Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
The fourth floor had been stripped of any of its original architectural details when it was rented to a garment company and used as a factory. Given that there was no remnant of the original architectural details, this floor had been renovated into seven bedroom suites, a dining room, and a commercial kitchen capable of preparing food for several hundred if he hosted a party.
Tonight they wouldn’t be eating in the fourth floor dining room—though that’s where they’d had breakfast this morning, a quiet affair punctuated by yawns as they began to feel the effects of a night without sleep.
The door down the hall opened, and Alena stepped out.
Alexander straightened, awed anew by not just how lovely she was, but her innate magnetism.
She wore black. A simple black dress that might have been unremarkable if it was on anyone but her. Her hair was loose around her shoulders in soft, dark waves, though it was pulled back on one side in a style reminiscent of old Hollywood.
A blood-red pashmina was hooked over her arms, and matched the red heels she wore.
She glanced at him, and her lips curled up. Her smile was full of secrets, but warm rather than cutting and cold.
He wanted to strip the dress off of her, bare every inch of her flesh so he could torment her, tease her. He wanted to bring her to her knees, even as he wanted to kneel before her.
The captured queen.
She exuded august confidence as she walked down the hall, each footstep making her hips sway.
The queen. She wasn’t captured.
Not yet.
“Alexander.”
“Alena.” He held out his arm. “Will you join me?”
“Of course.”
When he turned her towards the stairs instead of leading her to the dining room, she glanced at him in surprise.
“Skipping dinner, and going right for dessert?”
“No. But I wanted us to dine in private.”
Together they mounted the steps, Alena walking rather gingerly.
“You mentioned that you prefer not to wear high heels.” Alexander said when they paused on the landing.
“Sugar, I know you aren’t suggesting I would wear flats with this dress.”
“But if the shoes hurt you…”
“Beauty is pain.”
Alexander chuckled, as much at her exaggerated tone as the words themselves.
When they reached the top of the stairs, he keyed in a code on the discreetly hidden panel, then opened one side of the grand double doors that protected his home.
He gestured for her to proceed him, watching her butt, which was nicely cupped by the fabric, but not so tight as to be lewd or cheap.
“Oh,” Alena said in surprise. “This is your home.”
“The whole building is my home.” He stepped in and closed the door.
“You might own the whole building, but I got a tour of the first, second, and third floors after I woke up from my mid-day nap, and the rest of the building is a showplace. A museum. This, this is you.”
She gestured around the open plan central living area.
“You’re correct.”
Alena reached out and stroked his cheek. “Back to being my quiet man?”
He shrugged, slightly uncomfortable, even as he was secretly pleased she’d referred to this space as being “him”.
The fifth floor was his private space. No one except his valet and the cleaning staff, under the watchful eye of the house manager came up here. He had his own kitchen and oftentimes cooked for himself, which never failed to make his mother sneer.
The interior designer had taken his sparse directions and somehow created a space that felt right.
The open floor plan had kitchen, dining room, living space, lounge, and library all occupying the same large rectangular space. A dozen evenly spaced windows looked out over the trees and greenery of the park, and had been treated to prevent anyone from being able to see in, even if he had on all the lights, and reinforced with pressure sensors and bulletproof coating at the insistence of his security team.
Alena walked slowly around the room, which was done in shades of blue and green with pale silvery gray accents.
The floor was blue-veined gray marble, the modern but very comfortable couch a deep gray-blue with gray and green accent pillows. Alexander usually tossed them into a chair to get them out of the way, only for the maids to return them to their rightful places on the couch.
The colors reminded him of his family’s residence near Beleu Lake in Moldova, where the landscape was dozens of shades of green from the grass to the leaves of the trees, and the sky above and lake itself added cerulean and azure to the palette.
Alena abruptly stopped and looked back at him. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t ask if I could explore. May I?”
He gestured for her to go ahead, then went to the kitchen and opened the oven to check on the plates he’d put in there—on instructions from his chef—to keep warm.