Satin Doll (39 page)

Peter Frank came into the sitting room of Jackson Storm’s ornate, eighteenth-century suite at the Hotel Athénée Plaza with the notes from his telephone call in his hand.
 

“Interpol says,” the development head began, and then stopped.
 

The platinum-haired figure of the head of the Jackson Storm fashion empire was slumped in a lounge chair, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand, staring fixedly at the television screen across the room.
 

Peter Frank could see film clips of the Maison Louvel drug raid on the news, an exterior shot of the Maison Louvel and police barricades, followed by a few rapid shots of Paris gendarmes in their blue capes standing beside them. The film abruptly cut to a corridor in the American Hospital and the camera briefly panned the crowds of newsmen and television crews behind the French newscaster, then did a zoom shot to a bench at the end of the hall where a short man sat next to a slim girl in jeans and a checked shirt. The girl filled the screen as the camera took her in close focus, her head with its silky fall of blonde hair leaning tiredly against the wall, her eyes shut. She looked bedraggled, in need of sleep, the survivor of a Paris police shoot-out, and still startlingly beautiful.
 

“What?” Jack Storm said, not turning his head.
 

Peter Frank stared at the image of Sam Laredo on the television screen for a long moment before he looked down at his notes. “Interpol says she left for London. But they gave us a telephone number where they say we can maybe reach her later today.”
 

The telephone rang in the bedroom again, and Peter Frank heard the Jackson Storm comptroller answering it. “It’s big on the news in the States,” Pete continued. “I guess Mindy told you when you talked to her.
Good Morning America
reported that Jackson Storm was opening a couture house in Paris. They even ran some kind of still pictures of the show yesterday. You want to issue a correction?”
 

“Later,” Jack Storm growled.
 

A million dollars worth of publicity, Peter Frank was thinking, and the man hunched in the chair before the television set wasn’t taking calls from his New York headquarters, was refusing the storm of requests for interviews from both the French and American press, and was not even attending to the stack of legal papers on the disposal of the Maison Louvel the lawyer had left. The great Storm King of the New York fashion world was sitting in front of television with a lunch tray in his lap looking for a glimpse of the only woman ever to walk away from him.
 

“It would help if we had her here in Paris for an interview,” Peter suggested.
 

Jack Storm lifted the tray and put it on the table beside him, brushed the sandwich crumbs from his fingers, and stood up. When he turned, there was a flash of surly determination in the famous blue eyes. “She’ll come back.”
 

Dennis Wolchek came to the door of the sitting room. “
Women
’
s Wear Daily
says there’s a rumor all over New York that we’re going to open a new couture house here in Paris. It’s Fairchild himself on the line. You want to talk to him?”
 

Jack Storm only held up his hand, palm out, telling him to wait. He turned and paced the room a few steps. “Can we get into the London papers, the BBC news today?”
 

The two men exchanged looks, then Peter Frank shrugged. “If we issue a release out of New York, maybe. We can try.”
 

Jack Storm tilted back his leonine head and smiled his slow, charming smile. “This is one magnificent doll, this girl. I still say she’s going to make us a lot of money.”
 

“Jack—” the comptroller began.
 

“Shut up.” He was still smiling. “Did you ever see me walk away from anything I wanted?” He didn’t wait for their answer but went on softly, “I know Sammy. I love this girl, but I know her. And I’ve got what she wants, believe me.” He passed his hand lightly over the smooth sheen of his hair and paused for a moment. Then he said, slowly and deliberately, “Okay, we’re announcing today that Sam Laredo is the head of the new international division of Jackson Storm, Paris.”
 

At Calais a thunderstorm was coming out of the west over the English Channel. Sam had expected to find the town to be full of ugly clutter, docks, cranes, and sheds, like an American port. Instead there was an open beach of firm golden sand where she drove the car to wait for the boat before a vista of open gray sea and England just over the horizon. The purple clouds of the thunderstorm rose to meet the bright sun and a strong wind was blowing.
 

Sam stood by the ugly little car and turned to face the rising breeze. She was suddenly tired, but she gulped a great lungful of salt air and felt strangely exhilarated.
 

Beyond the gray-blue water was England. From this point of calm, unspoiled beach she supposed some of her ancestors had launched their boats with William the Conqueror. And then they had sailed beyond England to America. The world was suddenly so vast, so dangerous and beautiful, when thought of in the sweep of history, that it was overwhelming.
 

Behind her was France and Europe, old, difficult to understand for someone from the New World, endlessly fascinating. And somehow, this tall woman standing on the beach, her hair and clothes whipped by the wind, was Sammy Whitfield, poised in that moment right in between.
 

The hovercraft ferry came into sight, a ship that rode the water on jets of compressed air surrounded by a giant black rubber bumper like an inner tube. The trip that had taken England’s invaders days was now a matter of forty-five minutes.
 

Sam leaned up against Chip’s car and watched the ferry head straight for the open beach. All you have to do is make up your mind, she thought, sighing.
 

Chapter Twenty-Two

In the dark, deep in exhausted sleep, she felt it happen again. Someone was trying to shake her awake. A voice was saying, “Samantha—Samantha, darling, stop howling.”
 

The low, husky voice was familiar, but somehow that didn’t help; Sam couldn’t stop screaming. Then a hand went over her mouth, muffling her cries, and a strong arm held her tightly. The same voice continued, “Samantha, it’s all over. Nothing’s going to happen. But the neighbors are going to call the police if you don’t stop this racket.”
 

She fought off the grip of his arms around her, sitting bolt upright in bed, her eyes staring wildly into the blackness. Shaking, she was drenched with cold sweat. It wasn’t the dream he thought it was—gunfire, terrible screams and the attack in the hallways of the Maison Louvel—but those had probably triggered it.
 

“Where are we?” Sam shrieked. Pieces of reality were coming to her out of the dark. “What am I doing in bed with you?”
 

His hands pulled her against him again. She felt him as a warm, comforting body, hard muscles under smooth skin, a strip of strange fabric around his midsection. The bandage, she remembered. Strong arms cradled her against him, and in the blackness she recognized the musky male scent of Chip. “It’s London, love, you’re in London. We’re both too long to fit on the sofa, and this is my bed.” When she kept sobbing, he smoothed her hair with a big hand. “It will all go away in a minute, Samantha. Just relax and let me hold you.”
 

She knew it wouldn’t go away, but Sam turned to him and pressed her face against his shoulder. It was only Chip, she told herself.
 

“It’s a snowstorm,” she whimpered, “the same damned old blizzard.” Her hands found the corded muscles of his forearms and she dug her fingers into them. “They never come to find me, that’s why I’m so scared. When it was real, they laughed about it. They thought it was funny. But in the nightmare they never come for me!”
 

She felt him stretch to turn on the lamp on the table beside the bed. Brightness sprang into the room. There she was, in bed with Chip, blinking and still clutching his enveloping arms, pressing herself against him, wild-eyed.
 

“Snowstorm?” his voice rumbled against her. “What snowstorm, love?”
 

“Yes, a damned blizzard.” Her voice was slightly hoarse from screaming. She grabbed him around the neck, not wanting to let him go. “They let me off the school bus and I was supposed to wait by the mail box. I was only in the second grade, and I was waiting for one of my brothers to come down to the road in the pickup and get me.”
 

And nobody came
. You could never explain that to somebody who hadn’t been poor, who hadn’t lived out in the country miles from anywhere, that you had gotten off the school bus and then stood in a swirling blizzard knowing, after a while, that they’d forgotten you. Just because somebody was too drunk to remember you or had gone off somewhere to round up the livestock because that was more important. That had happened more than once.
 

Nobody helped you in this world, Sam knew. She pressed against that solid, rock-hard chest, still sobbing. That’s why you had to fight so hard for everything, to connive and work and take advantage of everything you could.
 

“And so you died,” he smiled, holding her tight.
 

Well, no, she didn’t die, she thought, frowning. Sam pulled back enough to look up into his face and saw Chip’s black eyes glinting under long, furry lashes, his mouth curved so that the one dimple showed in the corner. “My brother came along on a pony, because he couldn’t get the pickup truck through the snow.” She lifted her arm to wipe at her eyes with the back of her wrist, childishly. “And he thought it was funny.”
 

“Poor little orphan of the storm,” Chip whispered into her hair. “Nobody loves it.”
 

“What?” She tried to pull back from Chip, but he held her tightly, his arms wound around her so that her breasts, her slim form and her legs touched him down the length of his slightly hairy, muscular body. “You don’t understand,” she sniffled, sticking out her lower lip. “Nobody ever does.”
 

“And how many people have you told this to, besides me?” he asked gently.
 

She had to think. “Only you,” she said finally. She relaxed against him again and felt warm and comfortable, strangely safe. “You don’t understand, it’s a nightmare. It only comes back when I’m tired, or—or when a lot of things happen to me. You just don’t make these things go away.”
 

He smoothed back her hair with his big hand. “Poor Samantha.” The burr of his deep voice in his chest reached through to her wet face pressed against it. “Poor beautiful Samantha, afraid of the cold and snow and being left with nobody to love her. Is that what all this is about?”
 

That didn’t sound right, she thought, and frowned again. “You don’t know what it’s like to keep dreaming it,” she sniffled. “It just goes on and on, for years and years now. I know I’ll never get rid of it!”
 

“That’s too bad.” He kept stroking her hair softly. “It’s a terrible burden, a nightmare like that,” he murmured, “and feeling sorry for oneself. Especially when one is the most astoundingly beautiful, golden thing any man would want to find in his arms, and an intelligent, talented, courageous woman, too.” When she stiffened, he went on, “But then of course that’s because you’re just a lone orphan, waiting out there in the blizzard, Samantha. At least that seems to be the way you see yourself.”
 

She was still for a moment, not believing what she’d just heard. “That’s a lousy thing to say,” she said, a little uncertainly. She tried to push him away. “I think you’re making fun of me because I’ve had a nightmare.”
 

He wrapped his arms around her quickly, not letting her go. “I’m not making fun of you, Samantha. I just find it hard to go along with your feelings of deprivation when you wake me with blood-curdling screams at three o’clock in the morning. And when there’s so little foundation for them.”
 

“They’re real!” she cried, struggling. “I don’t give a damn what you think! I might know you’d say something like this to me, you—you big macho—cop!”
 

His hand pushed her head back against his shoulder. “Did you go to bed with des Baux?” he growled in her ear.
 

“What’s that got to do with anything?” she burst out. “I just had a nightmare!” She managed to pull away enough to glare at him. “Besides, I’m not going to go to bed with you, so you can just quit!”
 

“You’re in bed with me right now,” he reminded her. “I said, did you let des Baux make love to you?”
 

Sam bit her lip. He was right, she
was
in bed with Chip, and all she had on were her bikini panties. He was naked, and from the feel of that sleek body pressing against her, it was obvious he was very aroused. “Where are we?” she spluttered, looking around. “Is this a hotel room?”
 

“A flat in London.” He never took his black, glittering eyes from her face. “Are you going to answer my question?”
 

“You took my clothes off,” Sam quavered. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve, doing that!”