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

by Anna Roberts

  "Who is it?" I murmur.

  Kate shrugs, but at that moment Jesús appears in the doorway, wearing nothing but panties and a bra.

  "Jesús?" I gasp. I haven't seen him for over two years.

  "Yes?" he says.

  "What are you doing here?"

  He frowns and squeezes Kate's waist, making her giggle. "Dude, what does it look like?"

  "But...you disappeared."

  "Dios mio," says Jesús. "You still haven't grasped it, have you? I'm Jessica. Jessica is me."

  My head is spinning. "I don't understand," I whisper, clutching the door handle for support.

  "He put on a dress and pretended to be a woman," says Kate. "For the love of God, Hanna - how fucking stupid are you? And yes, I know at this point that's kind of a rhetorical question..."

  The doorbell rings and I sway, stunned, to open it. Why is Jesús pretending to be a woman? Why has he stopped? Why does my hair smell so bad? I open the door and almost faint clean into another section break, because he is standing there.

  Crispian Neigh.

  Holy crap!

  His brown eyes are as compelling and seductive as ever, even if his fedora is badly battered and covered in some kind of brownish-green goop. "Hello Hanna," he says, and I recognise his voice as the one that asked me if the ponies had stopped screaming yet. He smells even worse than me.

  "Hey shitlord," says Kate, tying a (thankfully) opaque bathrobe around herself. "So you escaped certain death again?"

  "I managed to swim into the path of a passing garbage scow," says Crispian, fishing half a maxi-pad out of his collar. "They brought me to the shore."

  "Oh well - that was nice for you," says Kate. "Hey, bummer about your utopia, by the way. I guess that's what happens when you take to the high seas with a reckless disregard for safety regulations."

  "There's a reason they talk about 'running a tight ship', man," opines Jesús. "And they weren't just talking about the cabin boy."

  "Except when they were," adds Kate.

  Crispian stomps past them, scattering trash in his stinky wake. He marches into the great room and assumes a dramatic pose beside his drawing board. "Hanna," he says. "Where is my daughter?"

  "Where's anyone?" mutters Kate, glancing around. The detectives appear to have abandoned the apartment, leaving nothing but a mess. "Did they pay the ransom for El Fupacabra already?"

  Crispian's manly fist comes down hard on the drawing board, making everyone jump. "Hanna - I'm not going to say this again. Where is my daughter?"

  "Um...actually..." Kate says, but Jesús elbows her in the ribs.

  "Probably not the best time, dude," he says.

  "Right. Sorry."

  "I don't know," I murmur, realisation dawning. "I don't know where she is. Oh my God - what if she's been kidnapped?"

  Crispian storms towards me, his brown eyes blazing. Holy crap - he's still kinda hot. Even if he does smell. It's weird how a man gets more attractive when you realise that you're not going to have to spend the rest of your life with him in foul-smelling, chaotic poverty aboard a failing libertarian utopia. "When were you going to tell me about Celestia, Hanna?" he says. "And when were you going to tell me I wasn't gone six weeks before you threw yourself into the arms of my brother?"

  Tears well in my eyes. "Crispian, it wasn't like that," I moan. "I was lonely. And pregnant. And my breasts were ridiculous."

  "What?"

  I sob. "You don't understand. After she was born they were so big I could fit my whole head into one cup of my nursing bras. I was so scared, Crispian - so alone. I thought you were dead and that my breasts were going to look like a couple of windsocks by the time she was weaned. And Bennett said he could fix them..."

  He stares at me, his mouth hanging open.

  "...and he did microdermabrasion on my c-section scar. And I had some preventative fillers on my labio-nasal folds - I wanted more but Bennett said I'd end up looking like one of the Whos from The Grinch..."

  Crispian holds up a hand. "Enough!"

  "I'm sorry!"

  "You've been sitting around filling your labia instead of raising my child?"

  "That's not fair," says Kate, from the kitchen area. Dear, loyal Kate. I can always rely on her. "She was also getting weaves, and manicures, and waxes. I don't know if she's still keeping up the anal bleaching - that's probably a conversation for your next intimate dinner a deux, but yeah. And shopping. You can't forget the shopping. Anyway - it's not like you were father of the year, what with pretending to be dead and everything."

  "If I was alive I would have been prosecuted!" says Crispian.

  Jesús scratches his head. "Yeah? You were guilty as hell. And also you attempted to skip bail. And blew up a helicopter."

  "And killed a hobo," adds Kate. "That's murder. You're a murderer, dude."

  Crispian snorts. "Oh, don't be so dramatic. He was trespassing, anyway."

  "So were you! You were stealing the helicopter!"

  "Only because I had to," says Crispian. "Now where the hell is my daughter?"

  "The hospital," says Kate.

  "What?" I gasp.

  Kate waves a piece of paper. "There's a note."

  "A ransom?"

  "No. It's from your Mom. Big Bob's out of his coma and she's taken Celestia to see him."

  "Oh."

  Crispian glares at me, then stalks towards the elevator. "You haven't heard the last of this, Hanna Neigh," he says, blinking rapidly as he attempts to remove his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Jesus, that's a lot of n's in one name, isn't it? Have you thought about going by your maiden name?"

  I sniff, tears streaming down my face. "Don't take the private elevator."

  "Oh. Right. Sandworms, did you say?"

  I nod.

  He stomps out of the front door. I fall to my knees, weeping helplessly.

  "Get up, you dimwit," says Jesús. "We've got to get to the hospital."

  I gaze up at him, his face blurry through the film of my tears. "But they won't let me see Daddy! They say I take away his will to live!"

  "Not for that," explains Kate. "Because Crispian's going to go snatch your kid to get even with you for banging his brother."

  "Oh my God! Do you think so?"

  "Probably," she says. "And won't he feel silly when he realises she's not even..."

  Jesús cuts her off. "Not now, Kate. Hanna, get dressed."

  My mind is racing as we drive to the hospital. What in the world is going on? Why is my life unravelling in this way? And why don't I understand any of it?

  "Because you're implausibly and hilariously stupid," says Jesús. "And you keep narrating out loud."

  The car screeches to a halt outside the hospital and we bundle out, only to enter the lobby and find my mother standing there clutching an empty stroller in one hand and a phone in the other.

  "Oh my God," I gasp. "My baby! He's taken her, hasn't he?"

  My mother shakes her head but otherwise ignores me. On the other side of the lobby are the Neighs. I hurry over to Bennett. "Bennett, what's going on? Where's Celestia? Has Crispian kidnapped her?"

  Claudia stares at me. "What the hell are you raving about now? Crispian's dead."

  Bennett shakes his head. "No, mother - he's not. I have some rather distressing news. You might want to sit down."

  At that moment Alicia wanders out of the ladies bathroom. She is minus her monocle and the flaps of her deerstalker, but appears otherwise unharmed.

  "The kidnapper handed her back this morning," says Bennett. "He said he couldn't take any more of her talking about dirty fanfiction in that annoying 'British' accent."

  "Cor blimey wotcher guv, lord-luv-a-duck," says Alicia. Everyone winces.

  "Bennett, where the hell is Celestia?" I ask.

  "Um...somewhere? I don't know. I thought she was with your mother?"

  "Apples and pears and Monty Python and jolly good show old chaps," says Alicia, happily. "Cheery-good to be back my dear old Chinas - what wha
t?"

  Claudia narrows her eyes at her daughter, but in that moment Alicia freezes as if she's seen a ghost. Alicia points with her whole arm, her mouth open in a frozen scream, and somewhere from the back of her throat she gurgles out a high pitched sound - "BAKA NE!"

  We all turn to see what she's pointing at. Even my mother swivels to look. Jaws drop as Crispian comes striding across the hotel lobby, scattering tampons, potato chip packets and unspeakable, unrecyclable goo in his wake. Alicia's shriek gathers volume. It's like the sight of him has sent her spiralling back in time to over two years ago, back when she lived in dumpsters and spoke in mangled, fangirl Japanese. It was annoying at the time, but compared to her British fangirl phase I'm sure I'm not the only one who's feeling a weird glow of inappropriate nostalgia right now.

  "WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?!" screams Crispian. "WHERE IS SHE?!"

  My mother strides over and smacks him across the head, hard enough to dislodge his fedora and several used condoms. "She's been kidnapped, you idiot," she says. "This would never have happened if you were any kind of father."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chekhov’s Gimp Mask

  Claudia stares for a moment at her resurrected son. "Well," she murmurs. "This is awkward."

  I am numb. I can't think of the words to say in a moment like this. What do you say when your daughter has been kidnapped and her late father has returned from the dead only to find you've kind of married his brother? I'm sure nobody in classic literature ever had a problem like mine.

  "Oh shit, really?" says Kate, turning to my mother. "Is kidnapping the new black or something this season?"

  My mother shakes her head. "I can't keep up with this any more. Call the cops."

  Her words penetrate the fog swirling around inside my mind. "No!"

  "Hanna, stop being absurd..."

  "I'm not being absurd!" I gasp. "They don't know her like I know her. I'm her mother. I can sense her in ways they can't."

  Jesús narrows his eyes. "This is probably not a good time to say this," he says. "But that’s pretty fucking absurd right there."

  I turn on him, eyes blazing. "How do you know? You only have a vested interest in her because you want to bang her when she grows up."

  He frowns. "What?"

  "You imprinted on her! You imprinted on my baby!"

  "Hanna, he's not a werewolf any more," Kate says, lowering the phone from her ear. "We covered this in book one. Your kid's not telepathic and Jesús isn't into eight year olds. Okay?"

  I eye him suspiciously for a moment and then remember what is happening. Oh my God - Celestia. Why does everything happen to me? My baby. My only child. Everyone is frantically phoning people and Claudia is screaming at Crispian for still being alive and making life difficult for the rest of us. Alicia is giggling insanely and is already digging happily in the nearest garbage can for scraps. Bennett just stands there looking confused.

  And it's in that moment I know. I understand. It's a blinding realisation, a revelation; I am surrounded by idiots. I have always been surrounded by idiots.

  As if in a trance, I step up onto the edge of the decorative fountain in the middle of the lobby. "Will you all shut up?" I say. But they don't, so I yell it the next time. This catches me off balance and I accidentally drop a shoe in the fountain. But nobody is listening - they're all babbling about Amber Alerts and gaijins and dead hobos, so I pour the water out of my shoe (ew, squishy) and walk out of the hospital. I guess there's nothing else I can do - I am pure mommy instinct in that moment.

  I have Naylor take me back to the penthouse. I know what to do. There's only one thing to do - save Celestia.

  I take the public elevator to the penthouse floor and let myself inside. I trip over Celestia's Furby toy and the sight of it nearly tears my heart in two. It giggles and calls me a shitlord.

  The safe in my bedroom contains all my diamonds, but they're no use to me right now. I have a ransom to pay.

  What?

  - Oh God, not now. Why do you always start at the most inappropriate times?

  Shits and grins. What do you think? Did I miss something about a ransom demand?

  I sigh and roll my eyes. Whose idea was it to make my Inner Goddess such a total moron?

  - Celestia has been kidnapped. That usually implies someone wants a ransom, right?

  Usually, yes.

  - So what is your problem, exactly?

  Nobody's demanded anything of the sort. Actually, are you even sure she's been kidnapped? You only have your mother's word for that and rather than asking her questions you almost fell into the fountain and then wandered off in a snit.

  I ignore her and open the safe. It contains my most expensive jewellery and my most treasured possessions - the drawing Crispian did of me as a pony, back before all his fanart got really dirty. And the charred splinters of what was thought to be his left femur, although it turns out now that it was just some random hobo's femur. Life is so strange sometimes.

  Behind a pair of fifty thousand dollar pearl earrings, I find what I'm looking for. The gun.

  What gun?

  - The gun. The gun I had in my safe all along.

  You did?

  - Yes. The gun. In my safe. I'm sure I mentioned it.

  Um...no you didn't.

  - Well, I'm mentioning it now, okay?

  Fine. Mention away. Would this be a good time to mention that Anton Chekhov's ghost hates you almost as much as Thomas Hardy's does?

  I reach for the gun with trembling, French-tipped fingers. This is the most dramatic thing that's ever happened to me. Perhaps even more dramatic than the helicopter crash. And at least this time I'm not bleeding. I pass a mirror and gaze at the wide-eyed, angst-ridden stranger before me. Sometimes I can't believe it's me. I mean, the boobs alone...it's just mindblowing.

  What am I going to do? I can't go to the bank like this. They'll take one look at me and realise I'm a billionaire's wife and let me withdraw a large amount of money. Clearly I need a disguise.

  My Inner Goddess says nothing, but I can tell she's confused, largely by the way she's frowning so hard that her forehead is pleated like an accordion. I open the walk-in closet, punt a couple of talking mice out of the way and search for a pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt.

  "Why do you need those?" squeaks one of the mice. Great - everyone talks to my Inner Goddess behind my back.

  "I told you," I say. "It's a disguise."

  "Why?"

  "Because if I go into the bank looking like this they'll know who I am."

  "Okay?" says the second mouse. "But why are you going to the bank?"

  I roll my eyes at him in frustration. "Because I want to withdraw five million dollars from the joint account and if I go in there like that they'll know I'm Mrs. Neigh, won't they?"

  The first mouse peers beadily at me for a moment and shakes his head. "But isn't your name on the bank account?"

  "Yes."

  "So..." He scratches his head with a paw. "You want to go withdraw money from your joint account but you don't want them to know it’s you?"

  I sigh. Finally! "Yes!"

  "But won't they need to know it’s you in order to give you the money?"

  Have mice always been this stupid, or was I not paying attention? "Yes - that's why I'll be carrying ID."

  "While in disguise?"

  "Yes." I shake my head, exasperated. "Why are you even here, anyway? Go back to Narnia."

  "We can't," says the second mouse, and I realise for the first time that they're holding hands. "We're political refugees."

  "From Narnia?"

  "Yep. We're gay refugees - Aslan's turned really bigoted since all those false Gods wandered out of the Stargate and into Narnia."

  "I don't have time for this," I say, and hurry to the elevator. I hit the button and then with a growing sense of dread realise that I just pressed the button for the private elevator. Oh God. Sandworms! I quickly race into the lobby before the doors can open.

&nb
sp; Good. I have everything I need. I have an old gym bag for the money, a gun and a suitable disguise. Time to put the next phase of my plan into action. I jump into the Audi and set off for the bank.

  My Inner Goddess stirs. I don't understand the first phase of your plan. You're dressing in jeans and a hoodie in order to go to the bank?

  - Yes, so they won't know it's me. God, how stupid are you?

  I don't know. The more I think about this plan of yours the more my mind goes numb. Let's try this again - why don't you want the bank staff to know it's you?

  - Because if they see me withdrawing five million dollars in cash they're going to know that I'm paying a ransom, aren't they?

  Not necessarily. You could be paying off your drug dealer. Or those nice Russian guys who lent you the luxury yacht with the bloodstains in the footlocker. Or, and I'm just throwing this out there, you could be giving the money to your inconvenient first husband who's just returned from the dead and put you in a sticky, not so say illegal situation vis a vis your second husband.

  - But I'm not, am I? I'm paying a ransom. And I don't want the bank staff to know that because they might panic and call the police and then the kidnapper will kill Celestia.

  I halt at a red light. I don't have much time. My Inner Goddess resembles an accordion again. I don't know she's so confused - this is all pretty basic.

  How? You haven't even taken the time to establish to your own satisfaction whether your daughter has been kidnapped or not.

  - I'm a mother. I think I know when my own daughter has been kidnapped.

  Come on, come on. Why won't the lights change? I don't have time for this - every second I'm idling at the lights is another second ticking away, another second of my baby's life. I'm sure the police will understand if I don't hang around longer than I need to.

  I hit the gas. The Audi leaps forward. There's a crash and screams behind me, but I'm like a woman possessed – a mother possessed. I race to the bank, waste half a page parking and then scramble for my lipgloss.