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

silent vineyard, row upon row of naked branches months away from the fresh pale leaves of spring, and even longer to the heavy bunches of fat grapes that Allie was hoping one of these years might bring her own
Appellation d’Origine Contrôllée,
giving her brand-new wines a leg up in the very competitive wine market.
    â€œ ‘Silent Night,’ ” Pru said sadly.
    â€œThat was last night. Christmas Eve.” Allie inspected a mangy-looking rosebush at the end of a row of vines, planted there to catch the first bugs so she might spot any pests early, before they could get as far as the grapes.
    â€œOh my God, I forgot, it’s still Christmas Day.” Pru began to cry again, a loud tearing sound that made Allie shudder and brought the dog running anxiously back, climbing up on Pru and licking her face.
    â€œLabs are like worried mothers,” Allie told her. “Always there to comfort you when you fall down. And you have fallen, Pru, but it’s not the end of the world.”
    â€œOh yes it is.” Pru stopped and peered shortsightedly at Allie. “And it’s my own fault.”
    â€œWell, not totally,” Allie said cautiously, though she had to admit Pru looked like hell: overweight, dowdy, unmade-up and miserable. For a guilty minute she couldn’t blame the husband for trading Pru in for someone who in fact, Pru herself said, looked the way she had looked not so many years ago.
    â€œIt was my fault,” Pru wailed again. “He was away so much, I was so lonely, no children, not even a dog like Lovely.”
    â€œYou had friends,” Allie insisted.
    â€œ
His
friends. Come the divorce guess where all of them will be.”
    Allie knew what she was talking about.
    â€œSo he fucked her, and I ate to get over it,” Pru said in a flat kind of voice that admitted her problem and that there was no solution. “I ate myself out of my clothes, then I bought new ones, then bigger. It got so I couldn’t even get into normal underwear and had to go to a special store to buy the big ones, you know the granny pants we always laughed about when we were girls.”
    â€œBut you were always
pretty,
” Allie said loyally. Pru had been her friend since high school—and that was an era Allie no longer wanted to think about. She’d had her own battles to get where she was, to leave Mary Alison Raycheck, the poor kid from Texas, behind and turn herself into Allie Ray, the movie star, and then to have the strength to give it all up, all that fame, all that success, all that money. Everything comes with a price and Allie had paid hers. But now she had found that girl again, found her husband again, found love and peace and the quiet life that suited her. Glancing at Pru, still staring vacantly into the Christmas night, Allie knew she had to help her. It was a given. Allie was a good friend.
    â€œListen,” she said, putting an arm round Pru’s ample shoulders, and turning her around in the direction of the crumbling cottage she and Ron had invested with new life, as well as with a great deal of money and their sometimes acrimonious fights, but now, always, with love. “Listen Pru Hilson, you are going to get
yourself
back and that’s that. No more stuffing yourself to hide the pain, no more pretending the husband is faithful, no more being lonely.
You
are in charge of your destiny, not him. I’m telling you, Pru, together we can do this.”
    The eaves of the cottage were picked out in bright Christmas lights and the pine tree in front sparkled with yesterday’s frozensnowflakes, mirror balls and fake candles. The smell of that afternoon’s turkey lingered in the doorway and Lovely bounded past, hurling herself this time at a short, wide-shouldered man who obviously kept himself in good shape. His hair was thick and dark with a slight wave, his eyebrows met over his sharp nose and his mouth was full and sensual. He was