The Second Lie (Immortal Vikings Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

she didn’t want to wake up. Too tired. Wasn’t it Sunday? The café didn’t open until brunch. “Leave me alone.” She tried to roll over but she wasn’t lying down.
    “Miss? The party’s over.”
    Party. Over. Holy crap, she’d fallen asleep and her watch said one o’clock. London time? Yes, she’d reset it when the plane landed, so this must be one a.m. and she was fucked. She uncurled from the floral print chair, realizing she didn’t have a hotel room and probably wouldn’t be able to retrieve her luggage or her trench coat. The checker would be long gone. To a bed.
    She apologized to the two women waiting with spray bottles and rags as she stood, not bothering to stuff her swollen feet back into her heels. They had to clean and make a long trek home, a schedule she knew because her mother had lived that life until she’d married Big Frank. Her mother’s friends had been housekeepers even after the wedding.
    Hair tickled her left shoulder. Half her bun had escaped its confines, so she unpinned the rest while she used a hip to open the swinging door.
    The hall was dim and deserted except for the cleaning cart. She’d missed the opportunity to talk to any Bodeby’s bigwigs, to check the rest of the wine, to delve deeper into this mess.
    The realization that she’d gambled with her entire life in the United States by coming here, and yet she’d blown it napping in the ladies’ lounge, crashed through her hard enough to stop her. Almost two thousand dollars in airfare and sixty dollars on the cab, money she couldn’t afford to spend without results that would protect Morrison and Mancini. Each wasted dollar weighed like a backpack full of two thousand rocks.
    A vacuum propped open the door into the dark party room, where the greenish glow of emergency lights reflected off dark wooden tables stripped of their linens. The empty room beckoned.
    Her feet took a step closer. The fake cave occupied the middle of the room, reminding her that tomorrow night—no, tonight—would be a special preview for Asian collectors. They too would see certifications of authenticity backed by her reputation.
    The carpets gave slightly under her feet as she crossed to the structure. Without the lighting and chattering crowds, it squatted in the center of the room like a mausoleum.
    She shivered, her bare arms chilled even as her palms felt damp and sweaty. The antique door handle was cool and slippery. As soon as it swung open, she wiped her hand on the fabric over her thighs, and the conversation with the fake Geoffrey Morrison returned.
    An off-brand dress.
    Her dress didn’t define her any more than it had when she was a little girl wearing thrift shop clothes, so she walled his words away. His snobbery and fake values were a pathetic attempt to demean her, one she wouldn’t think about, not while she had the freedom to investigate the wine display.
    The interior of the cave was as dark as a covered vat. She groped to the right until she felt a switch, and soft light illuminated wall niches filled with bottles ready for the second round of previews. Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters had been added below the hand-lettered script on Bodeby’s tags. She hadn’t begun to pursue the Asian market for high-end wine, but that bastard had jumped ahead of her. If Morrison and Mancini pulled out of this intact, maybe she could develop a few new clients from his work.
    Without the presence of living, breathing people, the cooling system had sanitized the space. A real wine cave smelled alive in an indescribable way, not organic, not the rampant attack-force of brewery yeast, but yet alive. This space had less aroma than a walk-in refrigerator.
    She set her purse on the bar and dropped her shoes while she scanned the rows for her most prized acquisitions. The Argentinian Incarnadine was there, its label glowing with the fire of sunrise on a wine-red sea. Two years ago, she’d secured a half case for Lord Seymour by swapping