Mrs Jones was the first person he met as he barrelled off the elevator.

Her face stopped him in his tracks. Gail was the closest thing he had to a surrogate mother and though he'd never show it, she had an entrenched position in his cold cardiac area. The popping anxiety that bled from her eyes was one of the few sights that could have delayed him then and there from getting to Anastasia as quickly as possible.

"Mrs Jones?" he greeted urgently, "What is it?"

The kindly woman looked at him with such despair that he did something he'd never once even thought of doing in his commercial tenure. As his hand went to rest on her left shoulder, the shock of the gesture seemed to loosen her lips and she spoke rapidly and urgently.

"Mr Grey. I'm sorry, I know you left me with her, but it's Miss Steele. She seems to have, well, there's a little situation in the master bathroom. I've tried to get her out and I've tried to get her to sleep or eat, but she's not hearing me. I don't think she can hear anything right now. I didn't know whether to call a Doctor or not. She doesn't seem willing to allow anyone to… touch her, so I thought I'd better not, but maybe you will. I think you should go to her. Now."

Christian's eyes widened as he digested her words.

The master bathroom was one he rarely used, preferring the en suite of his own bedroom. As he approached it, he could hear water running at a ferocious pace. Practically sprinting the last few steps to the great oak door, he shoved it in with little delicacy. The blast of steam that hit him full-on was like an intensive sauna treatment. Blinking through the burning fog, his eyes blurrily made out the hunched form of a t-shirt clad slender frame on the shower floor. A dripping brunette head was bowed into raised knees and the figure stirred not an inch at his entrance. His voice was drowned out by the roaring water as he stared in shock for a brief moment.

"Shit."

He approached slowly and with extreme caution. For two very good reasons. The first being that he knew startling her would be disastrous. The second being that he hadn't the sweetest fucking clue how to deal with emotional females. Kicking off his shoes as he went, he padded silently to the side of the expansive shower. And then it happened. For the first time in his life, he wasn't a critical thinking, calculating CEO to the stars.

The water cascaded upon his copper hair, turning it dark with wetness.

He sat and wrapped his strong arms around her bowed torso from the back. She flinched and whimpered with a broken, watery gurgle. But when she recognised his scent, every muscle, tissue and sinew within her relaxed. The waterfall of intense heat capsuled them. He knew then and there that was why she was sitting there. For her, it was safe. The only safe place she could find. An impossible sadness gripped him as he silently held the broken beauty. As his hands nestled around her stomach he knew instinctively that she had been too strong, for too long, and today had been her breaking point. Gently pushing her saturated hair from her right ear, his mouth tickled her skin as his whisper trickled into her brain in tandem with the dripping water.

"St. James is gone, Anastasia. He's dead and he's never coming back."

He was taking a momentous risk and he knew it. He still didn't know this girl from a hole in the wall. And he'd essentially admitted that he was in some way complicit with St. James' demise. But he didn't care. For an NDA wielding, contract touting millionaire, he just didn't care. The girl with the scars that ran too deep was all-consuming. She left room for nothing else. It made absolutely no sense, was stupid in the extreme, but he knew he would kill a thousand Harry St. James' if it were to keep her safe.

"He's dead?" she gurgled, barely daring to believe, "Clinically dead?"

His nose nuzzled against her cascade of dark hair.

"Deader than dead, you have my word. He can never hurt you again."

She shuddered. Years of abuse cascading inside her.

"How?"

He hesitated. Letting her know the creature was dead was one thing, adding to the cemetery of misery in her head with the details, was quite another. Her hands wetly slicked to his, slender upon broad, light upon dark. She squeezed gently, but the urgency she needed to convey burned him. His eyes lowered to her soaked back and his mouth was opening before he could control it. Taylor would be far from impressed.

"Let's just say that no man is bulletproof, Anastasia."

A small sob tore from her throat. His eyes widened. Was she…sad that the bastard was dead? For the first time, the true folly of his actions slapped him in the face. He, CEO of GEH, had just confessed to his own employee of five minutes that he'd hand or part in the murder of her ex-Dom come sadist. His heart began to hammer with painful urgency. His fight or flight reflex was kicking in. She was suddenly a tonne weight in his arms and he needed to extricate himself from her, call in the lawyers, lock himself in his study and scream at his impulsivity.

Her anguished "thank you, Jesus, thank you" therefore came as a pleasant shock.

She was suddenly featherweight in his arms once more. His eyes flitted shut under the burden of relief that assailed him. She leaned into him, her head resting on his broad shoulder and her tear-stained face looking at him in shocked awe. Gazing down at her, a terrifying affection gripped him. This girl made him vulnerable. He had known her for less time than he knew his new mailroom boy. And he had literally just killed for her. Sure, he didn't pull the trigger. But he ordered it. And in the eyes of the law, he was just as guilty. The terror truly engulfed him when he realised he'd do it again and again to keep this mysterious Miss Steele safe from harm.

"You are the kindest man I have ever known."

His eyes bulged at her misguided and downright inaccurate words. He was not a kind man. He was not a good man. He was a mercurial, possessive and controlling man. He took what he wanted, where he wanted, and to hell with the wake of destruction he may or may not leave in his wake. One didn't get to where he was, at his age, by being a kind man. He knew she had to know the truth. She had already been so damaged, maltreated to the point where she had clambered into this shower for safety, that he couldn't lie to her.

"I am not a kind man, Anastasia. You need to know that."

She shook her head and looked up at him with adoration and shower spray leaking from her eyes in equal measure.

"You saved me."

His head swayed from side to side as frustration welled inside him.

"You saved yourself. You made it here. You escaped."

Her small smile was a surprise. Her hands flitted down to his once more and she slipped her small palm into his. He closed his eyes in despair. Her touch was an addiction he could feel brewing like his morning coffee. When it was gone, he would ache for it. Brood upon it. He ought to rip away now, whilst he still could recover. Find a new addiction. But he didn't. He couldn't. His fingers curled around her small hand and he felt the sheer rightness of it entangle him.

He was fucked and he knew it.

"He would have never stopped coming if he had one breath in his body."

His free hand instinctively moved to gently stroke her hair from her eyes.

"Don't think of him," he instructed softly, "He can never lay word or hand on you again. He's in your past. You need to start building your future without him. And…you can say no, if you wish, but I think you need to see someone. A Doctor. Who can help you through the coming weeks and months as you adjust."

She tensed.

"A shrink?"

"A Doctor, Anastasia," he corrected gently. "I can arrange for you to see the best of the best. You have been through a trauma I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. It doesn't make you weak or pathetic to need help in recovering from it. You are an incredible woman to have withstood the things you have endured. But everyone has their breaking point."

His eyes lingered around their watery cocoon.

"Or did you just feel like a timeless shower in your t-shirt?"

The corners of her mouth twitched slightly as she digested his point. Despite herself, she sank deeper into his warm torso and felt the lightness of his safety blanket her. It was ill-advised. She knew it. But she couldn't possibly help it. Harry was kind and safe in the beginning, too. And so she had vowed to never trust another man, ever again. But this Christian Grey. Mr Grey. He was like water in the desert, a feast in the famine. She couldn't keep away. She didn't want to keep away.

"I see your point."

His slight murmur of laughter was so beautiful that she twisted violently to look up at him. He tilted his head, amused, and raised a brow.

"Something caught your attention?"

Her voice held a note of wonder.

"You just don't seem like the laughing type."

His sudden and answering roar of laugher had her stiffening with shock. Her heart expanded with want as she watched his copper head tilt backwards and his handsome face light up like a clap of lightening in the inkiest sky. He looked, in that moment, like a carefree twenty-something with not a strain in the world. Her eyes widened. It was an amazingly good look on him and she knew, then and there, she had to see it again. And again and again. As his thumb roved over her jaw, his grey eyes were merry flames of a smouldering campfire.

"You know, people don't usually say things like that to me Miss Steele."

Despite herself and the trauma of the last few hours, a smile tugged at her lips.

"Maybe not to your face, Mr Grey."

His eyes widened and his acceding nod was humoured.

"That's a fair point. Which is strange, because I'm a very approachable, warm and funny guy. I love it when my employees tell me exactly what they don't like about me. I encourage it. It's the only way, don't you think?"

Her toothy grin was a morphine/fentanyl hybrid he would happily overdose on.

"I think you'd annihilate the first person who would dare."

His fingers roved over her plump limps as he smiled approvingly.

"You're a perceptive one."

She nuzzled into his wandering hand.

"Speaking of employees, technically speaking, I'm still your intern. A GEH minted minion. So where does this joint shower endeavour fit in your overall plan for entrepreneurial domination? Where do I fit into the mould?"

He bit his lip as he drank her in with a suddenly burning hunger.

"You don't."

She opened her mouth, her face falling, but he was quicker.

Her mouth was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. For him, the kiss was positively serene compared to his usual pursuits and his appreciation factor skyrocketed. For her, it was the first step in bricking up the gaping hole in her soul and she drank him in with an intensity that enraged her thudding pulse. When he broke away, his hand was gentle as it carded through her saturated mop of tangled hair.

"You've just broken the mould, baby."

…

TBC

A/N: Quick question – I was thinking of finishing this one off here, and starting a sequel i.e. Fifty Shades Darker – Rewritten which would eventually lead to Fifty Shades Freed – Rewritten. Would that be of any interest to you all, or would you prefer to see this one end here in total completion?

A/N Edit: Thanks for all your feedback guys! I've decided to end this one here, and take up Fifty Shades Darker - Rewritten in a while, after my other two remaining FSOG stories are a little nearer to completion. Eventually, I'll finish up with Fifty Shades Freed - Rewritten.

Thanks so much for all your feedback on this story! I really, really appreciate it.

Inks x

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