Satin Dreams by Maggie; Davis

dinner with this—this—” He struggled with his obvious contempt. “This— Greek. ”  
    Alix managed a bleak smile. Gilles was so young, so unforgiving; she was only a year or two older, but sometimes she felt ancient beside him. “Gilles, it’s not Rudi’s fault.” Now that Gilles was leaving, she didn’t want to be involved in his quarrel with the boss. “Rudi didn’t say a thing about the dress.”  
    He snorted. “Why should he? The Greek paid for it.”  
    Even Alix had been startled to find out the cost of Rudi’s beaded evening dress. Eighteen-thousand dollars. It was a not unheard-of sum, some Paris couture gowns sold for as high as fifty thousand. But she was sure Nicholas Palliades, patron of sleazy nightclubs and purchaser of token jewelry, had paid a lot more for his evening’s entertainment than he’d intended. He probably thinks it’s another plot, Alix told herself.  
    She’d gathered from Mortessier atelier gossip that Nicholas had immediately put in a call to Rudi from the Palliadeses’ Paris offices the morning after their date. There had apparently been quite an exchange of telephone calls, some rumored to involve both the Palliades and Mortessier lawyers, but the matter of the green dress had finally been settled when Nicholas Palliades paid the full list price. No one had mentioned the dress to Alix after she’d turned it in to the maitresse of the atelier and endured her shocked dismay. And she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Rudi; Gilles’s announcement that he was leaving had pushed everything else out of the way.  
    Alix hadn’t slept well since that awful evening. She wondered what Nicholas Palliades had told Rudi. She couldn’t forget his wild, paranoid ramblings about being blackmailed—or his exclamations when he’d discovered she was a virgin. She knew he was furious over her wild flight from the apartment in the avenue Foch. If worse came to worst, she supposed the whole miserable episode might cost her her job. After all, it was her story against his, and she was only a model, while Nicholas Palliades was wealthy, powerful—and a Mortessier client.  
    Strangely, though, not once in the last two days had he tried to call her or get in touch with her at work. Alix had been afraid he would, and was relieved when nothing happened. She wanted to forget her mistake as quickly as possible.  
    Gilles had been watching her closely. “This lecher wasn’t beastly to you, was he? He didn’t abuse you?” He scowled when she shook her head. “To tear a woman’s dress—merde, what a damnable thing! I could choke Rudi with my own hands!” He glared at her. “Are you sure?”  
    “Yes, I’m sure.” Alix couldn’t help smiling. Gilles was so surprisingly straitlaced; un vrai bourgeois when it came to women, especially his beautiful pregnant wife. And yet, in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans and motorcycle leather, he looked more like a sexy young punk rock star.  
    As for her evening with Nicholas Palliades, the strange, surreal quality of the dinner at the Russian nightclub, the absurd singing cossack waiters, the diamond earrings in the champagne—it was all a fading nightmare. Who would want to remember Nicholas Palliades storming around the bedroom like a madman, stark naked, accusing her of blackmail?  
    At some time in the future, perhaps she’d be able to laugh at the whole episode. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.  
    “I’m sorry about the dress,” Alix said carefully. The official excuse, that no one at Mortessier’s believed, was that she’d caught it on the door handle of the Daimler. “Rudi was tacking beads on before I went out. I should have been more careful.”  
    If it hadn’t been for the curious appearance of the American journalist who had given her a lift, the night might have been a bigger disaster. Nicholas Palliades might have caught up with her. He might have tried to force her to go back to the