Grey Clouds On The Horizon

New Beginnings

Ana's POV

"Em, are you ready to go?" I asked, lightly placing my hand on her shoulder and being surprised that she didn't jump. If I had been touched when I was as far off into space as she was, I would have at the bare minimum been a little startled. "Emilia?"

Her slender fingers, somehow both elegant like a woman's and dimpled like a child's, reached up and wove through my own. "Yes, Mrs Grey. I'm ready." Her gaze did not pull away from where she stared over Seattle.

"Are you going to miss it here?" I asked, hoping to comfort her.

She shook her head and turned towards me. "No, not this place. There are too many bad memories here.  I could only ever miss the view."

* * *

My hands rested on my belly while I rode in the back seat. It was fairly nice out for early spring, but I struggled to enjoy the sunshine. The green eyed monster of jealousy clawed at the lump in my throat, accompanied by the worry of a mother that had possessed me and fixated on the girl. I worried what Christian and Em could get themselves into while I was out of the house.

Watching them since she'd come home left me wondering how they could have ever been a functional pairing. His deep seeded anger towards her manifested in the throwing of daggers every time she so much as shifted in her seat or chose not to be silent. Then her fear of rejection, which manifested in tip toeing around us both, going overboard to impress with gourmet meals and putting a vase of fresh flowers on nearly every table in the house, only showed me that she'd been cast aside before. Yet they were connected, never too far from one another.

Sawyer dropped me off out front reluctantly, knowing the I didn't have the strength or balance to walk very far from a parking spot. It was brunch, after all? What could go wrong?

"Elliott?" I asked, not knowing he was joining us. "It's great to see you. I had no idea you were coming with."

Like a guilty puppy, he avoided my gaze and gesturesd for me to sit down. "Ana, just take a seat." I cocked my head to the side with confusion but I obliged, my swollen feet needing a rest. "Grace and Kate aren't coming. They never were coming. I just needed to talk to you and I wasn't sure that I'd get another chance."

"Huh?" I asked, my brain swimming. "Why didn't you just come by the house?"

"Because maybe not now but soon, when I see my brother, he is going to have questions for me that I'm not ready to answer. That doesn't mean I don't have valuable information for you."

"Like?"

"You've met Emilia, I'm sure. Especially since she's living with you and Christin at Escala."

"I have."

"Well that doesn't mean you know her. Em is one of those people that it would take a lifetime to get even a decent read on. For example, my brother thinks that he's going to bring her into your marriage and have this sexy romance he missed the first time around but that's not possible with em."

"Why?"

"She's petrified of sex, for starters. I've known her to have romantic partners but never sexual ones, besides when Delilah was conceived. Sex isn't an interest of hers, it something she endures. Emilia prefers loyalty and companionship. Which is good I guess. In that way, you don't really have much to worry about. She's not going to take Christian away from you."

"Are you kidding me?"

"What?" His big innocent eyes gaping back at me.

"Are you expecting me to believe I shouldn't be threatened by a woman that's wanting to spend her life with my husband? Sharing our home and our bed and our children?"