The Life of Anna, Part 5: Emerged (51 page)

She sat up and pulled her shirt off. His eyes
widened as he gazed at her bra-covered breasts. She took his hand
and placed it on her right breast and he inhaled slowly. He
squeezed gently and she closed her eyes and sighed. “Yes...,” she
sighed as desire coursed through her body.

Hugo leaned forward, pulling her bra down,
and took her nipple into his mouth. Anna moaned softly and held his
head to her. His tongue swirled around and around her nipple and
her arms moved to his shoulders and pulled at his shirt.

Thoughts of Alex came unbidden to her mind
and she pushed them aside. She didn’t care that he wouldn’t like
what she was doing. He could kiss her a—

A shooting pain shot through her head and she
grabbed hold of it and screamed.

“Katrina!” Hugo exclaimed. “Katrina, what’s
wrong?”

Alex paced on the rooftop terrace. He went
back and forth between anger and hurt at Anna’s departure. How dare
she get upset about something he did when he never thought he’d see
her again! He hadn’t done it
against
Anna. He did it
to
Vlad.

And how many men had she fucked while he was
gone? How many men had she fallen in love with? How could she get
upset for him keeping her from being with Hugo? Alex was returning.
He couldn’t let her be with someone who wouldn’t be able to protect
her. She was his wife, dammit!
His
wife!
His
slave! She belonged to him.

“Alex?”

Alex spun around to see Greg standing near
the door, holding his phone out. “You need to take this.”

“
Was?
” he snapped into the
phone.

“Alex? It’s Hugo.”

Alex barely contained a growl. This was not a
person who should be calling him right now. Hugo was at the top of
his shit list. “What do you want?”

There was a slight hesitation. “It’s Anna.
She’s—”

“Anna’s with you?” Alex growled.

“I...yes. She’s in pain. She holding her head
and crying.”

Her head? “What was she doing when it started
hurting?” Hugo didn’t answer right away and Alex’s stomach began to
twist into knots. “What the hell were you doing with my wife?”

“We...shit, Alex. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean
for anything to happen.”

Alex felt his temper snap. “Tell her to stop
fucking rebelling and get her ass home as soon as she can fucking
walk. And you better stay the fuck away from her from now on or I
will have you fired.” He ended the call and threw his phone down in
the middle of the terrace.

“Argh!” he yelled at the sky. What the hell
had she been doing? No, he knew what she’d been doing. She was
being intentionally rebellious, which is why her head was hurting.
Fucking stupid woman. Why was she acting this way?

He stalked downstairs to the library for a
drink. What the hell was he going to do now?

An hour later, Anna walked through the door
of the condo looking very pale and weak. Alex stood in the doorway
of the library and glared at her. “Go take a fucking shower and
rinse that motherfucker off of you.”

“Yes, Alex,” she said meekly, and hurried to
their bedroom.

He walked into the bedroom a few minutes
later and was pleased to hear the water running in the bathroom.
She wasn’t rebelling anymore. Good.

When she came out of the bathroom in her pink
cotton robe a while later, he was sitting on the foot of the bed,
waiting for her. She froze in the doorway when she saw him, fear
evident in her eyes. He flinched, seeing the fear. He didn’t want
her afraid of him...did he? But he didn’t want to feel the hurt
right now. He wanted to be angry, not hurt.

They stared at each other for a moment before
Anna slowly approached him and knelt at his feet, head down. “I’m
sorry...,” she said softly, trailing off as if she didn’t know what
to call him.

The angry part of him liked the idea of her
calling him Master, but that would wound her. His rational side
didn’t want to wound her. His irrational side wanted to wound her
as she’d wounded him.

She’d gone to her ex-boyfriend and started
having sex. The only reason she stopped was because of the pain of
rebellion.

“How could you do that to me, Anna?” he asked
in a soft voice.

She looked up at him, hurt and anger in her
eyes. “I didn’t ask you to come back.”

Alex felt as if she’d slapped him across the
face. He stared at her, hardly believing what he’d heard. “Do you
wish I hadn’t?”

She sighed and looked down at her hands. “It
doesn’t matter what I wish,” she said in a broken voice. “You are
here. I belong to you.”

Alex lifted his chin and clenched his jaw.
“Yes, you do.” He reached down and tipped her face up to his. “You
never had a problem with it before.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You weren’t around long
enough for me to have a problem with it.”

Alex barely kept himself from wincing.

“Perhaps you should perform the final ritual.
Then I would be like the other Elder-Mistresses. Cold and
beautiful.”

“I like your warmth,” he said before he could
stop himself.

Anna didn’t respond, but looked back at the
floor.

He felt his anger rising to the surface
again. “I will allow you to continue dancing with Hugo for this
season, but once Devin is dealt with, we will be returning to San
Francisco. I expect you to keep your interactions with him strictly
professional.”

“Yes, Alex.”

He wasn’t commanding her, he rationalized to
himself. He was just laying out his expectations.

“When I am out of town, I expect you to go to
class and then return here. No going out to clubs or spending time
with other men. I obviously can’t trust you.” He wondered briefly
if she would be glad if he disappeared again.

“Yes, Alex.” Her voice was getting softer
with each response.

“If you need to go somewhere, I expect you to
ask me first. If you disobey me, I will put a tracker on you.”

“I won’t disobey you,” she whispered.

He continued to look down at her and she
looked up after a moment. “Do you want me to sleep in a different
room?” Her eyes were remorseful.

“Why would I want that?”

“That’s what...I mean, in case you want to
bring another woman home.”

Was she going to say that’s what Devin would
have her do? He closed his eyes. He was angry, yes, but he wouldn’t
do that to her. “No woman could satisfy me like you do.” It was
true.

She made no response to that.

The next two days were filled with tension.
Alex hardly spoke to Anna and she didn’t dare approach him. She
went to class and rehearsals each day and kept to herself for the
most part. If she wasn’t dancing, she was at home. Alex and his men
spent most of the time in the study, planning their trip to Boston,
and their interactions were kept minimal.

Anna didn’t say much to him and she
understood why he was angry. He had a right to be. She’d hurt Alex
terribly by what she’d done with Hugo. Alex didn’t come to
rehearsals anymore. They had sex every night, but he kept it
impersonal. He wouldn’t even kiss her.

Tuesday night was her first regular
performance. She went home after rehearsal that afternoon to rest.
As she was getting ready to leave, she knocked on the study
door.

“
Herein
.”

She opened the door and saw the men standing
around a large table with maps and computers covering it. Alex
didn’t look up as she stood there.

“A-are you coming tonight?” she asked softly.
Before their fight, he said he would attend as many performances as
he could, tonight being one of them.

He looked up and stared at her with hard
eyes. “I told you I would be there,” he snapped.

Her mouth moved to speak, but no sound came
out. He cocked his eyebrow at her, impatiently waiting for her to
speak. “Okay,” she finally squeaked out and left the room quickly,
blinking away the burning tears. Would he ever forgive her?

She arrived at the theater and went straight
to her dressing room. Slowly, she began to get ready and jumped
when there was a knock at the door a while later. She stood and
opened the door, half-afraid it was Alex.

It was Hugo. “Are you okay, Katrina?”

She smiled. “Of course. Why?”

“You don’t seem okay.” He frowned. “Is Alex
hurting you?”

She shook her head. He wasn’t being abusive.
Just...ignoring her.

“You don’t need to lie for him.”

“I’m fine, Hugo. Please....” She looked down
the hallway. “I can’t be seen talking to you.”

Hugo frowned. “He’s no better than Kurt.”

“I hurt him, Hugo. What else is he supposed
to do?”

“He made us break up. Him and his stupid
family.” His gaze softened. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have let you
go.”

She gave him a longing look. The more Alex
ignored her, the more her heart ached for Hugo. “It doesn’t do any
good to wish things were different,” she said bitterly.

The ballet Anna was dancing in was the first
one of the evening and she went straight home after she was done.
She took a shower and curled up in bed to read until she fell
asleep or Alex came home, whichever came first.

She finished her book around ten-thirty and
Alex still wasn’t home, so she wandered into the library to find
another one to read. Ignoring the pain in her heart was getting
easier. Sometimes.

Nothing looked good in the library and she
went back to the bedroom to look around for her Kindle. There was
always something interesting to download.

The door opened and she heard male voices as
she was settling back into bed. And then she heard female voices
and her heart dropped into her stomach. Multiple female voices.

Should she go out there? Should she hide so
whomever Alex brought home wouldn’t know she was here? Did he want
her to know that he’d brought someone home?

She bit her lip and then decided to go out,
using the premise that she wanted some water. Her cup was by the
bed and she grabbed it before walking out into the hallway and to
the living room. Her stomach churned as the voices got louder.

When she walked around the corner, she saw
three nicely dressed women, along with the four men sitting in the
room. Alex was sitting on one end of the couch with Greg and
another woman. The woman reached for Alex, but he shook his head
and brushed her hand away.

Alex looked up at that moment and their eyes
met. Emotions flittered across his face as he looked at her. Anna
held her cup up with an apologetic look and hurried to the
kitchen.

One of the women giggled as Tony kissed her
neck. The one sitting between Alex and Greg saw her and raised her
eyebrows. “Who’s that?”

Everyone turned around to look at her. She
felt awkward, standing in her pajama pants and chemise, obviously
ready for bed, while the women were dressed elegantly and hanging
on the men.

“That’s Anna,” Alex said, staring at her.
“She...lives here.”

The third woman laughed. “Live in maid?”

“Something like that,” Alex said in an even
tone.

Anna bit her lip to keep from crying out and
walked into the kitchen, quickly filling her cup and almost running
back to the hallway and out of sight. It was obvious that Alex
didn’t want the women to know he was married to her. Should she
sleep elsewhere tonight? Probably.

She made a fast decision and went upstairs to
the conservatory. There was a couch up there and, if the door was
closed, it was fairly quiet. She wrapped the blanket around herself
on the couch and cried herself to sleep.

Alex awoke to an empty bed. He’d gone out
with the other men after the performance and they’d found some
women at the bar they went to. Alex didn’t flirt; he had no desire
to, but the idea of making Anna jealous appealed to him.

He had no intention of sleeping with any of
them. They were there for the other guys. But he couldn’t resist
the jab about Anna’s purpose in the household. He saw the pain in
her eyes and felt satisfied that she was hurting as much as he
was.

But when he came to bed and Anna wasn’t
there, he realized he might have gone too far. He found her
upstairs in the conservatory, her face still wet from her tears.
She’d slept up there to give him the opportunity to be with someone
else.

His whole body tingled with guilt. How many
times had Devin done that to her? The very fact that she offered to
sleep somewhere else after they first began fighting made him
realize she’d probably experienced that with Devin more than a few
times. Was he no better than Devin?

Alex just wanted her to feel his jealousy.
For her to know how much she’d hurt him by running to Hugo after
they’d fought. He was angry and hurt and wanted to punish her so
she’d never do it again. But had he gone too far? Had his anger
done irreparable harm?

She’d been incredibly submissive these last
few days, coming home immediately after rehearsals and reading
quietly in the library, or napping in their bed. When she was
asleep, he would stand in the doorway and watch her. Even though he
was angry, he still woke up early and watched her sleep until her
alarm went off.

Maybe he should just get her free of Devin
and then let her be with Hugo. She wouldn’t be in danger any more.
She could have her new life; the new life she’d begun here.

He was still contemplating his thoughts when
there was a soft knock at the door.

“Come.”

The door opened a tiny bit and he saw Anna’s
eyes, red from crying. “I need to get ready for class,” she
whispered. “May I come in?”

Alex nodded and she opened the door further.
Her eyes widened when she looked at the bed. She glanced at him and
then back at the empty spot next to him, biting her lip and then
glanced at the bathroom door. “Is she in there?” she asked
softly.