‘They are employed to look to my safety.’
‘Why?’
Why...? Khaled wasn’t often asked this question. Usually people were calling him sir and getting out of his way. ‘It is common in my line of business.’
‘Hmm.’ She didn’t sound convinced. ‘Yes, well, you need to put them on a leash.’
Struggling manfully with a desire to throw back his head and laugh, Khaled murmured, ‘I apologise unreservedly. It was an unforgivable breach of your human rights.’
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘You don’t sound particularly sincere.’
Was she going to argue with him about this too?
‘I guess you’re having some fun at my expense,’ she allowed slowly.
Unexpectedly he remembered the lack of support given to her by the other dancers yesterday, and the laughter that greeted her pronouncements.
‘My papa used to say all I needed was a curly wig and a red nose and I’d have a new job.’
He frowned. ‘Most fathers think their daughters are princesses.’
Gigi wondered if being seventeen years old and dancing onstage in a costume made of balloons she’d strategically popped with five other girls, until she was virtually down to her little yellow bikini, while her father systematically fleeced the audience had an attendant fairy tale.
‘My father raised me to live in the real world,’ she said uncomfortably, darting another glance at her backpack. Was he ever going to give it back?
Following her gaze, he proffered it. ‘I believe this belongs to you?’
She was obviously trying not to appear too eager but she still snatched at it, and clearly couldn’t help plastering it to her chest.
‘So, does this happen to you all the time? Bodyguards leaping out and knocking people over?’
‘You were coming towards me and you’d reached into your bag.’
She frowned. ‘Why is that a problem?’
He made a trigger gesture with his hand.
Her frown deepened.
‘A gun,’ he clarified.
‘A gun?’ Her voice rose. ‘They thought I had a gun!’ This notion was clearly as foreign to her as the French language she was so deliciously butchering with her accent.
A passing couple stared at them and she shut up.
Khaled tried not to smile.
‘I really don’t see that there’s anything funny about this,’ she said tightly.
‘Nyet—nothing funny.’
‘I didn’t come to shoot you—obviously. I came to speak to you about the cabaret.’
There was an awkward silence as he just looked at her.
She tried again.
‘I know it’s unorthodox, but I figured as we’d met...’
He folded his arms. ‘I remember you lying on the floor.’
Gigi wondered whether, if she’d been lying on the floor right now, he would have stepped over her and kept going. Probably.
She reviewed her options. She’d gone over it with Lulu last night and decided her best hope of success was to bring all the material she’d compiled on the cabaret’s star-studded history and her ideas for its future and lay it before him.
Be confident. Make an appeal to his better nature and leave any mention of Solange out of it. The last had been Lulu’s firm instruction.
‘Do not mention Solange.’
Well, she hadn’t. But maybe she hadn’t been plain enough.
‘It’s handy that you remember me,’ she said, overly bright. ‘You see, I’m spokesperson for the troupe.
‘You don’t say?’ He glanced at his watch.
She was already losing him.
For the first time Gigi noticed that he looked a bit more disreputable than she remembered him being yesterday, and it was only now she fully focussed on the T-shirt, running shoes and the pair of pricey sweats and what they represented.
‘Are you on your way to do some exercise?’ she asked, a little desperately.
‘Da,’ he said with enviable cool, his gaze flicking down her body. ‘Are you here to help me out with that?’
‘Well, I’m hardly dressed for it.’ But she was talking to air, because he was gone, heading for the doors. He did that a lot.
Hitching her backpack, Gigi took off after him.
‘The thing is,’ she said, trying to keep up and not draw attention to herself, ‘and I know this is completely out of order, and you have every right to tell me to get lost, Mr Kitaev, but we’re all really concerned about our jobs. I thought if I could show you a few things you might understand where we’re coming from.’