A/N: Thank you all for your love and support! I hope you enjoy this next chapter.
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Chapter 20: A Hint of Vanilla
Ana felt her heart drop to her stomach as dread seemed to overtake her body. She could only stare at Dr. Trevelyan with wide eyes. "I'm sorry?"
"Mother, please leave Ana alone," Christian said firmly to his mother and he entered the bakery alongside the other man. "She's not involved in this."
"Grace, please come back to the car," the other man, who Ana assumed was Christian's father, said to his wife exasperatedly. "We shouldn't be involving other people in this issue. Our apologies, ladies," he said apologetically to Ana, Kate, and Claire. "We don't mean to intrude."
"Well, what exactly do you expect me to do?" Dr. Trevelyan snapped at her husband, throwing up her hands in exasperation. While she looked very well put-together in a beige pantsuit and blouse with a Louis Vuitton clutch in her hand, the expression on her face was very pissed off. "I found out this morning in the goddamn newspaper that my son and his fiance called off their wedding! And when I called Lorraine for confirmation, she said that Gia and Christian did, in fact, break up!"
"Grace, just please calm down," Mr. Grey said to his wife, looking a combination of concerned and distressed. "Christian already said that Miss Steele isn't involved in all this…"
"Oh really? Because Lorraine told me that Gia apparently mentioned Miss Steele's name. You really think my mind wasn't going to go to the worst possible place?" Dr. Trevelyan demanded.
"If you had bothered to even listen to me when I talked to you this morning, you'd know that Ana and I were not having an affair!" Christian snapped at his mother.
"He's right," Ana finally piped up, feeling like she needed to speak up for herself. Everybody turned to look at her, and she felt her face burn with embarrassment. "Your son and I aren't having an affair, Dr. Trevelyan. We've become friends over the past few weeks, but nothing more than that."
"With all due respect, dear, I'm not quite sure if I can trust you to tell me the truth," Dr. Trevelyan said to Ana rather rudely.
"Grace –" Mr. Grey chided his wife.
Christian ignored his parents as he made his way over to Ana. "Are you all right?" he asked in a quieter voice. "I'm really sorry about all of this. I tried to stop her from storming over here, but she was insistent."
"It's okay," Ana said quietly. She could only gaze up at Christian, her heart still thrumming in her chest. Putting aside her shock of seeing him and his parents bursting into her bakery like this, she realized that she really did miss him over these two weeks they hadn't seen each other. "Did you and Gia really call off the wedding?" she asked quietly, unable to keep the hopefulness out of her voice.
Christian gazed down at her, seeming to convey a million emotions in his gray eyes as he gazed at her. After a moment, he smiled lightly. "We did," he confirmed with a nod. "After my fight with Jose, I went straight to Gia and asked her to consider canceling our wedding, and she finally agreed to it last weekend. We had to go through the process of canceling our vendors while figuring out the best way to tell the public, which was why I was MIA for these past few weeks. I was planning on coming down to the party today to tell you the news in person, but then my mother found out and stormed down here. I'm sorry."
"You see?" Dr. Trevelyan pronounced before Ana could say anything, gesturing at her and Christian with an angry glare toward her husband. "The two of them are clearly intimately familiar with each other! Christian, I thought I taught you better than this! What on earth would your brother and sister say?"
"What would we say about what?" At that moment, Elliot and Mia walked through the doorway of the bakery, looking at the scene before them in surprise.
"What are you guys doing here?" Mia asked her parents, glancing between the two before looking at Christian. "Is it about you and Gia breaking up?"
"You heard about that?" Christian asked.
"Yeah, Mia mentioned it. This weirdo always reads the Seattle Times even when she's out of town," Elliot teased Mia, who elbowed him in annoyance. "But seriously, bro – good for you. I'm glad you had the guts to break up with someone who doesn't make you happy."
"Thanks, Elliot," Christian said, looking a bit surprised at his brother's sincerity.
This didn't seem to make Dr. Trevelyan happy at all as she glared at her eldest son. "Elliot, you have to understand that Christian is making a huge mistake by ending his engagement with Gia! This is going to cause endless gossip, financial strain, and negative media coverage for weeks, if not longer! Now I'm not entirely sure how Miss Steele is involved in all this, but I know that she is involved, and when I find out what she and my son have got going on –"
"Dr. Trevelyan!" Claire suddenly snapped angrily, interrupting her rant and causing her to go silent. The others all turned to her in surprise, including Ana. "Please, just stop! You can't come bursting into our place of business and start yelling all these awful, baseless accusations towards Ana! I won't stand here and listen to it anymore. I know that technically I work for you and Mrs. Matteo, but I suppose now it doesn't matter since the wedding isn't happening anymore…" She shot an awkward glance toward Christian. "…So I don't really care about speaking to you bluntly right now. Our bakery just achieved its best financial quarter yet, and we're about to celebrate by throwing a party with all our friends, so what you're doing now is extremely inappropriate. If you have a problem with Ana, you can talk to her quietly and calmly somewhere else. But if you can't even do that, then I suggest you leave this bakery and don't come back."
A silence hung in the air for several protracted seconds after Claire's outburst. Claire's cheeks were flushed pink, but she firmly stared at Dr. Trevelyan without looking away. Ana had an inexplicable desire to rush over and hug Claire for sticking up for her.
Dr. Trevelyan looked rather shocked, and after a moment she finally looked away, brushing a hand down her lapels before clearing her throat. "You're right, of course, Miss Mathieson. I apologize for storming in here like I did. If she would be so kind, I would like to speak to Miss Steele alone right now."
She looked over at Ana, who swallowed, looking nervously at her before glancing toward Christian. "Um… s-sure," she said after a moment. "Would you like to speak in the kitchen?"
"Of course," Dr. Trevelyan said, and without further ado, marched past the front counter and swept through the kitchen doors.
"I'm coming too," Christian insisted, and Ana instantly felt relieved. She really didn't fancy the idea of being confronted by Christian's mother one-on-one, especially considering how angry she apparently was about the whole Gia situation.
"Would you like me or Kate to come with you, Ana?" Claire asked, glancing over at the kitchen doors with concern.
Ana gave her a smile. "No, that's okay. I'll be alright," she said sincerely. "But thank you… and thank you for defending me. You didn't need to do that, but I appreciate it all the same."
Claire smiled back at her. "Anytime, boss."
Ana then turned and hobbled into the kitchen with Christian following her. Ana hadn't had a chance to clean the kitchen yet after the day's work, so the area was rather messy with dirty bowls and utensils piled in the sink, as well as flour and sugar covering most of the work surfaces. Dr. Trevelyan glanced distastefully around her, but didn't comment on it.
"Are you ready to apologize to Ana, Mother?" Christian asked his mom, crossing his arms at her.
"I already apologized for charging in here like I did," Dr. Trevelyan defended herself, shooting a look at Ana. "Although I would like to know why Gia mentioned Miss Steele's name to her mother when they were discussing your break-up. And please don't lie to me, darling – I know whether or not you're telling the truth."
"You want the truth from me, Mother?" Christian asked, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "Fine! The truth is that I was never in love with Gia and our relationship was all a sham."
Whoa.
Ana blinked, surprised by Christian's bluntness. Dr. Trevelyan froze, staring at her son with wide eyes. "Christian," she said warningly. "We both know that's not true. Don't you dare say something you can't take back…"
"It is true. And Gia will tell you the same thing," Christian insisted. "She and I were never in love, and our relationship was all just a business arrangement we agreed upon before entering it because her father wasn't going to give her her trust fund unless she got married. But I managed to talk him into giving it to her in exchange for GEH committing to buying three new commercial properties from his real estate business over the next five years. I now don't have to marry Gia, she gets her trust fund, and everyone's happy."
Ana raised her eyebrows in surprise, staring at Christian. So the reason had been all about money – Ana hadn't known the exact details of their arrangement, but his reasoning made sense. She was at least glad he'd figured out a way to get out of their arrangement.
Dr. Trevelyan seemed at a loss for words as she stared at her son. After a moment, she let out a breath before lifting a hand to her brow and lowering her face. "Oh, Christian," she said quietly, shaking her head. Ana couldn't quite gauge her mood, but at least she didn't sound pissed off anymore. "I really don't know what to say."
"It's what I was trying to tell you in the car, Mother. The reality is that Gia and I were never in love, and Ana is not some homewrecker," Christian said, meeting Ana's eyes. "She's actually the reason why I decided I couldn't go through with it."
Ana felt her heart flutter in her chest and her breath catch in her throat. Did he really just say that?
Dr. Trevelyan lifted her face from her hand to gaze between Ana and Christian, her eyes wide. "Do you mean…?" she asked skeptically.
"Ana and I aren't having an affair," Christian insisted, looking back over at his mother. "And that's the truth. But being around Ana these past few weeks made me rethink a lot of things, and I realized that a sham marriage to Gia would be too empty and meaningless, even though I was doing it to help her out financially. I realized that something like a marriage could never be reduced to just a business arrangement, and I couldn't bring myself to go through with it anymore. So I decided to end it."
Wow. Ana was stunned by Christian's confession. She realized this was everything she'd wanted to hear from him for weeks now, but had given up thinking that she would ever hear it from him. But here he was, confessing all this to her and his mother, and she didn't know what to say.
Dr. Trevelyan said nothing for a moment or two, and she swallowed, looking upset. "Christian, I…" she began, frowning as she seemed to continue absorbing this information. "I didn't realize. You should have told me about you and Gia."
Christian's shoulders dropped slightly. "I know," he said. "But you and Lorraine were so excited to plan our wedding and I didn't want to take that away from you."
"I may have cared about the wedding, but I care about you more, darling. I mean, what kind of a mother do you think I am?" she asked harshly, but stopped, looking too upset to continue on. She went quiet for a moment or two, and nobody said anything for several long moments.
Dr. Trevelyan finally let out a sigh before shaking her head. "I suppose what's done is done, so there's no use harping on about it. If you say that you were never in love with Gia, Christian, then I believe you. I'm sorry you felt that you needed to lie to me about your reasons for marrying her."
She then turned to look at Ana, who felt her heart pounding in her chest once again. "Miss Steele, I owe you an apology. My son obviously cares a great deal about you, and I hope you know that I was only upset because my mind went to the worst possible place. I just want what's best for my son."
"I want that, too," Ana confessed, glancing over at him. He met her eyes, and they both smiled at each other. "I care about your son a lot, Dr. Trevelyan."
Dr. Trevelyan didn't say anything as she glanced between Ana and Christian before letting out a sigh, as if letting go of a huge weight. She nodded her head, decisive. "Well, this has certainly been an enlightening day," she stated glibly. "Quite a lot of information has been revealed to me, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet. Whatever you two choose to do from now on is your choice, and I promise not to interfere. If you'll excuse me, I need to have a little chat with Lorraine about how we're going to move on from this…"
With that, Dr. Trevelyan stepped out of the kitchen. Christian and Ana simply watched her before looking at each other.
A/N: Well, at least Grace is coming around lol. Next chapter is the party!
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