Caught in His Gilded World

She tried to see out, but with the soft glow of light in the back of the SUV and the darkness outside she could really only see their reflections in the dark glass.

He was watching her as if she fascinated him. The feeling was mutual, but that didn’t mean she was ready to go away with him. They hadn’t even been on a date!

‘I’m not going back to your hotel with you,’ she said. ‘My reputation may be shredded after today, but I’m not buttering it and putting jam on it.’

He gave her an arrested look. ‘What is this jam?’

‘Jam—you know, jam.’

‘Sex,’ he said coolly. ‘No, I am not taking you back to the hotel.’

‘Good.’ Gigi tried not to let her disappointment show, because despite everything a part of her had leapt when she’d seen him striding across the stage towards her. Coming to collect her.

‘We’re going straight to the airport,’ he informed her. ‘I’m taking you with me out of the country—tonight.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SHE LOOKED LIKE an angel. Her long, coppery red hair was snaking across the black leather of the seat, golden lashes lay recumbent on her high pointed cheekbones. Every last cinnamon-brown freckle stood out against the pallor of her scrubbed clean face. She had one slender hand cradling her cheek as she slept.

Against his better judgement Khaled reached across with one hand and lifted the blanket that had dropped from her shoulders to hang over her knees, and was now threatening to slide off completely. He draped it over her and returned to navigating the long stretch of highway taking them from the airport into central Moscow.

What the hell was he doing?

He’d been asking himself that question for the last three hours. The obvious answer was between his legs. The less obvious conclusion he’d come to was that he genuinely liked her. She might be a con artist and a stripper, but she had a way about her that had caught him unawares. And he could say this for her: he damn well wasn’t bored.

Only now, when he looked at her sleeping, his suspicions seemed laboured and frankly untrue.

It was difficult to match up the wet, naked fantasy who had lied to him, furiously kicking her legs as he’d carried her offstage, with the soft-featured sleeping girl beside him, her face a study of the angelic, her impossibly long limbs curled up under her, her hair a swathe of burnished colour across the blue of the blanket.

A shower and a change of clothes had taken care of the gold-painted mess and the Gigi he’d spent the day with had been once more beside him. Khaled had been surprised by the level of his own satisfaction on that score.

He knew when she opened her eyes. He could feel them on him.

He glanced her way.

She blinked. Those eyes stayed on him. Very blue. She licked her lips. It should have been sexual. Instead what he felt was a warmth spreading through his chest.

She was safe. She was awake. He had no intention of letting her out of his sight.

It felt good.

She sat up, pushing back her fringe.

‘Where are we?’

‘Quarter of an hour outside Moscow.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Midnight. You lost three hours.’

‘Where did I lose them?’

He tried not to smile. ‘Back in Paris.’

‘Along with my shoes,’ she said. Then furrowed her brow at him. ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’

‘You were sound asleep—it was easier to carry you to the car.’

‘You carried me?’

‘It seemed the thing to do.’

She pulled on her sleeves, gave him an awkward sideward look. ‘You’ve turned me into one of those showgirls who goes away with a wealthy man for the weekend.’

‘Is that so?’

‘I’m trying to work out how I feel about that.’

‘Fill me in when you’ve decided.’

Gigi cast him another look. ‘I guess I’m not here to sleep with you, so the nuts and bolts of that kind of thing don’t apply, but nobody else knows that. It looks bad.’

It wasn’t her imagination. He’d definitely tensed. Those capable hands, lightly sprinkled with dark hair at the broad wrists, flexed around the wheel and testosterone began to be pumped out into the atmosphere between them.

‘Why do you care what other people think about you?’

‘Twenty-two people, to be exact. The other dancers in the troupe. They already think... Well, never mind what they think. It’s not true.’