Monday Mystery Date #2: Ridelle Walters

Photo courtesy "Bixo" from Stock Xchg

Every Monday I'll treat you to a Mystery Date with a character from one of my romantic or erotic fiction novels!

This Week's Mystery Date:

Who: Daddy's Girl/Professional Student Ridelle Walters

What Book She's In: A GRAND SEDUCTION, contemporary/murder mystery novel

Where She Lives: Bucks County, Pennsylvania

Why She's So Fascinating: Ridelle is a fierce enough friend to go out on a very long, precarious limb to end the heartache of a failing marriage. This Girl Least Likely To becomes the bait for a staged seduction scheme...but this affair is a far greater sacrifice than merely bedding someone's husband on camera--and not even her best friends know why.

A Memorable Moment with Ridelle Walters:

Ridelle stared into the closet, despite knowing the outfit jointly selected for her trampy debut was tucked right up front in a wispy dry cleaners bag. Now, two years after Fran had dressed her in a ridiculous froth of peach chiffon to act as a bridesmaid, the marital investment she’d spent most of her adult life securing was about to come to a bitter and grinding halt. At Ridelle’s own hand, no less.

Yanking the hanger off the rod, she twisted around to the full-length mirror inside the closet door and held the bag-covered garment against herself. “You can do this. You’re a vixen...an animal of unimaginable sexual magnitude.” She rolled her eyes at her reflection. “Girl, if your pals only knew the truth.”

An hour later, Ridelle stared with fascinated horror at the transformation. Her eyes were rimmed in kohl, shadows of taupe and cream accentuating a dreamy, heavy-lidded look. Full lips were moist with a slick of magenta, and her usual straight brown locks fell in soft waves just tickling the tops of bare shoulders. A single pearl dotted each ear, and a matching pendant fell like an arrow pointing the way to modest, but well displayed cleavage.

The dress she’d worn only once and vowed never again, but here she was, all five-feet six inches almost wearing what her mother had dubbed the “man magnet.” She’d bought it for Ridelle’s twenty-fifth birthday, in hopes that scores of well-to-do country club suitors would stampede. Done in abstract splashes of pink, black and white silk, the halter bodice plunged bikini style to a snug band of fabric under her breasts, then clung for dear life along dangerous curves to mid-thigh. There, the fabric flared outward in gentle folds that fell to just below the knee.

Once again the revolving door of her will spun to the negative and her heart drummed out a rumba, a beat befitting this new style. She shook her head at the slut-tastic vision in the mirror. “I can’t do this.”

Is that your final answer? She nodded at the thought as she gaped at a woman that was the antithesis of herself in the mirror. Much as she loved Fran and wanted to help, she couldn’t kid any of them. Time to do everyone a favor and stay home, before she blew the whole plan out the whale’s hole.

She reached slender arms behind herself to unhook the halter at the back of her neck, picturing Fran racing around with preparations, daring to hope for a way out. She needed a life boat, but Ridelle was fresh out of inflatable rubber. Still, the thought stayed her hands. She couldn’t just beg off with a phone call, not for something like this. Could she?

Ridelle tottered on strappy heels over to where a wicker table lamp highlighted the old slimline on her cluttered walnut night stand. For a long moment she stared at the phone. Fran needed moral support if nothing else—she was as nervous about pulling off the party as she was about the scheme embedded within it.

Damn. She’d just changed sides again.

Fine, so she would show up to lend whatever clumsy hand or crying towel she could muster, but the first order of business was to explain why she couldn’t go through with this. Fran would understand that this was too far out of her jurisdiction to be plausible.

Hopefully better than Ridelle understood it herself.


--from A GRAND SEDUCTION
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When Ridelle is Available: A GRAND SEDUCTION is available now in ebook, and coming soon to print on Amazon.

How You Can Get Her Story: Get it in eco-friendly eBook from Fictionwise