““You’re worried,” he adds,
his eyes filled with concern. Is there nothing I can
keep from this man?”
Okay. We’ve established that Charlie Tango got sabotaged.
We’ve learned the office fire was arson. She keeps telling him how she can’t
live without him. It sort of follows that he may not need to read Bellas’
mind a clairvoyant to work out that she’s worried. And she marvels at his
astounding ability to work that out.
“He… swats my behind. I yelp, startled, and realize that today
we’re going back to
Seattle and my melancholy blossoms.”
Because that’s how you jog Ana’s memory. You swat her
behind. I think that says it all. Also, what do melancholy blossoms look like?
Christian straps the key to my wrist.
“You want me to drive?”
“Yes.” Christian grins. “That’s not too tight?”
“It’s fine. Is that why you’re wearing a life jacket?””
Wait, back up to the start of the chapter.
“He’s dressed in his cut-offs and a gray T-shirt.”
When did the lifejacket materialise on him? And how come,
given she’s practically not allowed to take a shit without a bodyguard, he
doesn’t put one on her? Are we supposed to believe he would pass up on the
opportunity to truss her into something
and arch his brows and make clumsy double entendres about bondage?
““Fair point well made, Mrs. Grey. Are we going to stand on this
platform all
day debating your driving skills or are we going to have some fun?”
“Fair point well made, Mr. Grey.” I grasp the handlebars of the Jet Ski and
clamber on”
I’m going to assume someone programmed a macro for E. L so
she can just hit Cntrl+FairPointWellMade to generate dialogue.
Then AnaBella crashes the Jetski because she is just so
clumsy, and…
“The water is cold this far from the shore, but I surface within
a
split second, courtesy of my life jacket.”
Oh look, another insta-lifejacket.
“See, that wasn’t so bad!” I grin as we tread water”
Why are you treading water? You have magic
insta-lifejackets!
And then this story arc ends having had no point whatsoever.
They did not drown. They did not get chowed on by sharks. Nobody got injured
and the only result of the whole fwitterous episode is they have to shower.
Because they fell into the sea. Because
they wouldn’t have had to shower if they just had a long sweaty ride in their
insta-lifejackets.
Ana contemplates her melancholy blossoms and Christian
contemplates the fire in the office and somehow they are in the first-class
lounge ready to fly home.
“I’ll
have Welch’s balls on a platter if he lets anything like that happen again.”
I thought it was arson. Most people don’t let arson happen.
Given that Welch is the poor bugger who had to comb through the email servers
to delete the emails Christian kept telling Ana not to send (by email),
Chedward had better be wary about threats to Welch’s privates.
“I do the only thing I can think of to ease the sudden tension
between us and raise the camera
and snap another photograph.
“Hey, sleepyhead, we’re home,” Christian murmurs.”
She fell asleep in the middle of taking a photograph? No
wonder you have to swat her butt to jog her memory.
“His eyes melt, the color of a storm cloud, and he smiles his
shy smile, my favorite
smile”
Wait. What? His eyes were burning. Now they’re melting.
Edward, you need to rethink those contact lenses. And they melt the color of a
storm cloud? Forgive me, I associate melting with hot stuff. Are they going to
freeze the color of a volcano next time Ana annoys
him?
“it’s hopeless. I’m wide-awake, my body clock on Greenwich mean
time, my mind
racing.”
Why is her body clock on Greenwich mean time when they’ve
just come back from holiday in a country which isn’t on Greenwich mean time?
One Google click tells me that France runs on GMT+1. So her mind needs to stop
racing and wait for her body to catch up.
“And now here I am, Mrs. Anastasia Grey, married to the most
delicious, sexy, philanthropic, absurdly wealthy mogul a woman could meet”
Here’s the thing. When someone is described as mogul there’s usually a bit more information
attached. Say, a business mogul, or a software mogul. Without that bit of
information, a mogul is, in fact, a bump in a ski slope. She is married to the most delicious, sexy,
philanthropic, absurdly wealthy bump in a ski slope a woman could meet.
“My shining white-and-dark knight always trying to protect me.
How am I going to make him
open up more?”
A scalpel would work. Have you considered a scalpel?
And then they have sex so mindblowing that even E.L is lost
for words. Maybe she could just have a blank page, entitled “Mindblowing Sex at
3:05”. Oh, wait…
And just like that, they’re home. Hi, Taylor. Blank page
entitled “Mindblowing Sex at 10:30”.
Blah don’t want to go to work meeble can’t be separated from
Christian, let’s go to lunch with the family.
“I run my fingers absentmindedly over the leather upholstery of
the door to distract my wandering thoughts”
What does this actually mean? Her thoughts are wandering; we
know this because they are absent from her mind (geddit, absentmindedly?). Why
do they need distracting as well?
“I smile at him, mostly for the benefit of his family, but my
spirits take a nosedive again. Why does he make these decisions without telling
me?”
Someone please point me at the last decision Christian
allowed Ana to take or bothered to inform her about?
“Ana,” Kate exclaims, snapping me out of my reverie. “You still
in the South
of France?”
“Yes,” I reply with a smile.”
No. No, she’s on GMT.
“Christian sits down at the shiny black upright piano,presses
the quiet pedal, and starts to play a familiar tune that I can’t immediately
place”
Pianos have a DAMPER pedal, a SOFT pedal and a MIDDLE pedal.
There is no QUIET pedal. Again, one Google stab.
And then OMG Christian is going to let her drive home!
“My inner goddess whips on her leather driving gloves and flat
shoes.”
That woman certainly has some props!
And then the Secret Service Sawyer and Taylor tell
Chedward that they’re being…
“Followed! Holy shit. My heart lurches into my mouth, pounding,
my scalp
prickles and my throat constricts with panic”
Well, it’s a good job her heart made it into her mouth
before her throat constricted.
“I mentally slap myself to subdue the dread that’s threatening
to swamp me”
How do you mentally slap yourself? Is she slapping her inner
goddess? I personally hope she slaps her subconscious so hard those half-moon
specs go flying.
““How do we know we’re being followed?” My voice is a breathy,
squeaky,whisper.
“The Dodge behind us has false license plates.””
Um – wait. How does it follow from there that the Dodge is
following you?
Ah, I get it! E.L is using a syllogism. Clever girl! It
works like this :
Major premise : Ana and Christian are the most important
people in the world. (she did not bother saying this because you should already
know. For those just joining us, there’ll be a clue a bit further on.)
Minor premise : There is a car with false plates on the
motorway
Conclusion : It must be following Ana and Christian.
“I drop a gear and floor it.”
If you dropped the gear, surely gravity will see to it that
it gets to the floor?
“I weave between the two lines of traffic like a black counter
in a game of
checkers, effectively jumping the cars and trucks”
Batmobile……located! Please, please let her make another
reference to the Dark Knight before the end of the ride….Please!
“As I put my foot down, the
glorious R8 zooms forward, and we tear down the left lane, lesser mortals
pulling over to let us pass”
I hate this author so much. But there you have the missing
bit of the syllogism.
“A truck lurches into the fast lane—Shit!—and I have to slam on
the brakes.
“Fucking idiot!” Christian curses the driver as we lurch forward in our seats.”
“I slow, check my mirrors, signal, then move with surprising
ease across four
lanes of the highway and down the off-ramp”
You move with surprising ease because the lesser mortals
have all pulled over, Ana. You told us this.
“The street is quiet, with few vehicles. Where is everyone?”
Chedward, slap her butt. Jog her memory.
And then she finds out that Sawyer has a first name.
““Ah.” How did I not know
this? The man has been following me to work for the last six weeks, and I
didn’t even know his first name.”
You don’t know this because you’ve been too busy having an
orgasm every time Chedward Grullen looks at you, Ana. Also he hasn’t been
following you to work for the last three weeks because you’ve been on
honeymoon. Slap her butt.
“You
did amazingly well, as usual. You blow me away, Ana. You never let me down.”
I wish she would blow him away.
“Adrenaline turns to lust streaking through my body. I clasp his
face, running my fingers over his sideburns”
And a few paragraphs later…
“My fingers curl into his overlong hair”
And then they have the sex in the car and it is mindblowing
but unfortunately not a blank page entitled “Mindblowing Sex in the Carpark.”
“Where’s
the, er . . . unsub? What does that mean by the way? Sounds very
BDSM.”
Honey, by the time an unsub gets involved it’s not BDSM any
more, it’s murder.
So, Christian drives them home and then they decide to have
more of the sex, this time on the car but they’re rudely interrupted by some
inconsiderate bastard who wants to park
his car and get home. They meet the inconsiderate bastard at the lift, he smiles
at Ana and Chedward pees on her.
“ He pushes the call button and as we wait, the driver of the
BMW joins us. He’s young, casually dressed, with long, layered, dark hair. He looks
like he works in the media.
“Hi,” he says, smiling warmly at us.
Christian puts his arm around me and nods politely.”
And then she rolls her eyes at him and they decide it’s time
for om nom rough sex nom.
“When we burst through the double doors, Sawyer is standing in
the hallway, looking expectantly at the two of us.
“Sawyer, I’d like to be debriefed in an hour,” Christian says.”
Now, see, you debrief someone who has been on a mission.
They tell you what they’ve seen and done. I don’t think Sawyer really wants to
know about Ana’s awesome driving skills, because he saw most of that, and as
for sex in the car, if Chedward told him he’d have to kill him.
And so endeth Chapter 5.
