Legacy of Lies Read Free Page A

ice and spun out of control on the New Jersey turnpike six years ago. “I got the job. I hope you’re proud.”
    Alex missed them terribly. She decided she probably always would. They’d both had such unwavering confidence in her talent. Such high hopes. Alex had every intention of living up to those lofty expectations.
    When she’d left New York, two days after her mother’s funeral, she’d been excited. And nervous. But mostly, she’d been devastated.
    As the plane had reached cruising level thirty thousand feet over the Atlantic, she’d collapsed and to the distress of the flight attendants, who’d tried their utmost to uphold the Air France tradition of esprit de service —even bringingher a glass of the cognac strictly reserved for first-class passengers—she’d wept like a baby.
    For the first time in her life, she’d been truly alone. And though she’d been raised to be independent, deep down inside, Alex had been terrified.
    Now, against all odds, she’d achieved the first part of her goal. She’d gotten her boot in Debord’s black glass door. Next, all she had to do was prove to the designer she was worthy of the opportunity. Once Debord recognized her talent, she’d be bound to win a promotion.
    Could she do it?
    Her full lips curved into a wide grin. Her amber eyes, touched with golden facets that radiated outward, lighted with Alex’s irrepressible lust for life.
    â€œYou bet,” she decided with a renewed burst of her characteristic optimism.

Chapter Two
    Paris
February 1982
    A lex’s knees were aching. She’d been kneeling in the close confines of the cabine for hours, laboring under the watchful arctic eye of Marie Hélène.
    Alex was grateful to still have a job. Last week, at the season’s défilé de mode held in the gilded splendor of the Salon Impérial of the Hôtel Intercontinental, Debord had experienced the fashion media’s ugly habit of chewing up designers and spitting them out.
    â€œFashion for nuns,” American Vogue had called his totally black-and-white collection. “A tour de force of hideous taste,” Suzy Menkes of the International Herald Tribune declared, attacking the designer’s androgynous black jersey for its dismal, breast-flattening style. “A cross between Grace Jones and Dracula,” Women’s Wear Daily said scornfully. Its sister publication, W, gave the collection a grade of S —for scary—and said Debord’s depressingblack shrouds looked as if they came right out of the comic strip Tales from the Crypt.
    After the disastrous showing, the femmes du monde, accustomed to making twice-yearly pilgrimages to this revered salon, deserted the French designer, rushing instead to Milan and Debord’s long-detested rival, Gianni Sardella.
    Surprisingly, Sophie Friedman, daytime television producer and wife of Hollywood mogul Howard Friedman, paid no heed to the fashion mavens. On the contrary, she amazed even the unflappable Marie Hélène by ordering six evening dresses and twice that number of daytime suits.
    Considering that each garment was literally built onto the client, Mrs. Friedman and Alex had spent most of the past week locked in the cramped fitting room together.
    â€œI think it makes me look fat,” Sophie said, raising her voice over the classical music played throughout the building.
    â€œIt is only the white toile that makes it appear so, Mrs. Friedman,” Marie Hélène assured her smoothly. “Once it is worked up in the satin, you will discover that black is very slimming.”
    â€œDo you think so?” Sophie ran her beringed hands over her substantial hips, tugging at the material. Alex bit back a curse as the pins she’d just inserted pulled loose. The zaftig woman looked unconvinced. “What do you think?” she asked Alex.
    Alex was unaccustomed to being addressed by a customer. A