Fifty Shades Later: An Inevitable Conclusion (Fifty Shades of Neigh Book 3)

by Anna Roberts

  Crispian.

  Ever since the helicopter crash I have been a haunted woman. A hot haunted woman, but a haunted one all the same. You would never look at my slender yet voluptuous figure and luxuriant chestnut hair and realise that my double D-cup breasts and large, limpid blue eyes concealed a heart full of tragedy. And yet they do.

  He was sick. He was wrong. He was twisted. He was mine.

  I drift inexorably into the great room. The TV is still on and Celestia is sitting in front of it, her tangerine curls bathed in its eerie glow. "Why aren't you in bed?" I whisper, but she doesn't stir. I reach out to touch her shoulder and then her head turns all the way around like that little girl in The Exorcist. She's wearing a Guy Fawkes mask - a frozen leer where her face should be.

  I want to scream but my throat feels choked. She reaches up with a tiny hand and removes the mask, but the face behind it is Crispian's. Oh my God.

  "Hey shitlord," he says.

  This time I really do scream.

  I jolt awake in mid-scream, only to find that it's morning. Oh. A dream. How strange. I wonder what it could mean?

  My Inner Goddess stirs and yawns. Yeah. Would this be a good time to point out that the plot just showed up in the previous section and we don't really have time for your usual stone-obvious 'symbolic' dream nonsense?

  - Plot? What plot?

  The plot. Of the book. You know - the thing that literally chased you halfway through chapter six. There's a car chase and a kidnap. We've done the car chase and now it's time for the kidnap.

  I scramble out of bed and rub my aching forehead. "Are you sure?" I murmur, aloud.

  Definitely. Trust me on this. The alternative is doing this parody strictly by the book and having the entire plot happen all at once in chapter twenty-two while you spend the rest of the book getting drunk, crying and trying on clothes.

  - But I like getting drunk and trying on clothes. Why can't we do that?

  Because, unlike certain publishers (who will not be named but whose name may or may not rhyme with 'Tandem Mouse') the author feels it's unreasonable to ask people to plunk down $4.99 for a book that's missing an actual fucking plot. Now get dressed.

  I walk into the kitchen to find a naked man peering into the freezer. I scream and he turns around, revealing that he's not completely naked but wearing what appears to be a decorative potholder over the essentials. For a moment I don't recognise him and then the potholder falls to the floor and I realise it's the gardener.

  "You!" I gasp.

  "Yeah. Me," he says, retrieving the potholder. "Do you happen to know if you have any pain au chocolat in the freezer? Kate said there were some but I can't find them."

  Kate wanders out of her bedroom. She's wearing nothing but a bedsheet and is smoking something illegal. "Go back to bed, Jerry," she says. "I'll find them."

  She kisses him sloppily on the mouth and slaps him lightly across his bare behind as he leaves.

  I gape at her. "What are you doing?"

  Kate shrugs. "What's it look like? You weren't going to call him back so I did."

  I manage to close my mouth for a moment. "Did you...I mean...you didn't..."

  "Fuck him?" says Kate, hitching the sheet up over her breasts. "Yeah. Four times. You don't mind, do you? I know you and him..." She attempts to gesture with both hands and almost gives me a full-frontal when the sheet heads south.

  "We had a...brief sexual...encounter..." I murmur.

  "Yeah," says Kate, screwing up her nose. "I think it was more of an encounter than sexual. He said you were more like a sort of...receptacle, really. Not really in the moment, if you know what I mean."

  I grind my teeth. "Well...I'm not as forward as you, obviously," I mutter.

  "You mean I'm a slut?" says Kate, blowing out smoke.

  "I didn't say that."

  "You meant it," she says. "And it's cool. I know I'm a slut. I'm fucking good at it too. I mean, I guess there's always the possibility that my weird and athletic sexual adventures are some desperate means of compensating for losing the only man who could eat my box for three hours straight without complaining about his tongue getting tired, but on the other hand I did get to have a double-penetration threeway with your hot, bisexual uncles. Kind of evens out, right?"

  I stare at her for a moment. "Where's Celestia?"

  "Out."

  "Out?"

  "Yeah. Claudia came. Picked her up and took her to the zoo. Didn't you hear the door?"

  I shake my head, grateful for small mercies. I hate Claudia, but at least she's removed my daughter from the blast radius of Kate's latest act of depravity. "I was dreaming," I murmur. "Have I overslept? Am I late for work?"

  Kate shrugs and opens the freezer. "Meh. Depends."

  "On what?"

  "On whether you were planning on showing up before four o'clock in the afternoon."

  Chapter Nine

  The T-Rex of Romance

  I race to the office, pausing only to grab a skinny mocha latte, get my French tips redone and get my earrings back from the jewellers, where they are being carefully steam-cleaned of any remaining seagull goop.

  When I get there I find my office has been annexed. There’s a small, dark-haired woman sitting behind my desk, typing away on a laptop.

  I cough loudly, but she just holds up a finger like she owns the place.

  “Un momento, por favor.”

  “Um, excuse me?”

  She doesn’t take her eyes from the screen but says “Hanna, shut the fuck up,” like we know one another or something. In fact, she’s oddly familiar.

  I march back to accounts and open the door. “What?” says Claire.

  “There’s a rude Hispanic woman in my office.”

  “So?”

  I attempt to remove the lid of my latte, no small feat with one hand full. Maybe I got a bit carried away in the jewellers, but there was a darling little platinum ankle bracelet for only two thousand dollars and it reminded me so much of the kind of thing I used to like back when I was just an ordinary bookish brunette. I think it’s good to remember where you came from.

  “Get her out of there,” I tell Claire. “I’m extremely busy and important.”

  “Don’t you want to befriend her?” asks Claire, with a smirk. “To add to your huge collection of ethnic friends?”

  God damn it. I’ve got latte all over my blouse now. Fuck. “Claire, are you trying to make some kind of racial point here?” I murmur. “If you’re trying to make out I’m racist then I think you’ll find that I actually have ethnic friends – my friend Jesús was Hispanic.”

  “Was Hispanic?” says Claire. “Did he stop being Hispanic at some point?”

  I sigh, exasperated. “No. He disappeared, as a matter of fact. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “Like the caring friend you are,” says Claire.

  I wipe foam off my left breast. “Look,” I snap. “When I first started working here I took one took at you and thought ‘That’s the girl I want to be friends with.’”

  Claire shrugs. “Yeah. That’s a problem.”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t actually like you.” She sips her coffee and giggles. “You need a hand with that latte there?”

  I turn away, spilling coffee all over my shoes, my skirt and the corridor. Crap, crap and thrice crap - why is my life such a mess? I stomp back to my office, where the woman is still typing rapidly. There is a Union Jack mug on the table, which reminds me of something but I can't think what. God, I'm so busy and high-powered - I guess that's life when you're the editor of a significant independent publishing house.

  "I need my office back," I gasp.

  "Why?" says the woman. Once again she doesn't take her eyes from the screen but reaches out with a long-fingered, manicured hand and snags the box of tissues from my desk. She tosses them in my general direction and carries on typing. "Clean yourself up," she says.

  "Who are you? What are you doing here?"


  She glances up over the rims of her cat's eye glasses and a distant, rusty bell clangs in my head. "Working," she says. Her eyes are sharp and brown and I notice she has an enviable knack with wing eyeliner. That or she has a really awesome make-up artist.

  "Working at what?" I ask. She reminds me of that time I had a dream about monkeys and typewriters. And they were all typing at once and there was a big sign saying THE MONKEYS THROW POO. Why won't she stop typing?

  "Saving your silly company," she says. "At a rate of one thousand words per hour. Fifty hours equals fifty thousand words. Fifty thousand words equals two dollars and ninety-nine cents at a seventy/thirty rate. Seventy to me, thirty to you - I'm not doing this to keep you in ankle bracelets. Did you buy that on purpose or are you going to a fancy dress party as a truckstop stripper?"

  "Who are you?" I gasp. "And what are you doing in my office?"

  She closes the laptop and gets up from my desk. "Hanna, I'm the great brown hope of independent publishing. Don't you recognise me?"

  I stagger back against the door. "Jessica...Waters?"

  She sighs. "Yeah, that too. I see money hasn't made you any smarter. Although I have to say I like the new boobs."

  Oh my God. What is it with me and lesbians? They always gravitate to me, and then they hate me because I won't fuck them. I cover my coffee stained breasts with both hands. "You do?"

  "Sure. They make you look like an amateur porn star. I like that in a woman."

  I gape and back towards the door. "I'm straight, just in case you were wondering."

  "I know. So am I. Is Kate with you?"

  "No." What a strange question. Then the phone rings and I grab it, kicking Ms. Waters out of the way.

  I mean to say "Hello, Hanna Neigh speaking," but I get stuck on the third n and end up just going nnnnnn down the phone for what feels like a short Ice Age. Finally I prise my tongue from the back of my front teeth and gasp "Hanna Squeal!" down the line.

  There's a short pause and a soft, masculine laugh. "Hello Hanna. Have the ponies stopped screaming yet?"

  I flop into my seat, chilled suddenly to the bone. Jessica Waters folds up her laptop and wanders out. "I'll be in the accounts office if you need me," she says, but I don't hear. I am thrown back to the foreshadowy depths of last night's dream.

  "C...Crispian?" I extemporise, my heart going double-speed and my dialogue tags going crazy.

  "We are Anonymous," says the voice. My BlackBerry rings and I grab it with my other hand. The screen says ANONYMOUS! I shake my head in disbelief. "How can there be two of you?" I gasp.

  "Um...duh? We’re like, legion."

  "Could you hold please?" I hit the button and answer my BlackBerry.

  "Hi," says a man's voice. "Hanna?"

  "Yes?"

  "Hi. I've kidnapped your sister in law."

  "Okay, thank you. Bye." I hang up and grab the other phone in a panic, only when I take them off hold I accidentally hit speakerphone and the office is suddenly full of the sound of a man singing gibberish. "You got troll-lol-loled, bitch!" someone says.

  "I don't understand," I murmur, and hang up.

  The BlackBerry rings again. I pick up.

  "Hi," says the voice. "Me again. I still have your sister-in-law."

  "I know," I say. "Look, if you're going to do the whole heavy breathing thing can you hurry it up? - because I'm really very busy and important." I reach out to try and grab the call log of the desk phone but instead just end up knocking the last few cold dregs of my latte into my lap.

  There's a pause for a moment and a sort of irritated sigh. "Yeah. I don't think you're quite getting the seriousness of the situation here."

  "No, I am," I say, stretching across the desk for the tissue box. "Believe me. You've kidnapped my assistant and now I can't find anything in my office."

  The man on the end of the line snorts angrily. "Listen, you dumb little rich bitch - if you don't bring me a million in unmarked bills I'm gonna fuck her up."

  Goddamn it. I can't reach. I slide my shoe off and stretch my legs out, in the hope of grabbing the tissue box between my toes. Ugh - cold coffee runs off my skirt and down my calf. I let out a low sound of disgust.

  "Yeah, that got your attention, didn't it?" he says.

  "Uh. Yeah. Kind of. Actually I just had coffee run down my leg. Cold coffee. Sorry - what were you saying?"

  "I said I'm gonna fuck her up," he says.

  "Oh God. No. You probably don't want to do that."

  "I don't, do I?"

  "No. You know she used to be El Fupacabra, right? Well, she moved out of the dumpster but she's still not great at personal hygiene. She's got this weird idea in her head that British people only change their underwear like once a week because they’re not as obsessive and strange as Americans. I told her that’s probably not true because I’ve been to London and nobody smelled like crotch, but she doesn’t listen.”

  There's a pause on the end of the line. "Well, that’s gross. Is that what that accent is all about?"

  "Yeah. She's really into Doctor Who and stuff."

  "Oh. Oh wow. Awkward. I thought she'd had a stroke."

  "No. It's something to do with Sherlock Holmes," I say, switching on my desktop.

  "That would explain the monocle. And the deerstalker." He takes a breath. "So...um...anyway. What was I saying?"

  "Kidnap. Rape."

  "Oh, right. Yeah. To be honest I was never down with the rape thing from the start.”

  “That’s...um...good to know.”

  “Yeah, but this is not to say that if you don't produce one million in unmarked bills, I'm gonna start posting her back to you in bits."

  Oh crap. My e-mail inbox is overflowing. It's that Nigerian prince again. I scroll down and then freeze in horror as I see it - ANONYMOUS. Oh my God. "Okay," I murmur. "I'll get back to you on that."

  "But..."

  I hang up and reach for the mouse. I'm being stalked. Really stalked. This is more than just a couple of threatening text messages - this is terrible. This is real. Holy crap - I think I'm going to throw up.

  I open the e-mail.

  PRITHEE FAIRE MAIDEN WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO TELL ME YOU'D HAD A GODDAMN KID?

  I squeal and rear back from the computer. The office door opens again and Jessica Waters pokes her head around it. "Are you okay?"

  "No!" I moan. "I'm getting threatening messages!"

  She smooths the wave at the front of her hair and raises an eyebrow. "Really? Are you sure they're not just the titles of classic works of literature written after 1950?"

  "No," I gasp. "Why would they be?"

  "Well, they were last time."

  I stare at her in bemusement. "I'm sorry - do I know you?"

  She takes off her glasses and rubs the bridge of her nose. "For God's sake, Hanna," she says. "How stupid are you?"

  I blink, uncomprehending. My mind is a whirl of unanswered questions as it is, and I don't think I can handle another without some kind of brain explosion. Why does everything happen to me?

  "I have to go home," I mutter. "I think someone's going to kidnap my child."

  "Whoa. Really?"

  "I think so. There was...something. There was a kidnap and then someone mentioned my daughter and I think they're going to kidnap her. I'm just guessing here."

  Claire wanders into the office. "Message left for you at reception, Hanna," she says. "Guy just came in and said he'd kidnapped your sister-in-law. You know anything about that?"

  "A guy?" says Jessica Waters.

  "Yeah," says Claire. "A Guy. Like Fawkes. Had one of those V for Vendetta masks on."

  I feel the room begin to spin and whirl around me. "Hey, don't flake out on me now," says Jessica, patting my face.

  "Too late," says Claire. "There's a section break up ahead."

  "Goddamn it," says Jessica, as the world turns grey around the edges. "Hasn't this bitch ever heard of in media res?" It's the last thing I hear before I lapse into blessed unconsciousness.
>
  I wake to find myself back at the Penthouse, stretched out on the sofa. Was I dreaming? Was it some kind of obscure symbolism?

  "Nope," says Jessica Waters, slapping me lightly around the face. "And your grasp of symbolism would make even Sigmund Freud wince."

  "Huh?"

  "You were narrating in your sleep," she says, handing me a glass of water. "Drink this."

  I sit up and look around. "How did I get here?" I murmur. "I don't remember..."

  "Well, no," she says. "You were in between sections. Claire just asked me to take you home because everyone was really, really bored of you."

  "But I was unconscious! And I'd only been in the office for half an hour."

  "True," she says. "But in all fairness you are amazingly boring."

  I peer around the apartment. Something is missing, but I can't put my finger on it. Something...significant.

  At that point Kate wanders out of the bedroom, red-eyed and still wrapped in a sheet. She takes one look at Jessica Waters and her mouth falls open.

  All of a sudden there is a strange atmosphere in the room - a weird, electrical tension crackling through everything. That or the rug contains more man-made fibres than the salesman originally claimed.

  "Hello Kate," says Jessica.

  Kate narrows her eyes. "Jessica."

  The room is silent. I'm sure there was something I was supposed to remember.

  "So..." says Jessica, in a tiny, clenched-throat voice.”How are you?"

  "I'm good," says Kate. "You know - having lots of sex. Weird sex. Kinky sex. Better sex than I've ever had before, actually."

  "That's nice. I'm glad for you."

  Kate gives her a brief, tight smile. "Yeah. I expect you can buy all that though, can't you? With your money. Your mountains and mountains of dirty porno money."

  Jessica sighs and her eyes glisten. "Kate...listen..."

  "Nope," says Kate. "We're cool. It's fine. I don't hold any grudges. You got what you wanted, I got what I wanted. You got money, I got dick. Lots of lots of dick. Big dicks too. Sometimes two at once."