing sober. Something in me would always want to run away. Ever since that night in Escala, the night I shot and killed Hyde, I have had this underlying voice in my head telling me to run. To run from anything and anyone that made me uncomfortable. Run from fear. Run from pain. Run from life itself. And I had done a good job of it. I ran to Boston, and I didn't look back. I had made a happy life for myself, and I did it all on my own. But did I really deal with all the trauma and pain and fear that had been inflicted on me by the hands of Elena and Hyde? No. And did I blame Christian, even in a small way, for everything that had happened? Yes. If I was being honest with myself, I did.
In an instant, I am back there in Escala, the dark night and city lights enveloping me, naked and bleeding, the cold gun in my hands. The weight of it, the coldness. Trembling. "Ana, stand up. Ana, stand now. Shall I do it again?" Elena's voice was taking over my head. Her laugh. Her sinister laugh. The way she called me pet. The sound of her whip as it cracked through the air. The sharp slicing pain as it made contact with my back. The heat of fresh blood dripping down my back. The pain in Christian's voice as he called out to me. The look in Hyde's eyes as he promised to fuck me. The gunshot. Elena's blood warm on my face and body. The thud of her body hitting the floor. It all was swirling in my head. I pressed my hands to my eyes, trying to shut out the light that streamed into Gideon's penthouse.
"Ana, are you alright?" Taylor sat beside me, his voice low and comforting. He rested his hand on my shoulder, and his touch snapped me out of my trauma spiral. "I'm okay. Just tired. It's been… hard. But I'm okay." He nodded in understanding.
"You're shaking, Ana. You're not okay." "Sometimes the voices in my head are louder than my own. Sometimes the past isn't the past."
"I have seen and done many things in my life that don't stay in the past. So I understand. Is it as bad as last time?"
"No, it hasn't happened for months. Not like this. I just think the last few days have taken it out of me." The first weekend I stayed with Taylor and Gail, I woke up with night terrors. It was only a few months after that night in Escala, and everything was so fresh. The flashbacks felt so real then. Taylor struggled to wake me up. My brain wouldn't release me. Taylor told me all about his time in Iraq and how he struggled coming home. He told me about some of the things he saw and how it still haunted him. He told me that sometimes in the beginning he would be too afraid to sleep, so he would stay up for days just to avoid the nightmares.
I had the night terrors at home too. Thankfully, Ray had been there for me. But I think I took ten years off his life the first night it happened.
"I hate to say this. It feels disloyal somehow. But when you told me that Christian showed up at your door, I knew this was going to happen. I knew he was going to upend your life, again." His voice was gruff. "You're like my sister, Ana, and I just don't want to see you get hurt again. I know that you and Christian are end game. I knew it from the first moment I saw the two of you together. But I don't know if either one of you are ready." He put his hand over mine and gave it a squeeze. "You're still processing your PTSD. I just don't want you to push things to the back burner to accommodate him."
"I know. I know you're right. We just can't seem to be at the right place at the right time. I love him. I want to be with him. I know he is trying so hard to change and grow."
"He really has. I can see how much he has changed. Just his response to you being here. Old Christian would have torn Cross to shreds. And now the two of them are having a civil conversation."
"You heard them?"
"Yeah, they were even laughing. It's the strangest thing." I could feel the tension release from my shoulders, and I sat back against the sofa. Taylor sat back too, and I rested my head on his shoulder.
"I just want you to be happy, Ana, but more than that, I want you to be the person you were meant to be." We sat there in silence until finally Christian and Gideon walked in. My stomach kept and my heart raced at the sight of them.
"Ana, I'm sorry for making you wait so long. Cross and I had a lot to talk about."
"What's going on? The two of you look… amicable? What could you possibly have to talk about?" They both chuckled, and it made me uneasy.
"We have a lot to tell you, Ana. But it's going to have to wait until tonight," Gideon said as he looked at his watch. Taylor and I stood. "I think you both have a lot to talk about. Taylor, I am already late for a meeting." Taylor nodded.
"Ana, I'll see you later, okay? Dinner. You, me, Grey." Gideon smiled warmly and gave me a reassuring nod as he and Taylor left. Christian stood by the window, watching the skyline. I could feel the crackle of tension between us. I wanted to reach out and touch him and soothe him. But Taylor was right—I couldn't accommodate his needs and ignore my own. We needed to have it out. Truly lay it all out on the table and see where we stood. He finally turned to face me, and my resolve started to shake. Even now, after everything that has happened, he still took my breath away.
"I have been thinking about what to say to you, how I could apologize for what happened in Mexico." I didn't want or need an apology. I just needed to gather the courage to put everything out there. I took a deep breath and interrupted him.
"I spoke to Kate and Eliot; they told me about the pill Eliot gave you and that you were drunk. I think, no, I know that your heart was in the right place. Your walls were down, and you got caught up in the moment. I think if we were just a regular couple, I could have said yes, and we would be engaged right now."
"But we aren't a regular couple." His voice was dry and coarse. A night of no sleep and long travel was etched into his face. His eyes were rimmed with purple and blue shadows.
"No, we aren't. I wish we were. But we never were, even in the beginning. You were this closed-off Dom, and I was your fresh-faced virgin. We aren't those people anymore, are we?" He didn't speak, but he nodded in agreement. "That night in Escala changed me. And I am still dealing with it. As much as I wish I wasn't." I paused, not knowing if I should say what I wanted to say, but Taylor's words rang in my head, and I knew I had to be honest to become who I was meant to be. "In some way, I blame you for what happened." His shoulders slumped. His jaw tightened. His fists clenched. "Ana…I'm so, so sorry. I…wish I could change what happened."
"I know. But you can't change it. And we can't dance around it. It happened, and it changed us both. It sent you to the ocean and me as far away from Seattle as I could get. We just ran in opposite directions of one another."
"I was always running towards you. I know it does not seem like that. But everything I did, everywhere I went—it was running back to you." His eyes welled with tears, and I wanted to wrap him in my arms, but something inside wouldn't let me.
"When you asked me to marry you, everything I have ever felt about you, good and bad, came flooding back to me all at once. And all I could do was run. All the therapy and all the self-work flew right out the window. I don't know how to stop running. I want to stop. But I can't."
"Maybe if I stopped giving you reasons to run away." He sounded defeated. He ran his hand through his copper hair, and I could hear a faint growl that he tethered to his throat. He was angry and doing everything in his power to hold it in. My heart felt heavy. My whole body felt heavy and empty at the same time.
"I can't do this anymore." I finally said. His eyes widened, full of fear and doubt. "We need to let go of the past but not let go of each other. I just don't know how to do that." He took my hands in his. His fingers were rough and calloused now, but the warmth of his spread through my entire body. I eased my body closer to his until his arms wrapped around me. I don't know how long we stood like that. Silently holding one another. But time didn't seem to matter much.
"I am so tired, Ana." His voice was so soft it was barely a whisper. "The truth is I do want you to marry me. I want to put all of this behind us and start our life together. I want you and your dog to move into my new brownstone. I want it to be our home. That is what I want. Being drunk and high when I asked you does not change the fact that I wanted to ask. I have been wanting to ask since the moment I knocked on your door in Boston. I understand that what happened changed you, and I know that it was my fault. If I would have done things differently, maybe it wouldn't have happened. But I am trying to change how I do things. I'm trying to be a better man. And I think I'm doing a good job considering I'm standing in Gideon Cross' apartment right now. If you don't want to be with me, you need to just say it. And I will accept it and do my best to move on. But I can't do this anymore either." He pulled away from me and released me from his arms. "We don't need to figure this out now. I'm going to go." I nodded and watched as he walked away. There was this strange feeling that took over my body. Not a sense of loss or sadness but a sense of falling. I felt like everything was just falling away from me all at once. And I didn't know where the bottom was. After all we had been through, all that we had survived, could we let it end like this? Because that's what we were both saying. I survived a year without him; could I survive a lifetime? The answer was so simple.
xxx
I made it back to my room, and I was fucking spent. I sold my entire company in an hour and probably ended the one relationship that ever mattered to me. But I had to give Ana the out. She needed to make a choice; only then could we begin again. Truly begin. We have been in this tenuous middle ground for months. Not quite friends but definitely not lovers. In truth, we are both scared. But as terrified as I was to lose her, I couldn't go on the way that we have been. I wanted more. I needed more. I made my way to the bathroom and stripped down; I needed a hot shower more than anything. The last 48 hours had been a total clusterfuck, and I needed to wash it all away. The hot water was just the right amount of pain that I needed, and I finally was able to relax my body, even though my mind was racing with thoughts of Ana. I was trying to prepare myself for the worst. I wiped the fog off the mirror, and I didn't recognize the man in the mirror looking back at me. I didn't see the broken boy or the CEO. I was leaner and stronger than I had ever been, long days and nights on the open water carved out muscles I didn't know existed. My hair was in dire need of a haircut, and my beard needed a trim. I would sometimes think about cutting it all off, but in truth, I didn't want to look like the old me. I had worked hard to become this new person. I liked this new person. I could see things differently now, not just from my perspective but the full scope of a situation. My temper was still there, but I was in control of it. I could see all my mistakes. I would replay them over and over in my head, and I could see all the places I went wrong. If that wasn't enough, well, it never would be. I can't take back the past. If I could, I would, but I can't. All I want is a future with Ana. I opened the bathroom door, and Ana sat there on the edge of my bed. For a minute, I thought I was hallucinating. But then she stood up, her eyes looking over my towel-clad body. I could see desire in her eyes. It was a look that I had longed for, but I never found it until now. She took a deep breath, her chest heaving.
"Ana." She lifted her hand to my mouth, and her touch went from my lips straight to my cock.
"This last year I have tried to become a version of myself without you. So that when the time came—when you came back to me, I would be ready. That I would know who I was and what I wanted. I'm tired of listening to my dad and Taylor and Kate. I'm tired of doubting myself. Doubting you. I know who I am and who I want. I want to grow with you, I want to build a life with you, I want to fight with you. I want to fuck. I want to love you. That is what I want. I'm tired of fighting it. Being safe. Thinking. Waiting. Planning. I. Want. You. I want us. So if you want that. If you really want that. Forever you and me no matter what then this is the moment. This is it. In or out. Forever or never."
I felt a surge of emotion wash over me, overwhelming and powerful. All the doubts, all the fears, all the uncertainty seemed to vanish in that moment. It was as if everything suddenly clicked into place. I knew what I wanted. I knew who I wanted. And it was Ana. It would only ever be Ana.
I reached out, cupping her face in my hands, and brought her lips to mine in a fierce, passionate kiss. It was a declaration of everything I felt, everything I wanted. I wanted to claim her make her mine again. And in that kiss, I knew that whatever happened, whatever challenges we faced, we would face them together.
As we broke apart, breathless and flushed, I looked into her eyes, my heart pounding in my chest. "Ana," I whispered, "I want you. I want us. Forever."
"Ask me again, Christian." She looked up at me with tear soaked lashes and pink cheeks. My heart pounded in my chest.
"Ana, will you marry me?"
"Yes!"