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“Sleep is for the weak,” Lyon said, “We have work to do.”
32
Kira made her way through the lobby of the Waldorf and headed for the front desk. The hotel was boutique in size, but it more than made up for it in atmosphere. The lobby was hushed and refined, with soaring ceilings and a serene mix of modern and classical decor.
She stepped up to the front desk and was greeted by a young woman in a gray suit jacket. “Welcome to the Waldorf Astoria. Checking in?”
“No,” Kira said. “I’m actually here to see one of your guests.”
“Of course,” the woman said, reaching for a phone hidden behind the white marble counter. “Name?”
“Aksana Antonov,” Kira said.
Her mother-in-law’s name left a bad taste in her mouth. She’d been insufferable — alternately disinterested and demanding, apathetic and critical — during the weeks she’d stayed with Lyon and Kira at the penthouse.
But it was her treatment of Lyon, as a boy and as a man, that pushed Kira to kick the woman out of the apartment and put her up at the Waldorf. Her disloyalty in helping Vadim had been damaging, but her coldness toward Lyon was unforgivable.
She had a flash of the photograph she’d found tucked away in his closet: a younger Aksana in a printed wrap dress, staring into the camera as if there under duress, holding the hand of a small boy with empty eyes.
Lyon and his mother in Russia, before they’d come to America.
Kira still felt like she’d been punched in the chest when she thought of it.
The front desk clerk was murmuring into the phone, her voice too soft for Kira to make out the words, and Kira suddenly wondered if her mother-in-law would turn her away, refuse to speak to her.
They hadn’t exactly left off on good terms.
The clerk set the phone down and looked past Kira to the bank of elevators at the end of the hall. “Last elevator, fourth floor. Ms. Antonov is in suite 412. She’s expecting you.”
“Thank you,” Kira said.
She made her way across the lobby, nerves fluttering in her stomach along with the soft kicks of the baby. She was wearing one of the dresses Henry and Lydia, the stylists who’d come to the hotel in New York, had helped her choose, and she felt confident in spite of the coming confrontation with Lyon’s mother.
She hadn’t told Lyon about her plans to talk to Aksana. He’d only try to talk her out of it — or worse, insist on coming with her — and she didn’t want to give him anything else to think about.
She emerged from the elevator onto the fourth floor and made her way to suite 412. She knocked before she had time to change her mind.
She was getting ready to knock again — keeping her waiting was undoubtedly Aksana’s way of exerting her control over Kira — when the door opened.
Her mother-in-law stood in the doorway, her black hair still lush and loose around her shoulders, her makeup impeccably applied. Her pale multi-colored skirt suit was Chanel, in the classic deconstructed style, paired with a pair of four-inch nude heels that were probably Louboutin.
She studied Kira triumphantly, and Kira had to fight not to shrink under the other woman’s gaze.
You are the Lion’s wife. You are the falcon.
You are Kira Baranov Antonov.
“Aksana,” she said, relieved to hear her voice sound crisp and businesslike. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“It is not every day the Lion’s wife asks for an appointment,” Aksana said in thickly accented English. “I’m curious, if nothing else.”
The last part was a dismissal, a way to make it clear Kira was as interesting to Aksana as the garbage trucks that rolled through the city night and day.
“May I come in?” Kira asked, tired of standing at the door.
Aksana opened the door wider and Kira stepped into the living room of the suite. It wasn’t the largest suite at the Waldorf, but Aksana was here — had been here for months — on Lyon’s dime, and it was luxurious and well-appointed, the color palette a soothing gray and white.
The door was open to the balcony, a summer breeze fluttering the sheer draperies hanging on one side.
