Caught in His Gilded World

‘By the time you go onstage, Gigi, everyone in Paris will have seen them.’

Her hopes plummeted. ‘Oh...’

‘Precisely.’

The doors slid open and she waited, not sure what they were doing here. Khaled slid the rest of his arm around her waist and the other beneath her, lifting her effortlessly into his arms.

She was forced to grapple with his big, incredibly solid shoulders and hang on.

‘What are you doing?’ she thought she should ask.

‘Looking after you.’

Gigi’s mouth opened and shut. She was, after all, twenty-five years old and had been looking after herself for the past several years with some success. Still, she’d never actually been carried in a man’s arms before, and like most women she’d harboured a bit of a fantasy about it...

He was moving, forcing her to hook her arms a bit more securely around his neck, effectively plastering her breasts to his chest. Gigi told herself it was purely a matter of necessity.

‘You really don’t have to do this,’ she felt obliged to say.

‘I am aware of that.’

He opened glass doors into the entrance room to his suite and luxury wrapped around them.

‘Nice,’ she said inadequately.

This earned her a brief, ‘Not my taste.’

‘Why are you staying here, then?’

‘I needed an entire floor over the weekend for security reasons and this hotel provided that.’

He carried her through a very luxurious living area, down a hall and into a bedroom. It contained a very big bed.

Gigi wondered for the first time if she oughtn’t to tell him he shouldn’t confuse her with Solange?

Not that there had ever been anything with Solange...according to him. She was reserving judgement on that.

But still, she didn’t bounce on beds with men she’d only just met.

‘You could fit ten people on that mattress,’ she pointed out in a high, airless voice not quite her own.

He didn’t respond.

‘I’m just imagining the troupe all laid out like sardines in a can,’ she felt obliged to explain.

He looked at her as if she’d said something ridiculous, but she told herself he wasn’t a woman in a man’s hotel room, being carried around like luggage.

Maybe she should make it clear. ‘I’m just saying...don’t get any ideas.’

‘About these other girls?’

Gigi bit her lip. She wanted to say, About me, but clearly he wasn’t having any ideas. She was the one entertaining a fantasy.

‘I’m just saying,’ she mumbled, embarrassed. ‘Anyway, in practice it wouldn’t work. There’d be fights.’

He gave a gruff snort.

Gigi craned her head over his shoulder but, nope, he showed no interest in the bed. He didn’t even break stride.

He definitely hadn’t confused her with Solange.

He dumped her on the bathroom vanity.

Gigi was greeted with her reflection, which drove any thoughts of being confused with sexy girls who dated movie stars out of her head. She looked awful.

All of her freckles had become heat blotches and swarmed together like angry little ants at a picnic.

He looked—well, hot and sexy. Although all that brooding intensity and muscled capability was currently being channelled into running a tap.

Which was odd.

A sudden unreasoning panic gripped her. Had he brought her back here to punish her for the photographers? Was this some kind of set-up? If he wasn’t bent on seduction why else would he bring her up here?

He took hold of her feet.

‘Wow. Okay—stop there.’ She clamped her hands over his, eyeing him warily. ‘I’ll deal with the wear and tear. There’s nothing to see here.’

‘What’s the problem?’ His dark eyes flickered over her face. ‘I doubt you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before.’

Had he just glanced at her chest when he said that?

Gigi felt her nipples tingle inside the soft cups of her sweater girl bra.

Uh-oh. This was not good.

Her relationships with men thus far had been of the duck and weave variety. As far as Khaled was concerned she was pretty much a sitting duck.

She was so distracted by her thoughts that she didn’t immediately catch him working her socks off. As her cracked heels appeared she yelped, dragged back her feet like pulling up a drawbridge and wedged herself in hard against the mirror.

He said something in Russian and looked her up and down, as if she were a problem he had to solve.