T h i r t e e n-6

"Are you mocking me?" I raise an eyebrow. "Mocking you Christian Grey? Never. Absolutely not. I wouldn't dare." She smiles. Neither of us speaks for a few moments, the silence comfortable and soothing. "Well you seem to be doing better than you were a few hours ago. I'm glad." I say as I sip my wine. "Do I?" She looks surprised. "Well that's good. Appearances are everything. At least that's what my father would say," She holds her glass up as though in celebration before lowering it to her mouth again. "And how is the good senator coping with the news?" "Haven't broken it to him yet, he's in Washington, but he'll be devastated I'm sure. He loved Matthew like a... Well, nothing. He hated him." She shakes her head and runs her hands through her hair. "Will you tell him all of it?" I raise my eyebrows. She bites her lip. "Probably. Makes sense to. I've been coached on a lifetime of full disclosure. Don't want him getting any nasty surprises. Although telling him my husband, who he never liked, was blackmailing me over a threesome I had with my college boyfriend and his friend?? - not exactly filling me with enthusiasm." She shakes her head and sips from her glass. "Need to be extremely drunk for that one I should think. I'll do it over dinner. After he's eaten though." She laughs softly. I'd only seen Charlie's father once in person. He'd made a highly publicised visit to campus during a campaign - a tall statesman like man with salt and pepper hair and an air of confidence that had impressed me at that age. I was impressionable back then. Handsome and affable, I'd always thought he'd make a decent president if he ever decided to run one day. And since he was a successful democrat with an unblemished political career it may well be a possibility. She'd introduced him to me briefly that day, and he'd been polite enough but didn't pay me much attention - no reason for him to I suppose. Her mother had died when she was very young and she had no siblings so he was all she had. And vice versa. No, I wouldn't relish being in the room when Charlie brought him up to speed about the details surrounding her divorce. Though I'd be there if she asked me to be. Why the fuck would she ask you to be? "He's running again?" "Of course. It's his life. He doesn't have anything else." "He has you," She gives me a heavy look. "Lucky him," "Don't do that Charlie." I warn. Anyone would be lucky to have her. I would be. I didn't deserve her. She lowers her eyes, before running a hand through her hair again. "Why did you come here Christian?" She asks. "You wanted to talk?" "I came to ask you not to go," I say. The words are out before I've even thought about their impact. What they meant. She lifts her eyes and stares at me hard, her expression utterly inscrutable. "You promised you wouldn't ask me to stay." She says finally. "Technically I didn't ask you to stay... I asked you not to go'." I smile. Her mouth softens as she continues to stare at me, her soft dark waves framing her delicately beautiful face. Without a shadow of a doubt I am in awe of her. Gideon was right about that. I'm in awe of her strength, her intelligence, her bravery, her passion, her beauty. I always had been. Nothing had changed. Gideon was right about that too. "You know what I keep thinking?" she asks, tearing me from my thoughts. "I keep thinking that if this had never happened then we'd have never seen each other again. If Matt hadn't sent those stupid packages then we would literally have gone our whole lives without laying eyes on each other again. Doesn't that seem strange to you?" I swallow my wine and try and digest that. "Strange isn't the word I'd use..." I mutter. In fact I'd use horrifying. Frightening. Unthinkable. "Ok, maybe not strange but it's true isn't it. Doesn't that make you think that whatever this is, is simply the product of nostalgia and a few stolen days in New York?" "No. I don't." I state firmly. She looks at me a long moment before speaking. "Then what is it Christian?" she asks, pleads almost. "Tell me? Because I can't get my head around it." "What does it feel like Charlie?" She lets out a breath and stares at me a long time before dropping her eyes to look into her glass instead. "I meant what I said before," she says not looking up. "About understanding that life isn't a fairytale. About people not living happily ever after. I'm a realist, you know that, I know we can't have that. I think that's why I need to go." She lifts her head and meets my eyes. "That's why I should go." I narrow my eyes. Is she saying she should go because of me? That she was running from me? From us? From any possibility of us? Because we couldn't have the fairytale? "What if we could?" I state. Without taking my eyes from hers. "Could what?" she looks confused. "What if we could have the fairytale?" I say.