Page 58 of Vienna Bliss

“Don’t you mean auction-worthy?”

Alexander’s jaw clenched. “I don’t want to do this to you.”

Damn it, she was already in love with him. She didn’t need to fall even more deeply in love.

“Hey, suga’,” Alena crooned, rising up on her toes. “It’s just a game, remember.”

“It doesn’t feel like a game.”

“Then pretend it’s role play.”

“I would never agree to this role-play scenario.”

“Then do it for me,” she said in exasperation.

To her surprise, Alexander’s frown eased. “For you. To support your job.”

“Right. Exactly.” Normally, boyfriends had to do things like come to boring company events in order to support their girlfriends’ jobs. At least she thought that’s how it went, since she was basing that on TV shows.

And Alexander wasn’t her boyfriend. He was…he was the man she loved.

Who didn’t love her in return.

He was a good man, the best possible combination of chivalrous and sadistic. And it was precisely because he was such a good man that he would support her now. It wouldn’t be about love, at least not for him.

She was going to hold it together on the private, late night flight to Paris she’d be taking in a few hours. She’d sob once she was in the privacy of her hotel room, hold it together for the debrief at Interpol tomorrow, and then she could cry again on the flight home to Chicago.

Then…then she’d just go on living her life. Nothing had to change just because she’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t love her back.

“It’s time,” Alexander said resignedly.

Alena once more took his arm and they started down the steps. She was barefoot and wearing not much of anything, while Alexander looked debonair and powerful in a beautiful black suit with white shirt and black tie.

This was the last private time she’d have with him.

Tell him you love him.

It was the one thing she hadn’t done. All those opportunities, and she’d seized none of them. She didn’t consider herself a coward. Fear had never been the primary emotion that drove her. But in this…she just couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

Because she’d said them once, and what came afterward had been horrible.

Down another flight, and Alexander’s forearm was rock hard under her fingers.

He deserves to hear the words. To hear them now that he knows it’s not a byproduct of the bargain, of the dungeon

It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that little voice, and she didn’t disagree. Because of her actions Alexander had been driven to a level of his own sexual sadism he’d never unleashed before, and that had been hard on him. Confronting her enjoyment of heavier impact play and more pain-laced submission had been difficult for her too, but for her it had been tempered by love.

Maybe if she tried again, told Alexander she loved him now that they’d spent real time together, that would be the final piece of proof that would help him understand just how wonderful he was. That he was not a monster she feared he still thought he was.

They reached the third floor. Alexander guided her away from the stairs and the moment was gone, passed like so many had before it.

Sofie was waiting for them by the doors. “Everyone is here. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Alena said softly. If Absolon hadn’t been there, this would have been nothing more than a fun party and she could have been herself. But Absolon was in there, so she needed to look like, and act like, a BDSM slave.

Alena closed her eyes and centered herself. Rather than try and be in her submissive “mode”, she was going to think of it as playing a part. A role play, as she’d suggested to Alexander.

“No,” Alexander said, the word breaking through her mental preparation. “One thing is missing.”