Free Satin Dreams by Maggie; Davis

their plates. “You don’t have to buy them back,” Alix said faintly. Russian food was not one of her favorites. “I won’t sell them.”  
    The black wings of his eyebrows arched again. “On the contrary. I know how these things go with you girls at the couture houses.”  
    Alix put down her fork and counted to three. “Rudi Mortessier has been very good to me,” she said evenly. This man really was impossible. “I really don’t need expensive presents.” She couldn’t afford to have any complaints filtering back to Mortessier’s. “And Rudi’s generous. He lent me this dress to wear tonight.”  
    “Rudi can afford to be generous.” He smiled sardonically. “It’s good publicity.”  
    Alix gave up. Palliades wanted Mortessier’s best model, the lovely dress, the evening out with all that it implied, but he wouldn’t grant the couturier a simple publicity break. As she watched him cut his shashlik into small pieces, quickly and economically, she felt a rush of emotion that surprised her. He was the enemy. Their chances for getting through the evening were probably marginal.  
    He didn’t lift his head as he asked, “Are you happy working there?”  
    She hardly heard him, seething with very satisfying thoughts about what it would be like to bring this bad-tempered, spoiled Greek playboy to his knees.  
    “And the designer,” he added, “Gilles Vasse. He is happy working for Rudi, too?”  
    With an effort, Alix brought her mind back from thoughts of murder and torture. “What does Gilles have to do with it?”  
    “How does the designer Gilles Vasse feel about Rudi Mortessier?” He looked impatient. “Is there a bond there? Strong enough to keep Vasse with Mortessier? Are they lovers?”  
    She’d never heard that before. Alix managed a slightly reproving look. “Actually, I think Rudi gets on Gilles’s nerves. Gilles is young and talented and very ambitious. And Rudi—”  
    She stopped, suddenly wondering if Nicholas Palliades had hidden motives for taking her to dinner. Every designer in Paris had spies. And couture houses guarded their secrets jealously.  
    He waved away the overly attentive waiter. “You haven’t touched your dinner,” he observed.  
    Alix looked down at her plate. “I wasn’t hungry.”  
    Abruptly, Nicholas Palliades threw his napkin down on the table. “Then we will go.”  
    He stood up and tossed a thick bundle of franc notes on the table. The lavish gesture, not even calling for the bill, was a signal for the head waiter to rush up with Alix’s green satin coat. A squadron of cossack waiters crowded around as the band followed them, serenading them out of the restaurant and, unexpectedly, all the way into the street.  
    The chauffeur was waiting. He jumped out of the limousine and into the ankle-deep snow to open the rear door. The balalaikas launched into “Dark Eyes,” as Alix slid into the back seat.  
    The chauffeur closed the door and plodded through the snow to the driver’s side. Nicholas Palliades picked up the silver telephone. “Avenue Foch,” he ordered.  
    Alix turned in her seat to look back as the Daimler slowly and smoothly pulled away from La Veille Russe. The musicians stood on the sidewalk, their fur hats and shoulders thickly sprinkled with snowflakes, playing animatedly in spite of the weather. Nicholas Palliades had undoubtedly paid them well.  
    As the car picked up speed, Alix had a feeling that this was all so well-rehearsed that the balalaika band had probably stood like that, playing their romantic Russian tunes for Nicholas Palliades and his beautiful dinner partners, many, many times before.  
    Even though her methods were untried, her role unrehearsed, she was playing a game, too.  
    Don’t think about it, she told herself as the car raced into the night.  
     

 
    Five
     
    The avenue Foch, the address Nicholas Palliades had given to his chauffeur, was Paris’s—in fact, Europe’s—most