Caught in His Gilded World

Her attempt to lighten the mood went nowhere.

‘Quiet, Valente. You’re in trouble,’ said Susie, levelling her with a look. ‘We all know what’s going on out front, and you can bet the headlines tomorrow aren’t going to be about the show. It’ll be wall-to-wall reports on how the Bluebirds are giving it up to the billionaire.’

‘What did he promise you?’ Inez wanted to know.

Gigi’s mind flashed to the Lido and she reddened.

‘After everything you said, Gigi!’ cried Trixie reproachfully. ‘I can’t believe you’d sell us out.’

‘I didn’t! I tried to get him on side.’

‘It’s one rule for her, girls, and one for us,’ said Leah contemptuously.

‘I’ve got a bloody audition at the Moulin Rouge next week,’ said Susie suddenly. ‘If this stuffs it up for me I’m coming after you, Valente.’

‘The Moulin Rouge?’ chorused several of the girls, heads turning.

‘Why?’ piped up Adele.

‘Why do you think?’ Susie folded her arms. ‘Gigi’s right about one thing: this ship’s going down fast. Probably a lot faster now, with half of the French media out front, zeroing in on what a hokey show we put on. Add in the hated Russian owner living it up in a hotel with one of the Bluebirds and we’re the joke of Paris!’

‘What’s she talking about?’ asked Trixie. ‘We’ve got a full house tonight.’

‘That’s only tonight,’ Susie scoffed. ‘Kitaev isn’t going to hang on to us. He’ll hand this place over to the Conseil de Paris, it’ll be heritage-listed and you know what that means—we’ll all be out on our derrières.’

Gigi frowned. ‘Who told you that?’

‘What else is he going to do? He won’t be able to sell the place now. We’re a joke.’

The other girls were humming with consternation. A couple were glaring at Susie, but Gigi knew she wasn’t off the hook.

Sensing the shift in hostility, Susie turned her way again and looked her up and down contemptuously. ‘You, Valente, have turned us into a joke. Why don’t you ask your new boyfriend what he’s got planned, Gigi? Or are you too busy dropping your knickers for him at the Plaza Athénée?’

Heads swivelled Gigi’s way again, effectively pushing Susie’s defection to the side—which had clearly been her intention.

Gigi almost told them that her knickers had stayed very firmly in place, only that wasn’t entirely true. They’d slipped... But she didn’t want to think about that right now.

Fed up, she picked up her things and shouldered her way out of the room. At least she’d tried!

Barricading herself in the second dressing room, she checked her phone. She’d been too chicken until now. For good reason, it turned out. The girls were right. It was all over the internet. Photos of her and Khaled in the street, an ‘eyewitness account’ of them in the lobby of his hotel. Even a shot of him climbing into his car on her street.

Kitaev and feathered friend!

No wonder those journalists had been yelling her name out front.

Gigi said a bad word and shoved her phone into her change bag.

Wonderful. She was officially the Bluebird who’d sold out—not just in the eyes of her troupe mates but in the opinion of the rest of Paris!

It was all she could think about as she waited in the wings for her next cue.

Because right now she had to go out there and perform in front of people who believed she was some sort of Mata Hari. What on earth did people think? That she’d traded sexual favours for...what? Job security?

A sort of shock was stealing over her. She’d had such good intentions, and yet in the span of a single day she’d lost everyone’s respect, probably her job, and risked any future jobs. And what happened to the cabaret was anyone’s guess.

It wasn’t Khaled’s fault. Gigi knew she’d walked into this on her own two feet. But as she did her best not to fall apart so close to stage time she couldn’t help feeling his exit this afternoon meant she’d been hung out to dry.

* * *

‘I’m looking for Gigi Valente,’ Khaled told the first stagehand he found.

The kid just stared at him, bug-eyed. ‘She’s j-just gone onstage, Mr Kitaev,’ he stammered.

His driver hadn’t been able to get the SUV within a block of the entrance to the theatre tonight. There were protesters picketing on the pavement, and the media presence spilling onto the road was causing traffic mayhem. He’d also seen that the billboard advertising the show out front had been defaced with graffiti.