Page 14 of Vienna Bargain

“Ah.” His smile of satisfaction was chilling. “I only indulge my sexual predilections two places. At Orchid Club events, and at my home in Moldova.”

Alena had a sinking feeling. “You’re going to Moldova… Taking me to Moldova… So you’ll have access to a BDSM dungeon?”

“Precisely.” Alexander leaned towards her, so close that she could feel the puff of his breath when he next spoke. “You will spend those three weeks as my BDSM slave.”

Chapter 4

Alexander rose from behind his desk, and Eva Kessler, his VP of logistics and security, rose too.

“Alexander.” Eva inclined her head, her expression pinched.

Despite it only now being dawn, when she’d arrived hours ago in the full darkness of night, she’d looked poised and capable to handle any crisis.

Fischer had briefed her, as Eva had arrived while he’d been offering Alena her bargain.

Alena’s expression—shock tinged with feminine awareness—was something he would look back on and savor. What he hadn’t seen in her expression, what might have changed his mind, was fear.

The moment he’d exited the conference room, the guards had slipped back in. Eva had started peppering him with questions. Fischer had warned him about how dangerous it had been to lock himself in with her.

One hard look had silenced everyone, and he’d brought Eva to his office to answer her questions. He’d told her more than he told Fischer, including that he’d met Alena at a private club, and though he’d thought his membership was a well-kept secret, apparently it was not. He hadn’t outright said he’d slept with her, but the implication was there. When he’d informed Eva that Alena had been given a guest room, Eva had stuck her head out of the office and ordered two men to go and search Alena’s room and her belongings.

Their discussion had continued until darkness gave way to dawn, and there was no more to say, at least not until they had some answers.

Alexander held his office door open, motioning for Eva to precede him. The Wagner Global Director of Systems Administration who reported to Eva was waiting in the hall. She took him aside and began speaking rapidly. The man made a pained noise—he did not have Eva’s stoicism, and all but bolted for the server room and the empty office where the techs were still working on Alena’s device.

Eva looked at Alexander. “When will you know what the criminal wants to do?”

The criminal.

He wondered if Eva had picked that term as a way of reminding him that the bargain he’d proposed might involve releasing, without punishment, the perpetrator of a very serious and potentially catastrophic attack on his company.

He and Eva had agreed that if either RTW or their in-house people found any evidence of a terrorism connection, it would change everything. His word was not worth more than the lives that would be lost if the information Alena had stolen was used to attack supply lines.

“Now,” he replied as he headed for the conference room.

Fischer was standing guard at the door, and as Alexander approached, he opened it.

“Sir, I’d like my men to stay while you—”

“No.”

“Sir, we cannot—”

“I will not lock the door.”

Fischer nodded, and, still holding the door open, ordered his men out.

Alena looked more composed than she had the last time he’d seen her. Her hair was smooth, one side tucked behind her ear. The bands securing her wrists to the arms of the chair were a different color. They must have released her either to search her again or possibly to take her to the bathroom.

The vulnerable shock he’d seen when he told her exactly what he would expect of her during the proposed three weeks wasn’t evident now. She was once more confident and regal, with a slight smile playing around her lips. An enigmatic smile paired with a sense that anyone who befriended her, pleased her, just might get to find out the secret behind that smile.

She was the kind of person who made friends easily. Who never felt out of place.

Was that why he’d been so drawn to her? Because she radiated ease and confidence, a sense that the world would bow to her? In another time she would have made a formidable ruler. He could picture her as Catherine the Great—disposing of a useless emperor by organizing a nearly bloodless coup d’état.

“Alexander,” she inclined her head, as if granting him an audience.

He could, very easily, remind her that she was not sitting on a throne listening to supplicants. She was a prisoner with no good choices.

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