Free Alpha by Jasinda Wilder Page B

woman. She didn’t ramble on about the artwork on the walls, or the vases on the pedestals, or the suits of armor that stood to either side of the front door. She merely led me from room to room, occasionally pointing out items of interest. Such as the original Vermeer in the formal living room, the frame encased behind thick temperature-controlled glass. Or the suit of armor from the twelfth century standing at attention beside a regal grandfather clock. Or the first-edition copies of famous books in the library.  
    God, the library. It was a dream, that library. It looked like nothing so much as the decadent extravagance from Beauty and the Beast : fifty-foot-high ceilings, shelves stuffed with books stretching the entire height, with rolling ladders for access to the highest shelves. There were three levels to the library, accessible by hidden spiral staircases, each level having nooks with deep plush chairs and reading lamps and little round tables.  
    When Eliza saw my reaction to the library, she cocked an eyebrow at me. “He likes books,” was her deadpan statement.
    I gave a short bark of laughter. “No kidding. This place is amazing.”
    “Yes, it is,” she agreed. “This building was specially designed and built to my employer’s specifications. What is usually referred to as the ‘penthouse,’ meaning the uppermost floor of the building, really encompasses something more like the upper three or four stories, which obviously accounts for the abnormally high ceilings in this room in particular.”  
    Next, she showed me an industrial kitchen, as well as a smaller and more home-like second kitchen, saying that I’d use the secondary kitchen for my day-to-day needs. There was a breakfast nook off the secondary kitchen, tucked up against more floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.  
    There was a single door set at the end of a short hallway just off the secondary kitchen. “What’s through there?” I asked.
    “His quarters. The door is always locked, and that is the only area that is off-limits to you,” she said, gesturing for me to follow her.  
      She took me up an internal elevator to an open area with an indoor pool. The ceiling was glass, revealing the night sky. Through a door off this room were a sauna, a full bathroom, a massage room, a weight room, and a dojo, complete with sparring dummies and a rack of wooden practice weapons of all kinds.  
    Finally she led me back down the main floor and halted outside a pair of French doors, not far from the kitchens. “Through this door is the dining room, where he awaits you. If you are ready?”  
    Eliza held up the blindfold. I nodded, and she moved to stand behind me, tying it around my head. Once more, the world went black, and I was reliant on my other four senses.  
    “I feel I should say…I have worked for him for twenty years, Miss Kyrie. He is a good man. He has his own strange ways, and likes things just so, and he demands excellence in all things, but…he is a good man. I know you must be afraid, but please, you do not need to be. If there is anything I am able to do for you, you have only to ask. I am the chef as well, so if you wish any particular foods or would like a specific dish, just ask me. You have only to call for me via the intercom, and I will respond.” She patted me on the shoulder, and then I heard the door open and her hands took mine. “This way, please.”
    She led me about fifty steps, my heels echoing on a tile or marble floor and far-away walls. “Miss Kyrie, sir.”
    “Thank you, Eliza.” His voice came from my left, approaching over soft footfalls. “We will begin with the first course when you’re ready.”  
    “Very good, sir.” Eliza’s footsteps receded, in the opposite direction from where we’d come, and then a door opened and closed.  
    I felt his hands on mine, engulfing mine, pulling me forward several more steps, and then he pulled out a chair, guided me in front of it, and