Caught in His Gilded World

All because he’d won a cabaret in a card game.

Now, having pretty much run his eye over what was making it difficult for him to move around the city without security, he was ready to organise its disposal.

He had meetings lined up this afternoon, so L’Oiseau Bleu’s time was almost up.

There was an interruption as a winsome girl with a mop of dark curls stuck her head through the curtain.

‘Jacques...’ she whispered.

The older man frowned. ‘What is it, Lulu?’

‘There’s been an accident.’

‘What sort of accident?’

‘One of the girls has hit her head.’

With a Gallic gesture of acceptance, Jacques Danton muttered something that sounded like, ‘Zhee-zhee,’ and excused himself, pounding up onto the stage and into the wings.

Khaled’s gaze flickered to the empty tank, towering over the stage. He still wasn’t sure what it was he’d seen but he was interested in finding out.

He moved and his security team swarmed up onto the stage with him.

‘I don’t really think this is a good idea,’ protested Martin Danton as he mobilised himself behind them, exhibiting the first bit of backbone Khaled had seen in either man.

He and his brother had been managing the cabaret for some fourteen years, according to the records. Managing it into the ground, Khaled suspected.

He made his way behind the curtains and through a jungle of stage props, stepping over various crates and boxes, and ducking overhanging cords and wires that probably constituted health and safety risks that would close the place down.

When he saw her she was lying sprawled on the stage floor.

Jacques Danton was ignoring her in favour of remonstrating with the little brunette. It had the effect on Khaled that all the mismanagement and blundering about hadn’t yet delivered. He shouldered the Frenchman out of the way and went to her aid.

Hunkering down, he discovered that on closer inspection, despite her eyes remaining closed, he could see her delicate eyelids twitching.

His mouth firmed.

Little faker.

Looking up, he judged the height and recognised that although she’d fallen she couldn’t have done much damage.

On cue, a clutch of other Lycra-clad, giggling, whispering twenty-something female dancers closed in around him. Khaled had had a similar experience only days ago, in the highlands of the Caucasus with a herd of jeyran gazelles. One minute he’d been naked, waist-deep in a clear stream, the next he’d been surrounded by knobby-kneed deer intent on drinking their fill.

He looked around to note that his security team appeared as bemused as he was feeling.

What were they going to do? Tackle them?

Obviously he’d been set up, and this was a stunt to get him backstage. But the girls appeared as harmless as the deer. He looked down at the one gazelle who’d separated herself from the herd. She lay there, unnaturally still, but those eyelids gave her away, twitching at high speed as if she’d attached a jump lead to them.

He pressed back one of the delicate folds. ‘Can you hear me, mademoiselle?’

‘Her name is Gigi.’ The curly-haired brunette had crouched down opposite him and supplied the name helpfully.

He was in Montmartre, in a shabby, past-its-use-by-date cabaret, with a cast of showgirls whose cities of origin ranged from Sydney to Helsinki to London—hardly any of them were actually French. Of course her name was Gigi.

He didn’t believe it for a second.

As if sensing his scepticism, she swept up her thick golden lashes with astonishing effect. A pair of blue eyes full of lively intelligence above angular cheekbones met his. Grew round, startled, and bluer than blue.

The colour of the water in the Pechora Sea.

He should know—he’d just flown in from it.

He watched as the points in her face—a gorgeous Mediterranean nose, a wide pink mouth and a pointed chin, all framed by wild red hair—seemed to coalesce around those same eyes.

His chest felt tight, as if he’d been kicked under the ribs.

She sat up on her elbows and fixed him with those blue eyes.

‘Who are you? Qui êtes-vous?’ Her accent happily butchered the French with the sing-song cadence of Ireland blurred with something a little more international.

Qui êtes-vous?

His question exactly.

He straightened up to assert a little dominance over her and settled his hands lightly on his lean muscled hips.

‘Khaled Kitaev,’ he said simply.

There was a ripple of reaction.

‘Ladies...’ he added. But he didn’t take his eyes off Red as he calmly offered her his hand, and when she hesitated he leaned in and took what he wanted.