Page 30 of Vienna Bliss

“Go away, Alexander,” she demanded, but the words came out watery.

“You might be hurt.”

“Of course I’m hurt.” You broke my heart, and every time I look at you it breaks again. “I landed on my bad knee.”

“Let me help you.”

“I’m fine.” Alena shifted her weight, preparing to sit so she could take off the shoes, but even that little movement made her hiss in pain.

“Alena, enough.”

“Say that one more time,” she snapped.

“Say that one more time…and what?” He sounded genuinely confused.

“That was a threat.”

Finally he touched her, his hands cupping her waist. “I hesitate to point this out, but you are hardly in a position to level threats.”

“You don’t know that. I might be able to kill you with my bare hands.” Damn it, her knee really hurt. “I work for Interpol, you know.”

Alexander helped her shift off her hands and knees to sit with her back against the legs of one of the dining room chairs.

Alena could have gone for stoic silence, but instead she muttered “Ow” on a continuous loop until she was situated with her legs stuck out straight in front of her.

“You’re an insurance investigator,” Alexander said mildly. “Not a 007. May I?” He gestured at her skirt, which was just long enough to cover her knee.

The fact that he asked was both ludicrous and so gentlemanly that her heart clenched.

“Yes.”

He raised her skirt just enough so he could see her knees. There were pink patches where she’d hit the ground. While he looked at her knees she rubbed the heels of her hands, which were also smarting from their contact with the floor.

Alexander scooted back on his knees and looked at her ankles. “Did you twist your ankle?”

“No, my bad knee gave out. I shouldn’t wear these shoes.”

“Why did you?”

Alena fluttered her lashes. “They’re my come-fuck-me shoes. Maybe I was hoping I could tempt my master into fucking me.” She placed the back of her wrists against her forehead in a dramatic move worthy of the fictional southern belle stereotype.

Alexander was staring at her. “You are…”

“Insane? Spastic? Mean?” They were all things she’d heard before, from lovers. “Yes, well, you’ve gotten a rather large dose of the real Alena. It usually scares them away.

“I was going to say fascinating.”

She bent her good knee, and twisted to unbuckle the ankle strap of that shoe, toeing it off. “Would you mind?” She gestured to the other shoe.

Alexander unbuckled it, his fingers never once touching her skin.

She needed to get out of here, into bed, with some pain reliever and an ice pack. Getting to her feet and up the stairs wasn’t going to be elegant, so she didn’t want to do it in front of Alexander. She could ask him to get her the ice pack, but the problem was he might not be gone long enough for her to limp her way out of here and the last thing she wanted was for him to catch her on the stairs whimpering and being pitiful.

She was still considering the problem when Alexander sat down beside her, leaning up against the chair next to the one she was leaning against.

He loosened his tie, then undid the collar button of his shirt.

“You never told me how you hurt your knee,” he said casually.