The lovers who had climbed in and out of her bed during the years when she was struggling as an aspiring vocalist formed a continuous montage of recording-company executives, disc jockeys, musicians, and composers. Most had in some way contributed to her rise to the top. With the sudden crest of success came Hollywood and a whole new orgy of high living.

Faces, she thought. How strange that she couldn’t remember their shapes and features. And yet the bedrooms and their decor stood out vividly. The feel of the mattress, the design on the wallpaper, the fixtures in the adjoining bathroom, were still etched in her mind along with the different types of beams and plaster she had recorded on the ceilings.

As with many women, sex to Felicia was not necessarily exalted above other forms of entertainment. There were uncounted times she’d wished she had curled up with a good novel instead. Already Hiram Lusana’s face was blurring into obscurity along with all the rest.

At first she hated Daggat, hated the very idea that he could turn her on. She had insulted him at every opportunity, and yet he had remained courteous. Nothing she could say or do angered him. God, it is maddening, she thought. She almost wished he would demean her as a slave so that her hatred would be justified, but it was not to be. Frederick Daggat was too shrewd. He played her gently, cautiously, as would a fisherman in the knowledge he had a record fish on the line.

The balcony door slid open and Daggat stepped outside. Felicia sat up and removed her sunglasses as his shadow fell across her body.

“Were you dozing?”

She offered him a fluid smile. “Just daydreaming.”

“It’s beginning to get cool. You’d better come inside.”

He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. She gazed at him mischievously for a moment and then unclasped the bikini’s bra and pushed her bare breasts against his chest. “There is still time to make love before dinner.”

It was a tease and they both knew it. Since they had left Lusana’s camp .| together, she had responded to his sexual manipulations with all the ‘ abandon of a robot. It was a part she had never played before.

“Why?” he asked simply.

Her expressive coffee eyes studied him. “Why?”

“Why did you leave Lusana and come with me? I am not a man whose

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looks turn women’s heads. I’ve looked at this ugly face of mine in the mirror every day for forty years and I’m not about to kid myself into thinking I’m superstar material. You did not have to behave like a bartered cow, Felicia. Lusana didn’t own you; nor do I, and I suspect no man ever will. You could have told us both to go to hell and yet you came with me willingly, too willingly. Why?”