Claim

She felt some satisfaction to see that he was breathing hard, to feel his still rigid length straining the confines of his trousers.

His eyes were like liquid as he looked down at her, his full mouth wet and parted.

“I missed visiting you last night.” He said the words reluctantly, as if admitting a closely held secret.

“Then why didn’t you come?”

He hesitated, running his thumb along her cheek as he considered her words. “I was taken by surprise by my mother’s appearance.”

“I wanted to text and tell you, but I was taken by surprise as well,” she said. “I couldn’t get to my phone without being rude.”

He straightened and took a step back, putting distance between them she didn’t want. “You don’t have to worry about being rude. Aksana will run over you without looking once in her rearview mirror.”

Kira bit her lower lip, considering whether to ask about his use of his mother’s first name. She decided against it. There was too much history, too much obvious baggage, to tackle it standing in the dusty work site at Ludis.

“Is it all right that I asked her to stay? I assumed…?”

He sighed. “You did the right thing under the circumstances. We didn’t have time to discuss it. But…” He trailed off and his forehead creased with worry.

She had to resist the urge to reach up, smooth her hands over his brow. “But?”

“I don’t think her visit is a personal one,” he said.

Kira blinked. “What do you mean?”

He studied her, like he was trying to decide how much to say. She didn’t blame him, not after she’d run. It was up to her to prove he could trust her.

She took a step toward him and lay her hand against his cheek. It was an uncharacteristically personal gesture in the context of their newly cool relationship, and she was relieved when he didn’t pull away.

“You’ll have to trust me eventually,” she said.

“There have been rumors,” he finally said. “About Moscow.”

She wasn’t surprised. Thanks to Zoya, she’d heard the rumors through the household gossip mill, the housekeepers and landscapers and nannies of the bratva’s rich and powerful.

But Lyon didn’t know that.

“What kind of rumors?” she asked.

If it were to work between them, if they were to get back to where they’d been before she left him, Lyon would have to trust her in his own time.

He paced away from her and seemed to study the new wallpaper. She wondered what he saw in its mirrored reflection.

“Someone is working behind Ivan,” he said. “Someone in Moscow.”

“Why would they meddle in our affairs?” she asked. “Why now?”

The American bratva — and all its global counterparts — had been funneling a percentage of its earnings back to the powers-that-be in Russia since the 1980s, but those powers were shadowy and opaque, with no clear structure or leadership.

None that anyone knew anyway, and whoever they were, they had never shown any interest in participating in the American organizations.

“I don’t know,” Lyon murmured.

She heard the confusion in his voice. Lyon was a man who prided himself on knowing everything. On the rare occasion when he happened upon something he didn’t know, something he wanted to know, he made it his business to find out, to understand that thing from every angle.

He didn’t like not knowing things.

She crossed the room toward him, her heels clicking on the unfinished concrete that would soon be laid with hardwood.

He turned, his eyes consuming her as she walked toward him.

My god, he’s beautiful.

She should have been used to it by now, but somehow it still took her by surprise.

She looked up at him. “Then you must find out.”

The moment stretched taut between them. It was the first time they’d discussed business in any meaningful way since she’d abandoned him, since he’d sent Alek to bring her back to Chicago.

He took her hand, and she held her breath as he brought it to his lips. He opened her fingers and pressed a kiss to her palm. The hot flick of his tongue at its center sent a swell of desire to her sex.

He held her gaze. “I will.”

He dropped her hand, and his eyes shifted again. He was no longer her husband, the man who had taken her viciously and passionately against the wall only minutes before.

Now he was pakhan, the man who had bided his time for nearly two decades while he plotted his overthrow of the bratva.

The Lion.

“In the meantime,” he said, “you must be careful of my mother.”