This is the beginning! Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive of my version of Darker. I read your comments and I am truly grateful for your love of the story. Here starts Freed...

"I fear we've made a terrible mistake," I say to Flynn, as I pace the floor in his office. The wood creaks as I watch my footsteps imprint—one by one—on his mock mid seventies shag. It's so mock, it's early twenty-first century Pier One. Each knotted snag representing my failures as a fiancé, and his at tasteful decor. There is doubt. Confusion. And that damn laughing Buddha on Flynn's mantle stares at me in my anguish... "The wedding is just three weeks off and... well, I think we rushed into this decision." I run a hand through my hair and pull. "And I fear it's too late to back out of it now."

"Really?" Flynn scribbles on his session notes, eyes following me like I'm a lab rat on a wheel. And not the healthy placebo pumped set, the ones who've been subjected to multiple genetically manipulated brain eating diseases. "But you seemed so sure last week."

"I was," I say in great despair. "We were both so excited, new to all of this, and I really just think we jumped the gun."

Flynn eyes me as I prop my elbows on the mantle in front of Buddha, then bury my head in my hands in anguish. "I don't think I can go through with it."

"Christian, it's cake," he finally says, after fixing his bespectacled eyeballs my way for far too long. "I know it's disappointing to feel you've made a less than favorable decision on the centerpiece for the wedding reception, but for what it's worth, I'm sure your lemon cake will be lovely."

"Lovely?" I pull my head from my hands, my hair mussed, as I glare at him. Buddha still laughs. "Are you crazy? Lemons aren't lovely. They're sour and they clean furniture... They represent broken down mistakes and children peddling sugar soaked outcomes of them for pennies on brown summer lawns."

"For what it's worth, I've always encouraged people to take any lemons life hands them and make lemonade." He chuckles.

"Nobody who actually has lemons handed to them believes that psycho-babble." I shake my head. "Why do you think they call old cars lemons? Because they don't work. They're untrusted. Who wants their wedding cake to be synonymous with road failure?"

He shakes his head, biting his lip to stop more of his mirth from my misery to escape. "I don't think that should be a chief concern," he says, shifting in his seat now to get a more judgmental view.

"Oh, I get it, you think it's ridiculous that I'm having panic attacks over our wedding cake. But this is serious." I clench my jaw as I think back to that fateful day at the Le Glacé Bakery. "We were strong armed by this French hotshot baker fucker with this lavender lemon lace tower. He said lemon is a thing in France. But he was fucking lying. Lemon isn't a thing anywhere."

"Lavender lemon?" Flynn asks.

"He said it made it unique and special." I scoff.

"Well, doesn't it?"

"Lavender doesn't make anything special but bath water," I say.

And now I'm thinking of bathing with Ana...

"This was the highly decorated pastry chef, correct?" Flynn asks. "The one whose clients with long held appointments you paid off to get  to the top spot in line."

"Yes, that's the criminal," I say, with the bitter remnants of spa infused lemon on my tongue. That pastry chef recommended by Mia and adored by my wedding team— Pascal St. Germaine. What a pompous shit. "I was having so much fun shoving sample cakes into Ana's mouth I couldn't think straight. I just said yes, yes, yes. And then we fucked so good afterwards, that solidified our love soaked decision."

"Christian, trust me, no one will remember the cake," he says. "It's eaten and it's gone."

"Gone?" I scoff. "You know they freeze these things for you to eat a year later on your anniversary? How the hell is Ana supposed to feel about me, and about our marriage, if she bites into year old disappointment?"

He bows his head and shakes it, rubbing his brow.

"She doesn't like lemon?" he asks, looking up at me again.

"She likes it fine now. But she's still good enough to believe in your lemonade mythology."

"And she won't be good enough to believe in it a year from now?"

"She'll have lived with a lemon a year, what do you think?"

Flynn adjusts his wire rims and peeks down at the page he's been writing on in my thick file. I know I'm in trouble when he flips it over and has trouble finding room.

"Christian, you've been here three times this week alone. Once, bemoaning the lobster bisque in the catering selection—"

"They tried to fuck me over with mixed crustacean! That's not lobster. That's shrimp fraud."

"Yes, and another, going on at length about your issues with the dusty rose aisle drapings..." he reads from his notes.

"They looked like flesh colored ball sacks. Who gets married walking past ball sacks." It's bad enough Kavanagh has to walk past me. I throw up my arms and nearly knock Buddha down.

"It sounds like your life is consumed with wedding details at the moment," he says.

That's the fucking understatement of the year. It's so under, it's over my dead body from all the planning. I won't even tell him—or Ana— about my thrice daily meetings with Keely and Armando. I have them come to my work, at special hours and times. Ros is furious with me. I've canceled meetings with whole industries just to make sure there are classy vegetables in the passed crudités and Ana's wedding lingerie is properly hand stitched by an old woman in France.

"Of course I'm consumed. The wedding is practically tomorrow." I bring a fist to my chin. "There's no time."

"And you're worried you won't be satisfied?" He pushes his glasses back from the tip of his nose and folds his hands over his crossed knees. He's so enthralled, his held pen nearly inks his mustard trousers.

"Not me—Ana!" I say, clenching my fists. "If I get one thing wrong..."

"What will happen?" he asks, eyeballs scanning me.

What will happen...

"She'll remember our wedding day as a disaster," I say.

"And?" he asks.

"And that's not fucking enough?" I say. 

Buddha still laughs. Everyone thinks he's always happy. Quite the contrary, he's a sadistic fuck. And I know sadistic fucks.

"And you think eating this lemon cake, or this mixed crustacean bisque, will make her believe that your wedding, and your marriage, is a failure?"

"You forgot about the ball sacks," I say.

"My mistake." He holds up a hand.

"I don't know, what she really likes is chocolate. Lemon feels so contrary to chocolate." I pull at my hair again. "It's definitely contrary to vanilla. That's our new favorite flavor."

He runs his fingers over his chin. The fucker is growing a beard. I think he's trying to look like Freud.

"How is Ana dealing with all of this?" he asks, watching as I roll a penny that's been discarded on the mantle right into Buddha's belly. Slam fucking dunk.

Buddha still laughs.

Fucker.

"She's fine," I say. "Perfect, actually." I think of how perfect she actually is and smile.

"So she's happy with how the planning is going?" he asks.

"Now she is... or so she says. I don't know..."

"There's doubt?" He re-crosses his legs and tips back into his springy chair. The boinging back and forth against the cigar leathered back irritates me.

"She's young... New to what poor bakery decisions involve..." I say.

"And you're not?" he asks.

"I've lived with the fact that I'm a lemon for years."

"Christian..." he adjusts his spectacles again. "Perhaps cake and all the trappings aren't your real concern. Maybe your real trepidation lies in the fact that you're nervous about actually getting married.

"No!" I answer quickly and whole heartedly. "I'm absolutely sure of that. Not a doubt. I would've married her yesterday in Vegas if she'd do it—and the chapels didn't have so much Elvis involved."

"Then why all the worry?" he asks.

"Ana wants a real wedding. Like all those British fairy stories... She deserves that. And I want to give it to her." I look at him with gut held sincerity. "I need Ana to have a perfect day!"

"What will happen if she doesn't?" he asks.

I stop and look at the wall I'm facing. It's an odd shade of brown and has cracks and reminds me of a toilet. "I'm not sure..." I say. "And that's what really fucking scares me."

"You think she'll leave you?" he says.

"I don't know... No, not right away. Ana is a girl who believes in things... But what happens when the day comes that I burst that sweet naïveté. What happens when all she sees is me and the aftertaste of disappointment."

"It sounds like you think you won't be happy," he says as he scribbles some more notes.

"No, I'll be happy if she's with me. That's not a question. What I fear is that she won't be happy. With me."

"And somehow the cake will make her sure of this?"

"Remembering you tasted lemons on your wedding day sort of sets a stage for things."

He rubs his brow. Fucker is exasperated. At $400 an hour he should only be frustrated if the check doesn't go through.

"She's moved in full time now?" he asks, expectantly.

"Yes," I say. Why is he eyeing me?

"How is that going?" he asks, so nonchalant, it's definitely the fuck chalant.

"It's wonderful," I say with a shrug, because it is.

"It hasn't been an adjustment?" he asks.

"Well, I have to allow thirty or forty extra minutes for us to have sex in the morning, so I've been missing my trainer. But I make it up with afternoon sessions."

He leans back, brow arching skyward. "You know, you've been alone for many, many years. You've never shared your bathroom or your bed. A woman in your home, and in your bedroom—even if it's wonderful— isn't that something to get used to?"

"No, not at all," I shoot back. He doesn't look like he believes me. "I'm serious. It's taken no time. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. There's no getting used to it. There's just craving it."

"How so?"

"She's there," I say. "I love waking up wrapped around her, and when I'm getting dressed, seeing her things mingled with mine is.... That's the best. I never knew blouses on hangers next to my suits, and scattered heels all over my loafers, would make me feel so fucking good. It's like all the stuff I put in these closets really belongs to someone."

"Very romantic," he says and quickly measures my comfort level with the latter word.

"That's the crazy thing. I like being romantic," I say, pacing again and then settling on a park view through his window. "I thought I couldn't do all that, but I like that I can buy her flowers and write her a flirty email to tell her how much I miss her, even though we just saw each other at breakfast and I'm at a 10am meeting. I like her curling up in a ball in my lap when we're watching The Notebook. She loves that movie but she always falls asleep before the end. I always stay awake and hold her, and watch them die."

"The Notebook?" he asks.

"It's really an excellent film." Truth be told, it's my new favorite. "I always picture Ana and I, and hope for that same fate."

"Death?" he says.

"No! I mean, yes... When we're a hundred and two. It would be nice to live a full life with her and then hold each other at the end. I'd want to go just a minute before her. So I could still give her the comfort of my arms but I wouldn't know what it was like to be without her."

"Wow," he says, jaw slack. "I've never heard you talk like this before."

"I've never felt like this—or watched The Notebook before. Now I think I've watched it twelve times." I sniff back some emotion and look at him. "And I tell you, every time is like the first."

"What about the playroom?" he asks.

"What about it?"

"Have you re-visited it since your birthday?"

"No," I say emphatically, waving a hand, as I look out Flynn's picture window. Some snot nosed boy in the park thinks I'm waving at him and he waves back. So does his mother...

"Why not?" he asks. "She's intimated that she'd be open to it. That she'd like to explore it with you."

"I don't fucking want to," I say, knotting my hands up. "I mean, I do want to —eventually—but it's strange, John. My whole life I believed I needed it and that something like this wouldn't be good or enough. But I'm telling you, we have made love every morning and every night— and sometimes at my office at lunch if I'm lucky— and yeah it's vanilla, but it feels fucking thirty-one flavors. It's so good the way it is. I don't want anything about my playroom, or my old life, to fuck it up."

"Make love?" he asks, chewing on the letters. "That's a new choice of wording."

"That's what it is," I say. "Even when I fuck her hard, it's making love. I know it sounds sappy, but it's true. And I'm not ashamed to be a sap. Especially after I've watched James Garner on repeat."

"So you're satisfied with your new arrangement?" He steeples his fingers under his chin. "You've said time and again how you couldn't ever be satisfied with something like this."

"Elena always said that," I say as I push away from the window and walk the line of the shag.

"And how does what she told you make you feel?" he asks.

"Like she was lying to me," I say in ill revelation.

"Why do you think she lied to you?" he asks.

"I'm still working that out in my head..." I say.

I can still hear Elena's words from that dinner we had when Ana was in Georgia. She won't ever be your proper submissive... you need a woman who knows what you really need... silly girls ruin successful men."

"That's why I went," I say. "To Georgia. Elena told me that if I saw her with her family, in a neutral environment, and not as a submissive, I'd rethink things. So I went and the second I laid eyes on her I knew Elena was wrong."

"How so?" he asks.

"I went there and I saw her and her mother drinking...  And that was against the rules but I didn't fucking care. She was just so beautiful. And I realized how much I had missed her. Not just sex, but her laugh and her sassy comebacks. I really didn't care about the contract anymore. I told her that. That I didn't care if she signed it. I just wanted to talk with her and sleep with her—and soar with her." I run a hand down my face, stopping at my chin. "If Leila hadn't come back and did what she did..." I rub my chin. "How is she—Leila, I mean?"

"She still won't talk," he says.

"She's still so frightened," I say.

"Yes," he says.

I sigh in frustration.

"But the drugs are out of her system. She's clean. She's making progress," he says.

"Good," I say.

"How about the nightmares?" he asks.

"I don't have them," I say simply.

"None at all?"

"I haven't had them since Ana left me briefly. I sleep through the night and I feel safe..." I swallow. "I wrote her a letter..."

"Ana?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"After the crash. I thought I might never see her again. I had to tell her..."

"What?"

"I hadn't changed my will. I was terrified... Not of dying out there, but that she'd be left with nothing. So I made a makeshift one and had Ros sign it. I left it on the seat of the cockpit."

"What exactly did you leave her?"

"Everything. The businesses, the homes—our home that she didn't know about yet. All of it. It still didn't feel enough. I just had to tell her... more than anything I've ever done or achieved, that loving her was the best. It's all I wanted, in that dire moment that I thought could've been my last, to be remembered for. I wanted eternity, and the universe, and my grave to know that I loved Ana."

I take a breath and emotion deposits on my cheek. I wipe it away with a handkerchief in my pocket. It has a smear of her lipstick on it. I smile.

"She loves you," he says, watching me foolishly grin at the pink splotched cloth. "From our sessions, I've seen it clearly. And, from a professional viewpoint, I don't think a poor choice in wedding cake will change that. In fact, she's spoken in our joint sessions about her belief that she will disappoint you."

"That's nonsense." I wave him off.

"Don't negate her feelings, Christian. She needs encouragement and assurance just as much as you right now."

"She has me, John. I'm unwavering. She's the one who could change her mind, not me."

"Why do you think that?"

I pace and then sit in the middle of the sofa where Ana and I had sat a few weeks ago. I had sat there a million times before in sessions, but somehow all that has gone away. Her and I together on the tattered leather is all that remains.

"We have to go to counseling this afternoon ..." I say.

"With who?" Flynn asks, I'm sure worried about his own dime. No Flynn, not another shrink.

"The church," I say. "Pastor Walsh requires it. He has to advise us before he'll seal the deal. Some dogma bullshit. I guess they have to be assured we have a relationship beyond fucking, but we're not even supposed to be doing that, so I don't fucking know. They make a big deal about it at the church."

"You're attending church now?" he asks.

"A few times, I say and he gives me a half cocked grin. "She wanted to go with my family. Pastor Walsh is marrying us. I'm not some religious nut all of a sudden. Don't worry."

"I wasn't. But you seem especially worried about meeting with the pastor?"

"Of course I'm fucking worried! Pastor Walsh hates me," I say. "I beat the shit out of his son."

"Weren't you like fifteen?"

"What does that matter? He believes in eternal damnation. Thirteen years is nothing."

"What exactly are you afraid of?"

"That he'll tell her I'm basically Satan and she should leave me to save her soul."

"So just that?" He grins.

"This isn't funny. It's a very real possibility." I rub my chin. "I mean, why wouldn't he tell her the truth? He's a man of God. He believes in honesty and integrity. I can't trust him. I only semi-trust you not to fuck this up for me because I pay you." I think. "That's it, I'll donate a new gymnasium. Pastors love fresh basketball courts."

"Speaking of Elena..." he says.

"We weren't speaking of her," I say.

"But we need to," he says.

"I'd rather not," I say.

"I haven't asked you this since the party, but have you heard from Mrs. Lincoln?"

"No..." I say, fiddling with a piece of lint on my knee as I lean back on the sofa.

"Are you surprised?" he asks.

"No," I repeat with more confidence.

"And why do you think you haven't?"

"She's plotting something. She does this. She lies in wait. I don't know what she's up to, but I have this fear she'll try and stop me."

"From marrying Anastasia?" he questions.

"She left the party with lemon vodka and my mother's handprint on her face. She's not one to walk away."

"Lemon..." he says.

"Exactly," I respond.

"I know she alerted the press and got all this paparazzi all over us. She wants me to fold. She's expecting me to. She thinks I can't handle it. And if I don't fold, that's when she'll strike."

"So what are you doing about this threat?" he asks.

"I have people monitoring her everyday. She's not ruining anything. She gets in a hundred feet of me—or especially Ana—I'll have her hauled away." I tell you, Taylor seems especially thrilled by this possibility.

"Christian, our session is nearly over, but I have to say this. You shouldn't be so worried. You're happy. Ana loves you. And you're a billionaire who can get anything at the snap of his fingers."

"What's your point?" I say.

"Talk to Ana. Tell her your misgivings about the cake. She'll want you to be happy. Then call up the baker and tell him you don't want lemon and move on."

"You're right," I say. "I'm powerful. Rich. I can pay the baker off. I will do that." And a smile lifts my frown.

"Good," he says.

"And then I'll go hard after the shrimp and the ball sacks." I clap my hands together and rub. But then I remember..."Fuck, I need to call Monique Lhuillier about the wedding gown! I swear, if she gives me shit about the lace I want at the back with the buttons, I've got Wang on speed dial."

"You know, a few weeks ago I diagnosed you as being in love..." he says.

"Yeah?" I question.

"Well, today, I officially diagnose you as something new."

What's that?" I ask.

"Bridezilla," he says.

Bridezilla?

Maybe he's right. Maybe I am a bridezilla.

And maybe I just kinda love that.

New chapter next few days! ❤️❤️