The problem was obvious, even to an amateur observer. The curly, sculpted, gilded, outsized, gaudily magnificent background of the Paris Opera foyer reduced anything to trivia, even a fantaisie show of Gilles Vasse’s designs worn by Paris’s most beautiful models. It was even hard to keep one’s eyes on Alix and her incomparable long legs as she started back up the stairs.
“Did anybody,” Peter looked around cautiously, because the writer from Fortune magazine, Chris Forbes, was not far away, “take a look at this place before we booked it?”
Candy Dobbs moaned. “Believe me, I tried hard for the Pompidou center, but nobody wanted to listen. This was Jack’s idea, remember?” She went on rapidly, “Brooksie Goodman negotiated all morning with the opera’s assistant manager, but they won’t let us put up scenery because they say it’s their policy, no alterations. Oh, Peter, we’ve only got two days left! And those goddamned black iron torcheres right at the top!” She gave another loud groan. “How can people see the show when the lights are right in their eyes?”
At that moment Brooksie Goodman passed them, her stout form enclosed in a flowing purple caftan. She was trailed by two electricians with ladders. “Where’s Monsieur Blum?” At Candy Dobbs’s blank look, the Paris publicity woman said, “The orchestra leader. We need him for the son et lumière.”
Ms. Goodman, Peter knew, was now working for them full time as a consultant, which added her services to the list of extra seamstresses, press agents, secretaries, and security guards that currently had them way over budget.
“I don’t know, Brooksie, I don’t know.” Candace turned to Peter, lowering her voice. “That’s another thing. We’ve got this expert who does the son et lumière at Les Invalides; it’s costing us a damned fortune to have him light the show and coordinate the music, and Gilles had this big row with him over what lights they’re going to use when the girls come down the staircase—”
“I need Jack,” Peter said impatiently. He’d seen enough of the chaos at the opera. He didn’t need to be reminded the Bal des Oiseaux Blancs was just two days away. “I just flew in from New York, Candy, I’ve got a taxi waiting outside.”
Even as he spoke, Peter saw the Fortune magazine writer close his notebooks and walk over to Alix. The redheaded model jumped up from her seat on the stairs, smiling. The look of pleasure on her face was unmistakable.
Another complication, he thought, frowning. He wondered if Jack knew this was going on. He looked around, but Nicholas Palliades was apparently not there.
Well, no one could complain if Alix preferred to hang out with the Fortune magazine writer. Jack might raise hell, but only privately; relationships with the press were as touchy as those with financial investors. Besides, there was no way they could force the girl to limit herself to young Palliades.
Peter hesitated as the models started down the grand staircase. “What the hell’s the cardboard on their heads for?”
“Gilles is redoing the headdresses, making them bigger.” Candy’s eyes were on a man and woman who had just come in through the door to the grande salle. “We’ve got to do something to keep the models from coming on like the Seven Dwarfs against this background. Oh, God,” she cried, “I knew it! We’ve got reporters sneaking in here again!”
Peter grabbed her arm. “Don’t freak out, Candy. We’ve had the press before.”
“Oh my God,” Candace cried, “they’re going for the princess! They can’t shoot her in those damned S and M clothes she’s wearing!”
Peter Frank watched Candy rush toward the reporters. Where in the hell was Jack? he wondered. It wasn’t like him to go off like this, with nobody minding the store.
In his suite at the Plaza Athenee, Jackson Storm was talking to his lawyer in New York, speaking words, after almost two decades of married life, he’d never imagined himself uttering.
“I’m telling you, Sam, we’re discussing legal separation. If not actually divorce.” Jack stopped, hearing his own words with unaccustomed bitterness. If this was what Marianna wanted, then this is what she would get.
“Desertion,” he said heavily. “She’s taken the girls and deserted me. I couldn’t even find her at Christmas! I went all the way out to Tahoe, that’s where she told me they’d be, only to find they’d taken off for the house in St. Croix. Do you know how goddamned humiliating that was?”
“Jack,” his lawyer said in New York. “Marianna says it was an honest mistake. They didn’t really expect you back from Paris what with all the priority time you’ve been spending over there. And it’s not desertion, Jack. Right now Marianna’s at home in Connecticut. The girls are at school. She’s still legally occupying the family residence.”
Jackson Storm made a strangling sound. “Christ, whose side are you on? She’s been talking to you, hasn’t she, Sam?”
He could almost see Marianna on the telephone to Sam Edelstein, his lawyer—their lawyer—imperiously telling her version of things. Marianna was always imperious, he fumed; it was one of the most annoying things about her. Her attitude, even after all these years, stank.
“Listen, it was no damned mistake that she tore out of Tahoe in a big damned hurry and rushed the girls off to St. Croix! That took planning, Sam, planning, because she knew I was coming. She practically told me to come to Tahoe when I called her from Paris.”
“All right, Jack, all right,” his lawyer conceded. “Maybe Marianna’s temper got the better of her this time.”
“This time?” the unflappable emperor of New York fashion roared. “Do you know my wife? Because I’m just asking, Sam. Are we talking temper, or what?”
“The women, Jack,” the lawyer reminded him calmly. “I mean, the women all these years. Look, consider what it’s been like for her. For Marianna, your wife.”
Jackson Storm stared, distracted, at the huge bouquet of roses and hothouse lilies that the Plaza Athenee provided every day. It suddenly occurred to him how sick and tired he was of hotel rooms, even when they were luxurious suites in a deluxe five-star accommodation in Paris. Christmas in New York at the Fifth Avenue condo had been the same way. He’d ended up eating Christmas dinner at Ratner’s kosher restaurant on Fourteenth Street, just like the old days.
“We had an understanding,” Jack said, a little hoarsely.
“The hell you did,” Sam said. “You never discussed these other women.”
“But Marianna, ah—she knew what was going on.”
“You’re a skirt-chaser, Jack,” the voice of his longtime friend came over the wire. “First it was the girls in the Seventh Avenue loft, years ago, remember? Who would do anything to model the old Storm King lines? Then the chicks from the big-time modeling agencies who wanted to make a name for themselves? How about,” the lawyer’s voice went on relentlessly, “the television jeans girl, Sam Laredo? Everybody knew, it wasn’t exactly a secret. So, let me ask you—where was Marianna all this time?”
Jack took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Listen, Sam, I provided for that woman like you wouldn’t believe—jewels, furs, a decent home. Jesus, not one decent home, four of them! And I’m not neglecting her,” he said, raising his voice over protests in New York. “I’m still sleeping with her—”
His voice trailed off. When? When was the last time? A couple of months ago? Since they got back from the Acapulco trip last spring? Jack acknowledged it might have been as long as that. Knowing Marianna, no wonder she was on a goddamned rampage.
Dismayed, he wondered if this new, upsetting estrangement might be permanent. Staring at the bouquet of hothouse flowers before him, Jack suddenly didn’t know how he felt about that. Did he want to be single again? There would be some sort of property settlement. Could he choose the house he wanted? The condo in Manhattan? Without a lot of haggling? Would there be a woman, girl, he was interested in, later?
Jack hesitated. The charming woman he’d met on the Concorde coming to Paris had been an entrancing dinner partner and had great potential as a bed partner.
Except once in his suite at the Plaza Athenee, she had confided that she looked forward to talking to him about a career change. She’d always, she declared, wanted to be a dress designer.
Jackson Storm had heard the line many times before, and it always had the same effect. In this instance he’d been charming, he’d been suave, he’d kept his cool. He’d called the lady a cab and wished her well on her visit to her husband in Germany.
His lawyer was still talking. “From what I see, there’s still a lot going for you here. You just don’t throw a marriage like this down the toilet. Marianna’s all woman, Jack—a beautiful woman. Believe me, a lot of men envy you. But over the years she’s put up with a lot of shit. Frankly, I’ll tell you a lot of people are wondering now how you, at your age—”
“Hey, gimme a break!” Jack mopped his face again. “I haven’t hit fifty yet.” It wasn’t the truth, but what the hell.
“—and with two beautiful daughters who are looking to their father, now,” the voice in the telephone went on, “to provide a role model—”
“Shopping,” Jack barked. “That’s all my girls care about—shopping! Ask their mother. She’s the one who taught them.”
“—but it’s going to take some effort on your part, some kind of up-front commitment. Even then I don’t know that it will put this marriage back together again. Maybe you and Marianna ought to think about counseling.”
“Marianna? Counseling?” Jack’s laugh was harsh. “Sam, how long have you known us? You’re talking marriage counseling? You mean Marianna, my wife, is going to sit still and let someone else tell her what to do?”
His lawyer was silent for a long moment.
“It’s either that, Jake,” he said finally, “or a huge property settlement. Which, with your record, frankly,” his tone was deliberate, “we’re talking numbers you wouldn’t believe.”
The thought was like a sudden shower of ice cubes. Property settlement. My God, that could mean millions. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. In the old days, when faced with a mess as big as this one, he couldn’t wait to get home to talk it out with Marianna.
Marianna. She’d brought this on them, he thought savagely, with what she’d done. Somehow, suddenly, nothing was the same anymore.
There were enough cabs to hail in the rue Auber, but after the stuffy confines of the opera, Alix and Chris decided to walk. At least for a few blocks. It was growing dark. A wind swept down the hill from Montmartre, carrying the hint of more snow. Alix pulled her down jacket up under her chin and buttoned it. As she did so, Chris bent to straighten the knit cap she’d pulled down almost to her violet eyes.
“That was a nice bit, the way you handled Gilles Vasse and the princess.” He smiled. “The girl’s jealous of you. Those two wrangle over you like a pair of lovers.”
She looked faintly shocked. “Chris, don’t say that. Gilles is very happily married. His wife’s expecting a baby. And the princess is only a teenager. Actually I think she has something going on with a boy near her own—” She stopped when she saw the laughter in his eyes.
Alix turned her head away. Princess Jacqueline’s behavior was wilder these days. They were fearing some sort of blowup, and there didn’t seem to be any way of avoiding it. Alix wondered what Chris Forbes would say if she told him she’d gone to a notorious Paris sex club on Christmas Eve to drag out the bleeding, drugged-up teenage princess. It was so bizarre; she still had bad dreams about it.
“Tell me about London,” she said, changing the subject. “How did your story go there?”
“Just the usual.” He hunched his shoulders into his stadium coat. “Alix, is Jackson Storm going to pull this thing off? The gossip in London is that he’s got too much riding on Heavenly Lace and this makeshift costume ball.”
“A lot riding on it?”
“Being over extended in the rag business is a fact of life. But there’s a rumor circulating that Jackson Storm may be in over his head.”
When Alix stopped short and turned to him, he said, “Jackson Storm needs a big return on all these items he’s juggling—the lace, Princess Jackie, the new designer, Gilles Vasse—to keep it from being more than a lot of noise.”
“It’s got to be a success.” Alix looked determined. “Japanese and French television cameras are going to be outside the opera. Celebrities are coming, the mayor is going to be there, and so is the French minister of art and culture, the Heart Fund committee has—”
“Hey, hey, Red, I know all that.” He took her arm again, laughing. “You ought to take Candy Dobbs’s job.”
“No.” She was very serious. “I don’t want it. I’m a model.”
He looked down at her, curious. “Alix, outside of being beautiful, what made you decide to go into this? Especially here in Paris.”
The cold had made them walk very fast, so that they were already in the Madelaine. Suddenly Alix knew it would be tempting to confide in someone like Chris Forbes. A strong bond had been forged between them, a mixture of friendship, affection—and some compelling closeness she couldn’t define. Being with this honest, rugged man was nothing like the roller coaster that Nicholas Palliades subjected her to.
She said, “I wanted to change my life.”
“And did you?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Do any of us really have the power to change our lives? I’m not as smart now as I was when I came to Paris to attend music school. I thought I knew what I wanted then.” Alix suddenly realized she was finding a part of herself she never knew existed. A painfully honest part. “After that, I changed my hair, makeup. I lost weight—I—I think I sort of went crazy.”
For the first time she recognized the truth and was amazed. I was arrogant, spoiled, I couldn’t have the thing I wanted most, a concert career, and I nearly went crazy with rage and disappointment.
It was true the world had come crashing down on her ears when she’d failed her master classes. But arrogant and spoiled? Would she really say that about herself? she wondered. My God, they were the very words she used for Nicholas Palliades!
Chris Forbes had stepped out into the Boulevard Madelaine to hail a cab. Alix stood on the curb, too absorbed by what she was thinking to pay much attention. Perhaps even Nicholas Palliades had been a part of running away. More than just revenge on her brother, Robert, as she’d told herself.
Once in the cab, it was only a few minutes down the Champs, and then along the Seine to the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower. Alix and Chris rode in silence until they reached her street in Ranelagh, and her shabby apartment building.
Chris had kept his arm along the back of the seat. When he turned to her, his bright blue eyes were close. “Invite me up?”
What if it had been Christopher Forbes? Alix wondered, staring at him. How would things have gone, then? He was very attractive, they got along so well together. She tried to push the picture of Nicholas Palliades, black-eyed and demanding in all his liquid, macho grace, out of her mind.
“I’ll fix some coffee,” Alix murmured.
At her apartment door, Chris took her key. He shoved open the door to Alix’s little one room flat, and they stepped inside. They stopped short when they saw a man was standing there, illuminated by the light of the bedside lamp.
Eighteen
“What are you doing in my apartment?” Alix cried.
In the next moment she threw herself between the two men. She was almost too late. Nicholas lunged for the Fortune magazine writer and managed, reaching over Alix’s shoulder, to get a grip on the collar of his stadium coat.
“You bastard,” he shouted. “Have you touched her? Have you been to bed with her? I’ll kill you for this!”
Ready to fight, Chris Forbes tried to lift Alix out of the way. But she hung onto Nicholas’s arms with both hands to keep him from hitting the writer.
“Get your dirty hands off her,” Chris yelled.
Alix protested, “He’s not holding me!” Despite his size, Chris was no match for
Palliades’s jealous fury. “Please stop! Please, listen to me!”
To her vast surprise, Nicholas abruptly let go of the other man and stepped back, breathing hard. “Tell her,” he said.
With a frown, Christopher Forbes stepped back and straightened his tie.
“Go ahead, tell her,” Nicholas ordered through clenched teeth.
Alix leaned back against Nicholas’s hard body with all her strength, feeling his angry trembling. “Tell me what?”
A strange look came over Christopher’s rugged features. “He has you followed, do you know that?” He pulled the lapels of his stadium coat back into place. “This unsavory son of a bitch has detectives on you. They report back to him every damned thing you do, by the hour.”
With a snarl, Nicholas reached for him again, but Alix held him with all her strength. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?” she asked Chris.
“No.” The writer wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Hell, Alix, I should have told you before this.”
Nicholas tried to move Alix out of the way. “What does he mean to you?” he shouted. “Damn you, have you been sleeping with him?”
“For heaven’s sake,” Alix cried, “tell me what?”
Christopher Forbes looked cornered. There was a pause before he said in a low voice, “Alix, I’m married.”
No one moved.
“It hasn’t been much of a marriage,” the writer said quickly. “We lead separate lives. But we have kids to consider.”
“You whoring, stupid, son of a bitch.” Nicholas reached for him again. “I ought to break your neck!”
Forbes lifted his head, blue eyes glinting. “You worked on this, didn’t you, Palliades, you and your thugs? When you saw me with her, you made sure they checked me out.”
Lifting her eyes to Nicholas’s rigid face, she knew what the writer was saying was true.
“You’ll get yours, Nicky boy,” Forbes promised. “I won’t forget this. I can play this game, too.” A hard smile touched his mouth. “You’ll get yours, and believe me, I’m going to be there to see it.”
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