Liza had a friend on the pool staff who recognized it was good marketing to have lithe locals lounging among the guests. When boredom was eroding her marriage, Liza had become a regular at the pool. Sam had said her public flirtations there were the last straw. He'd actually said "the last straw," as if he were in some black-and-white melodrama.

Sam took it too seriously, as he did everything. She wasn't down at the hotel humping business toads for free drinks. She'd had enough of that kind of behavior before she met Sam. The flirtations were innocent. Little smiles and winks, the turning of heads when she passed. It was fun and God knows Liza had little enough of that in her life. Even Sam, thick as he was, recognized the marriage wasn't fun anymore. She waited him out, not making the first move toward a separation. And when Sam finally found the balls to file for divorce himself, she took him for everything. A girl has to look out for herself.

When she reached her bedroom, Liza threw her packages on the bed and stripped off her sundress. She watched herself in the tall mirrors that covered the closet doors as she popped the clasp on her bra and slipped out of her lace panties. Her body was tan and lean, with none of the minor sag that usually accompanies reaching thirty. Lord knows she worked hard enough to keep it that way. Aerobics classes three days a week, weight-lifting at home, swimming in the hotel pool. Liza was a creature in constant motion.

As she wriggled into the red thong, she caught herself smiling in the mirror. It had been a long time since she'd played the vixen.

Her hair still surprised her. Liza had thought a change would do her good, make her feel disguised when the men approached. It was time for a look-at-me 'do, and her stylist, Roberto, had been happy to accommodate. He'd been after her to change for years, always saying her old style looked as if it belonged to an astronaut's wife. Roberto had clipped her hair short as a man's and bleached it bone white.

The look, along with the red bikini, had men at the pool twisting their heads off their necks. Most importantly, it had caught the attention of Prince Seri Hassan Bandapanang bin Mohammed of the island nation of Yip.