It All Began in Monte Carlo by Elizabeth Adler Page B

end.
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    Pacing the square, smoking her second cigarette, Sharon debated the rival lures of the bar and a double Scotch on the rocks against another cigarette. She shivered, hearing the sirens, seeing the halogen glow to the sky in the east. She was both drawn to it and repelled by it.
    She saw an attractive man carrying a bag, making for the hotel. In an almost reflex female action, she smoothed her skirt, settled her little black fur jacket more closely around her face, holding itwith an unbejeweled hand. Her large diamond studs glinted in the lamplight. Her eyes followed him. He had not even noticed her.
    Sharon’s eyes narrowed as she watched him striding in an easy lope up the hotel steps. She knew him from somewhere, she could swear she did.
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    Kitty Ratte had been forced to park a couple of blocks away due to the police cordon and had to walk to the hotel. She too saw the man and guessed immediately from Sunny’s description that it was Mac Reilly. She eyed him appreciatively. He was too good to miss; as good as the “companion” Sunny was with the other night. Maybe even better. Great. Two men were always better than one. And with Sunny either too innocent or else too dumb, the field was clear for a little play. And “play” was what Kitty really loved. In fact she made her living from it.

chapter 19
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    Pru was starving, as always, and Allie knew she’d better get her some dinner, and also get some food into Sunny, who was probably starving too, only in the opposite way to Pru; from not even thinking about food instead of the desire for it. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw Mac walking across the foyer.
    â€œOh my God.”
Allie clasped Pru by her plump shoulder. “He beat me to it.”
    â€œWho?” Pru folded the flimsy gray shawl over her bosom in an effort to look thinner.
    â€œMac Reilly, of course.”
    â€œYou are kidding me!” Pru peered shortsightedly across the spacious marble hall. “I always watch his show. He’s so cute . . . I mean in the nicest possible way, not sort of jerky or showbiz or anything. Just, well you know,
nice.
”
    â€œHe is that,” Allie agreed. “Except when it comes to pinning him down to marriage. And now what do I do? Look, he’s giving the bellboy his bag, he’s not even going to his room, he’s heading straight for the bar.”
    â€œBut that’s where
Sunny
is.”
    Pru was so excited her soft brown hair seemed to stand on end all on its own without any of the vigorous back-combing and sprayshe usually gave it. Pru had been back-combing her hair for two decades and still couldn’t accept the fact that a great fluff of teased hair was not where it was at these days. Now, of course, she no longer bothered and her hair simply hung, stringy, around her shoulders.
    Allie and Pru watched Mac walk toward the bar. A young woman preceded him; a slender young blonde in a short white dress carrying a bouquet of lily of the valley. Her hair was pinned with a diamond crescent and a spray of jasmine that Pru could smell from fifty paces.
    And behind Mac, hot on his heels, in fact, came another woman, this one with flame-red hair that reflected the light in a halo of dazzling color. She hurried in a fast knock-kneed trot, the skirt of her orange shirtdress riding up on plump thighs, Chanel purse swinging from her dangling arm, Dior earrings swinging in her ears.
    Behind
her
came another woman: tall, stalking on towering heels, little black fur jacket clutched to her throat and with a smoker’s cough that could be heard from where they stood.
    â€œWell. How about that,” Allie said. “Mac has a female escort.”
    â€œWhat shall we do?” Pru asked, thrilled at the thought of meeting Mac Reilly.
    Allie considered. Should she let them meet, let them talk to each other, work it out alone? But she was worried. Sunny had told her it was finished.