Fifty Shades Freed

Oh Christ! Surely she can do better than this? What a fucking dull question. Not one iota of originality. It’s disappointing. I trot out my usual response about having exceptional people in the U.S. working for me. People I trust, insofar as I trust anyone, and pay well-blah, blah, blah… But Miss Steele, the simple fact is, I’m a fucking genius at what I do. For me it’s like falling off a log. Buying ailing, mismanaged companies and fixing them, or if they’re really broken, stripping their assets and selling them off to the highest bidder. It’s simply a question of knowing the difference between the two, and invariably it comes down to the people in charge. To succeed in business you need good people, and I can judge a person, better than most.

“Maybe you’re just lucky,” she says quietly.

Lucky? A frisson of annoyance runs through me. Lucky? No fucking luck involved here, Miss Steele. She looks unassuming and quiet, but this question? No one has ever asked me if I was lucky. Hard work, bringing people with me, keeping a close watch on them, second-guessing them if I need to; and if they aren’t up to the task, ruthlessly ditching them. That’s what I do, and I do it well. It’s nothing to do with luck! Well, fuck that. Flaunting my erudition, I quote the words of my favorite American industrialist to her.

“You sound like a control freak,” she says, and she’s perfectly serious.

What the fuck?

Maybe those guileless eyes can see though me. Control is my middle name.

I glare at her. “Oh, I exercise control in all things, Miss Steele.” And I’d like to exercise it over you, right here, right now.

Her eyes widen. That attractive blush steals across her face once more, and she bites that lip again. I ramble on, trying to distract myself from her mouth.

“Besides, immense power is acquired by assuring yourself, in your secret reveries, that you were born to control things.”

“Do you feel that you have immense power?” she asks in a soft soothing voice, but she arches her delicate brow, revealing the censure in her eyes. My annoyance grows. Is she deliberately trying to goad me? Is it her questions, her attitude, or the fact that I find her attractive that’s pissing me off?

“I employ over forty thousand people, Miss Steele. That gives me a certain sense of responsibility-power, if you will. If I were to decide I was no longer interested in the telecommunications business and sell up, twenty thousand people would struggle to make their mortgage payments after a month or so.”

Her mouth pops open at my response. That’s more like it. Suck it up, Miss Steele. I feel my equilibrium returning.

“Don’t you have a board to answer to?”

“I own my company. I don’t answer to a board,” I respond sharply. She should know this. I raise a questioning brow.

“And do you have any interests outside of your work?” she continues hastily, correctly gauging my reaction. She knows I’m pissed, and for some inexplicable reason this pleases me enormously.

“I have varied interests, Miss Steele. Very varied.” I smile. Images of her in assorted positions in my playroom flash through my mind: shackled on the cross, spread-eagle on the four-poster, splayed over the whipping bench. Fucking hell! Where is this coming from? And behold-there’s that blush again. It’s like a defense mechanism. Calm down, Grey.

“But if you work so hard, what do you do to chill out?”

“Chill out?” I grin, those words out of her smart mouth sound odd. Besides when do I get time to chill out? Has she no idea of the number of companies I control? But she looks at me with those ingenuous blue eyes, and to my surprise I find myself considering her question. What do I do to chill out? Sailing, flying, fucking… testing the limits of little brown-haired girls like her, and bringing them to heel… The thought makes me shift in my seat, but I answer her smoothly, omitting my two favorite hobbies.

“You invest in manufacturing. Why, specifically?”

Her question drags me rudely back to the present.

“I like to build things. I like to know how things work, what makes things tick, how to construct and deconstruct. And I have a love of ships. What can I say?” They distribute food around the planet-taking goods from the haves to the have-nots and back again. What’s not to like?

“That sounds like your heart talking, rather than logic and facts.”

Heart? Me? Oh no, baby. My heart was savaged beyond recognition a long time ago. “Possibly, though there are people who’d say I don’t have a heart.”

“Why would they say that?”

“Because they know me well.” I give her a wry smile. In fact no one knows me that well, except maybe Elena. I wonder what she would make of little Miss Steele here. The girl is a mass of contradictions: shy, uneasy, obviously bright, and arousing as hell. Yes, okay, I admit it. She’s an alluring little piece.

She recites the next question by rote.

“Would your friends say you’re easy to get to know?”

“I’m a very private person, Miss Steele. I go a long way to protect my privacy. I don’t often give interviews.” Doing what I do, living the life I’ve chosen, I need my privacy.

“Why did you agree to do this one?”

“Because I’m a benefactor of the university, and for all intents and purposes, I couldn’t get Miss Kavanagh off my back. She badgered and badgered my PR people, and I admire that kind of tenacity.” But I’m glad it’s you who turned up and not her.

“You also invest in farming technologies. Why are you interested in this area?”

“We can’t eat money, Miss Steele, and there are too many people on this planet who don’t have enough to eat.” I stare at her, poker-faced.

“That sounds very philanthropic. Is that something you feel passionately about? Feeding the world’s poor?” She regards me with a quizzical expression as if I’m some kind of conundrum for her to solve, but there is no way I want those big blue eyes seeing into my dark soul. This is not an area open to discussion. Ever.

“It’s shrewd business.” I shrug, feigning boredom, and I imagine fucking her smart mouth to distract myself from all thoughts of hunger. Yes, that mouth needs training. Now that thought is appealing, and I let myself imagine her on her knees before me.

“Do you have a philosophy? If so, what is it?” she recites by rote again.

“I don’t have a philosophy as such. Maybe a guiding principle, Carnegie’s ‘A man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.’ I’m very singular, driven. I like control… of myself and those around me.”

“So you want to possess things?” Her eyes widen.

Yes, baby. You, for one.

“I want to deserve to possess them, but yes, bottom line, I do.”

“You sound like the ultimate consumer.” Her voice is tinged with disapproval, pissing me off again. She sounds like a rich kid who’s had all she ever wanted, but as I take a closer look at her clothes-she’s dressed in Walmart, or Old Navy possibly-I know that isn’t it. She hasn’t grown up in an affluent household.

I could really take care of you.

Shit, where the fuck did that come from? Although, now that I consider it, I do need a new sub. It’s been, what-two months since Susannah? And here I am, salivating over this brown-haired girl. I try a smile and agree with her. Nothing wrong with consumption-after all, it drives what’s left of the American economy.

“You were adopted. How far do you think that’s shaped the way you are?”

What the fuck does this have to do with the price of oil? I scowl at her. What a ridiculous question. If I’d stayed with the crack whore, I’d probably be dead. I blow her off with a non-answer, trying to keep my voice level, but she pushes me, demanding to know my how old I was when I was adopted. Shut her down, Grey!

“That’s a matter of public record, Miss Steele.” My voice is arctic. She should know this shit. Now she looks contrite. Good.

“You’ve had to sacrifice a family life for your work.”

“That’s not a question,” I snap.