Her Kind of Trouble

Her Kind of Trouble by Evelyn Vaughn Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Her Kind of Trouble by Evelyn Vaughn Read Free Book Online
Authors: Evelyn Vaughn
Tags: Romance
the lower deck I freed my skirts, while Rhys followed me.
    What came after was a pleasant jumble of introductions and welcomes from an international assortment of divers and archeologists. The director of this particular branch of the project, Pierre d'Alencon, shook my hand but seemed busy with other matters, so I backed to the edge of the deck, out of the way, to simply observe. Rhys got permission to show me the computer programs being used to map the underwater finds, so I turned in that direction—
    And faced blazing green eyes.
    "You," snarled a sickeningly familiar female voice, in French.
    Right before its owner pushed me over the railing.
    ----
    Chapter 5

     
    I made a desperate scramble at the metal railing as I fell over it. But I was too surprised, and it wasn't enough. The impact against the back of my legs, against my grasping hands, gave way to weightlessness.
    Then, with a splash, I vanished beneath the surface of the toxic harbor—and quickly closed my eyes. Sinking downward, before my frantic strokes and kicks stopped my descent, I wouldn't have seen any goddess relics even if they waited right there in front of me.
    Some champion!
    Only after I managed to struggle upward, boots and soggy skirt and all, and my face broke the waves into the air, did I open my eyes to the sunshine—
    And behold, far above, the bitch who'd pushed me.
    Catrina Dauvergne of the Musée de Cluny, Paris .
    The woman who'd once stolen the Melusine Grail from me.
    The willowy, tawny-haired Frenchwoman was not smiling.
    That made two of us.
    Once I managed to drag myself up the chrome ladder and back onto the deck, I took two dripping steps in my attacker's direction, my hand fisting. Maybe women don't normally default to violence as quickly as men, but this was by no means quick. This had been simmering for weeks.
    Rhys shouldered himself between us. "I forgot to mention her being here, Maggi. I'm so sorry."
    He would be. "Move."
    "I will not." Protecting people brings out the tough-guy in Rhys, even when they didn't deserve protection.
    "Yes, Pritchard," agreed Catrina in smooth French. "This is not for you to interfere."
    "But it is for me to interfere," insisted a new voice, that of Monsier d'Alencon—also in French. The French seemed to be running this particular show, after all. "Explain yourselves."
    I wrung out my skirt into a splattering puddle; it clung like wet tissue. "You want
me
to explain?"
    My French, unlike my Arabic, is fluent.
    "I wish
someone
to explain so that I know which of you two—or three—" his gaze included Rhys "—to dismiss."
    Catrina and I glared at each other. But this was a choice expedition, remember?
Newsweek. National Geographic
. Cable. The threat of expulsion carried weight. I could read her hatred in her narrowed gaze. She'd once accused me of playing archeologist, raiding medieval sanctuaries and stealing the Melusine Chalice instead of leaving it in situ—not that I'd had any choice! She, on the other hand, had pretended that she would put the chalice on display in the Cluny , where it might empower countless visitors with its proof of goddess worship, only to then sell it onto the black market. Either way, Catrina and I each had enough on the other to permanently ruin both our chances of involvement with either Cleopatra's Palace or the Temple of Isis everyone hoped to find there—and, worse, to end Rhys's internship, which he'd gotten through the Sorbonne. I was comfortably employed, waiting only for the fall semester to start. Catrina, I assumed, still had a job with the Cluny , unless she'd quit to live off her ill-gotten gains. But after he'd left the priesthood, archeology was the only profession Rhys had found that spoke to him. No way would I ruin this opportunity.
    No way would I allow Catrina to do so.
    "I apologize," I said slowly—to the project director. "Catrina and I are old friends. Sometimes our little jokes get out of hand, don't they, Cat?"
    Catrina Dauvergne might

Similar Books

Little Red Gem

D L Richardson

Leverage

Joshua C. Cohen

Rules about Lily

Angelina Fayrene

A Fire Upon the Deep

Vernor Vinge

Dead Ends

Erin Jade Lange

The Place of the Lion

Charles Williams

Low Town

Daniel Polansky