anted. But doing this doesn’t mean I love you
less. You are the world to me.” My throat swells and tears prick the back of
my eyes. I must not cry, not here. I repeat it over and over in my head. I must
not cry. I must not cry.
He stares at me, saying nothing. Then a frown crosses his face as if he’s
considering what I’ve said.
“I suffocate you?” His voice is bleak, and it’s an echo of a question he’s
asked me before.
“No . . . yes . . . no.” This is such an exasperating conversation—not one that I
want to ha一ve now, here. I close my eyes and rub my forehead, trying to
fathom how we got to this.
“Look, we were talking about my name. I want to keep my name here
because I want to put some distance between you and me . . . but only here,
that’s all. You know everyone thinks I got the job because of you, when the
reality is—” I stop, when his eyes widen. Oh no . . . it is because of him?
“Do you want to know why you got the job, Anastasia?”
Anastasia? Shit. “What? What do you mean?”
He shifts in his chair as if steeling himself. Do I want to know?
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Fifty Shades Freed
“The management here ga一ve you Hyde’s job to babysit. They didn’t want the
expense of hiring a senior executive when the company was mid-sale. They
had no idea what the new owner would do with it once it passed into his
ownership, and wisely, they didn’t want an expensive redundancy. So they
ga一ve you Hyde’s job to caretake until the new owner” —he pauses, and his
lips twitch in an ironic smile—“namely me, took over.”
Holy crap! “What are you saying?” So it was because of him. Fuck!
I’m horrified.
He smiles and shakes his head at my alarm. “Relax. You’ve more than risen
to the challenge. You’ve done very well.” There’s the tiniest hint of pride in his
voice, and it’s almost my undoing.
“Oh,” I murmur incoherently, reeling from this news. I sit right back in my chair,
open-mouthed, staring at him. He shifts again.
“I don’t want to suffocate you, Ana. I don’t want to put you in a gilded cage.
Wel
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