THE SHOWER IS BLISTERING, the temperature just a notch below painful, the way I like it. I stand beneath the cascade, trying to forget her, hoping this heat will scorch her out of my head and wash her scent off my body.
If she’s going to leave, there’s no coming back.
Never.
I scrub my hair with grim determination.
Good riddance.
And I suck in a breath.
No. Not good riddance.
I raise my face to the streaming water. It’s not good riddance at all—I am going to miss her. I lean my forehead against the tiles. Just last night she was in here with me. I stare at my hands, my fingers caressing the line of grout in the tiles where only yesterday her hands were braced against the wall.
Fuck this.
Switching off the water, I step out of the shower cubicle. As I wrap a towel around my waist, it sinks in: each day will be darker and emptier, because she’s no longer in it.
No more facetious, witty e-mails.
No more of her smart mouth.
No more curiosity.
Her bright blue eyes will no longer regard me in thinly veiled amusement…or shock…or lust. I stare at the brooding morose jerk staring back at me in the bathroom mirror.
“What the hell have you done, asshole?” I sneer at him. He mouths the words back at me with vitriolic contempt. And the bastard blinks at me, big gray eyes raw with misery.
“She’s better off without you. You can’t be what she wants. You can’t give her what she needs. She wants hearts and flowers. She deserves better than you, you fucked-up prick.” Repulsed by the image glowering back at me, I turn away from the mirror.
To hell with shaving for today.
I dry off at my chest of drawers and grab some underwear and a clean T-shirt. As I turn I notice a small box on my pillow. The rug is pulled from under me again, revealing once more the abyss beneath, its jaws open, waiting for me, and my anger turns to fear.
It’s something from her. What would she give me? I drop my clothes and, taking a deep breath, sit on the bed and pick up the box.
It’s a glider. A model-making kit for a Blaník L23. A scribbled note falls from the top of the box and wafts onto the bed.
This reminded me of a happy time.
Thank you.
Ana
It’s the perfect present from the perfect girl.
Pain lances through me.
Why is this so painful? Why?
Some long-lost, ugly memory stirs, trying to sink its teeth into the here and now. No. That is not a place I want my mind to return to. I get up, tossing the box onto the bed, and dress hurriedly. When I’m finished I grab the box and the note and head for my study. I will handle this better from my seat of power.
MY CONVERSATION WITH WELCH is brief. My conversation with Russell Reed—the miserable lying bastard who married Leila—is briefer. I didn’t know that they’d wed during one drunken weekend in Vegas. No wonder their marriage failed after just eighteen months. She left him twelve weeks ago. So where are you now, Leila Williams? What have you been doing?
I focus my mind on Leila, trying to think of some clue from our past that might tell me where she is. I need to know. I need to know she’s safe. And why she came here. Why me?
She wanted more, and I didn’t, but that was long ago. It was easy when she left—our arrangement was terminated by mutual consent. In fact, our whole arrangement had been exemplary: just how it should be. She was mischievous when she was with me, deliberately so, and not the broken creature that Gail described.
I recall how much she enjoyed our sessions in the playroom. Leila loved the kink. A memory surfaces—I’m tying her big toes together, turning her feet in so she can’t clench her backside and avoid the pain. Yeah, she loved all that shit, and so did I. She was a great submissive. But she never captured my attention like Anastasia Steele.
She never drove me to distraction like Ana.
I gaze at the glider kit on my desk and trace the edges of the box with my finger, knowing that Ana’s fingers have touched it.
My sweet Anastasia.
What a contrast you are to all the women I’ve known. The only woman I’ve ever chased, and the one woman who can’t give me what I want.
I don’t understand.
I’ve come alive since I’ve known her. These last few weeks have been the most exciting, the most unpredictable, the most fascinating in my life. I’ve been enticed from my monochrome world into one rich with color—and yet she can’t be what I need.
I put my head in my hands. She will never like what I do. I tried to convince myself that we could work up to the rougher shit, but that’s not going to happen, ever. She’s better off without me. What would she want with a fucked-up monster who can’t bear to be touched?
And yet she bought me this thoughtful gift. Who does that for me, apart from my family? I study the box once more and open it. All the plastic parts of the craft are stuck on one grid, swathed in cellophane. Memories of her squealing in the glider during the wingover come to mind—her hands up, braced against the Perspex canopy. I can’t help but smile.
Lord, that was so much fun—the equivalent of pulling her pigtails in the playground. Ana in pigtails…I shut down that thought immediately. I don’t want to go there, our first bath. And all I’m left with is the thought that I won’t see her again.
The abyss yawns open.
No. Not again.
I need to make this plane. It will be a distraction. Ripping open the cellophane, I scan the instructions. I need glue, modeling glue. I search through my desk drawers.
Shit. Nestled at the back of one drawer I find the red leather box containing the Cartier earrings. I never got the chance to give them to her—and now I never will.
I call Andrea and leave a message on her cell, asking her to cancel tonight. I can’t face the gala, not without my date.
I open the red leather box and examine the earrings. They are beautiful: simple yet elegant, just like the enchanting Miss Steele…who left me this morning because I punished her…because I pushed her too hard. I cradle my head once again. But she let me. She didn’t stop me. She let me because she loves me. The thought is horrifying, and I dismiss it immediately. She can’t. It’s simple: no one can feel like that about me. Not if they know me.
Move on, Grey. Focus.
Where’s the damned glue? I stash the earrings back in the drawer and continue my search. Nothing.
I buzz Taylor.
“Mr. Grey?”
“I need some modeling glue.”
He pauses for a moment. “For what sort of model, sir?”
“A model glider.”
“Balsa wood or plastic?”
“Plastic.”
“I have some. I’ll bring it down now, sir.”
I thank him, a little stunned that he has modeling glue. Moments later he knocks on the door.
“Come in.”
He paces into my study and places the small plastic container on my desk. He doesn’t leave and I have to ask.
“Why do you have this?”
“I build the odd plane.” His face reddens.
“Oh?” My curiosity is piqued.
“Flying was my first love, sir.”
I don’t understand.
“Color blind,” he explains flatly.
“So you became a Marine?”
“Yes, sir.”