Lucy Ellis - Caught In His Gilded World

‘Her name is Gigi.’ The curly-haired brunette crouched down opposite him and supplied the name helpfully.

He was in Montmartre, in a shabby, past-its-use-by-date cabaret, with a cast of showgirls whose home cities ranged from Sydney to Helsinki to London—hardly any of them were actually French. Of course her name was Gigi.

He didn’t believe it for a second.

As if sensing his scepticism, she swept up her thick golden lashes with astonishing effect. A pair of blue eyes full of lively intelligence above angular cheekbones met his. Grew round, startled, and bluer than blue.

The colour of the water in the Pechora Sea.

He should know—he’d just flown in from it.

She sat up on her elbows and fixed him with those blue eyes.

‘ Qui êtes-vous? Who are you?’

His question exactly.

He straightened up to assert a little dominance over her and settled his hands lightly on his lean muscled hips.

‘Khaled Kitaev,’ he said simply.

There was a ripple of reaction. But he didn’t take his eyes off Gigi as he calmly offered her his hand, and when she hesitated he leaned in and took what he wanted.

LUCY ELLIScreates over-the-top couples who spar and canoodle in glamorous places. If it doesn’t read like a cross between a dozen old fairytales you half know and a 1930s romantic comedy, it’s not a Lucy Ellis story. Come and read a rambling exposition on her books at lucy-ellis.com and drop her a line.

Caught in His

Gilded World

Lucy Ellis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Gigi is for you, Mum.

Contents

Cover

Introduction ‘Can you hear me, mademoiselle ?’ ‘Her name is Gigi.’ The curly-haired brunette crouched down opposite him and supplied the name helpfully. He was in Montmartre, in a shabby, past-its-use-by-date cabaret, with a cast of showgirls whose home cities ranged from Sydney to Helsinki to London—hardly any of them were actually French. Of course her name was Gigi. He didn’t believe it for a second. As if sensing his scepticism, she swept up her thick golden lashes with astonishing effect. A pair of blue eyes full of lively intelligence above angular cheekbones met his. Grew round, startled, and bluer than blue. The colour of the water in the Pechora Sea. He should know—he’d just flown in from it. She sat up on her elbows and fixed him with those blue eyes. ‘ Qui êtes-vous? Who are you?’ His question exactly. He straightened up to assert a little dominance over her and settled his hands lightly on his lean muscled hips. ‘Khaled Kitaev,’ he said simply. There was a ripple of reaction. But he didn’t take his eyes off Gigi as he calmly offered her his hand, and when she hesitated he leaned in and took what he wanted.

About the Author LUCY ELLIS creates over-the-top couples who spar and canoodle in glamorous places. If it doesn’t read like a cross between a dozen old fairytales you half know and a 1930s romantic comedy, it’s not a Lucy Ellis story. Come and read a rambling exposition on her books at lucy-ellis.com and drop her a line.

Title Page Caught in His Gilded World Lucy Ellis www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication Gigi is for you, Mum.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘GIGI, GET DOWN from there. You’re going to break your neck!’

Suspended two metres in the air, gripping the stage curtain between the tensed toes of her feet and using her slender muscled arms to propel herself upwards, Gigi ignored the commentary and made quick work of scaling the curtains alongside the four-metre-high fish tank. It was the same tank in which she would be swimming tonight, in nothing more than a G-string and a smile, with two soporific pythons: Jack and Edna. That was if she didn’t get fired first.

The ladder, which would have made this easier, had been folded away, but she was used to shimmying up ropes. She’d been doing it from the age of nine in her father’s circus. The velvet stage curtains were a doddle in comparison.

Now for the hard part. She grabbed hold of the side of the tank with one hand and swung a leg over, straddling the ledge and locking herself in place.

There was an audible sigh from below.

When Susie had yelled, ‘Kitaev’s in the building—front of house, stage left,’ pandemonium had broken loose. While the other girls had reached for their lipstick and yanked up their bra straps, Gigi had eyed the tank and, remembering its superb view once you were up there, hadn’t hesitated.

Susie had been right on the money, too. Down below, among the empty tables and chairs, deep in conversation with theatre management, was the man who held their future in his powerful hands, surrounded by an entourage of thugs.

Gigi’s eyes narrowed on those thugs. She guessed when you were the most hated man in Paris it helped to have minders.

Not that he appeared to need them. His back was to the stage but she could tell his arms were folded because his dark blue shirt was plastered across a pair of wide, powerful shoulders and a long, equally sculpted torso.

The man looked as if he broke bricks with a mallet for a living, not cabarets.

‘Gigi, Gigi, tell us what you can see? What does he look like?’

Big, lean and built to break furniture.

And that was when he turned around.

Gigi stilled. She’d seen pictures of him on the internet, but he hadn’t looked like that . No, the photographs had left that part out... The I’ve just stepped off a boat from a nineteenth-century polar expedition, during which I hauled boats and broke ice floes apart with my bare hands part.

A beard as dark and wild as his hair partially obscured the lower portion of his face, but even at this distance the strong bone structure, high cheekbones, long straight nose and intense deep-set eyes made him classic-film-star gorgeous. His thick, glossy and wavy inky hair was so long he’d hooked some of it back behind his ears.

He looked lean and hungry and in need of civilising—and why that should translate into a shivery awareness of her own body wasn’t something Gigi wanted to investigate right now as she wobbled, gripping the side of the tank.

Not when she had to talk to him and make him listen.

He wasn’t going to listen. He looked as if he would devour her.

Self-preservation told Gigi that a smart girl would shimmy back down the curtain and mind her own business.

‘What’s happening?’ called up Lulu, who clearly wasn’t able to mind her own business either, because she had climbed onto an upturned speaker below and was tugging on Gigi’s ankle.