It All Began in Monte Carlo by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online

desperate. I’ve left Mac. It’s over, there will never be a wedding. Oh,Allie, I’m dying inside. Where
are
you? I need to talk to you, my beautiful friend. I’m in Monte Carlo. Mac doesn’t know where I am and please,
please,
if he should call looking for me, do not tell him.
Please,
Allie, it’s important. You have my cell phone number. I love you.”
    She closed the cell, lifted her head and looked straight into Kitty Ratte’s eyes. She was on the barstool next to her. Tesoro, who had been sleeping, bared her teeth in a snarl and Sunny quickly apologized.
    â€œOh, but I adore all animals,” Kitty said. And her face shining with sympathy, she reached out and patted Sunny’s hand. “I get the feeling you need to talk,” she said gently. “My name is Kitty Ratte and I live here.”
    â€œYou live here alone?” Sunny shouldn’t have asked such a question but alone was the first thing on her mind and it just came out. Still, the woman didn’t seem to mind, and after all it was
she
who had come over to Sunny and started up this conversation on a very personal basis.
    â€œMostly, I am alone,” Kitty said. “I live with someone, part of the time.” She shrugged in a “who-doesn’t” kind of way. “But he travels a lot and I am very much my own woman. When he is here, there are many things we enjoy together.” Then she added with a mysterious smile, “And there are many things I like to do on my own. But for you, I can tell it’s all fresh, all new, this ‘alone’ business.” She shook her head, giving Sunny a knowing smile. The clumsy veneers on her two front teeth gleamed white. Then she leaned forward and patted Sunny’s hand again.
    â€œTrust me,
chérie,
” Kitty Ratte said oozing feminine sympathy. “I’ve been there.”

chapter 10
Christmas Day evening
    Â 
    Â 
    Allie Ray Perrin, better known simply as Allie Ray, one of the world’s foremost movie stars and America’s blond girl next door, with eyes of turquoise blue, so tender they melted your heart, and blond hair that fell straight as a die past her slender shoulders, long-legged, and complete with all the assets any seriously successful movie star required, was walking through her French vineyard, somewhere between Bordeaux and Bergerac, wearing old gray sweatpants, a bulky navy sweater and sneakers. She was holding the hand of her friend Prudence Hilson, who happened to be crying. Prudence had been crying since she had arrived first thing this morning.
    Allie could see the silver glint of Pru’s tears in the sudden shaft of moonlight peeking from behind the storm-dark clouds. She thought it was a wonder they didn’t freeze on Pru’s face the night was so friggin’ cold. She shivered, clutching Pru’s hand tighter, as though to lend her friend strength. In the dark in front of them she could hear her dog, Lovely, a black Lab who was poor Dearie’s replacement, though no dog could ever truly replace Dearie, the stray she had picked up beside the French autoroute and who had been her “dearest” friend. Not even Frankie, the pup Mac had given her but who somehow never got the hang of French country life.
    Pru let go of Allie’s hand and bent to pat Lovely who’d come rippingthrough the long row of vines like a rocket heading into space, regardless of the two women standing in her way. Allie knew Labs were like that; you either got out of their way or you got mowed down. Staggering as Lovely smacked into her legs, Allie laughed and, to her surprise, so did Pru.
    â€œThere, you see,” Allie said, filled with sudden triumph that her desolated friend had actually been made to laugh for the first time since she had arrived. “Everything’s okay. Life goes on. You can be ‘You’ again, Pru. All you have to do is try.”
    Pru’s sniff echoed through the