Caught in His Gilded World

He tried not to smile, given she’d unintentionally stuck her chest out. He was tempted to point out that a significant part of her job relied on the talent that filled out her bra, but their interaction could only go downhill from that point.

She clearly prided herself on her job.

‘Then you should have no problem with the Lido.’

Gigi made an exasperated sound.

They were going round in circles and, he recognised, they were talking about different things. Her heart was in L’Oiseau Bleu.

But Gigi’s loyalty was misplaced and she couldn’t see it. He suspected she was blinded by that photograph on the wall upstairs.

She was trying to reclaim something that had never existed instead of looking at the facts.

He had always looked long and hard at the reality of things.

The fatherless boy who wasn’t wanted had hardened into a man who understood that human relationships would always fail you. What you could rely upon was money in the bank and the things you built with your own hands.

But it was proving difficult to dwell on the harsh reality of things with Gigi standing in front of him, vibrating with passion and determination to have her way.

Khaled recognised that he was possibly behaving like every other man who’d crossed her path—being foolishly helpful towards her because he was slightly bowled over by her personality.

She did offer a powerful punch of sex appeal.

It was nicely packaged too, in tight jeans, and advertised with that glittery slogan stretched across her perky breasts.

He was tempted to give way to instinct and just take her. Throw her over his shoulder and get the hell out of Paris.

It was what his ancestors would have done.

It wouldn’t be what she wanted. She was clearly happy where she was, but what she wanted was the impossible.

Even if he recharged the cabaret’s batteries with money there were so many other variables to consider.

When he was younger he’d thought money and success would shift things, make life somehow easier. Naturally the little things, like domestic service—knowing that his clothes would always be pressed, a car waiting for him—made the wheels turn smoother, but the bigger tests in life remained. They just assumed larger and in some cases—as in this weekend in Paris—absurd proportions.

He was being attacked for being moneyed and successful and foreign.

But you couldn’t change what people had decided to think about you.

He knew that better than most.

It was a fact he was fighting right now, in his efforts to get that road in down south.

He exhaled, the weight of the world shifting once more onto his shoulders and the weariness he’d been keeping at bay with work making itself known. Truth be told, he wouldn’t mind just climbing into bed with Gigi for a week in this little flat in Montmartre. Ditch the friend and any reminders of the cabaret and work out this scorching lust until both of them were exhausted and he was bored and it was time to move on.

His gaze ran over her creamy freckle-dappled skin, the curve of her lower lip, noticed the faint blush of colour in her cheeks. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Keep offstage tonight—do that for me.’

Gigi muttered something about pay being docked and Paris being an expensive city.

He wanted to shake her.

He wanted even more to slide his hand around her sinuous waist under the T-shirt and feel her body temperature rise, to have the points of her breasts brush against him and take her mouth and plunder it until she was making those sounds he suspected would rise tenfold when he was inside her.

Instead, what he said was, ‘I’ll put in a word. When you get an audition, take it.’

CHAPTER TEN

KHALED MIGHT HAVE had a point about staying offstage, but for an entirely different reason, Gigi realised that evening as she faced twenty-two hostile dancers in the narrow confines of the dressing room.

‘You sold us out, you cow,’ said Leah.

They had just come offstage, and Gigi found herself surrounded by a lot of hot, riled-up girls who’d had to run the same gauntlet of media she had when they’d come in tonight. The atmosphere was slightly hysterical, to say the least.

‘What happened to all that talk about him being the enemy?’ demanded Trixie.

‘You just wanted him for yourself,’ said Adele.

‘It’s always the quiet ones,’ said Solange, narrowing her green eyes, and there was a lot of murmuring in agreement.

Gigi folded her arms. ‘Well, that’s not true—I never shut up!’