It All Began in Monte Carlo Read Online Free PDF Page A

Christmas pine garlands and twinkling fairy lights. She perched on a tall chair with the little dog on her knee. A silver-haired barman who seemed to go with the muted gray decor, was shaking a martini.
Oh God, how she hated Christmas!
    She had put on her best look, even though with a combination of stress and fatigue, it was tough to maintain. She was wearing her new red dress but had drawn the line at the tall leather boots, and instead pushed her bare feet into those flat clumsy comfy UGGs. Of course she no longer had her engagement pink diamond and wore no jewelry. Her long black hair swung over her face, hiding herfrom prying eyes, or hiding her from herself, she was not sure which. Anyhow, she needn’t have bothered since there was no one else in the bar. Well, only one person. Another woman, also alone.
    â€œWhere is everyone?” she asked the barman as he served her martini.
    â€œ
Madame,
it’s Christmas Day. Everyone is home with their families.”
    Of course they were. Everyone, that is, except her. And the woman tucked into the corner, a woman so ordinary that, apart from her bright red hair, she was all but invisible. Sunny took a quick look at her over the rim of her martini glass.
    The woman’s hair was that too-vivid red that gave away its origins in the supermarket do-it-yourself aisle, and she was wearing a blue shirtdress with the bottom three buttons undone, exposing quite a few inches of plump thigh to the gaze of anyone passing. Of course no one was passing so Sunny guessed it didn’t really matter. The woman wore black stilettos with a classic black quilted Chanel bag prominently on her lap. Her dangling earrings spelled DIOR in white. She had the look of a bourgeois woman trying too hard to rise from suburban obscurity.
    Sunny told herself she was a bitch for thinking that. Still, she took another peek at her. A fringe disguised a prominent forehead beneath which small predatory blue eyes were now gazing back at Sunny. There was a boldness about her that made Sunny nervous, and besides, she had a sort of “come-on” look, with the unbuttoned-up dress and the stilettos.
    Then, before her eyes, the woman seemed to change. Her glance became gentle, intimate, as though she and Sunny were sharing their aloneness. She raised her glass and quietly wished Sunny a Happy Christmas. She spoke English, but with an accent that Sunny thought was probably Slavic or Russian.

chapter 7
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    The redhead’s name was Kitty Ratte and she was in the bar looking for “company.” Unfortunately, it was Christmas and any “company” she might have found was at home with their families. Not that Kitty was a high-end call girl; she was too old and ordinary for that. The only thing that drew the eye to Kitty was her flaming red hair. She’d had a few years as a blonde but had recently decided red was her color, and men—her “company”—seemed to like it. Of course the red hair was only on her head. There was not a hair anywhere else on Kitty’s body; she took care of that herself with hot wax strips that hurt like hell but did the trick and solved the problem of not matching all over. Kitty was a practical woman.
    She was alone in the bar when Sunny walked in. Of course Kitty did not know her name, had no idea who she was, but the fact that she was alone in a hotel bar on Christmas Day evening, to a professional like Kitty spelled trouble. And there was nothing Kitty liked more than trouble.
    She noticed the new woman was wearing an expensive dress but oddly with old fur boots. There were no rings though Kitty’s eagle eye caught the slender lighter circle around that telltale left hand third finger. Husband dumped her? Boyfriend found someoneelse? Kitty drained the Red Bull that gave her a permanent caffeine high, ordered another and poured a third glass of red wine.
    The new woman looked expensive, an air that Kitty longed to acquire. So