A/N: Thank you all for your continued love and support! I hope you enjoy this next chapter.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 17: A Dash of Sprinkles
Ana felt like she was in some sort of nightmare.
That was the only explanation for the situation she currently found herself in. Because here she was, inside her bakery, which was currently filled with at least two dozen customers, standing with a broken ankle while her cheating ex-boyfriend was being restrained by two security guards. Everybody in the bakery was staring either at Jose or at Ana, clearly unsure about what was going on or what to do. Ana noticed a few people near the back pulling out their phones to record what was happening.
Jose struggled against Sawyer and Reynolds for another moment or two before looking up at Ana, a pleading and confused look in his eyes. "Ana, what the hell's going on? Why do you have security here?"
Everybody's attention turned to Ana, and her face burned with embarrassment as dozens of pairs of eyes looked at her. God, why did this have to be made into such a spectacle? "Jose, you need to leave. Now," she said firmly, awkwardly avoiding everyone's glances.
"I just wanted to see you, Ana. Why the fuck am I being detained?" Jose snapped, once again trying to wrench his arm out of Sawyer's grip, but to no avail. "Loosen up, will you?" he snarled at the taller man, who just ignored him.
"Jose, we're not doing this here," Ana insisted, already wondering how she was going to smooth all this over with the customers who were witnessing this unfortunate situation. "Please leave and we'll talk about this somewhere else."
"Yeah, I don't buy that," Jose stated, narrowing his eyes at her. "I've been trying to get in touch with you for days, but you've just been ignoring me this whole time. Why won't you just talk to me?"
Ana frowned. She'd blocked Jose's number on her phone right after they had broken up, so it made sense she hadn't gotten any messages from him. "Why would I want to talk to you, Jose?"
"I wanted to make sure you were okay," Jose said insistently, looking down at the boot on her foot. "I didn't get a chance to see you after I left the hospital."
"Are you serious? Did the fact that you were thrown out by hospital security clue you in to the fact that Ana doesn't want to see you?" Mia snapped from her side, and Ana felt inexplicably grateful for her support.
"That wouldn't have happened if your piece of shit brother wasn't getting all up in my face!" Jose snapped back.
"So your reaction was to write a defamatory article in the Seattle Times about him?" Mia asked angrily. "That was pretty fucking low, even for you."
Jose's expression seemed to falter slightly as he glanced between Mia and Ana. "You guys saw that?"
Ana felt her face burn as she looked down, embarrassment coursing through her bloodstream. The very last thing she needed was to be accused of being the 'mystery girl' mentioned in the article who'd potentially ruined Christian's relationship. All the people standing around her suddenly felt suffocating.
"Alright – everybody out."
Ana looked up, and her heart skipped a beat as she saw Christian enter the bakery with Taylor at his side, a calm yet determined look on his face. Christian was naturally a pretty tall guy, but he seemed to completely dominate this space even with all these other people around.
"Do you know what's going on?" someone in the crowd piped up.
"Yeah, is the bakery closed?" someone else asked.
"The Royal Treatment is closing early today," Christian announced to everyone in the shop, and shocked whispers began to fill the place. Ana hadn't given Christian permission to say that, but that hardly seemed to matter at the moment. "We apologize for the inconvenience, but this man here is trespassing and the local authorities are going to be called. We would like this area to be cleared as soon as they arrive."
"What?!" Jose snapped, once again trying to yank his arms out of Sawyer and Reynold's grasp. The customers, not questioning Christian's authority, all began filing out of the bakery, muttering amongst themselves: most of them clearly figured Christian had a better grasp on what was going on and didn't question his directive. The people who had been recording the incident on their phones put them away before following, muttering to each other about what they thought was going on.
Ana watched them all leave, feeling a mixture of gratefulness and also sadness that she was losing business.
None of this would have happened if Jose hadn't turned up today.
"I'm sorry for all this, Ana," Christian addressed Ana for the first time, seeming to read her mind, and she looked at him. The last customers filed out and Taylor closed the door behind them. "I promise I'll compensate you for a typical day's profit so this day won't set you back too much."
Ana blinked, surprised by his generosity. "Oh. Th-thank you."
"Why the fuck are you calling the cops? I haven't done anything except walk into a bakery!" Jose snapped, ignoring their conversation. "How could I be trespassing?"
"Relax, asshole. I only said that so everyone would leave," Christian said smoothly, looking down at Jose with a disgusted sneer. "We won't call the cops… as long as you behave yourself."
Jose seemed to calm down slightly, though he continued to glare up at Christian as if he were a disgusting insect he found on the bottom of his shoe. "You can't restrain me here, man. That's illegal."
Christian nodded toward his security, and the two men finally released Jose with a slight push. Jose stumbled forward a bit before righting himself, rubbing his wrists while glaring over his shoulder at them. "Thanks a lot," he growled.
"Shut the hell up, you piece of shit," Mia suddenly snapped, surprising Ana. "You deserve this kind of treatment after what you published about Ana and Christian in The Seattle Times this morning. Did you seriously think we wouldn't figure out this was you?"
"I didn't –" Jose began heatedly, but then stopped, seeming to rethink his words as he took a deep breath and looked at Ana. "I wasn't trying to defame you, Ana, truly. That's why I asked the author not to publish your name and to keep you anonymous."
Ana bristled. "So it was you," she snapped, feeling anger surge up inside her. "I don't care if you kept me anonymous, you had no right to smear Christian and Gia like that!"
"The Seattle Times publishes articles about me all the time," Christian stated, fixing Jose with a piercing look. "What were you hoping to accomplish with this little hitpiece, huh?"
Jose glared back at Christian, his face morphing into disgust. "Is it still considered a hitpiece if it's true?" he asked, rather boldly. "Our people have had their eye on you for a while now, Grey, and the author I spoke with has evidence to suggest that your marriage with Gia Matteo is all a sham. Considering how valiantly you came charging into the ER the moment you heard Ana was hurt, and the way I see you looking at her right now, I would say the evidence of a fake marriage is looking pretty damning right now."
Ana felt her face burn and her heart rate skyrocket once again. If Christian felt flustered by what Jose said, however, he didn't show it.
"Fake marriage or not, a newspaper publishing an article about some rich guy's love life is hardly news," Christian stated, giving Jose a disgusted onceover. "And you know that. So you went ahead and showed 'evidence' that made me look like a cheating scumbag. All because you're a jealous little piece of shit – does that sound about right?"
"You want to say that to my face, asshole?" Jose spit out, moving forward to get in Christian's face.
"Jose!" Ana snapped. "Get out of here!"
"I'd suggest you listen to her," Christian said in a voice of deadly calm as he glared back at Jose. "Or you might regret it."
"Oh, I will, will I?" Jose taunted back.
For several tense seconds, the two men stared at each other. Finally, Jose reached up and shoved Christian's shoulders, causing him to stumble back a few steps.
The next moment, Christian righted himself, reeled an arm back, and punched Jose directly in the face. A sickening smack sounded throughout the bakery as Jose fell back and landed on the ground with a loud thump.
Ana gasped as Kate and Claire let out a yelp. Mia cried out, "Christian!"
Christian ignored them as he moved down to the ground, grasping Jose by the lapel and punching him in the face over and over again. Jose immediately began grappling back, punching Christian in the stomach or in the face whenever he could. Sawyer and Reynolds immediately tried pulling the men off each other as Mia, Claire, and Kate all moved away from the commotion, shouting over each other:
"Guys, stop it!" Mia cried out.
"Holy shit!" Claire yelled, looking horrified at the brawl happening in the middle of their bakery.
Kate moved over to Ana's side and hugged her, and Ana hugged her back while still staring at the two men fighting with wide eyes. She felt so helpless, standing here with this broken ankle, but her fear of Christian getting hurt trumped everything right now.
"Christian!" Ana cried out, tears in her eyes and her heart thudding in her chest. Jose might have been an asshole, but she hated seeing Christian fighting like this.
Finally, Sawyer and Reynolds were able to pull Christian and Jose away from each other, both men struggling against the security guard holding them back. Ana saw Christian had a bloody lip and a red mark on his jaw, while Jose had a large black eye blooming on his face already.
"Uh oh," Kate muttered from beside Ana, staring out the windows.
A police cruiser with flashing red and blue lights turned the corner and pulled up in front of the bakery, the siren ringing out as soon as they parked. Ana felt her heart sink, realizing someone actually had called the cops.
This day was about to get even messier.
~/~
The two police officiers who had arrived spent several hours at The Royal Treatment, taking statements while questioning both Jose and Christian over what happened. Apparently, Taylor was the one who had called the cops, clearly suspecting something was going to go down, and he had been right: Ana was at least thankful Christian had the foresight to get all the customers out of the bakery before all this went down.
Ana and Kate ended up having to retrieve the security camera footage to prove that Jose was the one who had started the fight by shoving Christian. The cops asked Christian if he wanted to press charges against Jose, and Christian ultimately decided not to, which surprised Ana. Jose was free to go, and he left the bakery as soon as he was able, not even bothering to look in Ana's direction as he left.
Good riddance.
Ana now approached Christian, limping slightly with her booted foot. "You're not pressing charges against him? But he split your lip."
Christian looked down at Ana, a rather tender look in his eyes as he smiled at her. He brought his hand up to touch his lip. "Nah, he's not worth it," he said, shaking his head while bringing his hand down. "I'll still have my men keep an eye on him. I'm actually more worried about him approaching you again."
"Well, the security goons you stationed here seemed to have done their job exceedingly well at keeping him away from me," Ana said, smiling in a humorous way. "Thank you for doing that."
"You're very welcome," Christian said. His smile faded into a more contrite expression as he gazed at her. "I'm really sorry it all went down like that. I'd hoped he and I could just talk, but he decided to provoke me, and… well… I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Ana grimaced. "At least no one was seriously injured."
"Trust me, I could've put him in the hospital if I wanted to," Christian said, his tone dark.
Ana gazed up at him, a plethora of emotions running through her body. "So where do we go from here?" she couldn't help but ask. "What's going to happen with that article Jose put out?"
Christian didn't say anything, and his face remained unreadable as he looked at Ana. After a moment, he surprised Ana by reaching a hand up and lightly cupping her face, brushing a thumb along her cheek. Ana could only stare up at him, her heart pounding.
"There's just something I need to do first," he said quietly, gazing at the spot his thumb grazed on her cheek. He blinked before bringing his hand back down. "I'm sorry."
Before Ana could ask Christian what he meant, he turned and walked out of the bakery.
A/N: A fitting end for Jose I think lol. Next up, Christian has to make a decision.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a review. And if you aren't already, be sure to follow my author page on Facebook and Amazon. I go by the author name Rae Trescott.