Page 23 of Vienna Bargain

“Maybe I just never graduated.”

“They didn’t find a record of attendance.”

“Shoddy record keeping is hardly my fault…”

Alexander reached out and she tensed. He tucked her hair behind her ear, but the caress didn’t relax her. His hand stroked her hair, and Alena fought to suppress a whimper.

He carefully gathered her hair into a tail at the back of her head, then wrapped it around his fist. Alena’s breathing was fast and shallow, and despite knowing it was coming, when he tightened his hold on her hair, making her scalp prickle with pain, she yelped.

“Who are you?” Alexander whispered in her ear.

“You have my passport, I’m—”

“Passports can be faked.”

She didn’t reply and he tugged, forcing her head back until she was looking at the ceiling. Afraid of falling, needing an anchor, she reached up and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding her hair.

“I wouldn’t suggest scratching me again,” Alexander murmured.

“Or what?” she snapped. Her options were anger or fear. That helpful numbness was long gone, and her fear was too thick to allow her to even pretend to be calm, let alone actually feel calm.

Anger was easier, safer, and she clung to it.

Alexander didn’t reply, only forced her head back further. Her back arched, her body weight off center so she was now leaning into his hand.

“Or what?!” she demanded in a high voice, already preparing for him to release her, in which case she’d fall.

Alexander brought her head up, until she was standing erect, both her hands still clamped on his.

Her quiet man didn’t speak. Instead he used his hold on her hair to guide her to the doors midway down the gallery-that-he-insisted-wasn’t-a-gallery. He turned the handle, pushed it open, and then nudged her inside before releasing her hair.

She heard the door close, heard the click of a lock. It was just like she’d imagined, with one very important difference.

Alexander wasn’t on the other side of the locked door.

He was on the inside. With her.

“Strip.”

Chapter 6

For a moment she trembled, on the verge of breaking down in tears. Maybe if she cried, if she let him see how fucking terrified she really was, he’d relent.

In her fantasy she’d cry prettily, then he’d apologize and back off, both physically and psychologically. He’d do it because, despite her current situation, Alexander wasn’t a sadistic kidnapper. He was a pissed off, powerful man, and her opponent in this very high-stakes game.

She needed to keep reminding herself of that—this was still just a game.

A game that had changed, because she’d broken her own rules.

A new game she wasn’t all that good at.

A game in which her lack of skill was amplified by an extreme disparity in advantage—her metaphorical bad hand of cards.

She’d flown to Vienna thinking of Alexander as a playable piece. The black knight. If she’d done her job right, if she hadn’t been so stupid, she would have left Vienna and Alexander would never have questioned anything about her except maybe to wonder where she was when she didn’t show up at later Orchid Club events. But he would have moved on, as people did.

It would have worked, if she hadn’t fallen in lust with him.

Standing with her back to him, her ears ringing with his command to strip, she could lie to herself. Lie and say that she hadn’t realized what changing her list to allow intimacy would mean. Lie and say she hadn’t realized what could happen.

---