Page 20 of Vienna Bargain

Maybe you won’t be the only sex slave he has here.

That thought cracked the numbing shell around her emotions, revealing that she was feeling plenty.

The kind of emotions—fear, righteous anger, a certain grim pleasure—that would make her do something stupid. She needed to hold on to the fragile calm. See the numbness for what it was—a lid clamped down on the sickening mixture bubbling deep inside.

Eventually, Alexander turned away from the women. The one who seemed to be in charge—a fifty-something woman wearing a floral blouse and rather shapeless gray pants—shooed the younger woman through the doorway under the second floor balcony.

Alexander walked to the foot of the stairs. Pausing, he looked back at her. “Follow.”

Alena put the side of her tongue between her teeth and bit down on it, using the dull pain to stay quiet. She walked across the foyer, aware of eyes on her.

The second night together, at the club, he’d mentioned sharing her as one of his “dark” fantasies. Would he expect her to fuck the men she’d just walked past, either his local employees or the bodyguards?

Alena misjudged, catching her toe on the edge of the next step. For a moment she teetered, her balance thrown off. Alexander, who was in front of her and several steps higher, turned and shot out his hand, grabbing her shoulder a second before Alena’s own scrambling resulted in a death grip on the stair rail.

“Are you all right?” Alexander asked.

“Let go,” she snarled.

She felt him start, then his hand dropped.

Alena bent her head, forcing down the anger and fear that had slipped her control. She stayed like that, hand gripping the rail, head bent, for several moments.

Eventually she conceded defeat. The thought of being humiliated and whored out had ripped that calm lid off her emotions.

Once more biting her tongue, she started up the steps, nearly colliding with Alexander who was slow to get going.

Though the interior of the house wasn’t gaudy like the exteriors, it was still a massive place, with a rather odd layout. She followed him through halls of various sizes, down a half flight of stairs, through more halls.

Eventually he stopped to open a set of massive double doors carved with stylized leaves and birds. It wasn’t the fine, delicate carvings of baroque Europe, but something simpler and more appealing.

Alexander motioned for her to precede him through the open double doors. She paused, ready to insist he go first, in case this was one of those pull-the-door-closed-behind-her-and-lock-it situations, as if he was a Disney villain.

The view compelled her forward. Ignoring her worries about being locked in—there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it if that was his plan—she drifted across the long, narrow room.

The wall opposite the one they’d entered was entirely glass, with a view out over a cerulean lake surrounded by pale green and gold meadows and marshland.

“This is the back wing,” Alexander murmured from beside her.

“The view is beautiful.”

“This is a protected natural preserve.”

“Yours?”

“No, it’s a national preserve.”

This inane conversation was only slightly better than a discussion of the weather, but it helped her get a handle on her emotions.

She turned away from Alexander to study a rather crude pastoral painting hanging near where she stood. The walls of the narrow room—narrow compared to the size of the villa, as the room was easily four or five meters wide—were the same wood paneling with creamy white as the foyer.

The space reminded her a bit of a museum gallery, complete with a few small seating areas down the middle, from which someone could admire either the view or the art.

She took a few more steps, eyes narrowing. The painting had a small clear plaque mounted near the bottom right corner of the gilt frame.

Eastern European Folk Art Painting, Anonymous

“I bought it in Cahul,” Alexander said. “The capital of this district.”

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