Satin Dreams Page 4

  The door seemed to leap from her grasp, slamming back on its hinges, the frosted glass rattling as though it would shatter.

  Their intruder paused in the doorway. Well over six feet, lean and sleekly pantherish in an impeccable black Chesterfield overcoat, he had an air of disdain. He was not, they sensed at once, the writer from Fortune magazine.

  “I’m Nicholas Palliades,” he informed them in a clipped, husky voice, as if that explained everything.

  In a manner of speaking, it did.

  Jack Storm scrambled to his feet. The Greeks, was his first reaction. His second was that this unannounced visit, barging in without even a telephone call, was no way to do business. Not even in the crazy rag trade. But Jack gritted his teeth, reminding himself how desperate he needed backers for this new venture.

  “Right.” Jack glanced around for an extra chair, but Mindy had already slipped past him to get one from another office.

  The man in the doorway didn’t move. His black, almond-shaped eyes, aquiline nose, and clamped, unfriendly mouth, were surprisingly tough-looking considering the aura of wealth and elegance. Nicholas Palliades looked more like a Balkan hill-country bandit than a millionaire Greek aristocrat.

  Jack had always found it hard to keep the Greeks sorted out. Niarchoses, Goulandrises, Onassises, Embiricoses—there were just too many of them. However, with the Palliadeses, one didn’t forget. Scandal sheets like the National Enquirer kept running accounts of their lurid lives, their marriages, mistresses, feuds, even reputed murders. The head of the clan, notorious old Socrates Palliades, was now bedridden, felled by a stroke, a ninety-year-old malevolent mummy after a career that had been infamous even for a Greek ship owner.

  This hard-faced young tiger in the black Chesterfield and homburg hat was Palliades’s grandson and corporate hatchet man. At any other time Jackson Storm wouldn’t have wasted his breath on a man like Palliades. But right now he needed the Greek’s money.

  “I’ve been to Mortessier’s.” Nicholas Palliades paused, as Mindy Ferragamo returned dragging in another office chair. He regarded her with the barest flicker of curiosity in his obsidian eyes. “I saw Vasse’s collection this afternoon.” His voice was void of emotion as he said, “If you get him as your designer, Palliades-Poseidon is definitely interested.”

  Jackson Storm still stood with his hand extended for a handshake that he realized, belatedly, was not forthcoming. Son of a bitch, he told himself, reluctantly impressed. The kid’s a world-class bastard. And he works at it.

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Jack didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “So you think I ought to hire Gilles Vasse, Mr. Palliades?” He smiled as he came around his desk. “Tell me what you think I can—”

  But Nicholas Palliades walked around the chair brought in for him and turned away, dismissively.

  “And the girl.” His impeccably tailored back was just as impassive retreating. “Get the model, Alix, too,” he added from the hallway. “Without her, there’s no deal.”

  The door slammed shut.

  Three

  The snow continued, a solid, smooth sheet of sparkling white spreading thickly over the City of Lights. From his workroom window, Gilles Vasse looked out on the avenue Montaigne and worried about getting home. He rode his motorcycle to work these days so that Lisianne could use their ancient Renault, but the Yamaha was an uncontrollable pig on snow-covered surfaces. And especially at the hair-raising speeds that Gilles, like any true Frenchman, liked to travel.

  Below, the snow-filled avenue Montaigne ran only a few blocks from the Rond-Point des Champs Elysées to the Place de l’Alma and the banks of the Seine. Crammed with couture houses, this thoroughfare had begun to resemble the Champs Elysées, once considered the “world’s most elegant street.” Nina Ricci, Dior, Jean-Louis Scherrer, Guy Laroche, Hanae Mori, and Valentino—all were located within a few blocks, as well as jewelers Harry Winston, Gerard, Bulgari, and Cartiers, the firm of Porthault, draper to Europe’s royalty, and the master luggage and saddlemaker Vuitton. The boutiques were mixed democratically with the residences of some of the most distinguished families of Europe: the Princess Pauline de Croy, the Comte and Comtesse Thierry de Ganay, multi-billionaire Adnan Kashoggi, now in jail for international fraud, and the Prince and Princess Alexandre of Yugoslavia.

  For Gilles, the avenue Montaigne’s wealth and artistry was an everyday sight; he was interested only in the snowstorm. He saw that Christian Dior, with its distinctive blue and white swagged front door, had closed early. So had Carven farther down. The bare branches of the plane trees in the parklike median glittered with thousands of ice-covered tiny golden lights. Below this sparkling canopy a line of chauffeured Rolls Royces and Mercedes limousines waited for the late-staying customers of Valentino and Mori. Even in the holiday off-season, the avenue Montaigne’s couture houses were busy with last-minute rush orders for Christmas balls and the famed, much sought-after tout Paris New Year’s galas.

  From the noise in the hallway, Gilles gathered Mortessier’s atelier was also closing early. The first group of seamstresses clattered down the steel treads of the backstairs, their slangy Parisian voices exclaiming over the cold as they let themselves out the employees’ entrance and headed for the Metro and the concrete housing developments of working-class East Paris.

  It was time to go, Gilles told himself, and hope the snow wouldn’t turn into freezing rain as it had so often that winter. It would take him the best part of an hour, anyway, to navigate traffic-clogged Paris to his tiny little apartment in the Opera district.

  As Gilles reached over the drawing board to turn out the light, his eye caught the sketch he’d been working on. He stopped, staring down at it, astounded to see that he’d drawn his wife’s face where he usually put just a blank oval.

  Good Lord, what had he been thinking of? Lisianne’s lovely face half-smiled up at him, a sure sign his concentration had been wandering. Again, he thought dismally.

  Gilles loosened the tacks that held the paper to the board. Those cool, distinctively beautiful features were undeniably Lisianne—once Galanos’s top model and still, in Gilles’s estimation, the most beautiful woman in Paris, now retired to domesticity and forthcoming motherhood.

  My wife, he thought with an uncontrollable rush of emotion. Gilles was embarrassed to feel so fervently about marriage after three years; it was terribly bourgeois, but he couldn’t help himself. Even after all this time, he loved to sit and study his beautiful wife. His artist’s eye was still entranced with her classic French beauty—sculpted brunette features, and dreamy, dark eyes that conveyed a gentle seductiveness. Unfortunately, even a suspicion that someone might be looking at her these days caused his wife to react violently. Now in her eighth month of pregnancy, Lisianne was convinced she was monstrous-looking. “I’m horrible, ugly, a disaster!” she had screamed at Gilles that morning when he had tried to put his arm around her. He had left her in bed, weeping.

  Then there was the age thing, Gilles thought, baffled. He was twenty-four. Lisianne was thirty-two. It was ridiculous to consider an eight-year difference important. God, he thought they’d settled that a long time ago!

  Gilles crumpled the sketch in his fist and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. It was bad to lose one’s concentration like that. Even if he did hate nearly everything he was doing at Mortessier’s these days. He hated designing for the Arabs and the Japanese nouveau riche. He disliked creating banal trousseaus for boarding-school virgins of France’s Old Families making “good” marriages. He especially detested adapting the best, the most inspired of the Mortessier collection for aging, unshapely American women. It was small consolation that the dreadful Danish wedding gown he was working on right now would be credited to Rudi, who had built his reputation on just such romantic, overblown styles. It was one job for which Gilles was glad to remain anonymous.

  The office secretary and the salon receptionist were leaving; their voices floated up the stairwell as they c
alled out their good-byes. The House of Mortessier, while not as big as the mega-businesses of Cardin and St. Laurent, still employed one of the largest haute couture staffs in Paris.

  Gilles looked at his wristwatch. It was almost eight o’clock. Late enough for a tired Frenchman who wanted his wife, a good dinner, and the comforts of home. He turned off the light over the drawing board and closed the door to his office.

  As he was going down the stairs, the Ethiopian model caught up with him. “Eh, Gilles, it not too long now before you be a papa, yes?” Raised in the slums of London, Iris spoke with an accent that was half African, half Cockney-English. “Tell me, luv, you still celibate?”

  Red spots of color appeared under Gilles’s cheekbones. Merde, even the models knew how his wife felt about her pregnancy! He muttered something under his breath and hurried ahead, Iris’s knowing giggles following him.

  The door to the last fitting room downstairs stood open. Gilles paused, letting the seamstresses surge past, wondering if he should interrupt Rudi to say good-bye. The plump figure in the gray suit was on his knees in front of the fittingroom mirrors, pinning up the back of the green beaded evening dress Alix was wearing. It was an unusual position for the great couturier these days. Gilles suddenly remembered the sinister-looking young Greek at the afternoon’s showing.

  She’s going out with him, he thought, surprised. Alix was always so aloof, so perfectly contained and Gilles had never known her to date the customers.

  In the next instant he told himself that models always had affairs with clients. It was none of his business how Alix spent her evenings.

  Still, he lingered in the doorway. The dress was one usually modeled by Iris, a bright acid green embroidered with thousands of glistening glass beads. The top was a corsetlike bustier above a nipped, tiny waist, and an abbreviated straight skirt, layered with long, beaded fringe. Narrow strings of rhinestone straps held up scraps of unadorned satin over Alix’s pointed little breasts. The bodice, loosely laced, exposed silky white skin all the way to the waist. The dress was pure Hollywood, more a theatrical costume than a couture design. Something Rudi had borrowed, consciously or not, from American designer Bob Mackie, who created clothes for screen stars and rock singers.

  Gilles hoped Rudi knew what he was doing, lending this number to a model for an evening out. The green dress was incredibly expensive to make, the beadwork all hand-done in Paris. The final retail price would buy a very respectable full-length mink coat.

  Of course, it was a time-honored custom to outfit a showroom mannequin if an important client wished to date her. A couturier accommodated his richest, most influential customers, and a Greek millionaire was certainly in that league. But my God, the loss, if anything happened to that dress!

  Gilles made himself turn away. What Rudi wished to do was Rudi’s business. Theoretically, the publicity alone was usually worth it, to have one’s designs seen in all the best Paris boîtes. Gilles was hungry and anxious to get home. No matter how poorly Lisianne was feeling, like a good French wife she always had an excellent dinner waiting for him. Gilles jammed on his helmet, fastening the strap with eager fingers as he hurried to the side door. He could hardly wait.

  Alix looked up in time to see Gilles Vasse leave the doorway. She started to call out to him, but the words died in her throat when she saw the expression on his face. The scathing look in his eyes made her cringe.

  “Alors, why are you shaking?” The couturier put his hand on Alix’s kneecap to steady her. “I can hardly finish this skirt when you are moving so violently,” he complained.

  Alix stared at the empty doorway.

  “Please!” With his hand on her thigh, Rudi gave her a slight nudge. “Why are you trembling, Alix? Stand still, or I cannot do this.”

  It’s the dress, Alix realized. She should have tried harder to persuade Rudi the green evening gown was wrong. She looked like a hooker, she thought, panicked.

  “Don’t be so foolish,” Rudi said. “Listen, Niko Palliades is a perfect gentleman, like his father and his good friend, Aly Khan.” Rudi grabbed up several pins and stuck them in his mouth. “Ah, you have not heard of the Aly Khan, have you? He married the gorgeous film star Rita Hayworth.” He made an impatient clucking sound, despite the pins. “Alix, mon Dieu, I have made clothes for Niko’s mother and his aunts. Would I let you go to dinner with a pervert, a rapist?”

  Rudi thought he knew what was bothering her. The young Palliades heir was rich. Lovely Alix was poor. She was insecure, pauvre petite. There was a lot at stake.

  “Now, now, don’t worry. He will adore you,” he said soothingly. “Did you see how he looked at you in the salon? And you will find him enchanting. Niko Palliades is handsome, passionate—an athlete. He is in all the sports magazines, a champion skier. They invite him to come to Klosters in the winter with all the young English he knows from when he was in boarding school. Those naughty Lady Arabellas and the wicked Lord Henrys. And the lovely young princesses.”

  Rudi’s small hands moved across the dress, deftly tacking beads onto it with tiny knotted stitches. “Naturellement,” he went on, “he has something of a reputation with women. When he was a boy he was the amour of Princess Catherine Medivani. He is not royalty, but with that money and his looks, they were mad for him.”

  Alix stared at Rudi in the mirrors, trying to follow what he was saying. She’d heard of the Medivani princesses. They didn’t get as much publicity as the princesses of Monaco, but then they hadn’t had Grace Kelly for a mother. Princess Catherine Medivani was now married and the mother of small children, but in her day she had been featured in all the tabloids, stoned and falling on the floor in Paris nightclubs, taking her bikini off on the beach in Monte Carlo for photographers, sleeping—it was rumored—with the entire French soccer team during the all-Europe play-offs. This, Alix couldn’t help thinking with a sudden sinking feeling, was the former girl friend of the man who was taking her to dinner?

  “Niko Palliades,” Rudi went on blithely, “will adore you, cherie. He will be very good to you. He gives marvelous presents to all his lovely young women.”

  Alix stared at the couturier, trying not to laugh. She was doing this deliberately, she reminded herself, so how could she complain? Even about “marvelous presents”?

  Rudi yanked at the satin skirt, straightening it. This evening dress was his favorite of the entire winter collection. The paparazzi who lay in wait outside Maxim’s or La Tour d’Argent would not be able to resist it. Perhaps even Paris Match or the British Queen or Women’s Wear Daily photographers would be there, since it was now so close to the holidays.

  He made a sudden, exasperated sound. “Will you stand still? Look, I have punctured my finger! It is bleeding.”

  “Oh, Rudi, I’m sorry.” Alix realized she had to stop the ridiculous trembling. If she couldn’t get her nerves under control, they’d spoil the whole evening.

  Rudi stuck his finger in his mouth. “Écoutez, Alix dear,” he said more patiently, “you do not have to be afraid. Greek millionaires are not barbarians. Not like Americans think.”

  Alix stared at the three images of herself reflected in the fitting-room mirrors. The green gown had looked sleek and sophisticated on Iris. But on her slender figure, it was far too provocative—too naked—and she knew nothing about this man she was meeting. She’d wanted to borrow Gilles’s long velvet evening tube, stark, unrelievedly black but flattering to her white skin and blazing hair. Instead her teased hair stood out around her white face in a fiery halo, her purple eyes, still rimmed with the heavy mascara and eyeshadow of the afternoon showing, seemed wraithlike, and she was as garish as a rock singer in all the tight, sexy green glitter. Was this going to be worth it? What was the ultimate price one paid for anger, anyway? And revenge?

  “It’s nerves,” she mumbled. “I’m not really afraid.”

  “Nerves. But not afraid.” Rudi rocked back on his heels to survey his work. “They have all the money in the world, you know.”
He was trying to reassure her. “In the depression, old Socrates Palliades was able to buy first one old freighter, then two, then three. When Hitler came, Palliades had enough rusty old ships to make a fortune.”

  How did you know what was right, or what was wrong? Alix wondered, watching the gown glitter in the three-way mirror. She’d thrown away everything when she came to Paris to study music, and she’d been so wrong about that. After two years, she’d suffered a terrible defeat. The Sorbonne’s verdict had been devastating: a nice little talent, but not enough to encourage.

  She’d fallen into a pit of despair that was almost suicidal, but she’d gotten no comfort, no reassurance. You made your bed, now lie on it. You’re so headstrong, you never think before you act. You never listen to good advice. That was Robert, of course. But she’d long ago decided she’d regret nothing; if she’d listened to “good advice,” she’d still be living in hell.

  Rudi continued rambling on about the Greeks. “Niarchos, Goulandris, Livanos, the tragedies were terrible.” He sighed. “Ari Onassis lost his only son in a plane accident and went mad with grief. Stavros Niarchos may or may not have murdered his wife. Ari’s poor, dead daughter Christina Onassis, thought he did.” He put the straight pins one by one back into their little plastic box and shut it with a snap. “Old Socrates Palliades’s son was killed in a plane crash in an air show. The little boys were in the crowd watching when the father blew up in a ball of fire.” He shook his head. “I remember seeing it on television. It was horrible. The old man and the children, they were right there.”

  Slowly, he got to his feet. “They say old Socrates is a devil. His grandsons worked on his tankers, that is how the youngest boy was killed, on one of the Palliades tankers. The other Greeks don’t do that, they pamper their children, but old Palliades is from the Peloppenesus. He prides himself on being a Spartan.”