Authors: Maggie; Davis
The house, when Alain’s cousin took her through it, reflected the charm and breeding of generations of French aristocracy.
“It is only a country house, not very grand for the time it was built,” Marilou explained. “You have not been to the palaces at Versailles yet? They are unbelievable. You must get Alain to take you.”
Tall windows let an abundance of light into elegant rooms in the back of the house, where the family spent most of its time. A sitting room was a blend of contemporary and antique furnishings, with woven fiber matting from the Philippines on the walls, a lovely faded red and white Aubusson carpet and comfortable modular chairs and sofa. Faïence jars on the seventeenth-century marble mantelpiece flanked the brightly colored geometrics of a twentieth-century Braque oil. And everywhere there were the huge bouquets of fresh flowers from the estate gardens so typical of upper-class French houses. The study’s original mahogany paneling had been stripped of old varnish and hand-rubbed to a lighter, grayer hue to brighten the large room, enclosed on all four sides with book shelves. The wall panels, the top of the desk and several tables were filled with framed family photographs.
“Yes, Jean-Yves and I, our wedding, all the children,” Marilou said, dismissing the framed photos with a gesture.
“And Alain,” Sam said. She started to pick up a photograph, but Marilou abruptly covered it with her hand.
“Yes, Alain. There is another, better one of him on the wall,” his cousin said quickly.
Samantha lifted her eyes and for a moment they stood simply looking at each other.
“
Merde
,” Marilou de Bergerac said under her breath. She gave a quick, good-humored shrug that said she liked her, and that she would be honest. She held out the photograph in its gold frame to Sam. “They are betrothed,” she said simply. “She is still in school.”
Yes, she would be still in school, Sam thought, looking down at the impossibly handsome figure of Alain des Baux in polo clothes, his helmet under one arm and the other around the somewhat childish figure with dark, windblown hair who looked up at him with adoration written in her pretty face.
“This is the way these things are done, the old families,” his cousin murmured. “Since they were children, you know.”
Yes, she knew, Sam was thinking with a curious lack of feeling. A good marriage was everything for European aristocrats—she’d learned that the day she’d arrived in Paris. Alain looked to be a good twelve or even fifteen years older than the girl in the picture, and she would undoubtedly be a virgin when he claimed her, a bride already in love with the man their families had selected for her. She would become, after a few years, a chic young wife and mother who would swim in her swimming pool in the garden of her elegant house somewhere near Paris. With her beautiful naked little breasts deeply tanned by the sun.
It all made sense, Sam was thinking with a terrible clarity. She was remembering Laure’s boutique and the knowing air of the proprietress, the implication that Alain had been there before with other women, and not just his sister, to buy clothes. Who else but his girlfriends? If she asked his cousin, she supposed Marilou would say yes, that was probably true.
Samantha put the gold-framed photograph carefully back in its place with the other family portraits on the table.
“But he is mad about you,” Marilou said quickly. “Surely you can see that. He wanted to bring you here today, because he was so eager for me to meet you. ‘She is the most exciting, enchanting woman I have ever met,’ that’s what he said to me. I have never known him to be this way about someone before.”
It didn’t make it any better, but Sam managed a smile for the other woman’s kindness. She was surprised that she wasn’t feeling more; there was only a rather stunned, hollow place where anguish should have been. She stared down at the framed photograph. At least now she knew a bit more about where she stood. If that was any consolation.
“I think I’m ready to go swimming now,” Samantha said. “Where do you want me to change?”
The black bikini she had brought with her was as scandalously skimpy as any she’d been able to find in New York, little more than three thin scraps of nylon parachute cloth attached to woven silver and black strings. But it did have a top.
Sam undressed carefully in a little tile-roofed cabana, where she could hear the grown-ups romping with the children in the pool and the shrieks and noisy splashing. She slipped into the bikini bottom and tied the strings and then held the bra against her breasts with one hand and pulled the ties over her shoulder. Then she stopped.
She was going to fight, she told herself, looking down at the two pieces of black nylon that covered her skin. Fight for Alain, fight for what she wanted. Fight for everything these days, she thought a little wearily.
Carefully, she peeled away the top of the bikini and laid it on the shelf with her neatly folded dress, her high-heeled sandals and her underwear. It was the first time she’d ever even given a thought about appearing half-naked in front of other people. If it felt like anything at all, it was sort of like taking a running jump off a diving board, arching your back for the dive and hoping you wouldn’t make a fool of yourself in front of the whole world with a tremendous belly whopper.
She stepped out into the bright sunshine and closed the door to the cabana behind her. Was it her imagination or did the shouting in the pool fade away a little? Along with the conversations of the lovely young Frenchwomen stretched out on the lounges in the sun watching their husbands and children in the bright blue water?
She kept her head up, looking straight ahead, hoping there was nothing in her way to trip over. Across the pool she caught Marilou’s eyes widening briefly, then the smooth expression which replaced it. God, it
was
quiet.
As Sam stepped to the edge of the pool, grabbed the handrail and started down the first concrete step into the clear aquamarine water, she was realizing somewhat too late that her breasts weren’t tanned, and they were probably standing out like headlights. Her body was long and willowy—she was a head taller than the bare-breasted young Frenchwomen around the pool—and her bosom was small, hardly voluptuous. Even so, she was well-endowed by comparison, and she was wishing she’d thought about the fact that her breasts were several shades whiter.
As she slid up to her shoulders in the water, the normal noises in the pool resumed. The young husbands no longer seemed to be looking at her fascinated but were busy again with a game of water polo with the screaming kids. Out of the corner of her eye, Sam saw Marilou flash her a quiet grin.
Well, I did it, she thought. She leaned back, letting the cool water and the heat of the hot summer sun soak into her shoulders and face. For whatever it proved, she was part of the crowd. At least it was better than standing out awkwardly with her breasts trussed up in a bra when everyone else was bare.
She tilted her head back to feel the sun, inviting the first moments of relaxation she’d known all week.
I’m in a swimming pool in France,
she told herself, closing her eyes. I’m doing all sorts of strange things these days.
A body came churning to her through the water, and a sun-streaked head and muscular shoulders broke the surface beside her. Streams of wet dripped from strands of brown-gold hair that stuck to Alain’s forehead and tiny beads appeared on his eyelashes. The water was so clear that the man beside her had only to look down and see her high, firm breasts inches away from his brown-skinned chest. Alain put one hand on the side of the pool, treading water. “Are you having a good time?”
“Yes, it’s nice.” She floated beside him, letting her body dangle straight down, moving her legs only a little to stay in one place. She felt rather than saw Marilou and the de Bergeracs’ guests studiously ignoring them.
“Samantha.” His voice was urgent. “You must come away with me to spend a few days at my house in the country.” He was looking openly now at her bare breasts. “You are so beautiful. I want to touch you. I want so much to make love to you. Come away with me now. Today.”
She lowered her head slowly to look at him. “You know I can’t. I’ve got the show to do.”
“Yes, you can. If you wanted me, my darling, you would. But you do not want me as much as I want you. Admit it.”
It sounded like they were quarreling, she thought, looking around. “I can’t.” He knew how hard she was working. It was a crazy idea, insisting that she go away with him on the spur of the moment. She pushed away from the wall with one hand and stroked down the pool. He followed her, swimming alongside her.
“Marilou has said something to you,” he accused. He splashed along a few powerful strokes, and then his feet touched bottom and he stood up, looking like a bronzed Greek god rising from the glittering water, piercing her with his eyes. “Samantha, for God’s sake, come to my house and let me be alone with you. I will explain everything. Don’t you want me?” he said a little desperately. “Tomorrow, will you come tomorrow?”
Tomorrow was out of the question. Why was he making her choose? she wondered. Because he’d seen her in a topless bikini and suddenly couldn’t wait? “Alain, please don’t bug me,” she said, shaking her head. It was getting embarrassing. “Maybe later, after the show.”
She hadn’t answered all the questions in her mind about Alain des Baux, and she didn’t think, now, that she ever would.
The bright July sunshine of midtown Manhattan beamed onto the empty secretary’s station in front of Jack Storm’s executive offices. This particular Saturday afternoon a large group of people were waiting their turn to see him. A worried-looking Jean Ruiz of fashion coordination, carrying several pages of a typewritten report on the Plaza Hotel showing of the Storm King’s ski-wear line, stood with two visibly weary layout artists holding the final run of show-cards. A wafer-thin, dramatic brunette model in full makeup, wearing the bright red jumpsuit for the Waldorf show, leaned against the secretary’s desk and furtively smoked a cigarette.
Peter Frank approached from the elevators, Mindy Ferragamo from her executive suite on the other side of the thirty-ninth floor, and they met at the group of fashion people standing just outside Jack Storm’s office.
“We’re doing the same thing?” Peter Frank asked.
Mindy pulled her glasses down from the top of her head and fitted them to her nose. She peered at the paper Peter was holding. “The
Egoiste
article on the Maison Louvel?”
He shook his head. “A cablegram from a Paris modeling agency asking for confirmation of an order for four models on July twenty-second.”
“Christ,” Mindy said under her breath. She stared at the Jackson Storm vice president in charge of operations for a long moment. Then she said, “This ought to be fun.”
She pushed past Jean Ruiz and the layout artists and walked into the president’s office, an assured, brisk little figure in black, the only person who could interrupt Jack Storm on a Saturday afternoon without feeling the force of his wrath.
When the president of the world-famous Jackson Storm empire lifted his silver head, they could see from the look on his face that he was as tired as everyone around him this hot, hectic weekend. “What—what,
what?
” he barked impatiently.
Mindy exchanged looks with Peter Frank. It wasn’t a good sign when Jack used his Seventh Avenue voice.
“Paris,” she said flatly. She reached across the desk to lay two newspaper clippings in front of him.
“What the hell’s the ‘
Egoiste
’?” he growled. Since the clipping was in French, he pushed it aside. He lifted the story from the Paris
Herald Tribune
under it and began to read. After a few moments he put down his pen on the desk blotter and turned to the public relations agency executive who stood at his elbow. “Later, Freddie.” He waved his hand to the door. “Go outside and wait. I’ll get back to you in a minute.”
When the PR man had left, Jack Storm leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “Every year I tell myself I’m going to leave town,” he murmured, “and let you people handle this damned July
meshuga
circus. And every year I’m back here, wading up to my ass in it. I’m the head of a multimillion-dollar garment operation and what do I spend my weekends doing in the middle of summer? Looking at a press luncheon menu from the Waldorf that’s gotten screwed up and a
drek
of a jumpsuit that somebody put in the Plaza show that they tell me we have to live with.” They waited for him to explode, but he only said mildly, “So tell me.”
“She’s doing a show, Jack,” Mindy said at that same time Peter Frank put his cablegram down on the desk and said, “A Paris modeling agency is asking for verification of four models—”