Fifty Shades Trilogy 03 - Fifty Shades Freed

and leads me out of the room. “They need the privacy more than we do,” Christian murmurs. “We’ll have our fun later.”
    Outside Taylor is waiting patiently. “Let’s all go get coffee and doughnuts.”

    At four o’clock precisely there’s a knock on the suite door. Taylor ushers in Detective Clark, who looks more bad-tempered than usual. He always seems to look bad-tempered. Perhaps it’s the way his face is set.
    “Mr. Grey, Mrs. Grey, thank you for seeing me.”
    “Detective Clark.” Christian shakes his hand and directs him to a seat. I sit down on the sofa where I enjoyed myself so much last night. The thought makes me blush.
    “It’s Mrs. Grey I wish to see,” Clark says pointedly to Christian and to Taylor stationed beside the door. Christian glances then nods almost imperceptibly at Taylor who turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him.
    “Anything you wish to say to my wife you can say in front of me.” Christian’s voice is cool and businesslike. Detective Clark turns to me.
    “Are you sure you’d like your husband to be present?”
    I frown at him. “Of course. I have nothing to hide. You are just interviewing me?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “I’d like my husband to stay.”
    Christian sits beside me, radiating tension.
    “All right,” murmurs Clark, resigned. He clears his throat. “Mrs. Grey, Mr. Hyde maintains that you sexually harassed him and made several lewd advances toward him.”
    Oh! I almost burst out laughing, but put my hand on Christian’s thigh to restrain him as he shifts forward in his seat.
    “That’s preposterous,” Christian splutters. I squeeze Christian’s leg to silence him.
    “That’s not true,” I state calmly. “In fact, it was the other way around. He propositioned me in a very aggressive manner, and he was fired.”
    Detective Clark’s mouth flattens briefly into a thin line before he continues.
    “Hyde alleges that you fabricated a tale about sexual harassment in order to get him fired. He says that you did this because he refused your advances and because you wanted his job.”
    I frown. Holy crap . Jack is even more delusional than I thought.“That’s not true.” I shake my head.
    “Detective, please don’t tell me you have driven all this way to harass my wife with these ridiculous accusations.”
    Detective Clark turns his steely blue glare on Christian. “I need to hear this from Mrs. Grey, sir,” he says with quiet restraint. I squeeze Christian’s leg once more, silently imploring him to keep his cool.
    “You don’t have to listen to this shit, Ana.”
    “I think I should let Detective Clark know what happened.”
    Christian gazes at me impassively for a beat then waves his hand in a gesture of resignation.
    “What Hyde says is simply not true.” My voice sounds calm, although I feel anything but. I’m bewildered by these accusations and nervous that Christian might explode. What’s Jack’s game? “Mr. Hyde accosted me in the office kitchen one evening. He told me that it was thanks to him that I had been hired and that he expected sexual favors in return. He tried to blackmail me, using e-mails that I’d sent to Christian, who wasn’t my husband then. I didn’t know Hyde had been monitoring my e-mails. He’s delusional—he even accused me of being a spy sent by Christian, presumably to help him take over the company. He didn’t know that Christian had already bought SIP.” I shake my head as I recall my distressing, tense encounter with Hyde.
    “In the end, I-I took him down.”
    Clark’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “Took him down?”
    “My father is ex-army. Hyde . . . um, touched me, and I know how to defend myself.”
    Christian glances at me with a brief look of pride.
    “I see.” Clark leans back on the sofa, sighing heavily.
    “Have you spoken to any of Hyde’s former PAs?” Christian asks almost genially.
    “Yes, we have. But the truth is we can’t get any of his assistants to talk to us. They all say he was an exemplary boss, even though none of them lasted more than three months.”
    “We’ve had that problem, too,” Christian murmurs.
    Oh? I gape at Christian as does Detective Clark.
    “My security chief. He’s interviewed Hyde’s past five PAs.”
    “And why’s that?”
    Christian gives him a steely glare. “Because my wife worked for him, and I run security checks on anyone my wife works with.”
    Detective Clark flushes. I shrug apologetically at him with a