Page 40 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

“That’s less than you started with.”

“But I won them through skill and determination!”

“It’s a lever. You pulled it.”

A casino staff member dressed in a Viking costume, complete with a historically inaccurate but visually impressive horned helmet, wanders past offering drinks. He’s tall, muscular, and exactly Nettie’s type, which is to say he’s male and breathing.

“Well, hello, Thor,” Nettie calls out, abandoning her slot machine entirely. “Can I get a cosmopolitan? And also your cabin number?”

The staff member grins, clearly used to the attention. “I can help with the cosmopolitan.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

Bess keeps her eyes on her machine. “You’re embarrassing.”

“You’re just jealous of my networking skills.”

I glance at Marina near the blackjack tables. She’s explaining rules to a cluster of book club members, her hands moving expressively, her smile easy. But every few seconds, her eyes flick to the exits. To the security cameras mounted in the corners. To the flow of traffic through the casino.

I turn to Ransom, who’s feeding tokens into his machine with the same methodical focus he gives security footage.

Here’s the thing. As our last cruise ended, my husband dropped a bomb on me. Marina Maxwell isn’t who she says she is, he told me, and then he zipped it shut and refused to elaborate, giving me that maddening look he gets when classified information is involved. But over the Wellington tonight, he mentioned, ever so casually, that he’d finally finished digging. My patience officially expired with the crème brûlée.

“So what did you learn about Marina Maxwell?”

Wes’ head swivels toward me so fast I’m surprised he doesn’t get whiplash. “What are you talking about?”

Ransom’s hand settles over mine on the lever, warm and steady, before he answers. My husband delivers hard news with a touch first. It’s one of the thousand small things I love about him, even when it makes my stomach dip like the ship just crested a swell. He offers a somber smile, and I know that smile. It’s the one he saves for news nobody wants to hear.

Ransom nods to Wes. “I did a little research on Marina during the last cruise. She’s not exactly who she says she is.”

The headline he handed me just before this cruise began. Only tonight it arrives with the weight of fine print behind it. I hope.

Wes goes very still, his hand hovering over his machine’s slot. My token slips clean out of my fingers and rolls off somewhere beneath the machines, and I let it go. Around us, the casino keeps right on celebrating. In our little corner of it, the party just ended.

Because here’s what nobody tells you about secrets—they don’t care one bit how much you adore the person holding them.

And I’m very much afraid that Marina Maxwell has been playing with borrowed chips this whole time.

CHAPTER 10

The casino noise continues all around us—slot machines chiming, someone at the craps table shouting sweet nothings at the dice, Elodie’s bubbling laugh carrying from the bar where she’s cornered another Viking-costumed staff member and is clearly winning whatever game of flirtation they’re playing.

She always wins.

I suspect the house knows better than to bet against her. The men never stand a chance, and here’s the part that fascinates me most—they know it, and they line up anyway. Elodie doesn’t play the odds. Elodie is the odds. That woman could talk a monk out of his vows and have him thanking her for the honor on his way out the door.

“Define ‘not who she says she is,’” I say carefully, pulling my own lever and watching the reels spin uselessly past a winning combination. Story of my night.

Because that’s where we are. Two minutes ago, my husband dropped the bomb that Marina Maxwell, our brand-new cruise director, our friend, the woman Wes has been mooning over since Copenhagen, might be sailing under false pretenses.

He ran a background check. He found things. And now the three of us are huddled in the corner of a Viking casino pretending to gamble while we quietly dismantle a woman’s biography over slot machines.

Ransom watches his reels land, and his machine chirps out a six-token win he doesn’t acknowledge.

Figures. Ransom is a winner no matter what else is happening in the world.

“I ran a routine background check,” he tells us. “Nothing invasive. Standard protocol when someone new joins senior operations.”