The Second Lie (Immortal Vikings Book 2) Page 2

  The Seymour cellar was Morrison and Mancini’s to consign, by all that was fair in business. She’d been instrumental in building it. Every Western Hemisphere wine in it, from Argentinian malbec to Canadian ice wines, had been procured by her. It would have been courteous to ask her to be the go-between with the sale, but so much for women helping other women in business.

  “Christina?”

  Hearing her name jerked her attention back to Elaine, who was watching her with penciled eyebrows higher than the Botox-loving crowd around Christina’s target could hope to stretch. Her eyes and mouth somehow combined to look both amused and sympathetic.

  “I don’t know why you always describe him as older, honey.”

  “Who?”

  “Geoffrey.” Elaine purred the name of the senior partner of Morrison and Mancini as they both resumed staring at the cluster of people that included Elaine’s husband, one of Christina’s first customers. Then she leaned closer to snicker, “Jack is older. Geoffrey certainly isn’t. He’s a man in his prime.”

  Her client’s familiarity with a man she couldn’t possibly have met set off a low alarm. As soon as Christina figured out who the man at the center of this show was, she’d try to figure out what Elaine meant.

  “Have you eaten? You look thinner than last time I saw you.” Hand on Christina’s elbow, Elaine steered her toward a waiter with a tray of white cheese spread on toasted bread. “You must come to shindigs like this with Geoffrey all the time. Is the food always this sparse?”

  “Always.” She gave her practiced laugh, the small and happy version, while she kept most of her attention on those gathered in front of the fake wine cave.

  “I couldn’t keep my mind on work without more food.” Elaine sighed. “And when your boss looks so dee-lish in a tuxedo, I surely don’t know how you work together without your eyes crossing. If I was twenty years younger and didn’t love my Jack so much... Tell me the truth, honey.” She scanned Christina down to her polished black heels and then whispered close to her ear. “Aren’t you a little itty-bitty bit tempted?”

  “By what?” One ten-dollar coffee at Heathrow Airport hadn’t been enough to clear her travel fog, because the direction of Elaine’s question confused her. “By the appetizers?”

  “By Geoffrey!”

  “My boss?”

  Geoffrey Morrison, owner and founder of Morrison and Mancini, wine merchants and custom collection finishers, contributor to numerous California charities, sponsor of an annual children’s race held the day before the Silverado Trail Triathlon and author of several articles in Wine Aficionado and Wine Flight Magazine, did not exist. He was a complete fiction, created because no one, not one single person in possession of a credit card, hired a woman in her twenties to complete their wine collections, not even if that woman had an honors degree in viticulture and enology and five generations of California wine-making in her background. She’d juggled Geoffrey Morrison’s busy schedule of non-appearances for six years. And never lusted after the invisible man once. Her pillow had more substance. So what the heck was Elaine talking...

  She followed the woman’s fatuous gaze straight to the center of the crowd, to the blond man who’d been her target since she’d noted his buzz.

  No. The world could not be that batshit crazy.

  “Now that I’ve met him, I think Geoffrey’s even more yummy than the pinot noir he sent last month.” Elaine giggled.

  She had sent Elaine that varietal. She’d sensed how perfectly it would match her client’s recipe for baked ziti with ancho chiles. Thinking about wine was usually an automatic comfort, but with the cacophony of accents and the feeling that one more part of her life was spiraling out of her control, the fact that Elaine liked her choice didn’t calm her.

  “Silly me. I forgot to thank him when we talked earlier. I’ll have to go back.” Elaine waved her lipstick-smudged cocktail napkin in front of her face as if heated. “Close your mouth, honey. I’ve decided to make sure your boss notices more than your brains.”

  The other woman assessed Christina from her hair to her shoes and back, the second person tonight to make Christina aware of her plain black dress and average heels. Elaine was her biggest fan, introducing her to new clients and sending customers from all over the country to her. Without Elaine, her business might not have survived, let alone grown to the point where she was halfway to the down payment on a small vineyard of her own, so she endured the scrutiny.

  “My fairy godmother job would be easier if you wore a lower cut dress. Men are just like calves, always looking for—”

  “No, really, Elaine, please.” She did not want to hear Elaine describe cow anatomy, not while they stood under Bodeby’s antique chandeliers, because her concentration level didn’t leave room in her brain to add inappropriate humor to the mix. She tried delicately to pull her arm out of the other woman’s grip but didn’t struggle enough to actually escape. To find out who the man in the center of the group was, because he couldn’t be the nonexistent Geoffrey Morrison, she needed Elaine to drag her over and make conversation. That meant appearing reluctant, but not so reluctant that Elaine abandoned her apparent matchmaking. “It’s fine. I don’t—”

  “Oh hush. This will be like a romantic comedy. I guarantee by the time I’m finished, your boss will think the stars shine in your eyes.”

  * * *

  The latest arrival wasn’t a bidder. She was the potential end of his fund scheme. The sight of Christina Alvarez Mancini’s smooth dark bun and tailored black dress, so similar to the news photo of her accepting the nomination as Napa County young entrepreneur of the year, made Stig Akason’s fingers tighten on the stem of his wine glass. The promotional crystal was strong and simple, like his plan, yet despite all indications to the contrary and all his investigation, this woman had walked through the door and tipped his delicately balanced strategy on its edge.

  He hadn’t expected her to come to London. Although wine was an international commodity, she hadn’t traveled outside the United States in more than a decade.

  At least the micro-pour Elaine Johnson was pressing in her hand was a genuine Realino Cabernet Sauvignon. Every bottle sampled tonight had been chosen by him from the real ones because tonight was the point of most risk. Once home, if the buyers drank the wine—a big if, because they rarely opened their prizes—they were unlikely to notice that a blend of forty-dollar plonk had been substituted for thousand-euro vintages.

  “You should give that gal a raise, Morrison.” Jack Johnson, worth two hundred million from oil pipelines and two hundred more from natural gas, primary residences in San Diego and Houston, legal residence at a Luxembourg private bank, stood at his left elbow. Together they watched Jack’s wife approach towing Stig’s supposed employee.

  The complication was beautifully timed, since both Lord Seymour’s daughter’s neediness and Bodeby’s decorum threatened to become tedious before the auction closed next week. The unanticipated challenge enhanced the sounds in the room, until he almost thought he could separate individual conversations while he waited for the two women. Christina’s website had offered an enticingly slim biography for his character. After beginning his career in a premier Bordeaux vineyard and working with major British and European collectors, Geoffrey Morrison relocated from London to establish a custom wine sourcing service in the heart of California’s Napa Valley. He knew why Christina had made her fictional boss an Englishman. For two centuries, the right plummy vowels had separated Americans from their money with haste, surpassed only by corner pros. He is a board member of the North American Association of Wine Professionals, co-sponsor of the Victor and Francis Mancini scholarship for Viticulture and Enology students at University of California Davis, and a prominent member of numerous international wine organizations.

  Rubbish, every word, but in five more steps its author would be in front of him, and
he’d be forced to play to his toughest critic. His version of Geoffrey Morrison liked discreet and long-established steak restaurants more than fusion cuisine, enjoyed the quieter British parts of the Caribbean more than the flashy cruise stops and preferred brass collar stays to trendy tailoring. The opportunity to see what Miss Mancini thought of his portrayal and how she played the game was as tempting as any dare. If she unmasked him, he’d either have to flee or continue the charade by firing her on the spot. Neither course of action appealed as much as looking at her and sipping wine.

  “Miss Mancini.” His lips curved into a formal greeting. Too formal, if the slight creases between Elaine Johnson’s eyebrows were a clue.

  “Are you English always so stiff? You two have worked together for almost a dog’s year, so I want to see you act a little more friendly.” Jack’s wife smiled at Stig, but he recognized an order.

  Geoffrey Morrison should flirt with his assistant enough to satisfy the clients, so Stig widened his lips until his teeth showed and his eyes crinkled. “Christina.” Perfect voice drop.

  Her only response was a narrowing of her eyes.

  “Everything well at the Double M?” Casually dropping the name of her shop made her eyebrows pull together. Good. Her arrival might be the end of his game, or it might not; regardless, he wouldn’t be bored. Boredom, he’d discovered more years ago than the word had been invented, was his worst enemy. “No emergencies to report?”

  “Fine.” Her lips tightened and she blinked twice, but an observer like Elaine would assume that to be normal employer and employee tension. “Everything’s fine.” She was a shade too loud, but then, she’d had fifteen hundred years less time to master prevarication.

  “Splendid. Ah, Elaine.” He lifted Jack’s wife’s hand, a move American women appreciated more than their British counterparts did. Even as he pressed his lips to the lotion-scented skin of the older woman, his senses remained focused on Christina. London drizzle filled the March night, but she sang of sunny climates and heat. Perhaps it was the golden tan of her skin that even obvious exhaustion couldn’t dim, or the trim outlines of her figure that needed to be shown in shorts and tank tops. Whatever it was about Christina, it warmed the air.

  “In Texas, we don’t kiss other men’s wives, son.”

  He’d forgotten to release the oilman’s wife.

  “Oh, Jack, we’re in Europe, not Houston.” Elaine retrieved her hand and swatted her husband’s shoulder playfully as the younger woman at her side tried again to smile. “Don’t go zipping your chaps backward because of Geoffrey.”

  At the sound of his assumed name, Christina’s shoulders tightened imperceptibly. He could tell because the slick fabric of her dress shifted, not because her body moved. The tension her presence layered on his plan made even the hair on his arms aware of her. He wasn’t quite sure whether this was the way the cat felt or the way the mouse felt, but either way, he had to jump to stay out in front.

  “Did you locate another case of the Yamhill County Pinot Noir for the Gregorys, Christina?” He enjoyed how her gaze flew from his hands to his face, her eyes as wide as if he’d pinched her bum. He met her silent question with a raised eyebrow, presenting the picture of a man of power asking about a task he’d delegated.

  “Don’t you ever give her a moment to enjoy herself without talking shop?” Elaine asked.

  “How did you know about—” Christina bit her lip, leaving a smudge of burnt-red lipstick on the edge of her teeth that she quickly concealed behind a tight closed smile.

  That flash of vulnerability arrowed into him until his stomach muscles tightened. Her eyes were deep and shadowed, a combination so mysterious compared to the vivid contact lens blues of the trophy wives, he felt a quixotic urge to scotch the auction, lose his set-up money, dump the fakes and inform Lord Seymour’s daughter that she should quaff the good stuff with her staff rather than sell it. There was, he had learned, always more money to shake from the rich, but self-respect was less available. He didn’t hurt women. Another way to fill his account would appear as easily as Lord Seymour’s daughter.

  He lifted his hand to signal a waiter hovering with a tray of caviar toast points, needing something to bring him back to the moment before he completely forgot his part. The movement shifted his dinner jacket sleeve away from the edge of his cuff. The small diamond centered in the ornately scrolled platinum rectangle winked at him with the memory of Nora holding the tiny box of cuff links and saying, You have to look first class. I know how these people dress. It’s the little things that trip the other ranks.

  In three weeks, the bulldozers would arrive and Nora’s monument would disappear. Pieces might go to the basement of an unvisited local museum, but her face would never feel the mist on its marble cheeks again or become warm on a sunny August day. And the putti at her feet, the only images of Robbie he’d ever made, would be separated from her again. No, he couldn’t cancel this auction, not even for eyes like Miss Mancini’s.

  “I selected the Pluvialis for special tastings in the cave.” He swallowed his self-disgust. “Shall we continue inside?” His gesture toward the structure included the Johnsons and Christina. If Miss Mancini didn’t fuss, he’d get what he needed, and Morrison and Mancini would be unscathed.

  Jack looked eager until his wife dug her elbow into his waist and spoke for both. “We’ll let you two catch up alone. I’m off to visit that other thing. In England, do they call it the loo or the WC? I always forget.” She hauled the oilman off with a grip that creased his jacket.

  “I asked how you knew about the pinot for the Gregorys.” Her voice was quiet and uninflected as he unlatched the rustic wooden door to the private cave. “Who are you?”

  “Who do you think advised them to request that vintage?” Wisps of Miss Mancini’s hair that were too fine to stay in her bun floated on the back of her neck, but that shouldn’t blind him to the fact that she knew how to shake money from the rich tree too, given the Johnsons’ obvious fondness for her. He steered her into the dim light of the stone structure. “You do work for me.”

  “I do not work for you.” Although each word was distinct as if forced individually through her lips, she was quiet enough that the tasters standing at the exclusive bar fifteen feet away couldn’t hear.

  “Shall I inform the people outside that you’ve resigned?” In this intimate space separated from the buzzing crowd, he could smell the light combination of her scents. Nothing like the complexity of wine yet equally as alluring. He wanted to lean closer, but that would show his interest.

  “You wouldn’t.” Her tension was obvious in the visible delineation of her neck tendons. Luckily, the two patrons and bartender were so focused, they hadn’t glanced at his little drama.

  “Think they’ll listen to you?” He inhaled. No masking perfume, not for a woman who loved wine and made a living using her senses, only hints of simple fruits clinging to her hair and skin. “Or me?”

  “Everyone knows me! They’ve never met—” she glanced at the men on the other side of the cave, and he knew she revised her sentence, “—you.” She rubbed two fingers over the skin at her temples, perhaps to loosen where her tightly scraped hair had pulled her eyes into a slight squint.

  “You’ve convinced them they already know me. Jolly good job.” He studied the square neckline of her dress where it tickled the edge of her collarbone. As she lowered her hand, he caught it and delicately cupped it in his larger one. He was about to press the cruelest button available to him, and skin to skin would give him the best measure of her reaction. “Ask yourself. Will they listen to the man in the bespoke dinner jacket or the girl in the off-brand dress with a ladder in her tights?”

  “I don’t—” She glanced at her leg, and then back to him. “That’s unfair.” Her voice had shrunk, and with it his enjoyment of their sparring diminished. A verbal jab was sporting, but a knife in the bac
k was a streetfight. He didn’t think he had to be that brutal to Christina.

  “When has life been fair?” He raised her hand but didn’t follow through on a kiss, a step too far. He only wanted to trap her a tiny bit. “I would have thought you knew that.”

  An attendant with the discreet black-and-gold name tag of the auction house unlatched the door and stepped into the cave. “Mr. Morrison.”

  “Yes?” Alert tightened in his gut. A beautiful woman with a grudge against him was the antithesis of boredom, but at this juncture he could live without inquiries from Bodeby’s.

  “Two men have requested to join the preview. They are not on our preapproved list.”

  He raised an eyebrow. The wine reporters and Lord Seymour’s insurance broker had been on the list, regretfully, but two unknowns, noticeably not referred to as gentlemen, could only signal a problem.

  The security guard consulted a card. “A Mr. Grigor Wendel and a Mr. Skafe Thorsson.”

  By Loki’s arrows, this had become a complicated evening.

  Chapter Two

  “Would you mind asking them to wait outside until the end of the preview, if you will?” The imposter’s amused expression hadn’t changed, but the two names he’d heard had made him squeeze Christina’s hand for a fraction of an instant.

  She wouldn’t call him Geoffrey, wouldn’t even think of him that way, not least because other than his well-tailored tuxedo and his Shakespeare-perfect accent, he bore no resemblance to the aging bon vivant she’d imagined as her fictional business partner. But whoever he was, his reflex had been a giveaway.

  As the Bodeby’s employee bowed out, careful not to reveal a single facial expression about either the instructions or their presence in the cave, she tried to decide if the imitation cellar was cheesy crap or brilliantly novel. The lighting was dim enough to make the faux-painted walls seem like real stone, and the goose bumps on her arms told her it was climate-controlled. The structure must be thick enough to keep coolness in and sound out because the gabble of the hundred patrons at the preview had faded. The two men at the far end seemed to be having an exclusive interaction with a sommelier, which was an inspired way to cultivate the elite of the elite. This was a setup she might try for herself if she established a pop-up store in Manhattan.