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

by Anna Roberts

  “No. The other one,” she says. “The one about Vincent Van Go.”

  “Gogh.”

  “Gesundheit.”

  The linguini must be cold by now. “Give me that fucking pasta,” I say. “She’ll eat it if I tell her to eat it – I’m her mother.”

  At the first sniff of pesto, Celestia starts screaming as though the creature from the Black Lagoon walked through the door. I offer her a forkful and use my most persuasive tone of voice, but her tiny fist comes up bang underneath the bowl and before I know it I’m wearing a dish of linguini Genovese. Kate doesn’t even attempt to hide her laughter.

  “Welcome to my life, shitlord,” she says.

  “Shut up. She’s clearly wheat intolerant,” I say, picking a noodle from my hair.

  “Shitlord,” mutters Celestia, and turns back to the local news.

  “Darling, don’t you want to watch cartoons?” I ask, and go to change the channel. The last thing I hear is Kate saying, “No, don’t touch that...” and then my ears are full of screaming.

  “WANNNNAAAAA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSS! NOOOOOOOS!”

  Kate changes the channel back. “Hanna, quit it,” she says. Or at least I think that’s what she says. My ears are still ringing.

  “Quit what? Being a parent?”

  “When did you even start? Leave her alone – she likes the news. She thinks your Mom’s going to be on TV again.”

  Celestia watches rapt as a bunch of masked protestors lurch into view behind the news reporter. My blood chills – Anonymous. What can it mean? One of the protestors waves and Celestia giggles. Maybe on some deep level she knows that her Daddy once owned a Guy Fawkes mask like that.

  The broadcast cuts back to the studio where Lauren Stein is flipping her silver-blonde hair and pouting. “Thanks, Blaine.” She shifts on the sofa and flashes her veneers. “And now,” she says. “We’re very lucky to be joined by a unique homegrown success story – author, entrepeneur...”

  “Whore,” says Kate.

  “Kate!”

  “What?”

  The camera pans back, revealing a petite brunette with cat’s eye glasses and too much lipstick. “...Jessica Waters,” Lauren says. “It’s a pleasure...”

  “No, the pleasure is all mine, Lauren.” Her voice is throaty, and oddly familiar.

  “Fuck this,” says Kate, and turns off the TV.

  “NOOOOOOOOO WANNNNNNNNA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS WANNA NOOS WANNA NOOS BACK WANNA WANNA WANNA!”

  “Kate! Get back here! What the hell did you do that for?”

  I switch the TV back on and rush after Kate, only to stop when I reach the kitchen to find my mother standing there with a stone-faced expression. On the kitchen table is my earring, covered in mud and some kind of unspeakable seagull goo. There are feathers on the floor. I’m guessing the gardener wasn’t clear on the meaning of the word ‘discreet’.

  My mother’s eyes fill with tears. “I don’t even know you any more, Hanna,” she says.

  “Maybe,” I say. “Could you pass the paper towels?”

  She shakes her head and storms off. Great. Just what I need. Hello? Missing half an ear here. Ugh. I’m not picking that earring up without some kind of tissue paper. Where the hell are the baby wipes?

  I go up to the nursery, a path that takes me directly past Bennett’s study. I hear a woman’s voice behind the door and gasp. Oh my God. Is he...could he be...?

  I fling open the door.

  Yes, he could. And yes, he is. The bastard.

  He’s standing there with both hands full of Betty Lasagne’s boobs.

  “Oh, hello Porkchop,” he says. “Could you pass me that Sharpie on the desk?”

  And right then I know – I know on some deep, visceral level – that it was him who painted smiley faces on my breasts that time in the South of France. That’s just the kind of perverted thing he’d find amusing.

  My eyes fill with tears. How could he do this to me? But no – I mustn’t cry. I must be cold and dignified. I must let him know that he can have any tramp in the world, but from henceforth he can no longer have me – because I am a lady.

  “Hi,” says Betty Lasagne, looking me up and down as if she wasn’t waggling her breasts in my husband’s face. “Do you mind me asking, but are yours teardrop or round?”

  I stare at her. “I...I...”

  “It’s right there, Hanna,” says Bennett, nodding towards a caddy of pens on the table.

  “I suppose,” I say, “It would kill you to take your hands off that slut’s breasts for five seconds, wouldn’t it?”

  “Now, wait a second...”

  I turn, my eyes blurring with tears. “I’m leaving you, you bastard!” I shout, over my shoulder, as I run up the stairs, trailing my shattered hopes and dreams behind me.

  It goes without saying that the gardener can whistle out his ass for that blow-job.

  Chapter Eight

  Now With 20% More Plot!

  The Penthouse.

  I've often dreamed of coming back here, but I never imagined I would. Now it seems that I have no choice. And let's face it, it's kind of an upgrade, considering my actual house is missing an entire wall.

  Kate wrangles the buggy through the doorway. Celestia sucks morosely on her pacifier.

  "I'm so glad I decided to keep Crispian's pomme de terre," I sigh, heading for the wine rack.

  "Potato," says Kate. I don’t know what’s wrong with her lately.

  Oh, how I've missed this. All my friends are here - Chablis, Sancerre, LaFitte. And sometimes Tia Maria comes round for coffee. I know it's going to be hard, being a single, high-powered businesswoman mother of a probably exceptional child, but I can do this. I blink, stemming the flow of brave tears that threaten to dislodge my lash-inserts. I am a strong, single mother. I am a strong, single mother - I repeat the mantra to myself over and over, pausing only when the sound of Gangnam Style interrupts me. Kate has opened her laptop and set it in front of Celestia.

  "Where's the TV remote?" asks Kate. "Otherwise you know what's going to happen and it's not going to be good."

  "I don't know," I say, opening the pantry door, only to find a firebreathing dragon behind it. I scream and close it quickly. The smell of my eyelashes hangs crisp and frizzly in the overheated air.

  "This place is still really poorly written, huh?" says Kate.

  I nod. "If anything, I think it's gotten worse. You're going to have to keep a very close eye on Celestia - make sure she doesn't end up in Narnia or crawl through the Stargate. I don't want to have to end up in the ER trying to explain how my baby ended up with a megalomaniacal alien parasite wrapped around her brainstem."

  "That would be bad," agrees Kate, and ruffles Celestia's orange hair. "Worse than that time you got worms from kissing Gangy's dog."

  "Claudia's dog has worms?" I say. "That little yippy rat thing?"

  "Yep."

  "Oh my God. That's hilarious. I can't wait to tell everyone at work."

  Kate sighs. "Yeah. Once again you miss the bigger picture, Hanna."

  She switches on the TV, but I am oblivious. I drift inexorably towards the drawing board that stands on a dais overlooking the giant window. Many was the night that Crispian sat here, moodily sketching in a world of his own. Many were the times the woman opposite screamed at him to put on some goddamn pants and stop touching himself. And I - many were the times I left our bed in the middle of the night and came to contemplate the mystery of him at his obsession, his poison, his My Little Ponys.

  Goddamn, it was gross.

  The drawing board stands locked, locked as it was on the day of our wedding. I don't know what happened to the key - I expect it's at the bottom of Puget Sound, along with his charred remains. He rarely let that key out of his sight. Once he told me it was the key to his heart, although really it was kind of the key to other, lower parts. Sometimes I think about hiring a locksmith to open the drawing board, but I know it's safer to remember him as he was.

  Good to see you'
ve finally developed enough common sense to know it's almost definitely full of pictures of anthropomorphic horse vaginas.

  - That too.

  My Inner Goddess nods and tangos past, a rose between her teeth. Shit's fucked up, she opines. I nod sagely.

  "I can't catch a break, can I?" I sigh, aloud.

  Kate looks around the luxury penthouse, looks me up and down from weave to Jimmy Choos and arches an eyebrow. She's such a pillar of strength. I sigh once more and gaze meaningfully out at the rainy city beyond. "My first husband is a pervert who draws dirty pictures of My Little Ponys and I find my second husband in the arms of a slutty architect."

  Kate gets up from the couch. "Yeah," she says, joining me at the window. "Run that by me again? What exactly went down with Mr. Beige and Betty Lorenzo?"

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  "Too bad. I want to know. And what is your problem with her, exactly?"

  I snort. "Um...hello? Have you seen her? Have you seen the way she looks at my husband? I think she's some kind of...social climber."

  "Says the girl who used to work at a toystore before she married the billionaire. Hanna, I don't mean to be rude..."

  "You do."

  "Okay, I do. But you know what I'm saying. When it comes to other women around your men you do kind of have a reputation for being batshit insane."

  Where is she even getting this? "I do not."

  "You do too. You attacked Crispian's attorney on your wedding day."

  I wave her away. "Okay, fine. I was a lot younger then. A lot less secure. And while his attorney was clearly a whore, maybe I was a little immoderate."

  "Immoderate? That's why there were no wedding photos - because you'd rolled in broken glass and you were bleeding..."

  "It wasn't like that, Kate. You weren't there. I walked past his study and Betty Lasagne was topless."

  "Whoa."

  "Exactly. He had his hands on her breasts. Her bare breasts."

  "Okay," says Kate. "That's maybe a thing. Did they see you? What did they say?"

  "They saw me. They didn’t even try to hide. He asked me – bold as brass - if I could pass him a marker pen.”

  Kate frowns. "When you say he had his hands on her breasts...how was he, like, handling the goods?"

  I hold my hands out over her chest to demonstrate. "Kind of like...that. Only squeezier."

  "And he wanted you to pass him a marker?"

  "Yes."

  "So he could draw on her boobs?"

  "Probably. It's the kind of thing he would do."

  "Yeah," says Kate, pushing my hands away from her breasts. "You don’t think it might have had something to do with his job? Him being a cosmetic surgeon and all?"

  "Oh please. It wasn't like that."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Of course I'm sure. If she wanted her breasts done then why didn't she just go to the clinic?"

  Kate sighs and wanders off to the kitchen. "Hanna, you're an idiot."

  I turn, stung. "I just left my husband," I say. "And he sold the company out from under me. Did I mention that?"

  “No,” says Kate, peering into the fridge. “But anyone could have seen that coming.”

  “I didn’t.”

  She closes the fridge door and gives me a long look. “Yeah.”

  “He said it was a money pit. Can you believe that?”

  Kate nods, slowly. “I kind of can, actually.”

  I sigh. “He should know I don’t need that kind of stress in my life right now. What if the new owners don’t like me for some reason?”

  “What reason? That you rarely show up for work and that when you do show up you’re really, really bad at it?”

  “You’re not exactly being supportive,” I say.

  She narrows her eyes her eyes. “Oh, well, fucking forgive me, Princess Pigtails Tittyfuck. What do you want me to say? That’s it’s a goddamn tragedy that your dirty-rich husband bought you an independent publisher to play with like it was your own personal ballpit? Yeah, boo-hoo, Hanna – my heart bleeds tears of purest purple piss for you.”

  Kate stomps off and slams the guest bathroom door behind her, only to emerge a moment later with an angry mob at her back. "Fucking Oompa-Loompas," she says, struggling to close the door on a tiny orange hand and foot. "Get a better union!" She shuts the door. "Assholes."

  "Assholes," says Celestia.

  I hurry to my child and cover her tender ears. "Can you please watch your language around my daughter?"

  She folds her arms and shrugs. "I don't know. Can you draw me up a contract and pay me a reasonable rate for full time childcare and provide a full medical and severance package in the event of unemployment?"

  I blink. "Is that a rhetorical question?"

  "Damn straight. I know you're too tight-fisted."

  "Kate..."

  "Don't look at me like that. The only reason you're not facing a workplace tribunal is because your life is an unending trainwreck that makes me feel slightly better about my own shitty existence."

  I sigh. "Look, I understand that you miss Jesús..."

  "Miss Jesús?" She laughs. "I fucking hate Jesús. He stole my Sasquatch Gangbang idea without even giving me credit..."

  "Will you keep your voice down? She's two years old. She's not supposed to hear that kind of language. Or call people shitlords. You've...broken her."

  Kate pours herself a large vodka and frowns. "Broken her? She's a child, Hanna - your child. Not a malfunctioning fucking Furby. Maybe you should try to talking to her for a change."

  I glance over at my daughter. What on earth am I supposed to say to her? It's not like we have anything in common. My BlackBerry rings, but as I reach to grab it Kate smacks my knuckles with a wooden spoon and gestures me over to the TV, where Celestia sits with one finger firmly lodged up her nose. I kneel beside her and attempt to look interested in CNN. She smells of sugar. Her hands are small and without even touching them I know they're going to be sticky. I can feel Kate's sarcastic gaze boring into my back, so I seek inspiration in the collection of brightly coloured toys that Celestia played with for all of about five minutes before boredom set in.

  "So," I murmur. "I hear that cows go 'moo' now."

  She sniffs hard.

  "Did you hear that dogs go 'woof?'" I seize on a diaper bag covered in colourful numbers and letters. "And that counting is a thing that some children like to do. Do you like to count, Celestia?"

  She sniffs again and makes a face that might be extreme concentration but might also be something vaguely downstairs in nature. I hope not. The first time she did that I fainted twice while trying to clean her up. I never realised something so small could smell so bad. "Assholes," she says, slowly, with a smile on her face.

  I get to my feet and throw up my hands. "You see?" I say. "See what I have to work with here?"

  Kate laughs. "Yeah. You're a terrible mother."

  I can feel tears sting my eyes once more. "Oh God. Maybe I am. Maybe I've just been so wrapped up in my career..."

  "What career?" says Kate, sloshing out another vodka. "You haven't been to work in a week."

  I ignore her and grab my BlackBerry. Fifteen messages. Ten from Bennett, four from the gardener and one...oh my God...one from ANONYMOUS.

  HI. ME AGAIN. I JUST KIDNAPPED YOUR SISTER-IN-LAW.

  I nearly faint my way into another section break, but Kate takes the BlackBerry from me and helpfully drops an ice-cube down the front of my blouse, jarring me back to full consciousness. I clutch the side of the breakfast bar, unable to believe that this is happening - again. Why me?

  "Hanna," says Kate, scrolling through my messages. "Why is the gardener under the impression that you're about to go over there and smoke his pole?"

  Fear threatens to overwhelm me. I grab the vodka bottle and pour a generous measure into my mouth. "It doesn't matter," I say. "It's happening again. The cryptic messages."

  "In what universe is 'I just kidnapped your sister-in-law' cryptic?" sa
ys Kate. "Seems pretty explicit to me."

  "No," I gasp. "No. It's bound to be a code. Like all those cryptic threatening text messages from Timothy Grope in book two. Don't you remember?"

  Kate blinks slowly at me. "Hanna, those weren't cryptic messages. Those were titles of classic works of literature published after 1950. You know - after you told him you never read anything later than 1950. Because you're a dumbass." She fiddles with the BlackBerry. "Whatever happened to him, anyway? He was kind of cute for a hipster, and I don't usually find red-haired men attractive..."

  "He disappeared mysteriously. Around about the time of the helicopter crash."

  Kate turns to look at Celestia. "Yeah. Around about the time you got pregn...ohhh my God." She covers her hand with her mouth. Finally she realises exactly how serious this is.

  "What am I going to do?" I moan.

  "I don't know. Maybe call the police and tell them someone's kidnapped Alicia? Assuming you want El Fupacabra back, of course. I mean, I'd totally understand if you didn't."

  I snatch back my BlackBerry and scowl. "I'm not going to call the police. That's clearly what they want me to do. What part of cryptic message did you not understand?"

  "The part where they spelled out HI, I'VE KIDNAPPED YOUR SISTER-IN-LAW in big, block capitals?"

  I shake my head. I don't need this right now. "It's clearly some kind of code, Kate. I need to go to bed. It's time for a section break and maybe I'll have a symbolic dream that will solve the mystery once and for all."

  Gathering up my purse and my earrings, I head for my bedroom. Kate's voice floats down the hallway. "So you don't want to call the police?"

  "No!"

  "Okay. Are you sure?"

  "Yes!"

  "Okay then. Goodnight."

  "Goodnight!"

  "Hey Hanna?"

  "What?"

  "Is it cool if I text the gardener back? He wants to know if you're wearing panties. Do I tell him no?"

  "Do what you like," I say, and close the door behind me.

  I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of sketching. My heart twists with a strange yet familiar yearning. Dangling a participle over the side of the bed, I sit up, stirred by the unmistakable sound of a 2B pencil scratching at the drawing board.