Satin Dreams (31 page)

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.”
 

He turned to Alix, but when he saw her expression, he shrugged. “What has he offered you? Money? Jewelry?” He made no effort to disguise his contempt. “I could have paid you, honey, only it never entered my mind. My mistake. I thought you wanted something else.” He started for the door. “Your time is coming, Palliades,” he said again.
 

In answer, Nicholas kicked open the door with a bang and pointed to the hall outside.
 

The writer paused in the doorway. “Look, you don’t have to stay here,” he said to Alix. His eyes raked the taller man. “Christ, I actually don’t want to leave you with this—rotten, corrupt imitation of a—”
 

With a growl, Nicholas started for him.
 

“Go! Please go!” Alix said. She managed to slam the door in the writer’s face and stood with her back pressed against it, breathing hard.
 

“How did you get in here?” She was shrieking like a virago; she was sure by now someone in the building had called the police. “Where have you been? What are you doing in my
apartment
?”
 

Nicholas stood before her, glittery-eyed with rage. “I have been in Germany. In international court. Didn’t you know what you were bringing him in here for, this married man? At this hour.” He stabbed at his wristwatch with a vicious finger. “At this hour!”
 

He had taken off his tie and jacket and his shirt-sleeves were rolled up to expose slightly hairy forearms. He looked vaguely unkempt, as though he’d been sleeping in airports.
 

“I won’t stand for this.” Her cry was low, infuriated. “I won’t be treated like a whore.” Alix started for the wardrobe. “But you and your grandfather are working hard to turn me into one!”
 

“My grandfather?” He hadn’t expected that. “Did you say my
grandfather?
”
 

Alix flung back the doors of the old wardrobe and yanked out the thick, furry sable coat. She struggled to hold it under one arm while she dragged open her dresser drawers.
 

“You know what he called me?
Nize
. He called me
nize
, and he wanted to touch my hair!” She threw stockings and sweaters out of the top drawer and onto the floor. “Two of his men actually dragged me out of work, out into the street to his car. But all he wanted to do was slobber over me and say obscene things to me about what I should do to you in bed. And oh, yes,” she cried, hurling the sable coat at him, “then he wrapped me up in this! And gave me a big bouquet of roses!”
 

The sable coat hit Nicholas’s shoulder. He peeled it away stonily. “You’re talking about my grandfather? Socrates Palliades?”