For

       Leslie Wainger and Isabel Swift,

       who thought I should write about sheikhs.

      ALEXANDRA SELLERS

      is the author of over twenty-five novels and a feline language text published in 1997 and still selling.

      Born and raised in Canada, Alexandra first came to London as a drama student. Now she lives near Hampstead Heath with her husband, Nick. They share housekeeping with Monsieur, who jumped through the window one day and announced, as cats do, that he was moving in.

      What she would miss most on a desert island is shared laughter.

      Readers can write to Alexandra at P.O. Box 9449, London NW3 2WH, England.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      One

      “Look, it’s Reena!”

      “She looks so different in real life!”

      “What a dress!”

      “Wow, she’s practically naked!”

      Dana Morningstar paused at the top of the short flight of steps leading down into the bar as the whispers ran in a little ripple around the rapidly filling room.

      “Isn’t she wearing anything under it?”

      “She’s so beautiful!”

      “My dear, you are a ravishingly wanton nun tonight,” said a gravelly, perfectly produced voice at her elbow, and she turned with a smile to greet one of the great theatrical “Sirs” of the old school who had entered just behind her.

      “Hello, Sir Henry, how nice to see you.”

      “And how lovely to see you, Dana. Who, if I may ask, designed that very dashing frock for you?”

      The very dashing frock consisted of a double layer of shimmery, sheer white fabric with a high, straight neckline, wrist-length sleeves, and a long skirt. By a trick of the light playing on the two layers of fabric, it looked opaque, and very demure, but at moments, with certain movements, it became almost fully transparent. Her warm mocha skin glowed through the fabric, and underneath she was wearing only a skin-coloured thong.

      Dana smiled and put her hand on the arm Sir Henry offered, stepping down into the bar at his side as people gazed entranced. “Kamila,” she told him in an undervoice. “A new designer launching here in the autumn. She says this dress is going to make her name.”

      Dana’s black hair, long and thick, fell like a cloak around her shoulders and down her back. Her makeup was expertly applied to enhance her dark, heavy-lashed eyes and high, strong cheekbones. She wore delicate tan-coloured sandals and carried a tiny bag.

      “On anyone but yourself it would be a dismal failure, but she is perfectly right. Every woman in this room will be knocking on her door tomorrow, foolishly hoping to be made to look like you.”

      Dana was five foot eleven with a perfect figure, curved and long, with high breasts, athletic legs, and a firm musculature. Her smoky skin usually meant that as an actress she was cast in “ethnic” roles—whether First Nation rebel, exotic outworlder, or Arab princess. Or her current soap role—Reena, the bitchy, repressed, high-flying South Asian lawyer.

      “Would you like some bubbly, Dana?” Sir Henry asked, neatly whisking a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray and offering it to her. “Not for me, dear boy, my heart, you know,” he added, waving one pale hand with studied elegance. “Do you think you could find me a scotch?—double, no water.”

      “Oh, yes, Sir John! Of course!” said the waiter, enthusiastically if inaccurately, and headed for the long bar, behind which men and women in black and white bustled to provide for the guests of the charity function.

      “They are so young these days,” Sir Henry complained mildly. “They don’t show my Lear in the schools anymore, of course.”

      “I don’t think they teach King Lear at all,” Dana sympathized. “Not accessible enough, Shakespeare.”

      A man was staring at her from across the room. The whole room was manoeuvring, overtly or covertly, to get a look at the dress; she had been prepared for that. But this man was different. He looked disapproving. Dana flicked a careless eyebrow at him and turned her attention back to “the best Lear the world has seen this century.”

      “Ah, the new barbarians,” he was saying. “And why are you here tonight,