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She looked around the room for him, but he was nowhere to be found. The door across from her bedroom was closed, Lyon must have gone to shower and change.
She walked to the phone, called room service, and ordered coffee, two omelettes, a basket of pastries, and two sides of bacon.
She found her luggage inside the bedroom pointed out by Rurik. It was clearly a master suite, spacious and well appointed with an attached en suite bathroom complete with a soaking tub and a shower more than large enough for two.
She had a flash of Lyon in the shower, his hands roaming her soapy body, turning her to face the tile wall, entering her from behind.
She pushed it away and spent the next twenty minutes washing her face and brushing her teeth. She would shower after breakfast, then climb into the big inviting bed and sleep off her jet lag.
She was finishing up when the elevator dinged. As was usually the case with a private elevator, it didn’t open right away. Staff were given different keys to the penthouse elevator, keys that didn’t allow for unannounced entry into the suite.
She crossed the living room and continued down the hall, then pushed the button to open the elevator.
A uniformed hotel employee waited with a wheeled cart. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she said.
She stood back while he entered, then followed him into the living room.
He set the silver carafe, utensils, and covered plates on the table by the big window. She signed for the food, leaving him a generous tip, and saw him back to the elevator.
She hesitated when she returned to the living room, wondering if she should knock on the closed door to the other bedroom. Damn Lyon Antonov. Why did he have to be the one person who made her uncertain? Who made her distrust herself and her instincts?
She was still debating her options — knock on the door and let him think she wanted his company? Begin eating alone and send the message that she didn’t care if he joined her or not? — when the door to his room opened.
He strode into the living room looking every bit like he’d gotten ten hours of sleep and had gone for a morning run even though she knew he’d spent the night on the plane, flying halfway across the world.
She tried to seem unaffected as she took in his jeans, snug around his muscled thighs and snugger still around the bulge in his groin. He’d paired them with a fresh white shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and big biceps, giving the impression that if he moved at all, the shirt would rip at the seams.
He slipped on a blazer, his eyes roaming the table clearly set for two. He met her eyes, his expression unreadable, and stalked from the room without a backward glance.
She watched him go, watched the elevator doors close at the other end of the long hall. Her fingers twitched to throw something, to give in to the rage simmering to a boil in her blood.
How dare he? How dare he dismiss her in such a way when she’d gone to the trouble to order him food?
She remembered his laughter the last time she’d given in to her rage, and she sat at the table. She clutched her hands in her lap until the impulse to throw one of the crystal juice glasses passed.
This time, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
16
Lyon had to force the image of Kira out of his mind on their way across the city. She’d looked almost vulnerable standing there, as if she’d wanted him to stay for breakfast. It would have been hard to spot by anyone who didn’t know her. The proud tilt of her chin, the straight set of her shoulders, would have made it easy to think she didn’t care whether he stayed, that she’d ordered breakfast for him as a show of wifely duty.
But despite his surprise by her abandonment, his questioning of everything that had happened in the weeks he thought he was falling in love with her, he did think he knew her.
Or he knew some things about her anyway.
He’d recognized the uncertainty in her eyes, although she’d been trying mightily to hide it.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” Rurik asked from the driver’s seat of their rented SUV.
Lyon let his gaze roam the landscape, Prague’s Gothic and Romanesque buildings warm in the sunlight, their reflection glowing in the murky waters of the Vlatava. “No. In fact, I’d venture a guess it’s a terrible idea.”
Tolya Sakharov would have the information Lyon needed. Or if he didn’t have it, he would be able to get it.
But it came at a risk. Lyon wanted to believe Tolya would be discreet, that Lyon could trust him because of his long association with Lyon’s father.
Except Tolya was former KGB, and one of the many lessons Lyon had learned from his father before his death was to never trust the KGB — past, present, or future.
