Bartered Surrender: The Billionaire's Wife, Part 9 (A BDSM Erotic Romance) by Ava Lore Page A

dungeon down there.”
    “Well, yeah, but that was only one theory.”
    He stared at me for a long moment, clearly bemused, then shook his head. “No dead bodies,” he said, pulling his keys from his pocket. “But something very important to me all the same.”
    He slid the key into the lock, and the teeth grated over the pins. With a click, he opened the basement door and turned the light on.
    We descended.
    I gasped.
    It was an art gallery, white walls and blond wooden floors and perfectly ambient temperature. And not just any art gallery—a gallery of pieces I recognized, and not because they were famous. They were from local artists living in New York. I knew some of them. I'd certainly seen some of their work. There was something by Jillian—an intricate sculpture of clock parts and dead wood washed up on the beach—and one of Harry's minimalist paintings—from what we all jokingly called his Man Ass period—and even one of Paulo's cascading rollercoaster pieces from when he was working almost exclusively with roofing shingles. A huge canvas hung on the far wall, glittering and undulating with layers upon layers of shimmering jewel-toned paint and jagged pieces of aluminum cans. One of Sadie's works.
    And on a pedestal—not in the center, thank god—but there all the same, one of my creations lay, sprung from clay I had manipulated myself. A ferret with human hands, covering its face, in a posture of utter despair as it curled on its side beneath an interesting tree branch I'd found in the park on a walk with Sadie. I'd called it waking for some reason. I couldn't even remember now why I'd called it that. But Anton had bought it.
    “What... what is this?” I said. “Did you know me before we met?”
    His hand around mine squeezed tighter. “I wouldn't say that,” he said. “But I had heard your name before.” He wouldn't look at me, only stared at waking as though trying to connect the woman next to him with the piece of art in his little private gallery.
    A bench sat in the middle of the basement, a huge soft cushion on it, and Anton led me to it. We sat, and I stared around me in amazement. “Why didn't you tell me you liked art?”
    “I don't know,” he said. “And it's not... it's not really the art I like, per se. That's not why I started collecting it, anyway.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
    This was it. Here's where he told me everything. Whatever it was that kept him from reaching out to me.
    “When I was a baby, my parents died in a car crash,” he said. I already knew that, but now that I knew him better I could hear the little thread of sorrow in his voice, spun from an ache in his chest. “I never knew them. They were young. Still in high school. It fell to my other family to raise me.” He shook his head. “But they were pretty dirt poor and the situation was not... stable.”
    His mouth twisted. “Well, it was chaos, actually. People coming and going, and my grandmother was angry with my dead mother for dying, and for having a kid in the first place, and she took that out on me. Sometimes she would dump me with one of my aunts or uncles—great aunts and uncles, if we are going to be precise—and disappear for a while. She was still young. None of them had a steady job. None of them had been to college. Not that that means anything, but it was terrifying for a little kid who didn't have anyone to count on. Drunks and drug addicts, most of them. The ones who did work were so ground down supporting the rest of them that it was always shouting matches and throwing things. I remember I got slapped when I cried when I was a little kid. I couldn't have been more than four. I bounced through foster homes sometimes, when no one could afford to take care of me, or the cops were called one too many times. They always hated it when CPS took me. They were too proud to lose me, but too selfish to keep me.”
    His hand was still in mine, and I felt him stiffening. Afraid that he