Satin Doll Read Free

Dallas handmade cowboy boots, plain, no embossing, no colors, just beautifully fashioned American cowhide. All pure, beautiful lines, like the girl herself.  
    They were going to have to name her “Sam” something because Jack liked the idea of an androgynous label for her. It evoked a certain style. The marketing consultants came up with Sam Laredo. She was going to be another Diane von Furstenberg— Sam Laredo —a name on a label the shopping mall masses wouldn’t be able to forget.  
    Two years later it was all over. It was not the first failure Jackson Storm had ever had, but one of the worst. The demand for jeans had come full circle, the mass market was glutted, and buyer resistance was so great that the big houses were casting about desperately for something new. Ralph Lauren was advertising in the chic pages of W : “Dungarees, crafted in the spirit of an era when quality and durability were more important than fashion”—these were only loose-fitting denims that appealed to the inverse snobbery of old-fashioned ugliness. Jordache, Gloria Vanderbilt, even Levi Strauss were hurting. And Sam Laredo, the sales figures showed, had dissolved into nothingness.  
    Mindy Ferragamo took a deep breath. “Look, Jack, why don’t you just go ahead and fire her?” She knew she was pushing him, but somebody had to say it. The way things were going he thought he was making a sacrifice, and Jackson Storm making a sacrifice was Jackson Storm making a mistake. “Jack, send her back to Wyoming.”  
    When she saw the famous storm clouds gathering, she said quickly, “Okay, so send her to one of the Storm King boutiques. Give her one to manage in Dallas, L.A., Chicago—” She pushed the wire-rimmed glasses up on her nose a little nervously. “Or if she wants to stay in New York, you can set her up for something big with a modeling agency.” They both knew Sammy didn’t want to be a model; she still thought she was going to be a designer. “But not to this thing in Paris. My God, Jack, she’s just a kid from some Western cow town—she can’t handle it. And you’re asking for trouble!”  
    He slammed the folder shut. “Jesus, knock it off, will you?” His handsome face contorted. Jackson Storm was being a bastard, but a masterful one. “What she gets is nothing,” he bellowed. He swept the appointments book, the advertising proofs, the financial folders away with a petulant sweep of his hand. “Nothing means nothing —get me?”  
    He didn’t look up at her. Jack knew this woman to whom he owed so much, this middle-aged figure in the discreet, tailored black suit, still resisted him, as only she, out of the whole multimillion-dollar fashion conglomerate, could. When they were younger, he had slept with her, too.  
    “Christ, I’m being damned good to her!” He jumped up from the desk, a commanding figure in his magnificent suit. “What I did for this kid was a gift, making her Sam Laredo. She was a zero, a nothing, and I gave her a chance, right? What I’m doing for her now, I do out of the goodness of my heart. What the hell do I owe her, anyway?”  
    He swept the entire contents of the surface of the massive desk away with his arm; the file folders scattered and fell on the rug around them. “These things always cost me a bundle,” he roared. “Christ, after all these years you could have said something, you know, before we got started! Okay, cancel the jeans ads, start closing it out. Move the Sam Laredo inventory, get it out of my hair. Discount it—dump it on K-Mart, Woolworth, anything. But get rid of it!”  
    She tried one more time. “Jack, you’re running away from the whole thing by sending her to Paris, and you don’t even know what she’ll find.”  
    He abruptly stopped, raked both hands through his hair, and closed his eyes. “Jesus God, I don’t need these problems,” he said huskily. “After all these years, you’re arguing with me over some broad who’s just lost