Read Dangerous Pleasures for Free Online Page A

and crystal glasses. Annie closed the fridge and then the painted louvres.
    On the coffee table was a crystal bowl of fresh peaches, plums, and apricots. On a small sideboard was a vase of pale lavender roses. She saw a card with the roses and, reaching for it, opened it. Congratulations to our winner! Enjoy your stay with us! The card was signed, Mr. Nicholas, CEO, the Channel Corporation. The card smelled faintly of sandalwood. My goodness, Annie thought. Wait until I tell Lizzie about all of this. Annie smiled. She’d save the card to show her sister.
    A wall of windows ran across one end of the room. There were draperies on either side of the expanse of glass, cream silk with a tiny green sprig, and delicate sheer curtains that she discovered could be drawn aside, which led her to a door. There was a terrace beyond the door and, stepping out on it, she found it was at the top of the front facade of the temple-like building. The terrace was furnished with wicker furniture with green, white, and rose cushions, glass tables, and great pottery urns with trees and flowers. The view was spectacular. All of the bay was visible to her eye. God, Annie thought, this is paradise for certain . She turned and went back inside. It felt strange to be in a beautiful place and not besieged by five kids. She quite liked it, Annie decided.
    Having inspected the living room, she decided to check out the bedroom. As in the living room, the carpet was cream colored. A chair rail divided the wall. Below it the wall was painted pale green. Above the chair rail was a beautiful hand-blocked wallpaper with a cream background and pink lilies with green leaves. The windows were hung with Jefferson swags in a fabric that matched the wallpaper, and sheer cream curtains in a check pattern. The furniture was country French provincial in a warm golden brown walnut. The bed was king-sized, and canopied in pale green watered silk, its bed curtains a pale green and cream stripe. There was a small pink marble fireplace opposite the bed, and a door opened onto the large terrace outside her windows.
    Slowly Annie unpacked her suitcase, utilizing both the elegant bureau and the closet. Then, taking her little toiletry case, she went into the bathroom. It was huge. It had a sunken bathtub, a commode, a bidet, and a large glassed-in shower. A beautiful shell-shaped sink was set into a marble countertop; her little case looked shabby on it. The floor was tiled in large squares of dark green porcelain.
    A large gilt mirror hung over the counter and sink. Curious, she opened the sink cabinet’s drawers and discovered a supply of everything she could possibly want or need. Creams. Lotions. A natural toothpaste. A toothbrush. A beautiful carved wooden comb and a boar’s-bristle hairbrush. Then she noticed a small card on the counter. It read, Please Accept These Toiletries as Our Gift . Was there anything she needed from her own case? Annie queried herself. And then she put the little nylon case back in her suitcase. Why not? she thought. I’m the grand-prize winner, aren’t I?
    Finished unpacking, Annie went out on the terrace and sat down. She had never in her whole life known luxury like this, and she liked it. She liked the peace and quiet. She liked not being importuned by her children or the animals they had. She had never in her entire life taken a vacation alone. Until she went to college, vacations were always family affairs at their cottage down at the shore, except, of course, for those few summers she and Lizzie had spent at Stoneledge Lake Camp for Girls. But they didn’t count. Being at camp with your younger sister wasn’t a vacation. And after her freshman year in college Annie had come home and spent the summer helping her mother get Lizzie ready for college; and after that she had just come home every summer. Lizzie didn’t come home.
    Lizzie went to Europe with friends the summer between her freshman and sophomore years. She did a two-month