Page 27 of Vienna Bliss

Because he loved her. He loved her madly, passionately.

He loved her so much that when she moved away from him, he curled his hand into a fist, as if that would allow him to hold on to the heat of her body a little while longer.

She walked over to the windows.

How many times in the last few days had they stood like this, her body silhouetted by the light from the window?

Thinking about what he’d threatened when he pushed her against the glass in his Moldovan office made him feel ill.

And aroused.

He was a monster.

“You look lovely as you are,” he said softly.

Alena turned, her sardonic mask slipping for a second. “Alexander…we should talk.”

“If you’ll excuse me.” He turned for his bedroom.

“Or you could run from me,” she called out.

He stopped in the hall. “We will talk, Alena. Tonight, after dinner, we will talk, and end this.”

He could just barely hear her gasp as he walked away.

Once in the confines of his bedroom, Alexander leaned back against the door.

Damn it. Damn him…and damn her too.

He slammed the side of his fist against the door. The vibrations from the strike traveled through the wood, giving him an instant headache.

He flexed his fingers to make sure all the bones were intact, then went to the shower and turned it on, stepping into the frigid water.

* * *

Alena had never managed to stay this angry for this long. Then again, she’d never had a man break her heart before. Her past relationships had been casual, flirty things, and her BDSM play partners had been exactly that, play partners no different than a tennis buddy as far as the emotional connection went.

But Alexander…he made her feel rage. Cold, burning rage. The kind of rage she couldn’t have sustained if it wasn’t rooted in a passion so deep and complete that it had to be love.

She loved him, and he…

She wasn’t sure what he felt for her.

There were moments when she could feel him watching her, and when she turned, for a second she was sure she saw longing on his face. Then there were times when he was looking at her with unmistakable pity.

She knew what he thought. He thought he’d broken her—that had been the word he used to refer to himself. Broken.

He thought that because she hadn’t asked him to remove the collar that she’d still considered herself his submissive.

He didn’t think she was capable of knowing what she was feeling. Of understanding and interrogating her own feelings. It was so highhanded and misogynistic she was very tempted to slap him again.

The slap hadn’t worked the first time, but maybe the second or third would do the trick.

Alena speared a strawberry with her fork, dipped it in some of the lightly sweetened cream in a delicate porcelain dish on her after dinner plate, and then raised it to her mouth. She looked down the long table at Alexander—they were on opposite ends of a massive table in an ornate dining room on one of the lower floors—and licked the cream off the strawberry with one long, slow swipe of her tongue.

Alexander froze, wine glass halfway between the table and his mouth.

Holding eye contact, she bit the strawberry in half.