Satin Doll (12 page)

While Sam ate greedily, Alain des Baux looked amused, his deft questions prodding her to talk a little about herself, even encouraging her to tell stories about her first year in the mass-market fashion world, when, fresh out of art school in Denver, she had ended up not a designer but a Jackson Storm media figure and sometime television model. Her account of her horror over the avant-garde Greenwich Village hairstylist and what he had done to her hair on the order of the Jackson Storm marketing genius made him explode in roars of laughter.
 

Sam grinned back at him. She owed him a large debt of gratitude, this virtual stranger. He’d fed her and made her have a good time in spite of herself, and she was realizing how kind he had been. She’d only left out the parts about Jack Storm. If Alain des Baux had guessed something was missing, he said nothing.
 

But then he wouldn’t, he was too well-bred for that, she thought, a little sadly. What would he think of her, this charming, cultivated Frenchman? How would that warm, admiring look change if she suddenly poured out the whole story of how she had thought she was in love with her boss? And she’d been sleeping with him, a married man? The French were supposed to be broad-minded about such things, probably more broad-minded than she was, Sam told herself bitterly.
 

“For all that it is a crazy business,” he said, taking her hand, “this mass-market fashion and the use of beautiful women to advertise clothes, you are still incomparably lovely. Because nothing has been done to you that is not your own true beauty. Is that not so?”
 

She let him cover her hand against the tablecloth with his slender, strong fingers, and for once she didn’t try to pull away. She was feeling awful. In spite of what he was saying, she knew he couldn’t understand how she, a girl who had had nothing all her life, had been swept off her feet, made into something resembling a glamorous creature, and then, when she was so overwhelmed and flattered she didn’t know what she was doing, had fallen in love with the man who had created her. But the truth of it was that she’d never known anybody like Jack before. He had coached her, encouraged her, listened with marvelous attentiveness to anything she had to say, told her she was beautiful, took her with him on Sam Laredo promotion trips, had dinner with her, and talked so revealingly of his innermost thoughts that she’d convinced herself he had never told them to anyone else. And then when she was ready—oh so ready, he’d seen to that—Jack had taken her to bed. In San Francisco the first time. Then in New Orleans. Fort Worth and Dallas. Every time they were out of town. It had only happened once in New York, because New York was too close to home, one afternoon at the Hotel Warwick, because Jack couldn’t wait, still intrigued, still teaching her how to please him. Still enchanted with her clumsy innocence. For almost a year and a half she’d been wildly, blindly in love with Jack Storm. Now, here in Paris, with someone else, she was just beginning to realize what a world-class, champion fool she’d been. She couldn’t get over it.
 

The waiter filled her glass again with champagne. How much wine had she drunk? Sam wondered a little hazily. She hadn’t been listening; she’d lost track of what Alain was saying again.
 

“—we held it off for years, this wonderful American life-style, but now it is overwhelming us. French kids want to dress like, act like, talk like Americans—
le weekend, le drugstore, le sports car
—it’s driving the French mad. But then, nothing in Paris is as it was ten years ago.” He took a French cigarette from a gold case and lit it and sat back, looking at her through a cloud of smoke. “And when you turn on the radio, what do you get? Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen—” He stopped abruptly. “I’m not joking. You don’t take me seriously, do you?”
 

She put down her champagne glass and looked at him. There was more to that question than just a simple answer and his gold-flecked eyes were telling her so. “Yes, I take you seriously,” Sam said finally.
 

“Good.” He sat back in his seat and looked pleased.
 

Sam quickly turned to look out the glass that enclosed the stern of the boat, not wanting Alain des Baux to see her face. The city of Paris was going by, a Disney World fantasy of glittering lights. The restaurant boat was moving slowly past the illuminated palaces of the Right Bank, the government buildings on the Rive Gauche, heading down river to the Île de la Cité in the middle of the river and the brightly lit twin towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame. Staring at the beautiful view, Sam felt a little dizzy. One thing right after another was happening to her. Her life was changing so rapidly she couldn’t keep track of it. Who would think the end of this disastrous day would be like this, dining in luxury on the river Seine with a man who acted as though he served up the whole glittering panorama of Paris just for her?
 

“You’re happier,” he observed softly.
 

She didn’t want to turn from the window. “Hell’s afire,” she blurted. “I think I just saw the Statue of Liberty go by!” She put down her champagne glass in a hurry and pushed it away.
 

He laughed. “It’s only a replica. The original is in New York harbor, a gift from France. This is a copy, at the end of the Île Saint Louis.” He lifted her captive hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers softly. “This is where the boat turns to go back.”
 

The waiter was clearing away the dessert plates and the coffee cups. “Is there something more you would want?” Alain des Baux asked softly.
 

Yes, there was something more she wanted, Sam thought, meeting his eyes. She wanted love and happiness. She wanted someone to care for her with no illusions, no deceit, no more false promises that ended with the promiser going back to his wife. And she wanted success, being on top of the world again, the way she’d been this past year, but this time because she’d worked for it, not because she was part of somebody’s master plan that would just fade away when things didn’t work out. It was a large order.
 

She hesitated a long moment. “No, nothing,” Sam said, looking away.
 

Alain parked the Lamborghini in front of the Maison Louvel and turned off the lights. “Shall we continue our tour of Paris or are you too tired? Pigalle, naughty shows, the Moulin Rouge? You have only to say it.”
 

She shook her head. The evening had been wonderful but the day was catching up to her. And, too late, she knew she should have spent at least part of their dinner asking Alain des Baux about the Maison Louvel and what he knew of it—the customers, what had happened to the place all these years, and how it had managed to keep going. Instead, she’d only enjoyed herself, and she’d certainly drunk too much wine. But it still wasn’t too late to ask him about the handyman, Madame Doumer’s great and good friend, Chip.
 

“The Englishman?” he sounded puzzled. “But he is not the handyman or the janitor. Why did you think that?”
 

Not the janitor? “Well, he
looked
like a janitor or a handyman,” she said. “And he followed us around like he was some sort of an employee. We couldn’t get rid of him.”
 

He looked thoughtful. “He fixes things for Solange at times. It is necessary. The house is somewhat dilapidated, and there is only the night watchman, Albert, who is useless.” He shrugged his typically French shrug. “Sometimes the elevator doesn’t work, there is a little trouble with the old wiring, things like that. Besides, Solange depends on him. I told you they are friends.”
 

“Is he just some sort of bum? I mean, does ... ah ... Madame Doumer, you know, support him?”
 

He gave her a preoccupied look. “No, not that. The Englishman has his own business. He sells for a British firm—notions, buttons and thread.”
 

“He sells
buttons?
”
 

“Is it funny?” He gave her a puzzled look. “Yes, I suppose I see what you mean, but that is what he does. And he makes himself useful. Solange is very dependent on him.”
 

“Oh, I bet he does.” She couldn’t help it. The champagne giggles suddenly came rippling out. “Makes himself useful, that is. And not just sewing on b-buttons!”
 

Alain bent his gilded head to peer at her, but he was smiling. “My God, I think I have let you drink too much wine.” He kept staring down at her, his beautiful face only inches from hers. Suddenly he caught his breath. “Do you know how exquisite you are? How adorable, so quivering with life when you are laughing?”
 

His hand slid across the back of the seat to touch her shoulders, warm through the thin silk. The air was suddenly thick with sensuous excitement.
 

Sam couldn’t move. She remembered how it had felt when he’d kissed her hand—the first shock of seeing that dazzling face, all those sensuous fires banked in the gold of his incredible eyes. In a moment their mouths would come together. Sam really had drunk too much to trust her fuzzy senses, but she was positive he was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to. His mouth was so close she felt his warm breath against her lips.
 

“Tell me to stop,” he murmured.
 

His fingers touched her chin very gently and turned her face up to his. Sam closed her eyes. He wasn’t holding her in his arms; one hand rested on the steering wheel and the fingers of the other caressed the back of her neck under her long hair. She felt his lips brush hers almost reluctantly.
 

Then his kiss took her in a shower of bursting sparks that pierced her flesh. Startled, dazzled, Sam opened her eyes and Alain’s light-filled eyes were right by her own. She’d never come alive in Jack’s arms like this. She suddenly had an incredible picture in her mind of Alain des Baux wanting her so strongly his whole naked, beautiful body trembled helplessly against hers, and she blazed with a desire that astounded her. She slid her arms around Alain’s neck and pulled him to her, kissing him passionately. Her open mouth told him how much she wanted him as she drank in the fresh scent of his skin, his warmth, the virile elegance of this beautiful man. Of all the things that had happened to her that day, this was the most glorious, the most unexpected.
 

Except, Sam realized slowly, something was a little wrong. He wasn’t kissing her back quite as eagerly. She felt him pull away.
 

“My sweet darling.” That charming low voice. Those exquisite, regretful manners. He was hesitating. “You can’t know how much I’ve wanted to do this all evening, to kiss you, to hold you. But—”
 

But? It rent the air like a gong.
But?
 

“Not now,” he whispered huskily.
 

Sam was still clinging to him, her body throbbing, her long black satin-clad leg was still thrown over his. She was practically holding him under her.
This can’t be happening,
a small voice in her head wailed.
 

“You are the most beautiful, exquisite creature.” He was definitely holding her away from him now, both hands on her shoulders. “Forgive me, I should never have kissed you.”
 

Sam pulled herself into a sitting position and pushed her hair back from her eyes. Something had gone wrong. She’d practically thrown herself all over him. “It’s all right,” she said, licking her burning lips.
 

Good God, what was the matter? was all she could think. Why did this keep happening to her—that the men she wanted didn’t want her! She clawed at the door handle to get out.
 

“Will you look at me? Samantha, please, let me see you to the door,” he begged her. “Wait—”
 

Was there some kind of curse on her? Sam was thinking wildly. Was it just going to go on forever? He reached for her, but she had already lunged out of the seat and onto the sidewalk.
 

“Wait, please wait,” he called. He got out of the door on the driver’s side.
 

She didn’t want him to come after her, to try to explain. There was nothing to explain. Was she going crazy? She’d never thrown herself all over a man like that in her life!
 

She wrenched open one of the big wooden doors. The tunnel ahead was pitch black. She knew he wasn’t following her. He was just standing there on the sidewalk, staring after her. She stumbled headlong against the inside entrance.
 

She was sobbing now with hoarse fury. Keys, she had to have keys. Sam scrabbled around in her purse in the dark. She finally found the door key and jammed it into the lock, rattling the glass panes of the French doors. Thank God he wasn’t coming after her. She wouldn’t have to listen to him. She groped up the marble staircase in solid darkness, unsteady on her feet, yelling out into the black air words that didn’t make any sense, that they could take Paris and shove it into the ocean.
 

Where did you run to when you wanted to hide from the whole damned world? She was in some building in France, and she didn’t know where the light switches were! She missed a step and almost fell. As long as she lived, she would never forget Alain des Baux’s reluctant words. Humiliation seared her.
 

Sam was out of breath at the second-floor landing. She stopped and leaned against the wall. If the elevator worked, she could have taken the elevator. But Cheap fixed the elevator. It figured. She wanted to throw herself around in the all-consuming darkness and scream.