Fifty Shades Trilogy 03 - Fifty Shades Freed
grins. I’m replete and sleepy. Was this his plan?
“You look tired.” He picks up my tray.
“I am.”
“Good. Sleep.” He kisses me. “I have some work I need to do. I’ll do it in here if that’s okay with you.”
I nod . . . fighting a losing battle with my eyelids. I had no idea chicken stew could be so exhausting.
It’s dusk when I wake. Pale pink light floods the room. Christian is sitting in the armchair, watching me, gray eyes luminous in the ambient light. He’s clutching some papers. His face is ashen.
Holy cow! “What’s wrong?” I ask immediately, sitting up and ignoring my protesting ribs.
“Welch has just left.”
Oh shit. “And?”
“I lived with the fucker,” he whispers.
“Lived? With Jack?”
He nods, eyes wide.
“You’re related?”
“No. Good God, no.”
I shuffle over and pull the duvet back, inviting him into bed beside me, and to my surprise he doesn’t hesitate. He kicks off his shoes and slides in alongside me. Wrapping one arm around me, he curls up, resting his head in my lap. I’m stunned. What’s this?
“I don’t understand,” I murmur, running my fingers through his hair and gazing down at him. Christian closes his eyes and furrows his brow as if he’s straining to remember.
“After I was found with the crack whore, before I went to live with Carrick and Grace, I was in the care of Michigan State. I lived in a foster home. But I can’t remember anything about that time.”
My mind reels. A foster home? This is news to both of us.
“For how long?” I whisper.
“Two months or so. I have no recollection.”
“Have you spoken to your mom and dad about it?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you should. Maybe they could fill in the blanks.”
He hugs me tightly. “Here.” He hands me the papers, which turn out to be two photographs. I reach over and switch on the bedside light so I can examine them in detail. The first photo is of a shabby house with a yellow front door and a large gabled window in the roof. It has a porch and a small front yard. It’s an unremarkable house.
The second photo is of a family—at first glance, an ordinary blue-collar family—a man and his wife, I think, and their children. The adults are both dressed in dowdy, overwashed blue T-shirts. They must be in their forties. The woman has scraped-back blond hair, and the man a severe buzz-cut, but they are both smiling warmly at the camera. The man has his hand draped over the shoulders of a sullen teenage girl. I gaze at each of the children: two boys—identical twins, about twelve—both with sandy blond hair, grinning broadly at the camera; there’s another boy, who’s smaller, with reddish blond hair, scowling; and hiding behind him, a copper-haired gray-eyed little boy. Wide-eyed and scared, dressed in mismatched clothes, and clutching a child’s dirty blanket.
Fuck. “This is you,” I whisper, my heart lurching into my throat. I know Christian was four when his mother died. But this child looks much younger. He must have been severely malnourished. I stifle a sob as tears spring to my eyes. Oh, my sweet Fifty.
Christian nods. “That’s me.”
“Welch brought these photos?”
“Yes. I don’t remember any of this.” His voice is flat and lifeless.
“Remember being with foster parents? Why should you? Christian, it was a long time ago. Is this what’s worrying you?”
“I remember other things, from before and after. When I met my mom and dad. But this . . . It’s like there’s a huge chasm.”
My heart twists and understanding dawns. My darling control freak likes everything in its place, and now he’s learned he’s missing part of the jigsaw.
“Is Jack in this picture?”
“Yes, he’s the older kid.” Christian’s eyes are still screwed shut, and he’s clinging to me as if I’m a life raft. I run my fingers through his hair while I gaze at the older boy who is glaring, defiant and arrogant, at the camera. I can see it’s Jack. But he’s just a kid, a sad eight- or nine-year-old, hiding his fear behind his hostility. A thought occurs to me.
“When Jack called to tell me he had Mia, he said if things had been different, it could have been him.”
Christian closes his eyes and shudders. “That fucker!”
“You think he did all this because the Greys adopted you instead of him?”
“Who knows?” Christian’s tone is bitter. “I don’t give a fuck about him.”
“Perhaps he knew we were seeing each other when I
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