Midge Gette

The more the sexier

(Beeline double novel – 71571)

CHAPTER ONE

"Did you read about the people down in Dade County, Mother?" Sharon asked.

"No, dear," said the beautiful little woman, "what about them?"

"They're rioting and some of them are dead. No money, no jobs, no food. And just look at us. We have all this, and for what?" Sharon looked down from atop the massive staircase. "I've heard of people showing off-five-hundred-dollar millionaires, they call them-but this is insane! If the Washington economists are searching for where all the money in the country has suddenly disappeared to, they ought to look right here! It's disgusting and ridiculous."

"Everything to you lately is ridiculous, Sharon. Isn't it beautiful, though?"

It was beautiful. Gorgeous, in fact, Sharon had to admit. Gorgeous and gaudy. The huge reception hall of their house, spreading out below them, was like something out of The Student Prince. All it needed was the opera star, Pavarotti, standing in its center, wearing knee-length britches and singing his heart out. Sharon's own life had become something like a fairytale opera since Uncle Nate had moved them all into this beautiful monster of a house.

Uncle Nate. Sharon rolled her eyes in helpless disgust. She could not bear to look at the little man who, after many years of wandering the face of the earth, his existence all but forgotten, had returned to the bosom of his family with more money than sense, in Sharon's considered opinion; and the dimensions of his family having with the passing years been reduced to one member, her mother, he had proceeded to turn that little woman into a complete idiot with his seemingly inexhaustible largesse.

Sharon's wide mouth settled into the sardonic lines that were becoming a habit of late. Below her the great hall was empty and not a sound of life could be detected anywhere. Behind and around her, all the doors to bedrooms and sitting rooms were discreetly closed, except her own. The wide stairway looked cold and endless and the front door a mile away. She was tempted to give a shout and stir up echoes from the great domed ceiling, but resisted. She had tried it before and almost created bedlam among her mother and sister and the entire staff of servants. She had enjoyed it, but at the moment was not in the mood for such childish pranks. After two months' residence in this mausoleum of a house, her sense of humor failed her at times.

"Ridiculous," she repeated aloud, and suiting protest to action, she ran down the long stairway, skidded across the gleaming rotunda floor and escaped through the front door.