Lucy Ellis - Caught In His Gilded World

‘I don’t know,’ Gigi called back. ‘Give me a minute—and stop pulling at me, Lulu Lachaille, or I really will fall.’

Chastened, Lulu let go, but there was an answering hum of protest from below.

‘You’re not a monkey, G. Get down!’

‘She thinks she’s made of rubber. If you fall, Gigi, you won’t bounce!’

‘Gigi, tell us what you can actually see ! Is it really him?’

‘Is he as gorgeous as he looks in all the photos?’

Gigi rolled her eyes. At least Lulu understood that this man was not going to take his winnings seriously. But the other girls—poor fools—didn’t see it that way. They were all operating under the belief that a rich guy in want of entertainment would scoop up a lucky showgirl and whisk her away to a life of unlimited shopping.

Probably alerted by all the noise, Kitaev looked up.

His attention shot to the aquarium so fast she barely had time to think. Certainly it was too late to draw herself back behind the curtain.

His gaze fastened on her.

It was like being slammed into a moving object at force. There was a buzzing in Gigi’s ears and suddenly her balance didn’t seem as reliable as it had been a moment ago.

She made a little sound of dismay as her belly slipped a few notches from her holding place atop the aquarium.

He was looking up at her now, as if she was what he had come to see.

Gigi slipped another inch and grappled for purchase.

Then two things happened at once.

He frowned, and Lulu gave an extra-hard tug on her ankle.

Gigi knew the moment she lost her balance because there was nothing she could do to save herself other than prepare for the fall. And with a little gasp she came tumbling down.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS POSSIBLE Khaled would never have known he owned this little piece of Montmartre if someone had not got hold of a list of Russian-owned properties in Paris and published them. Apparently it was fine to buy up significant real estate in the Marais and down south on the Riviera, but touch one of Paris’s cabarets and lo and behold you were the most hated man in the city.

Not that Khaled paid attention to what other people thought of him. He’d learned that lesson many years ago, as the son of a Russian soldier who had destroyed his mother’s life and brought shame on her family.

Growing up among people who shunned him had formed on him a tough hide, along with the ability to use his fists—although nowadays he was more likely to use his power and influence in a fight—and the wherewithal to take nothing personally.

‘Emotional detachment’ a woman he’d briefly dated had called it. All skill, but no heart.

Detachment had served him well. Wallowing in emotion probably would have got him killed before he was twenty in the part of the world he came from. He had grown up fast and hard and had survived because of it. Then he had flourished in the bear pit that was the Moscow business world. He knew how to get what he wanted and he didn’t let sentiment cloud his reasoning.

What made him a bad bet for a woman looking to nest sent the stock prices of his companies regularly soaring. Not that he was uninterested in women. He had a healthy interest in the species—although the turnover had recently stopped. It wasn’t down to emotional emptiness, or an absence of libido, but sheer boredom at the lack of challenge.

He was a hunter. It was intrinsic to his nature to take up a scent, to track, to chase, to make the kill.

Then he got bored.

He had been bored for a long time. Months now.

Then he looked up.

What in hell was that?

When a man stepped inside one of Paris’s famous cabarets he was primarily looking to see that most legendary of creatures: a Parisian showgirl.

Long-legged, alluring, topless...

That wasn’t what he was looking at.

Granted, he’d been living in tents, yurts and huts for the past six weeks, bathing in rivers, eating out of cans and off the carcasses of what they could kill. A hallucination involving a woman might well be the result—although he doubted this was what his mind would come up with. Because he’d swear he’d just got a glimpse of a knobby-kneed Tinker Bell in an animal print leotard, perched on top of the tank in which he’d been told a beautiful semi-naked showgirl would be swimming tonight—with pythons.

Almost before he could account for what he was seeing, the curious apparition vanished as suddenly as she’d appeared, followed by a thump and vague female shrieks.

‘Do you want to check that out?’ he asked of the two Danton brothers, both of whom were clearly sweating bullets over his unannounced appearance.

Neither man moved.

‘The girls are in rehearsal,’ said Martin Danton nervously, as if that explained everything.

His security detail looked around, clearly expecting all twenty-four luscious Bluebirds to come can-canning across the empty stage.

‘Would you like to see a rehearsal?’ Jacques Danton volunteered, catching hold of the shift in male attention eagerly. A little too eagerly.

The two Frenchmen who managed the place were nervous as cats on a hot tin roof—as well they might be. Although Khaled suspected their nerves were nothing more than a natural response to having their shaky business practices put under the microscope.

‘My lawyers will be in touch today,’ he informed them calmly. ‘I want to take a look at how the place is doing.’

‘We’re a Parisian institution, Mr Kitaev!’ they chorused.

‘So the French media have hammered home all week,’ he replied, with the same measured calm. ‘But it’s a business, and I like to know how all my businesses are doing.’

Frankly, he wouldn’t be here now if the press hadn’t exploded last week with spurious accusations that he was the equivalent of the Russian Army—marching on Paris, ripping up its pretty boulevards and despoiling French culture. Turning their city into Moscow-by-the-Seine.

All because he’d won a cabaret in a card game.

Now, having pretty much run his eye over what was making it difficult for him to move around the city without security, he was ready to organise its disposal.

He had meetings lined up this afternoon, so L’Oiseau Bleu’s time was almost up.

There was an interruption as a winsome girl with a mop of dark curls stuck her head through the curtain.

‘Jacques...’ she whispered.

The older man frowned. ‘What is it, Lulu?’

‘There’s been an accident.’

‘What sort of accident?’

‘One of the girls has hit her head.’

With a Gallic gesture of acceptance, Jacques Danton muttered something that sounded like, ‘Zhee-zhee,’ and excused himself, pounding up onto the stage and into the wings.

Khaled’s gaze flickered to the empty tank, towering over the stage. He still wasn’t sure what it was he’d seen but he was interested in finding out.

He moved and his security team swarmed up onto the stage with him.

‘I don’t really think this is a good idea,’ protested Martin Danton as he mobilised himself behind them, exhibiting the first bit of backbone Khaled had seen in either man.

He and his brother had been managing the cabaret for some fourteen years, according to the records. Managing it into the ground, Khaled suspected.

He made his way behind the curtains and through a jungle of stage props, stepping over various crates and boxes, and ducking overhanging cords and wires that probably constituted health and safety risks that would close the place down.

When he saw her she was lying sprawled on the stage floor.

Jacques Danton was ignoring her in favour of remonstrating with the little brunette. It had the effect on Khaled that all the mismanagement and blundering about hadn’t yet delivered. He shouldered the Frenchman out of the way and went to her aid.