By the time I get to Grey House, I'm beginning to breathe more naturally. I've got wall-to-wall meetings so it goes some way to distracting me from my dark thoughts.
Ros is throwing me puzzled looks: she can tell I'm only half there. It's not like me to be utterly focused but who the fuck am I if I don't have the rules in place? I need them. Anastasia needs them: she just doesn't know it. That's what I'll do: I'll persuade her. I'll make her see sense.
And for a few hours that seems possible.
Claude spends a happy 40 minutes kicking the shit out of me.
"Come on, Grey! You've been on your ass on the floor so many times, I'm beginning to think you like it down there!"
I try again, coming at him with a spinning back kick, but he dances out of the way and floors me with a quick jab and uppercut that snaps my chin back.
"Where is your head at, Grey? Come on!"
I'm panting like a lame dog, shaking my head as if all the bad thoughts will just drop out.
"You okay, man?" Claude's expression is sympathetic. "Wedding nerves, huh? I get that."
I glare at him and he smirks back. Fuck! I really want to land him on his ass! But it's not going to happen today and he knows it. Bastard!
Things don't improve much in the afternoon: the PR department is going crazy with all the fucking calls about the wedding. Haven't those hack journalists got anything better to do, for fuck's sake?
Sam is desperate for me to issue a statement but the only fucking statement I've got for the Press is no fucking comment and, unsurprisingly, Sam won't tell them that.
Words. Statements.
I try to plan out in my head what I'm going to say to Anastasia to make her see sense. She's a smart woman - she'll understand.
A nagging voice at the back of my head argues that she won't. And I can't help thinking that it's right.
But I do know one way to make her understand.
