Page 21 of Vienna Bliss

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.