to the thread of pride, determined to survive this if she could.
She changed into shorts and a thin blouse, then called down to have the room service cart taken away. It was a momentary temptation to ask to have her kitchen stocked, a luxury provided by the hotel that she had rarely taken advantage of, but the mental images that evoked made her resist. She and Skye weren’t living together, she reminded herself fiercely. They weren’t married. He was just staying in her suite for the duration of his assignment. Period. And she refused to be coy, to paint an illusion of domesticity by pandering to a little-woman-in-the-kitchen image.
A sudden memory brought her sense of humor to the rescue before she could get bogged down in self-pity; she wouldn’t have been in the kitchen anyway. Unless he had forgotten more in six years than she had learned, Skye was a much better cook than she was.
She wandered around restlessly for a while after the room service waiter left. Then an abrupt thought sent her to the telephone, and she called the hotel’s switchboard. “Megan, if there are any calls for Mr. Prescott, put them through to this number, will you?”
“Sure, Katrina.” Megan giggled suddenly. “As a matter of fact, he already called me about that. Some women have all the luck!”
Katrina, who had kept her voice calm and dignified, cleared her throat and said, “Well, thanks, Megan,” and quickly hung up. She sat staring at the phone, uncertain if she was amused or annoyed by Skye’s swift action. Possession, she wondered, or professionalism? Had he been determined to alert the entire hotel via the talkative switchboard operator that he had moved in, or had he taken that step simply out of a good agent’s precaution?
Ten minutes later, watching as he methodically unpacked in her bedroom, she had to know. “I thought Hagen might try to call you, so I phoned the switchboard. It seems you had the same thought. Megan all but congratulated me.”
He straightened with his shaving kit in his hand and turned toward the bathroom, saying, “You’re a fallen woman now.”
Katrina stared after him, irritated by the satisfaction in his calm voice. She went to her dresser and began shifting some of her clothing to make room for his. “You didn’t have to shout it to the whole place,” she muttered.
Coming back into the bedroom, he patted her on the fanny as he passed. “No?”
She glared at his reflection in the mirror for a moment, but his quick smile disarmed her. He was in a better mood than he had been, she realized, and wondered if she’d ever fathom him. “No,” she returned, but in a milder voice. “It may interest you to know that it’s a well-known fact I don’t sleep with guests, much less when they haven’t been here a week.”
He shrugged, but he was still smiling. “Bets have been on for two days now. I just thought somebody should win the kitty.”
This time Katrina turned around to stare at him rather than at his reflection. “What?”
“Sure.” His eyes were gleaming with amusement. “I wasn’t supposed to know, but Dane told me about it yesterday. One of the room service waiters saw him practicing a crooked deal and asked if he liked betting pools. By the way, the odds were running strongly in my favor.”
She didn’t know whether to swear or laugh. “Are you telling me that the staff has been betting on your chances of getting me into bed?”
“Yes. And they must have seen something I didn’t; until this morning, I was almost ready to bet against me.”
Katrina bit her lip, staring at him, then suddenly laughed. “Would you like to wager that Gigi didn’t start it?”
Skye was looking at her intently, a different, softer smile playing around his firm lips. “No. Dane taught me long ago never to bet against a sure thing.”
Without having noticed either her own laugh or his reaction to it, she shook her head and stepped over to pick up a pile of his shirts lying on the bed.
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