Vienna Bliss Read online

  She’d ceased being useful to them, and so they no longer cared about her.

  Alena’s chair toppled over as she pushed back from the table. Her ears were ringing and her throat was tight with tears, but she kept her head up as she walked out of the room.

  When she hit the larger hallway, she started running. The damnable maze of the villa tripped her up once, but she managed to find her way back to the gallery room, back to Alexander’s office.

  She was sobbing in truth by the time she yanked on the book that opened the hidden door, and nearly fell as she took the spiraled staircase too fast.

  The door to the safe room was standing open, the way they’d left it yesterday.

  It had been only yesterday?

  Alena shoved the door closed, and then with a shaking finger she keyed in the code that locked the door.

  Locking herself in the safe room. In his BDSM dungeon.

  Alena stumbled to the corner, pressed her back against the wall, and then slid to the floor, hissing in pain as her abused ass met cold concrete.

  But it didn’t matter.

  She didn’t matter.

  All this time, she’d pretended she was playing a game, that she was the one moving the pieces, trying to trick and outsmart her opponent.

  But she was one of the pieces on the board, and not an important one. Not a knight, or the queen.

  She was a pawn.

  Disposable.

  Chapter 5

  “Find her,” Alexander demanded.

  Finn slanted a glance at the trio of Interpol agents who were standing beside him. “We’ve all searched the house. She’s not here.”

  Rolf walked up, more agents behind him. After last night’s aborted raid, all the Interpol agents had been given rooms—the first time the villa had ever been filled to anything near capacity.

  Many of the agents had left this morning, but a handful, who’d flown in from Western Europe with Rolf, were still here. They’d joined the three men from RTW in the search of the villa.

  Alena had walked out of the room twenty minutes ago. They hadn’t started looking for her until ten minutes had elapsed since her departure.

  Alexander had assumed she’d come back. She wasn’t the kind of person to run from someone, or something.

  “She hasn’t left, at least not in a vehicle,” Finn continued.

  “If she wants to sulk in privacy, we should let her. Mr. Wagner, if we could sit down and construct the details of what we’d like you to tell your household staff, either directly or if you have a reliable method of indirect communication—”

  Privacy. Everything Rolf had said after that was white noise.

  “No.” Alexander pushed through the small crowd and took the stairs two at a time.

  Surely she wouldn’t have gone there. Not back to the place where he’d hurt her. Treated her so cruelly.

  He locked the door to his office then raced for the bookcase.

  The door to the safe room was closed, the handle recessed into the door.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the metal. “Alena.”

  His heart felt like it was being twisted, as if it were a cloth someone was trying to wring out. Alexander entered the code, and the whole pad flashed red—the room had been locked from the inside.

  There was an override, a failsafe that could be used so that rescuers could open the door from the outside if he had locked himself in and then become incapacitated in some way.

  Alexander rushed back up the stairs and began flipping through the books until he found one that had a compartment carved out of the pages, a small silver key inside.

  Alexander raced back downstairs. He entered the access code—the Fibonacci sequence to twenty places, and a small key hole appeared in the floor. He crouched, inserted and twisted the key.

  The retractable knob popped out of the door. He grabbed it, re-entered the main ten digit code, and finally opened the door.

  Alena was sitting on the floor in the corner nearest the door, her arms wrapped around her legs, her cheek resting on her knees, face turned towards the wall.

  She didn’t raise her head when he entered, or when he walked over and dropped to a crouch beside her.

  “Alena.”

  “No,” she said softly. “I need time if you want me to be Alena again.”

  He stiffened. “What does that mean?”

  “Not what you think,” she sighed. “I don’t have another name, no more secrets. I told you everything…I gave you everything I had to give.”

  She sounded, looked…heartbroken.

  Damn it. Damn it, he wanted to scoop her up and hold her close but the fact that she’d come back here, to this place, this room, was just another sign of how thoroughly he’d fucked with her head.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” he said softly.

  “Because I’m not even worth being your BDSM slave anymore?” She didn’t move, but the hurt in her words made his heart ache.

  Alexander felt physically ill. He’d hurt this complicated, beautiful woman.

  His words jumbled together in his brain and on his tongue. He switched to German, needing to speak more than he needed her to understand. Though she spoke some of the language, the mess of incomplete sentences and thoughts that spilled from his mouth would have been difficult for even a native speaker to make sense of.

  “I’m sorry. So sorry. I hurt you. I’m a monster. You’ll feel better. Get away. From here. From me. Once you’re away… I will take care of. No. No right.”

  As he crooned to her, he eased down onto the floor beside her, then hesitantly put his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t resist him, but also didn’t lean into him as he pulled her onto his lap.

  Alexander twisted her so that she was sitting side on to him, her butt nestled in the cradle of his legs.

  He ran out of words and so just held her. They remained that way for a long time. Down here, in the cool quiet of the concrete room, he wasn’t sure exactly how long, but it was long enough that the urgency of his regret and self-loathing eased. The emotions didn’t disappear. They were still there, the loathing intensified because he’d told himself when he saw her that he shouldn’t take her in his arms and that’s exactly what he’d done only moments later.

  “You’re not a monster.” Alena’s words ended the long silence.

  He rested his cheek on her head. He wanted to believe it, but she was still at least somewhat in the mindset of a submissive.

  “Why did you come looking for me?” she asked.

  “Why did you run?”

  “Because Rolf was going to sacrifice me like a fatted calf.”

  “He will not.”

  “Why?” Alena pulled away from him, still sitting on his lap but no longer leaning against his chest. She stared at the far wall. “What did you two decide to do with me?”

  Alexander wanted to shake her. “You don’t seem…yourself.”

  That was apparently the wrong thing to say because she climbed off his lap and stood up. “Ah, of course. The femme fatale character can’t switch to the damsel in distress. Too confusing.”

  Now there was anger in her voice. Alexander rose, watching her every move as he tried to piece together what was going on in her head.

  Alena wiped her cheeks with her fingers, then turned to him. “Before we go up, what was decided? I’d rather not have Rolf spring a surprise on me.”

  “Nothing.”

  She arched a brow. “What did you talk about after I left?”

  He’d warned Rolf not to speak to or look at Alena the way he had been. Some threats had been issued, the kind of threats Rolf had no choice but to take seriously.

  Alexander shrugged one shoulder, not wanting to tell her what they had discussed, because his statements, and his stance were possessive. He felt possessive of her, and he had no right. Doing or saying anything to remind her of their BDSM relationship—of the uneven power dynamic he’d forced her to accept—would only prolong h
er confusion and the influence of his dominance.

  “Ah, I see.” Alena gestured to herself. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Alexander frowned. “No. When you didn’t come back, we searched the villa for you.”

  “And you guessed where I’d be.”

  She seemed to be taking everything he said the wrong way. “No. I didn’t want you to be here—”

  Alena jerked as if he’d shocked her.

  Fuck.

  “Alena, that…that isn’t what…”

  This time she didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence.

  “I get it, Alexander.”

  She walked out of the safe room, her footsteps slapping against the stairs.

  Alexander laced his fingers together behind his head and tipped his head back, sighing.

  He had a feeling he had somehow just made everything worse.

  “Ms. Moreau, how kind of you to rejoin us.”

  “Agent Pedersen, how kind of you to indulge my silly little feminine moment.” Alena smiled, and she knew it was cold. She felt cold inside, all the way through. Not quite numb, the way she had been when they arrived at this god-forsaken place, but close. The inner cold deadened what she was feeling, but like applying an ice pack to a bruise, after time the cold itself became a source of pain.

  “No.” Alexander said; he’d been right behind her all the way from his office.

  She wasn’t sure who that no was directed at, and frankly, she didn’t give a fuck. He was done with her. He’d made that more than clear, but he’d also held her. Held her on his lap, the way he’d held her last night and that confused her. Infuriated her.

  Damn him. Damn him for being who and what he was.

  And damn her for loving him.

  “I have a list of conditions before I agree to be arrested.”

  “Arrests don’t require that the criminals consent.” Alexander might have been hard to read, but Rolf was not. He was pissed, and she wanted nothing more than to poke at him, prod him, until he cracked.

  “And I’m a criminal now? Not a consultant for Interpol?” Alena tapped her lips with one finger. “How interesting. It would make a lovely article, wouldn’t it? And I’m sure my friends in Beijing—”

  “Options.” Alexander’s voice cracked like a whip.

  She ignored him, wandering down the length of the long dining table, which could easily seat sixteen, towards the window. From here, instead of the familiar view of the water, there was a view of the countryside, the pale gray ribbon of the road cutting through the flat sweeping green landscape.

  “You mean, for what to do with Ms. Moreau?” Rolf asked.

  “No.” Alexander’s voice was chilled, but not cold. Alexander-the-CEO. “Options which satisfy the needs of all parties.”

  She heard chairs being pulled out as the men took their seats, but she stayed by the window. She would let this cold feeling entomb her for as long as possible. None of her other defenses would work, least of all her confidence, which was in tatters, along with her heart.

  “One option is to arrest Ms. Moreau. Most likely on charges of breaking and entering. Again, we don’t want Absolon to think any information that might expose him could have been compromised, so it would be best if the breaking and entering was explained as an act of revenge by a jealous lover.”

  “Corporate espionage is more logical.”

  “It is,” Rolf acknowledged, “but, once again, that might make Absolon either withdraw, or refrain from acting for several months.”

  “Is there a timetable on this?” Alexander asked.

  “No. The only potential downside would be Ms. Moreau’s time in prison, but we may be able to compensate her.”

  “My spending months in prison is only a ‘potential’ downside?” Now she turned, arching a brow.

  Alexander was frowning. “She would not remain in prison for that time.”

  “It would be—”

  “No.” Alexander slashed a hand through the air, the motion so vehement that it startled her. “Alena will not spend any time in prison. Unacceptable.”

  That shouldn’t make her want to cry. It shouldn’t make her think of him as her knight, riding to her rescue.

  “Then we are back to a domestic dispute, sans the arrest.” Rolf glanced at her, and despite their antagonism, she would have sworn he looked relieved that Alexander was putting his foot down.

  “Explain.”

  Alexander, her quiet man, who never used two words, when one terse order would do.

  Not yours. Never yours.

  “You return to Vienna, and explain to your household staff that Alena was a former lover. You met again by chance, invited her to your home, and she took advantage of that invitation to exact revenge.”

  “What sort of revenge?” Alena walked towards them, trailing her fingers on the table. “I do hope you’ve picked something fun.”

  “Property destruction would be the most clean-cut option. Do you have a piece of art or furniture you’d be willing to sacrifice?” Rolf asked.

  “No,” Alena said.

  “Yes,” Alexander countered.

  Rolf nodded quickly. “The destruction explains the presence of RTW—either the act itself set off an alarm—”

  “The frames of the paintings are tied to the security system. Destroying one of those would create an alert.” Alexander tapped his fingers on the table, but thoughtfully.

  “That would be ideal. You then explain that you took Ms. Moreau to one of your other houses to discuss your relationship.”

  “I value my privacy. I don’t discuss these sorts of things with any of my staff.”

  “Gentlemen, as much fun as it is listening to you create plans that are entirely unworkable… Perhaps you had best leave this to a professional.” Alena smiled coldly.

  Alexander started to return her smile, but seemed to hesitate, the corner of his lips twitching before the expression dropped away entirely.

  “By all means, Ms. Moreau.” Rolf waved a hand. “Please enlighten me.”

  Alena pulled out a chair, but then slid her hip and one butt cheek onto the table. It hurt, and this time she didn’t bother to hide the wince. The way Rolf stiffened made it clear that he knew exactly why she would be wincing like that.

  Good.

  “If I had, in a fit of rage, destroyed one of the paintings, wouldn’t Absolon have been notified right away?”

  Rolf’s lips twisted. She didn’t know him well enough to know if that expression meant he hadn’t thought of that, or if he had and hadn’t wanted her or Alexander to see the glaring hole in the plan. It seemed like Interpol was desperate to make sure that Absolon didn’t stop doing what he was doing. Not until they were ready to go.

  She was the one who’d fucked up, so she was the one who should pay.

  Not with going to prison for months. She was masochistic—more so than she’d ever known—but not an idiot.

  She had a much better, and by better she meant more fucked up and emotionally destructive, idea.

  “The same could be said for any valuable piece of furniture, most of which are antiques.”

  They both waited, and based on the way he was watching her, Alexander knew that she had a plan, knew that something was coming.

  He didn’t want her as a submissive. He’d made that much clear in the basement. He made everything black and white, when reality was every color in between.

  She would force him to touch her, stay in contact with her. For a little while longer.

  Maybe if she did that, she could fall out of love, rather than having to walk away, leaving the pieces of her broken heart behind.

  “Here’s what really happened back in Vienna.” She leaned forward, as if she were telling them a secret. “When Alexander and I had dinner, I swiped his tablet. I just wanted to see his calendar. I was planning to show up someplace he was going to be and surprise him. I tried, and failed, to access the tablet, which created an alert.

  “Then, I t
ried to sneak the tablet down into the Wagner Global offices, hoping that he would think it had been left there. When I tried to open the door, that alert, plus the one from the tablet, was enough for RTW to send a full team.”

  “That…would work.” Rolf seemed surprised.

  “Your confidence in me is so inspiring.” Alena put her hand over her heart.

  “Alena…” Alexander was frowning at her, but it was a look of concern, not anger or dislike.

  “Alexander brings me here to try and figure out why I stole the tablet. Corporate espionage? Theft?” She held out her hands, palms up. “But, in Moldova the truth comes out. I’m hopelessly, stupidly in love with him, and all that was just so I could arrange to ‘accidentally’ bump into him. Possibly rekindle the relationship.”

  “I would not share these details with anyone on my staff,” Alexander said again.

  “Of course not, but you didn’t let me finish.”

  Cold, grim satisfaction made her smile, and the expression must have been rather off-putting because both men stiffened.

  “You see, when we were in Moldova, Alexander decided that while he didn’t love me, he would happily fuck me, and be my Dom.”

  “Alena, enough.”

  “Almost done, suga’.” Alena folded her hands demurely, resting them on her thigh. “So Alexander takes me back to Vienna and decides to show off his new…I’m sorry but I can’t stomach slave…could we compromise with pet? Or plaything?”

  “No, Alena.” Alexander stood.

  “You host an event. A masked gala if we’re being stereotypical, a black-tie BDSM party if we want to be a tad more boring. You host it in your home, and as part of the preparations you ask your curator to replace all the existing art you have with more erotic pieces from your collection.”

  Rolf sat back, nodding. “You create an outrageous situation as a feint, drawing attention away from the initial event.”

  Rolf seemed to be on her side, and if she were smart, she would have tried to build on that, but she wasn’t smart right now. She was ice-cold and feeling very self-destructive.

  And had no compunctions about taking Alexander down with her.