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I hope you loved Jax as much as I do. Be sure to find out what’s happening with another Titan, Rafe Sterling, in the Billionaire’s Matchmaker. Suddenly he’s a man in need of a bride. And his solution to the problem shocks his gorgeous matchmaker!
Vienna Betrayal
By
Lila Dubois
Chapter 1
She watched the quiet man from the shadows of her hooded, enveloping cloak.
She stood out from the crowd, as she intended, her body concealed while around her, flesh was on display. Some bodies were already pink or red as a result of sadistic, masochistic, and taboo recreation.
The quiet man hadn’t partaken. She knew because she’d been watching him watch everyone else.
He was the reason she was here. The reason she was willing to play the submissive once more.
And now he was watching her. She’d known the exact moment his gaze landed on her. Felt it the way prey felt the presence of a predator staring at them from the shadows.
Hidden under the cloak, Magdelena Moreau’s fingers curled into her palms when he rose from his seat. If she’d done this right he was going to approach her, ask her to submit to him for the night.
As much as she longed to make the first move, she couldn’t. Not here. He had to come to her. It was the only way.
The quiet man started towards her.
Her fingers relaxed as satisfaction and relief, with a thin note of panic interwoven, slid through her.
He walked with purpose and confidence, not the lazy grace she’d expected from the quiet man.
Two meters away.
There’s still time to run.
She wouldn’t run. He was a piece in the game. A knight, she decided. The black knight. She needed to take the knight, even if it meant sacrificing a pawn.
One meter.
She had to play multiple roles in this particular game…including that of the pawn the black knight would take.
When he stopped, he was close enough that she could smell him—liquor, a smoky cologne, expensive linen, and below it all the warm smell of skin.
She didn’t look down, but she didn’t look up either. He was taller than her, so she was looking at his throat, the inverted triangle of flesh exposed by the undone top buttons of his dress shirt. The shirt was crisp white in contrast with the black bowtie draped around his neck. There were no creases in the bowtie—it hadn’t been tied. No, he’d looped it around his neck and tucked it under the collar of his shirt to cultivate an end of the evening, relaxed look.
Time stretched, disproportionate to reality. She bit the tip of her tongue to keep herself quiet.
“May I?” His voice was low, but precise. It was the first time she’d heard him speak in person, and it fit with the moniker she’d picked for him—the quiet man.
“Please do.”
He cocked his head to the side in response to her reply. Surprise. He’d spoken German, and she’d replied in the same language, but despite her best efforts, her American accent was present no matter what language she spoke.
Rather than comment, he raised his hand. She caught her breath as he toyed with the cloak’s hood, which hid her hair and cast her face in shadow. After a long moment, during which he seemed to be considering her, he pushed the hood back.
Magdalena—Alena—looked straight ahead, holding perfectly still as he examined her.
“No collar,” he murmured.
Succinct but blunt, while also making his intentions clear.
Relief mingled with new, but not unexpected, anxiety. “No, Sir.”
The quiet man held out his hand.
Alena accepted the silent offer, his fingers warm as they closed around hers.
Then the quiet man led her through the crowd, past women and men bound to appliances and structures of wood and chain. He led her past a whipping post, the stocks. Past a woman on her knees, panting in pain as her Dom added another magnetic weight to the nipple clamps dangling from her breasts.
The quiet man led her out of the medieval-style dungeon that was, under normal circumstances, a hotel ballroom. The contrast between it and the elegant hallway was sharp, but easy to ignore as she focused on walking beside him, her thoughts on what was about to happen.
The room he brought her to was done in an odd mix of Japanese and Moroccan styles, the floor scattered with massive meters-square floor pillows and soft rugs. The furnishings were low chairs and tables with bowed legs, footstools, and banded trunks.
The theme of the event lacked focus, in Alena’s opinion—a medieval dungeon and a Moroccan lounge were hardly copacetic—but she wasn’t the hostess of this month’s Orchid Club gathering.
The quiet man dropped her hand, then gestured, inviting her, without words, to take a seat.
She hesitated for only a moment, quickly considering and dismissing various options, weighing and calculating what to do.
How she should present herself so that she was both enticingly submissive, but not forgettable?
Alena sat on a floor pillow, but rather than kneeling, she tucked her legs to one side. As she sank to the floor, her cloak—maroon velvet with black closures running from her neck to waist—spread out around her, falling open enough to reveal her legs.
His gaze fell to her limbs, and his attention traveled from ankle to knee up to her thigh, where the lacy band of the stocking gave way to pale skin.
“Your name?” This time he spoke English. He had an accent, a lovely almost lyrical one with just a hint of the hard Germanic syllables.
She’d studied up on the German spoken in Austria before coming to Vienna, and even had she not researched the quiet man, she would have heard the difference from a traditional German accent both in the way he spoke German and his accent when speaking English.
“Alena,” she replied. “Is my accent so obviously American?”
She’d been hoping to make him smile, but he only nodded.
She should have expected that from her quiet man.
“I’m Alexander.”
Alexander Wagner, age 45. Billionaire CEO and president of the powerful Wagner Company. A man who was private bordering on reclusive.
The Wagners were an old Austrian family, and had made their fortune in shipping, bringing things into central Europe along the Danube River that passed through Vienna. The company had survived through both world wars, and was now a global powerhouse.
Alexander had never been married, and when he did socialize, preferred blondes. His primary residence was here in Vienna, but he also had homes—estates more accurately—near Beleu Lake in Moldova, and in St. Moritz in the Swiss Alps. In the few video interviews she’d found, he spoke concisely and slowly, his entire demeanor one of quiet reserve.
Watching those was when she’d first started to think of him as “the quiet man.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alexander.”
“You would like to play?”
The words seemed innocuous enough, but her whole body flushed with heat, then icy cold.
“Play” was a loaded word when it was spoken in this setting.
The Orchid Club was an innocent name for a debauched society of one-percenter BDSM aficionados. Every month the club moved to a new location. Members took turns hosting, and the host provided the facility and picked the theme, while Lillian, the club’s manager, handled the details of the three-night event.
Alena had been a member for a little over three months. She’d attended her first gathering in Copenhagen two months ago, and again last month in Rio de Janeiro.
Alexander Wagner had been at both.
Copenhagen had been for observation. He’d disappeared into a private room with a tall blonde on the second night, and a different blonde on the third.
In Rio she’d tried, and failed, to attract his notice.
But here in Vienna she’d succeeded. Now all she had to do was follow through.
On the floor at his feet, following t
hrough seemed a lot more dangerous than it had when she’d drafted this plan, this series of moves in the game.
“Yes…” She shifted, the cloak sliding away from her skin, exposing her hip and the wide satin bow that served as the hip band.
All it would take was a single tug and she’d be exposed and vulnerable.
Alexander’s eyes widened. A small reaction, but enough to tell her that he’d noticed the bow, and was calculating how easy it would be to undress her.
Not that she had much on under the cloak.
“…Sir,” she finished.
His attention jumped from her hip to her face. The light in this room was low enough that she couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but she knew they were a lovely hazel. Brown around the outside, and a clear leaf green at the iris.
She held his gaze for a moment, then very deliberately bowed her head.
Alexander stepped forward and she caught her breath. The toes of his shiny dress shoes were mere inches from her knees.
He stared down at her, and once more the silence stretched long and seemingly endless.
“When I return,” he murmured, “you will remove the cloak, and we will begin negotiations.”
Alexander turned and walked out of the room.
Alena exhaled, sagging for a moment. She’d been building to this point for months, each step she’d taken a carefully chosen strategy.
Alexander Wagner had been easy enough to research, but hard to get to. His position and wealth meant he was protected by layers of corporate structure and a personal security team that accompanied him whenever he was out in public.
She’d considered and rejected half a dozen strategies, and that was after months of trying to get what she needed via other avenues.
In the end, she kept coming back to Alexander Wagner, CEO of Wagner Global. If there’d been another way she would have taken it. But this—her kneeling, ready to submit, was the best play.
It hadn’t taken her long to zero in on the one aberration from standard billionaire behavior in Alexander’s life—monthly trips to random cities all over the world. She’d assumed the purpose of the sojourns was to assess the possibility of expanding Wagner into those areas.
Curiosity, her greatest trait or worst failing depending on one’s point of view, had taken hold, and she’d set about trying to discover exactly who he was meeting with.
What she’d found was that Alexander’s visits sometimes took place when the people he’d been meeting with were out of the country. If the CEO of a leading goods manufacturer in a particular city or country wasn’t in town the weekend Alexander was there, it seemed highly unlikely that he’d met with a vice president or other lower ranking official. Billionaire CEOs met with other billionaire CEOs.
The question became, what was he doing when he went away for a long weekend?
Curiosity firmly in control, Alena had explored myriad possibilities. It was the list of other wealthy people who were in the same cities on the same dates that proved to be the key that unlocked the puzzle.
Once she found it, the pattern was obvious—several dozen wealthy, influential people ended up in the same cities at the same times. Rarely all at once, but the names on the list she’d compiled all connected to one degree or the other. That might have been a symptom of their wealth, but often there was no discernible reason for them to be there. No sporting or political event, no recreational activity, such as skiing, that would explain why all these people were visiting a town in the Alps in January or February.
With several assumptions, bribes to hotel managers and town car services, and leaps in logic, she pieced together the existence of the Orchid Club.
A secret BDSM club for the uber wealthy.
The perfect way for her to get close to Alexander.
It had taken her a month to put together the Alena Moore identity and portfolio. Alena Moore wealth came from old money—well, what Americans considered old money—as well as current business interests.
Alena Moore was a woman of similar status and background as the people on the list she’d made. It had been tricky, but not impossible to identify and organize an introduction to the Orchid Club. She’d had to delve into her own past and a friend of a friend of a friend had finally connected her to Lillian.
Alena had been offered membership just before the Copenhagen event.
When Alexander had walked in, Alena had hidden her triumphant smile behind a glass of champagne. The satisfaction of being right was a wonderfully familiar sensation. Alena lived for the buzz of dominoes falling exactly as placed, of puzzle pieces clicking together. It was what made her so good at her job.
Alena enjoyed the game, but she loved to win.
* * *
The sounds of muted footfalls brought her focus back to the moment.
Alena reached up and pulled some dark hair forward over one shoulder, fluffing it a little. Given his preference for blondes she’d considered dying it, but had decided there were simply some things she wouldn’t do. Not many, but bleaching her hair was one of them.
Alexander paused in the doorway, momentarily silhouetted by the hallway light. A dark figure, menacingly enigmatic.
Then he took another step, into the atmospheric lighting of the lounge, and was just a man once more.
He was holding a small sheaf of papers. Probably her submissive paperwork, a checklist of what she liked and didn’t like. Or more accurately, what she would and wouldn’t allow him to do to her and with her. The ways in which she was willing to be used and abused. And pleasured.
“Remove your cloak,” he said softly.
Alena unfastened the top clasp, watching him watch her.
Alexander took a seat on an ottoman, his elbows on his knees, papers dangling loosely from one hand.
She undid the last button, revealing the lace half-corset and black lace panties with ribbon ties.
“Lovely,” the quiet man said softly.
Alena smiled. “Thank you.”
Being submissive, in the sense of BDSM, was a role she’d once embraced, but one that no longer fit her. She might have given up submitting years ago, but she remembered how this particular game was played.
“Shall we begin?” He held up the papers.
Alena dipped her head in a nod, then looked up at him through her lashes. He was handsome, and when he’d taken her hand she’d felt a tingle of pleasure.
She might be here for a job, but with Alexander as the Dom, she had every intention of enjoying herself.
* * *
Alena, age thirty-one, was an experienced submissive with a preference for physical rather than psychological play, including bondage and impact, and a dislike for high protocol postures and rules.
That information was from her club paperwork.
Alena Moore, American philanthropist and businesswoman, wasn’t married and was the sole heir to a wealthy family in the American south. Last names were rarely used at the club, but a quick search of the Wall Street Journal on his phone for any mention of a woman with the first name of Alena had yielded results. The article had been a profile piece on her philanthropic endeavors, accompanied by a photo of a lovely woman wearing a navy suit, her dark hair in a bun.
It was, if not officially against the rules, rude of him to have gathered more information about her than what was present in her club paperwork.
Alexander didn’t care about being rude. He cared about being in control.
The article, and the paperwork from Lillian, gave him a superficial biography. She was a wealthy, powerful woman, and like many, she sought release through BDSM.
He watched as she undid closures on the cloak. Words and still pictures couldn’t convey how lovely she was. Couldn’t express the sense of poise and almost amused confidence that radiated from her.
He’d been drawn to the mystery she presented. The woman in the red cloak.
According to Lillian, he was the first Dom to request Alena’s paperwork since she joined several mon
ths earlier. He doubted that meant he was the first club member to have her as a scene partner. The other tops probably hadn’t bothered with paperwork, relying on verbal discussions for negotiation.
Alexander preferred written communication whenever possible.
Alena pushed the cloak back and off. It pooled around her butt and legs.
She was a study of pale flesh and black lace. A soft-looking corset hugged her breasts and stopped at her natural waist, leaving a band of bare flesh across her lower torso. The panties were also black lace, except for the satin bows at each hip.
“No sex,” he said, holding up her papers.
Her brows rose and he winced internally.
You are an idiot.
The internal voice was familiar, and sounded like his father.
“Not on the first date, suga’,” she said with a smile and a wink.
Unexpectedly, he let out a soft laugh.
“If that’s a deal breaker…” She glanced at his face, her confident expression turning questioning.
“Of course not. BDSM doesn’t have to be sexual.” He set her papers aside. He didn’t need them. He’d glanced over her list twice on the walk back, and knew exactly what he wanted to do to, and with, her.
“I’m glad it’s not a dealbreaker,” she said, some of that confidence returning.
“Why?”
“Fishing for compliments, Alexander?”
“Master Alexander or Sir when we play.”
“Are we playing?” She cocked her head. “We haven’t negotiated.”
“Safeword?” he asked.
“Well then, I guess we are.” She took a breath, and her breasts strained the lacy cups of the corset. He could just barely see hints of the darker flesh of her areolae. “Sherman. My safeword is Sherman.”
“Sherman?” It sounded like a name.
“Sherman, as in ‘like Sherman through Georgia.’”
He grunted in acknowledgement though he’d never heard that phrase before. It must be an American idiom. Part of him wanted to ask her to explain, just to hear her talk.
Falling for the Forbidden: 10 Full-Length Novels Page 160
