Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,33
the pool at her hotel after she saw the sights. It would be a pleasant interlude between Paris and the hubbub of London. She was in no rush to get back to the States. She had adjusted to the more leisurely pace of Europe, where quality of life was all-important. She could feel her own rhythm slow as she explored first Rome and then Paris. Monte Carlo seemed like an excellent stop on the way to London. She had seen everything she wanted to in Paris, although she hated to leave, just as she had been sad to leave Rome. But she was sure she would come back again, and maybe see Venice next time, and other European cities, like Barcelona or Madrid. Her trip had been perfect so far, at just the right speed, but there was so much more to see that she hadn’t seen on this trip. She was feeling adventuresome, which was new for her. She had met several other widows, some of them traveling together. They were older than she was, but there was a kind of unspoken understanding between them, like a secret club.
On the spur of the moment, she asked the concierge to book her a room at the Hermitage in Monte Carlo for the weekend. She could leave for London on Monday, and was planning to spend a week there before she went home.
He called her in her room a few minutes later and told her it was all confirmed. She was on a ten o’clock flight the next morning, would fly into Nice, and be at the Hermitage by noon, which would give her a whole day to explore, go for walks, and lie by the pool, and even go to the casino at night. Even if she didn’t gamble, it sounded like a scene worth observing, as high rollers from all over the world came to play.
She packed her bags that night, went for a last walk around the Place Vendôme, and left the hotel at eight o’clock the next morning, to catch her ten a.m. flight.
This time a white Rolls picked her up at the airport in Nice, which felt mildly embarrassing, but it seemed like fun in the spirit of the moment. Her room at the Hermitage looked out over the sparkling water of the Mediterranean. She noticed that there were huge yachts in the port, and promised herself she’d go for a walk there later to check it out.
She had lunch by the pool, then walked around Monte Carlo for a while. Every luxury shop in the world was represented there, and then she walked down to the port and stood admiring the many large boats moored in the harbor. There was a whole section of the largest yachts, with uniformed crews washing down the boats, or the owners and their friends on deck having an elegant late lunch. She was fascinated by it, then she saw the largest sailboat among them. A sleek beauty, with a flag she didn’t recognize flying off the back of the boat. She was called Lady Luck, which made Maggie smile as she walked past her. The crew were diligently washing the boat, and the owner was nowhere in evidence. It looked like a wonderful life, sitting on the deck of those yachts. She walked back up the hill to the hotel after she left the port. It was a steep hill and a healthy walk.
She went swimming in the hotel pool late that afternoon, and took out her one slightly dressier dress to wear to the casino that night. They told her that it was usually pretty thinly populated until after midnight, and lively after that. So she ate dinner late at her hotel, and at twelve-thirty, she walked the short distance to the casino. As the concierge had told her, there were lots of people getting out of chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royces, tourists in evening clothes. She heard Russian, Arabic, Chinese, English, and French all around her, as well as a little German and some Italian. It looked like a tiny city mostly for the rich, and since it was a tax haven where residents didn’t pay taxes, it was a magnet for people with a great deal of money. She saw several Ferraris pull up too, and beautiful women in evening gowns getting out. When she walked into the casino, she saw that most of the tables were full. It looked like a busy night, it was Saturday,