Read Online Sins of the Flesh by Fern Michaels - Free Book Online Page B

steps.
    â€œJust leave the bags by the door,” she said to the driver.
    â€œMy pleasure, lady,” he said tartly, setting down the six suitcases in relief. Tipping his hat politely, he clambered into his cab and slowly drove down the long driveway. When he looked into his rearview mirror at the still, dark house, the woman was gone.
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    The door closed behind Bebe with a loud click. It would be nice to have a dog or a cat to welcome her home, she thought, at least something warm and alive. The servants would be asleep, of course, and the children were elsewhere; and certainly her husband didn’t care when and if she ever came home.
    Some of the other arrivals she had made to this house flashed through her mind. The day she’d arrived with her infant son Simon, for example, under Reuben’s armed guard—bodyguards he had hired to dog her every step after he was informed that she was drinking and smoking dope in her last weeks of pregnancy. It didn’t matter to Reuben that she’d begun to abuse her body because of him—because she’d realized that he really didn’t care about her health, only the baby’s.
    Or the morning she had come back to plead with him to help her after she had witnessed her lover accidentally kill his wife. Reuben had tried to make her feel guilty for her infidelity—had even asked her if it had all been worth it. At the time, anything was worth not feeling as dead inside as she felt with him.
    God! What’s the use of thinking about all this, she asked herself wearily. It’s all water under the bridge.
    Drunk and weepy, Bebe crept into the house like a thief in the night. It wouldn’t do to wake the master and have him see her like this again and so soon. Not in the house he’d magnanimously allowed her to live in after they had both realized that their marriage was a total and unsalvageable disaster.
    Bebe looked down at her travel bags, beautiful calf leather, battered and scuffed now, mute testimony to her wanderlust. Reuben had told her once that the household was happiest when she was away. And she believed him. Lately she always believed Reuben. It was easier that way. Picking up her makeup case, she made her way up the stairs to the bedroom she’d taken for herself. It was a pretty room, decorated in periwinkle blue and white. The double bed welcomed her. The blue-and-white satin spread was the same, the shams artfully arranged against the white headboard. The crisp organdy curtains looked as though they’d been freshly laundered, and the flowers, bright red roses, Reuben’s roses, were fresh, too.
    Had Reuben placed them on her night table, she wondered. Instantly she realized that the thought was too silly for words. Reuben didn’t care if she lived or died, so he certainly wouldn’t place his precious roses on her nightstand.
    Bebe was dressed in the latest fashion; everything about her shrieked of elegance and wealth, thanks to her husband’s generosity. She’d been beautiful once, with clear green eyes and a lovely heartwarming smile. But the clear eyes were dull now and coated with garish makeup; the heartwarming smile was forced and oddly cold. Her hair was bleached these days, the ends dry and frizzled, the roots a dirty blond streaked with gray. Somehow, though, she’d managed to maintain her figure, which was soft and womanly. She dieted constantly, nibbling on things like toast, celery, and tiny bits of chicken, preferring to drink her calories in the form of liquor. Of course, she smoked too much, both tobacco and marijuana, and her fingers were stained yellow with nicotine. The physical abuse she’d subjected her body to over the years had finally taken its toll. The fine lines around her eyes were deeper now, the slight droop at her mouth more noticeable with her thinness. She’d even noticed wrinkles on her earlobes.
    Bebe Rosen was no longer the beautiful woman she’d