Satin Dreams

by Davis, Maggie;

  “In the car.” Skillfully he parted the crowd for her. “The Daimler is parked in front of the opera.”

  The lights had been dimmed in the grand foyer for dancing, but the air was sticky and warm. Most people in the close-packed crowd had discarded their extravagant masks and headdresses. After such an exciting evening, the guests at the Bal des Oiseaux Blancs were reluctant to go home.

  Outside, it was still snowing. The Mercedes-Daimler purred a the curb, a sybaritic, superpowered ghost in the wintry dark.

  Inside, Alix found it was still chilly in spite of the heaters blowing full blast. She pulled her jacket around her as she picked up the silver-plated French telephone.

  It took only a second to dial the code numbers for overseas, New York, and then the final number preceded by another code, knowing that she was passing through a filtered security system that allowed her to speak to one of the most powerful men in the world.

  The system responded. A voice answered, asking politely whom she wished to contact.

  Alix frowned in the semidarkness of Nicholas Palliades’s silver and gray limousine. In one sense, she had come full circle.

  “This is Catherine Alixandria Melton,” she said into the telephone receiver. “Let me speak to my brother.”

  Twenty-Four

  At three A.M., the remaining scraps of the costumes from the Bal des Oiseaux Blancs were carried up to the design room by Gilles and Abdul. After the porter left him in the midst of a tangle of shoe boxes and headdress bags, Gilles turned on the drafting light over his table and sat down. At that hour, the ponderous silence of the old Maison Louvel building was soothing.

  And Gilles needed soothing, after this terrible day.

  Damn the de Brissacs! If he blamed anyone, Gilles blamed the bourgeois silk mill merchants. Their willingness to let him go ahead with the lace laminate that they knew was defective was monstrous, unforgivable. He’d never expected much from the American dress manufacturer Jackson Storm, the publicity woman from New York, the cretinous vice president in charge of European development—or even the overbearing young backer, Palliades. But his own kind? Frenchmen? What perfidy!

  Gilles put his head in his hands. Now Palliades was in jail, arrested right in the middle of the opera ball, just as in some ludicrous Hollywood film comedy. Jackson Storm had disappeared, and no one seemed to know where he was.

  Peter Frank had intercepted Gilles as he was packing up to leave the opera and had said with monumental falseness, “We know you did a good job, Gilles, kid, you just had tough luck. Report in as usual for work in the morning, and we’ll see how it goes.” Peter Frank had been unable to meet Gilles’s eyes. “Jack Storm tells me he and his wife are—ah, leaving immediately on a second honeymoon. I think he said Rio de Janeiro.”

  Gilles told himself that if one believed such things, then surely all the planets in the universe must have come together this ill-fated evening to form the most baleful influences ever known. Who could have foreseen a fantaisie before the season’s most illustrious audience deteriorating into a travesty? Into a—peep show of nude models.

  Worse, it hadn’t ended there.

  When Gilles had entered the Maison Louvel tired, discouraged, and chilled to the bone, the Arab porter had met him, full of his own disasters. And with Princess Jacqueline’s note for Gilles. It had been delivered to the rue des Benedictines late, Abdul told him, by an employee of Prince Alessio Medivani.

  Standing amid boxes and paper bags at the elevator, Gilles had read the note.

  Princess Jacqueline, the note said (it was obviously written by a secretary), thanked M. Gilles Vasse for his time and patience and knew that he would be interested to know that Her Serene Highness was opening her own swimsuit company, for which she would be sole designer, in New York. The princess regretted she would no longer be working with M. Vasse, but sent her sincerest wishes for his continued success.

  In other words, he’d realized, furious, Princess Jacqueline was taking advantage of the privileges of her class and beating a speedy, strategic retreat.

  As if that were not enough, Abdul was in tears. His son, Karim, was leaving Paris, abandoning his studies at the university for full-time employment as Princess Jacqueline’s bodyguard!

  It was madness, all of it.

  Gilles knew his own future was not much clearer. In spite of the standing ovation at the end of the show, he was treading in professional quicksand. The upcoming, all-important spring collection would really determine whether he had established himself. And Gilles didn’t know if he still had a job with this imbecilic operation the Americans called a couture house. The Greek millionaire backer was in jail, the American fashion king had suddenly announced a honeymoon with his wife, and Gilles’s fantaisie costumes had just dissolved before the eyes of a fascinated Paris audience and the world press. Merde, he still couldn’t believe it!

  Gilles looked around the design room, feeling as though a harrowing decade had passed since he’d left it earlier that evening. It was time to go home, but he had to compose himself; Lisianne would hear of the disaster in the morning, if she hadn’t already seen it on television. He had to prepare to make light of it. For the sake of them both.

  With a sigh, he reached to turn out the fluorescent lamp, and heard the sound of the elevator ascending.

  He didn’t want to see Abdul again. He’d already had his fill of the porter’s troubles: the emotional distress about his son who was going to America with Princess Medivani, the temptress who was not a good influence, even though she was wealthy and titled.

  But when Gilles looked up, it was not the Arab porter who stood in the doorway but the plump, disordered figure of Rudi Mortessier in a half-buttoned overcoat and snow boots.

  For a moment, Gilles could do nothing but stare. He was overtired. It was an apparition, he told himself. Not Rudi.

  “Gilles, mon petit,” the apparition said hoarsely, “I have just had a most sublime experience!”

  Gilles slipped down from the drafting stool. “Rudi, what are you doing here in the Maison Louvel? Do you know what hour it is? It is the middle of the night!”

  Rudi gave him a rather strange look. “I, Rudi Mortessier, have been with darling Lisianne for ten hours. Think of it Gilles,” he said, his voice rising, “I have been with that magnificent woman, your wife, for ten hours. All this time I have been holding her hand and breathing with her. Diligently.”

  “My God.” Gilles lunged for him, stumbled into the costume bags and shoe boxes, and barely caught himself. “Rudi, damn you—tell me what this is all about!”

  “Have I not been telling you? Gilles, my dearest boy. Lisianne is in the hospital—with your newborn offspring!”

  Gilles wanted to grab his former employer by the throat, but couldn’t reach him. He leaned against a file cabinet, struggling for breath. He realized he was having an anxiety attack. “She has had the baby?” he croaked.

  “Yes, yes! What a wonderful woman! She called me, Gilles, because she didn’t want to rob you of your magnificent triumph tonight, not even when she was in labor. She almost waited too long. Such courage! I was with her all the time until she went into the delivery room. It was the most exquisite experience of my life, Gilles.” Rudi rolled his eyes heavenward with great sincerity. “I wish you to know how grateful I am.”

  “Rudi,” Gilles almost shouted, “my wife—is she all right? Is it a boy or a girl?”

  “Lisianne is wonderful. She is lovely, very happy,” Rudi assured him. “She wishes to see you right away.”

  Gilles slumped against the file cabinet, sweat pouring into his eyes. “Thank God,” he choked. “And the baby? It is well?”

  “They are wonderful, and lovely, too. A beautiful little girl and a beautiful little boy. It was amazing to watch, this marvelous birth, which I did through the glass of the delivery room by special permission. Your lovely wife knew months ago, of course, that there would be twins. But Gilles, what a noble woman. She did not wish to trouble y
ou with all—”

  Rudi Mortessier found himself suddenly addressing a body that had crumpled down the front of the file cabinet to the floor. He pushed his glasses back up his nose with his index finger and leaned forward.

  “Gilles, dear boy,” Rudi said. “Gilles?”

  But Gilles Vasse had fainted.

  The Parisian night was cold and brilliant with only a few ice flurries stirred by the wind drifting sporadically over the sidewalks. Because Lakis was waiting in the Daimler with the motor running, Alix didn’t take time for a long, soaking hot bath but instead took a brief shower and changed from her slacks and sweater into a black woolen dress, combing out her hair to a resonable semblance of order. The last thing she did before leaving her apartment was put on Nicholas Palliades’s diamond and emerald earrings, and the full-length sable coat.

  In the mirror, she studied her face framed by dark fur, diamonds, and emeralds. It was not the image she had ever wanted for herself.

  But this was the poorly paid model Nicholas Palliades’s grandfather didn’t want his grandson to marry. The woman Nicholas Palliades desired. And most especially, the one her brother, behind his security systems and barricades of wealth and power, had wished to deal with, reason with—even threaten, these past few months.

  Alix turned to view herself from all angles, thoughtfully.

  This was also the hardworking couture-house model Gilles Vasse used for inspiration for his creations. And the idealized role model on whom silly little Princess Jacqueline had lavished her adoration.

  Who had she been before that? she wondered. An unsuccessful music student. And before that? Lonely and afraid. Did she ever want to be that again?

  No, Alix told herself. She knew now that in one man’s arms she’d felt safe, loved, and protected.

  She’d been criticized for never doing anything unless she could dictate her own terms; for being spoiled, beautiful, having little love to give. But none of that was true. She had discovered she could love Nicholas Palliades.

  It had been a revelation. It had changed her whole life. It has changed me, Alix thought, watching the woman in the glass. Here I am now, and I am going to fight for what I want.

  Instead of running away.

  Lakis pulled the limousine up to the side entrance of the Paris police centrale that was open for night business. “Do you want me to go inside with you?” the tall Greek asked.

  Alix shook her head. Visiting police stations was intimidating enough, but nothing compared to what lay beyond. Fortunately, the telephone call she’d just made to her brother confirmed she’d have plenty of help.

  Just inside the door she recognized the young lawyer who’d been harrying her with threatening telephone calls so that she’d return home. He rushed out to meet her at the same time Alix swept through the door, and she almost bumped into him. He was also the same one who’d intercepted her the night before in the rue Cambon; Alix remembered the thinning hair and the eyeglasses.

  “Miss Melton,” he said as she started ahead, bringing a blast of cold winter air with her, “I want to say how happy you’ve made everyone by your decision to—”

  “Point out our lawyers,” Alix interrupted. She didn’t feel like being particularly gracious to the voice that had bullied her so many times on the telephone.

  He almost fell over his feet in his hurry to usher her toward a group of men in dark business suits standing in the waiting area. Four other well-dressed, weary men stood near the booking desk.

  “Are those the Poseidon-Palliades lawyers?”

  “Yes, Farkas and Simon are from their Boulogne office, Andropolous has just flown in from Greece on one of Palliades’s company jets. They are quite well organized, to get Andropolous here so quickly.” He hesitated, full of respect. “They know who we are, Miss Melton, and the overall picture has been presented to them. But they have some trouble accepting the situation.”

  So will Nicholas Palliades, Alix thought, uncomfortably.

  Snuggled in the luxurious sable, the diamonds glittering against her wind-tumbled hair, she looked aloof and self-confidently patrician against the background of fluorescent lighting, green-painted corridors, and early-morning desolation that was Paris centrale. But Alix’s knees were shaking.

  She was determined not to let Nicholas be trapped by Chris Forbes and whatever Fortune magazine exposé he was working on. But that meant she was gambling everything on the next few hours. Including, probably, her own chance for happiness.

  The young lawyer quickly introduced the Melton Bank legal people in France: Michel Uris of the European trust staff from Versailles, Emile Leonard and Jack Hammersmith of the Paris office. The lawyers’ animation, considering that they’d been routed out of bed on an emergency basis, was remarkable. In Leonard and Hammersmith’s opinion, the warrant sworn out against Poseidon-Palliades Corporation and Nicholas Palliades as its chief executive officer was doubtful under French jurisdiction.

  “Poseidon-Palliades operates mostly under the Panamanian flag,” the senior Paris lawyer told her. “A legal case against them will take months of search and discovery. Nevertheless—” He shrugged, disbelievingly. “To arrest young Palliades at a ball at the Paris Opera? Should we assume that someone—ah, wished to prove something?”

  “Someone wished to humiliate him.” She felt they should know something about that. “But we—my brother doesn’t want him in jail another hour longer.”

  The lawyers exchanged looks. “The Palliades legal staff was frantic,” the lawyer from Versailles put in. “They’ve been here for hours, trying to get in to see Niko. We finally made bail for him. But it didn’t make us too popular.” He smiled. “At least Niko’s on his way out.”

  Alix could picture Nicholas Palliades, still in his white tie and tails, behind bars. He must know by now who had done this to him. She shuddered for the continued well being of Christopher Forbes.

  Michael Uris said, “If he has been fighting with arms smugglers, then Niko Palliades must have been having a very bad time. Has he told you he’s been threatened several times with sexual blackmail? That he’s been attacked twice? He’s a very brave man.”

  “Yes, I know.” No one had to tell Alix how brave Nicholas was; she owed him more apologies than she could ever make.

  The trust lawyer looked around. “Shall we ask for a conference room to meet with Palliades’s legal staff? They’re fairly uninformed about our place in the scheme of things, and it’s bothering them. We’ve brought papers to let them know where they stand.”

  “Yes, give them the papers.” Alix saw the Palliades lawyers watching, their expressions guardedly hostile. “You’ll have to explain why Melton Bank is now in charge. But I’m going to speak to Nicholas Palliades myself.”

  There was a concerted look of surprise. By now the lawyers had certainly heard about her trail of rebellion that had led to the Sorbonne and beyond. And her brother’s efforts to get her to return home. They had been called in, their faces said, to advise her what to do. Not the other way around.

  Alix braced herself for the arguments, but at that moment Nicholas Palliades and two deputies stepped through the steel mesh door at the end of the booking area.

  Nicholas was still in formal evening clothes, tired and wrinkled, his hair hanging in disheveled black strands over his forehead. He had a swollen bruise over one black eyebrow, the obvious result of his struggles with the arresting gendarmes. His expression was indescribable. Savage was the only word Alix could think of.

  The Palliades lawyers immediately crowded around, speaking Greek, but Nicholas roughly waved them away. He looked around the room, singling Alix out immediately. Without visible emotion his black look raked over the sable coat and diamond earrings.

  Alix felt a moment of quivering panic.

  He looked so angry. So remote. She knew it wasn’t going to work. Nicholas could never love her; they were too much alike! And yes, the rest of the world probably saw them as privileged, spoiled, even arrogant.
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  But she had to try.

  She stepped in front of him as he strode past the booking desk. “Niko,” Alix said breathlessly.

  He brushed past her without a word.

  He knows, she thought. In the next instant she knew that was impossible.

  The Palliades lawyers surged forward, but the Melton legal contingent intercepted them, waving thick folders of papers. Nicholas Palliades disappeared through the side door.

  Alix ran after him and plunged into the night.

  There was no streetlight, and the steps outside the Paris centrale were dark and slippery with ice. Alix scrambled after his retreating figure, moving uncertainly in her high-heeled satin pumps. “Nicholas, please stop,” she gasped.

  He kept going.

  She tried again, close enough to grasp his arm. “Lakis has told me everything!”

  He shook her off. “What the hell does Lakis know about it?”

  He stepped to the curb, looking about impatiently for a taxi, but they were in the wrong place for taxis at that hour of the morning.

  Close to him, Alix was reminded he was without an overcoat, and it was snowing. She touched the broadcloth of his shirt almost furtively, thinking, He’ll freeze out here.

  She said, “The dry cleaner in Pantin is not my lover. You know now we had to have the costumes dry cleaned, that’s what caused the disaster.” Her lie now sounded absurd. She knew he couldn’t have believed it for more than a minute. “The poor man ... the earrings were only a deposit. I didn’t have any money.”

  He walked on stiffly, as though he hadn’t heard her.

  “Lakis told me it’s taken you months,” Alix went on a little desperately, “since you took over your grandfather’s shipping lines to find out what’s going on, that it’s a labyrinth of—of—”

  He turned to scowl at her. “Illegal operations?”

  “You know I don’t believe you’ve done anything illegal!” she protested.

  He started rapidly along the snow-covered sidewalk. Alix, hampered by her high heels, had to run to keep up with him. Behind them she heard Lakis put the softly purring Daimler into gear.