LITMIR.BIZ

      PROLOGUE

      SHE took the clothes from the case and laid them out on the hotel bed: a leopardskin-print halter-necked mini-dress, sexy gold sandals with outrageously high heels plus the obligatory ankle strap, and a cream stretch satin G-string which would give the illusion of nakedness underneath the oh, so tight dress.

      Not another thing. No bra. No stockings. No petticoat.

      A shudder rippled through her at the thought of what she would look like dressed in that garb, with her long tawny blonde hair wildly fluffed out around her face and shoulders, her full mouth made to look even fuller with carefully applied lip-liner and filled in with the sort of lipstick it would take paint-stripper to remove.

      Hardly subtle.

      Still, that was what she wanted to look like. There was no time for her usual ladylike image. No time for demure or coy. She had only this one night. A few bare hours.

      Dismay swept in at the thought of what she was going to do, of how she would have to act to get what she wanted so quickly and so thoroughly. Dear God, what had happened to her this past year? What had she become?

      For a split-second she almost backed away from the idea, but desperation and a fierce frustration brought renewed resolve. She had to go home in the morning—home to her dying husband, home to nothing but more weeks of disappointment and despair and loneliness such as she’d never known before.

      She could not let this chance go by. She had to grab it. She simply had to!

      Snatching up the folded newspaper lying on the pillow, she rechecked the address of the photographic exhibition—the only opening she could find on that particular Wednesday night. It was not a street or a gallery she recognised, but there again it had been some years since she’d lived and worked in Sydney.

      She jotted down the address, hoping against hope that this type of function would be the same as they’d always been—full of highly sociable swinging singles. Admittedly, a percentage of the seemingly available men—and often the best-looking—would be gay, but there would always be a sprinkling of straight males with more machismo than morals.

      And where are your morals, Rachel? came the taunting inner question.

      ‘I left them at home,’ she snapped aloud as she threw the newspaper into the wastepaper basket. ‘Along with everything else I once held dear. Life is a different ball-game these days. A different ball-game,’ she bit out, her heart hardening as she strode quickly into the bathroom, dragging off her wedding ring as she went.

      There was no time for guilt tonight. Or conscience. Or, God forbid, shame. Shame was for normal wives in normal situations. It had no place in her life at that moment. No place at all!