Iris hesitated, but another burst of applause came up the stairwell. She gave Alix an apologetic look, stuck out her tongue at the back of Gilles’s head, and slipped into the hall.
Gilles rubbed his eyes wearily. “They’ve been sitting down there all morning, wasting time. How typical of this damned place!”
It was true, the atelier was taking an extraordinarily long break, something they wouldn’t have done if Rudi had been there. But the boss was at home in bed, surrounded by his pet Lapsas, at last report talking on the telephone to at least half the world of Paris couture, telling them of Gilles’s terrible betrayal.
Gilles propped his head in his hands and stared down at his drawing board. The whole building had heard Rudi’s anguished screams yesterday when Gilles had finally told him of his decision to join Jackson Storm’s new couture house, the Maison Louvel.
“Je savais toujour que vous allez me quitter!” Rudi had wailed.
I always knew you would leave me.
Too distraught to drive himself home, Rudi had left in a taxi. At nine A.M. the next morning his houseman had called to say that Monsieur Mortessier would not be in. In fact, he might be out the entire week. Gilles had reported to work to do the honorable thing, finish up Mortessier’s already late spring collection. A noble gesture, but no one knew if Rudi was aware of it. Or if he even cared.
“Iris will be back in a moment. She just can’t stay away from the fashion shows.” Alix was really sorry about flighty Iris. But Gilles was always so intense about everything, and he’d only gotten worse since he’d announced his resignation.
“It doesn’t matter, nothing matters, I knew it would be terrible leaving here.” Gilles lifted his head and looked around despairingly. “This place is truly impossible. But then, Rudi likes it that way.”
He stared broodingly at the troublesome white suit Alix was wearing. He supposed they should get back to work; Alix had said something about going to a piano concert at the Pompidou center, something she’d saved for a month to do. At the moment she wore very little makeup to protect the clothes. Her red hair was scraped back starkly into a knot that emphasized her delicate bone structure and the startling color of her eyes.
He was suddenly reminded that he had forgotten one important piece of business. “How are you doing?” Gilles asked, somewhat brusquely. Like everyone at Mortessier’s, he knew about the ruined green evening dress. It had been the chief topic of gossip until he broke his own news. “Are you all right?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Yes, of course.”
“Well, no thanks to Rudi. If it hadn’t been for Rudi, you would never have gone out to dinner with this—this—” He struggled with his obvious contempt. “This—Greek.”
Alix managed a bleak smile. Gilles was so young, so unforgiving; she was only a year or two older, but sometimes she felt ancient beside him. “Gilles, it’s not Rudi’s fault.” Now that Gilles was leaving, she didn’t want to be involved in his quarrel with the boss. “Rudi didn’t say a thing about the dress.”
He snorted. “Why should he? The Greek paid for it.”
Even Alix had been startled to find out the cost of Rudi’s beaded evening dress. Eighteen-thousand dollars. It was a not unheard-of sum, some Paris couture gowns sold for as high as fifty thousand. But she was sure Nicholas Palliades, patron of sleazy nightclubs and purchaser of token jewelry, had paid a lot more for his evening’s entertainment than he’d intended. He probably thinks it’s another plot, Alix told herself.
She’d gathered from Mortessier atelier gossip that Nicholas had immediately put in a call to Rudi from the Palliadeses’ Paris offices the morning after their date. There had apparently been quite an exchange of telephone calls, some rumored to involve both the Palliades and Mortessier lawyers, but the matter of the green dress had finally been settled when Nicholas Palliades paid the full list price. No one had mentioned the dress to Alix after she’d turned it in to the maitresse of the atelier and endured her shocked dismay. And she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Rudi; Gilles’s announcement that he was leaving had pushed everything else out of the way.
Alix hadn’t slept well since that awful evening. She wondered what Nicholas Palliades had told Rudi. She couldn’t forget his wild, paranoid ramblings about being blackmailed—or his exclamations when he’d discovered she was a virgin. She knew he was furious over her wild flight from the apartment in the avenue Foch. If worse came to worst, she supposed the whole miserable episode might cost her her job. After all, it was her story against his, and she was only a model, while Nicholas Palliades was wealthy, powerful—and a Mortessier client.
Strangely, though, not once in the last two days had he tried to call her or get in touch with her at work. Alix had been afraid he would, and was relieved when nothing happened. She wanted to forget her mistake as quickly as possible.
Gilles had been watching her closely. “This lecher wasn’t beastly to you, was he? He didn’t abuse you?” He scowled when she shook her head. “To tear a woman’s dress—merde, what a damnable thing! I could choke Rudi with my own hands!” He glared at her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Alix couldn’t help smiling. Gilles was so surprisingly straitlaced; un vrai bourgeois when it came to women, especially his beautiful pregnant wife. And yet, in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans and motorcycle leather, he looked more like a sexy young punk rock star.
As for her evening with Nicholas Palliades, the strange, surreal quality of the dinner at the Russian nightclub, the absurd singing cossack waiters, the diamond earrings in the champagne—it was all a fading nightmare. Who would want to remember Nicholas Palliades storming around the bedroom like a madman, stark naked, accusing her of blackmail?
At some time in the future, perhaps she’d be able to laugh at the whole episode. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“I’m sorry about the dress,” Alix said carefully. The official excuse, that no one at Mortessier’s believed, was that she’d caught it on the door handle of the Daimler. “Rudi was tacking beads on before I went out. I should have been more careful.”
If it hadn’t been for the curious appearance of the American journalist who had given her a lift, the night might have been a bigger disaster. Nicholas Palliades might have caught up with her. He might have tried to force her to go back to the apartment with him. He might have...
She shuddered. She’d come to the conclusion that Nicholas Palliades was a lunatic. A serious mental case protected by his family’s enormous wealth. Millionaires’ unhinged, dissolute heirs were not all that uncommon in Paris.
It was no wonder, Alix thought ruefully, that she’d jumped into the American writer’s car, hysterical, wild-eyed, desperate to get away from him. To his credit, the man had behaved as though everything was perfectly normal. When he left her off in the rue Boulainvilliers, he didn’t ask how she’d happened to be on the posh avenue Foch at that hour, in the snow, obviously running from trouble. He’d given her his business card. His name was Christopher Forbes.
“I tell you, Rudi does not think,” Gilles was saying. “No one likes to deal with these Greek shipping people. They are vulgar, unscrupulous. Like the oil Arabs, they are only tolerated for their money.”
Alix winced. “But Gilles, there must be some who—”
He snorted. “Never! They are all the same. This one’s father was a notorious playboy. He raced expensive cars and airplanes recklessly. He was scandalous with women. The poor wife was beautiful, an heiress in her own right, but became an alcoholic because she couldn’t stand living with him. I have a cousin,” he said with grim relish, “who worked at the Ritz. He tells me once they had such a terrible fight—I mean they were actually hitting each other—so that the police came and she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.”
Alix stared at him. “Nicholas Palliades?”
“No, no, the father, Stavros, who was killed. The son is the same, only he does the grandfather’s dirty jobs, like a gangster. H
ow could Rudi let such a man take you out?” Gilles swept his hand across the drawing board, scattering his sketches. “Everything is Rudi’s fault! Look, I’m trying to clear up this work that should have been completed weeks ago. If Rudi doesn’t get it done before New Year’s, it’s futile to have a showing. It’s worse than working for my mother in her dressmaking business. I left Tours to get away from chaos. Alors, now I have to go to the Americans to get away from-this!”
Alix didn’t know what to say. “But Gilles, I know Rudi will appreciate what you’re doing. He—”
“—Is in bed,” the designer snarled, “on the telephone, telling everyone in Paris what a filthy dog I am to be leaving him.” He threw his grease crayons after the sketches. “But Rudi will change his mind. When he is tired of telling everyone what a bastard I am, he will start crying and decide I am okay after all.” Gilles imitated Rudi’s high-pitched voice. “That he wishes me great luck with Jackson Storm, that the American is more rich and powerful than he is, poor little Rudi, and that he knows I have made the right decision. Because it will make me famous.”
Alix sat down on the edge of a straight-backed chair filled with toiles. She was tired; she’d endured enough emotional turmoil for one week. “Is Jackson Storm really going to make you famous? Gilles, are there any guarantees?”
Gilles’s hard, young face contracted. “I am not a fool, cherie. I have guarantees, yes. I admire Jackson Storm. When he talks about publicity, the coverage in the media, millions spent on advertising on American television—” He stopped, scowling. “Believe me, Mr. Jackson Storm’s couture house will not be like these French operations that run badly, with a lot of screaming and confusion.”
“But Gilles, Rudi gave you your breath. You design more than half of his collection now!”
“I will design all of them with Jackson Storm,” he shot back. “Besides, Rudi takes credit for classical couture, trousseaus, the stuff for the wife of the premier of France and the ladies of San Francisco, but I am the one who does it.” He lowered his voice. “You know I have to do it. I have to leave. My wife is expecting a baby.”
“Money is important,” Alix agreed. It was an open secret that Rudi adored Gilles. But Rudi was notoriously tightfisted.
“You should make the break, too.” Gilles looked at her sideways. “What is keeping you here?”
“Gilles, I just got this job.” She felt a ripple of inexplicable fear. She wasn’t ready to be thrown back into the world of challenge.
“Jackson Storm will pay more. For any top Paris model,” Gilles added hastily. He didn’t want Alix to know Jackson Storm wanted her, exclusively. “You are associated with my clothes, you wear them the way no one else can,” he coaxed. “Alix, consider!” He couldn’t repress his excitement any longer. “I’m going to design the most fabulous collection in Paris! Jackson Storm will give me complete artistic freedom. Mon Dieu, I am going to be famous!”
Alix looked uncertain. Gilles was so enthusiastic, she hoped everything he’d been promised would come true. But in a few weeks she was going to show the clothes Gilles had designed in Rudi’s spring collection. She looked forward to it. She’d worked hard to become Mortessier’s top model.
“You don’t need me,” she said, softly. “Jackson Storm isn’t going to do a spring collection. And it will be weeks before you even start to do any cutting for fall clothes. Hire a model then.”
Gilles had been so sure he could persuade her to come with him. Now, he could see, he’d waited too long. When he started to explain, to press his need for Alix without telling her it was Jackson Storm who really wanted her, he was surprised at her reaction.
“No, no, I really can’t make another move for a while.” Alix looked around, distracted. “Gilles, can’t you understand? I want to stay out of trouble if I can.”
“Trouble? What trouble?” Gilles couldn’t conceive of her not coming with him. She would ruin his arrangement with Jackson Storm!
“Let’s talk some other time.” She started toward the door. “I’ll get Iris. We need to get back to work.”
Gilles listened to the clatter of Alix’s heels as she descended the stairs to the employees’ lounge. He hadn’t made the Jackson Storm offer strong enough. He’d been so affected by what had happened yesterday, and now trying to get Rudi’s spring collection finished before he left, that he’d bungled this all-important business with Alix. A shiver of apprehension ran down Gilles’s spine.
It absolutely was not true, of course, that Alix sold his clothes. That couldn’t be the reason Jackson Storm wanted her. The couture business was always full of nasty, suspicious gossip. Gilles told himself his creative work stood on its own merit; he didn’t need Alix to enhance his designs.
On the other hand it would do no harm to have her with him, especially when she modeled his fashions as few others could. Especially when, for whatever reason, Jackson Storm insisted on it.
Gilles was already missing Rudi’s guiding hand. He needed advice. He reached across his drawing board to the telephone. He had a new employer now. There was one way to find out.
In the rue des Benedictines, Jackson Storm was not having a good day. His executive vice-president, Mindy Ferragamo, was delayed in New York just when he needed her, and his own secretary, Trini Fogel, had flown back that morning with some work that was overdue at headquarters. The president and chairman of the board of Jackson Storm, Inc. had been suddenly left to cope. Alone. It didn’t exactly make him happy.
Jack glowered at the group gathered in his office on the second floor of the Maison Louvel. It seemed as if the whole Storm King corporate structure was on a flight somewhere, about to arrive or depart at an airport, at any given time of the week. It was driving him nuts. And it was no way to run a business.
Jack had made his displeasure known to Peter Frank, his head of overseas corporate development, at lunch at La Coupole, one of Jack’s favorite places in Montmartre. Peter was quick to say he couldn’t take on transportation schedules; his own work day had been filled up with negotiations with lawyers from Poseidon-Palliades, Ltd., the holding company for all Palliades shipping lines. What was important, Peter pointed out, was the appointment he wanted Jack to keep with one Ms. Brooksie Goodman, an American with her own Paris-based public relations agency, who had something hot to propose.
“Hot?” Jack had growled. “Screw hot propositions. What we need is more people in the damned office!”
An hour later he’d begun to nurture a suspicion of Americans who lived abroad and inserted themselves in foreign cultures well enough to speak the language like a native. He could hear Ms. Goodman as she climbed over the boards and buckets in what was to be the Maison Louvel new lobby, calling out to the carpenters in slangy Parisian French. In person, Ms. Brooksie Goodman reminded Jack of some of his daughters’ brittle, aggressive girl friends from Scarsdale. Only older.
Brooksie Goodman, a slightly overweight young woman in her late twenties was, Jack knew, hustling something. “We got a top designer,” he said, wanting to get the meeting over with, “from right here in Paris. We’ll announce it shortly.”
“This is not about designers, Jack,” Peter Frank said, “we wouldn’t cut into your time for something like that.”
As it turned out, Ms. Goodman represented the account of Prince Alessio Medivani of the famous pocket-sized kingdom in the Adriatic, noted primarily for its gambling casino and spacious mooring basin for millionaires’ yachts.
Jack raised his eyebrow inquiringly at Peter Frank. What the hell does this have to do with us?
“You’re probably wondering what the Jackson Storm connection is,” the Paris PR woman said quickly. “Okay, we all know Princess Stephanie of Monaco spent a few months over at Christian Dior as a designer apprentice.”
“It was a flop,” Jack said tersely. “She was in and out of Dior like a yo-yo.”
Ms. Goodman’s round face under a coif of braids was unperturbed. “I’m only establishing that as a point of referen
ce.” She opened a Hermes alligator purse and, using two middle fingers, delicately drew out a folded paper. “I have a letter here from Prince Alessio Medivani, who also has a teenage daughter. Only the Prince’s daughter is Princess Jacqueline Emilia Marguerita Medivani, a very talented art student.”
Jack looked at his director of overseas development with an expression of disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Mr. Storm,” she said.
“Jack,” Peter Frank put in, “just listen.”
It seemed the princess was bored with art school in Nantes, where her concepts were simply too advanced for routine academic work such as line drawing and sketches of still life. Princess Jacqueline wanted to get out into the commercial working world. As a fashion designer.
Jackson Storm narrowed his famous blue eyes. Don’t touch it, Jake, he warned himself, it’s pure schlock, even if they’re giving kings and queens away. He glared at the clone of his daughters’ friends who, he thought sourly, should be married to a nice Jewish dentist and raising kids, instead of being there in Paris, promoting dreck. “I don’t think you heard me,” he told her. “We’ve got a designer.”
Even as he said it, Jack remembered Monaco’s Princess Stephanie had commanded every headline, every feature from the New York Times on down to the National Enquirer. And not only once. Every week while she was with Dior.
“Actually,” Brooksie Goodman was saying, “there are a lot of pluses to hiring the princess, especially in a start-up operation like yours. A touch of in-the-know publicity establishes a connection with some of the best local names, a good referencing network from the top, and instant marketing chips.”
Jack leaned back in his chair. “Do you know what the hell she’s talking about?”
Ms. Goodman paused. “Listen,” she said in an entirely different voice. “Let me ask you something. What has Jackson Storm got coming down for it here at the Maison Louvel? You’re going to have to hit Paris, New York—the whole world—hard, and not with just couture. A big fancy press party at the Plaza Athenee isn’t going to do it all.”
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