Читать книгу Caught In His Gilded World - Lucy Ellis, Lucy Ellis - Страница 11
ОглавлениеPASSERS-BY ALMOST got whiplash, reacting to her announcement, but Gigi told herself it wasn’t that bad. What stank was the fact that this awful, sexist, conceited man thought she had so little respect for herself she’d offer up her body...for what? A pay-rise?
He’d ground to a dangerously ominous halt and now came loping back towards her, his expression enough to send all her ‘flee and survive’ instincts into overdrive.
‘What is this?’ he growled.
‘I could ask you the same question.’ Her voice only shook a little bit. ‘Is this how you got your—your grubby hands on L’Oiseau Bleu? By goading Ahmed el Hammoud until he buckled and...and put us in the pot?’
‘Interesting turn of phrase.’ His gaze narrowed, assessing. ‘Know him well, do you, Red?’
Do not rise to the bait, she told herself. He’s doing this to work you up into a frenzy so you’ll go away.
‘Even more interesting,’ he continued conversationally—as if he wasn’t crowding her and leaving only a hand span of space between them, as if the hot, hard reality of him wasn’t pushing her on the back foot. ‘Now that I’ve seen the place I know why it was “in the pot”, as you put it. I should have folded.’
‘Really?’ Her voice came out all high and airless. ‘I don’t think you’d fold for anyone or anything. I think you like to win, Mr Kitaev, and that means someone has to lose. I don’t intend for that to be our fate.’
He was looking at her as if she truly interested him for the first time.
‘And what exactly are you going to do, Miss Valente?’
‘Fight you.’
Khaled almost smiled.
‘Go ahead.’ He thought of the people lining up to do just that, half a world away. ‘Take your best shot.’
‘I will,’ she volleyed back. ‘Solange Delon!’
She said this as if they were magic words. Clearly it was meant to mean something to him.
‘Solange Delon...’ she said again, but this time with less confidence, given the lack of a response. ‘You asked her to come for drinks. With you. Tonight.’
Nothing.
Gigi could feel the ground shifting under her feet. Somehow she’d got something wrong...
A faint smile began to tug at the firm, sensual line of his mouth.
Gigi’s temper quivered. He had no right to smile like that. Not when he didn’t even have the decency to own up to it. If there was anything to own up to...
‘I just don’t think it’s right,’ she proffered into his continuing silence. ‘Picking up a showgirl like one of those plastic Eiffel Towers you buy at a kiosk outside the metro—a souvenir of your trip.’
‘Is that what you think, Gigi?’ His tone was deceptively soft. ‘Or is that what you’ve read?’
Taken aback, Gigi hesitated.
Well, everyone had read it. The marauding Russian, grabbing whatever he could get—cultural artefacts, real estate, women.
She had an odd little visual of him as a cartoonish King Kong, pushing a fistful of showgirls into his open mouth, legs everywhere.
Despite everything, a little part of her wanted to smile.
‘I suppose you’re going to say it’s not true?’ she prompted into the tense silence.
He didn’t respond.
‘To be fair, I guess some of it is exaggeration,’ she allowed tightly, knowing she was losing ground fast.
He gave her an unamused half-smile. ‘Possibly.’
She reddened.
This wasn’t where she’d intended to take things today—she was supposed to be professional.
‘Like I said, women throw themselves at me all the time.’
‘I guess you can’t help being beautiful,’ she said grudgingly, then closed her eyes briefly. Don’t tell him he’s beautiful, eejit.
‘I was going to say that money has an odd effect on people.’ He was watching her as if she fascinated him. ‘But if you’re going to throw compliments at me, Gigi, you could try aiming at something I might respond to.’ His dark Russian accent had a lazy inflection, as if he was enjoying this. ‘Most men aren’t interested in being told they’re beautiful.’
‘I’m speaking objectively,’ she said stiffly. ‘Obviously you’re good-looking...’
‘Downgraded from beautiful? Keep going.’
She flushed. ‘Look, I’m not going to stand here and discuss your looks.’
‘You’re attracted to me.’
Gigi went rigid. ‘I am not! You’re nothing like my type.’
‘What is your type?’
‘Sensitive, caring, an animal-lover, good to his mum...’ Gigi wasn’t sure how they’d got on to this topic, but she did have a list if he wanted to hear it.
‘Gay?’
Gigi almost choked. She put her hands on her hips. ‘You sound like the stereotype of a homophobic Russian he-man.’
He smiled. ‘I’m not homophobic,’ he said comfortably, ‘and I’m fast revising my opinion of you, Red.
‘Oh, and what opinion is that?’
‘You’re not here to have sex with me—you’re going to pester me into giving you whatever it is you want.’
Gigi turned pink and told herself she’d rather be a pest than have him think she was trading sexual favours for...well, favours. Only she wasn’t making a nuisance of herself, was she?
‘You asked me what my type was,’ she defended herself. ‘And I’m sorry if I’m being a nuisance, but you asked me to run with you!’
‘You need a new type.’
He was smiling openly at her now, but instead of feeling irritated she felt her heart pounding in her chest. She wished it would stop—it was most distracting. He should stop smiling too.
He was right. She did need a new type.
But it wasn’t going to be him.
Not that he was offering. Apparently she was a pest. Gigi tried not to mind that too much. Besides, gorgeous Russian gazillionaires didn’t date jobbing dancers.
Lead dancers at the Lido, maybe. Not chorus girls at L’Oiseau Bleu.
She worried at her lower lip. Was she being a pest? There was something so certain and old-fashioned about his masculinity that everything he said had weight to it.
She hadn’t had much male certainty in her life. The men she knew were for the most part equivocal and slippery. Witness her dad—and more latterly the Danton brothers, who had effectively stuffed up the only home she’d truly ever had since her mother’s death.
Gigi took a breath. Now was not the time to think about what made her want to howl. It was the time to do something about it.
‘Look,’ she said, instinctively reaching out to touch his arm. ‘Let’s just forget you said what you said, and you forget I said what I said, and we’ll start again.’
Even to her own ears it sounded lame, but right now it was all she had.
He was looking at her hand and she moved to snatch it back, but he caught her fingers between his.
Her eyes jerked up to his, but before she could ask him what he thought he was doing a shower of gravel spattered at their feet, sending Gigi’s confused thoughts flying as she followed its source to two boys who were old enough to know better.
A woman who was obviously their mother was on one of the culprits in an instant, clipping him behind the ear as she took hold of the smallest boy’s arm none too gently.
‘Quittez notre cabaret tout seul!’ she said in a tense, tight voice with a sideward glare at Kitaev. ‘Barbare!’ she spat.
Leave our cabaret alone! Barbarian!
A young couple had stopped, and the girl pulled out her phone to take a picture.
An older man said, ‘Why don’t you go back to London, where you belong?’
Gigi would have seen more, but Kitaev had stepped in front of her, effectively blocking her view.
For a moment Gigi was confused. Was he shielding her? She stared up at his broad back and felt quite odd, because no man had ever looked to her welfare before, and that it should be this man was, well...confusing.
He didn’t even like her.
But she never could stand bullies.
If you can’t take the criticism, Gigi, you shouldn’t be on the stage.
Fair enough, but her two-faced bully of a father’s critiques stayed with her to this day: too freckly, too red, too skinny, too stupid, too much trouble.
She’d learned to blank her expression and keep going. She hadn’t had much choice.
Kitaev appeared to be doing the same.
Taking it.
Well, she didn’t have to.
She scooted around him. ‘Hey! Who do you think you are—talking to people you don’t even know like that?’
In disbelief Khaled watched Gigi walk up to the woman clutching at the necks of her boys’ T-shirts.
‘No wonder your children have no manners if this is how you behave—and you, sir—’ she gestured to the older gentleman ‘—you should get your facts right. He doesn’t even live in London! None of you have seen what he’s going to do with the cabaret. You’re just condemning him out of hand. All of you!’
Given Red’s opinion of him, this was interesting.
‘Why don’t you wait and see before passing judgement? He might just surprise you.’
On the contrary—he would be doing pretty much what they expected. Offloading it to the next buyer, charity or scrapheap. Because he wasn’t invested in this heritage crap and this much aggravation wasn’t worth the trouble.
‘Besides, if people like you would buy a ticket to the show once in a while we wouldn’t be in so much trouble in the first place!’ Gigi put her hands on her hips, staring them all down.
She should have been funny to watch, and she was, but he also wanted to give her a shake. Why was she bothering? Why was she paying any attention to them? These people’s opinions meant nothing. They could and would change with tomorrow’s new headlines. Given what he’d said to her, he wasn’t even worth her spirited defence.
‘Who do you think you are?’ demanded the woman accusingly.
It was the moment Gigi didn’t know she had been waiting for. She drew herself up to her full five feet eleven inches and opened her mouth...
Khaled said something roughly in Russian.
‘That’s it,’ he said in English. He grabbed her hand. ‘Show’s over.’
To Gigi’s astonishment he began to drag her away.
‘Gigi Valente,’ she called a little desperately over her shoulder. ‘I’m a showgirl at L’Oiseau Bleu. Best cabaret revue in town!’
He jerked her roughly to his side.
‘Hey, what are you doing?’ she snapped at him.
‘I could ask you the same thing.’
‘I’m trying to promote the cabaret.’
Khaled said a rude word. In English.
He scanned over his shoulder and his features tightened.
Gigi followed his example. People were taking more photographs of them with their phones.
‘Do not turn around,’ he instructed, ‘and do not respond.’
‘Fair enough,’ Gigi replied, suddenly uncertain as to what was going on, and very aware that they were holding hands.
He glared down at her. ‘I cannot believe you gave them your name.’
Gigi blinked, her thoughts still on their linked hands. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Then the other shoe dropped. ‘Oh, crap.’
He eyed her and Gigi frowned. ‘What? You think I did it on purpose?’
‘Nyet,’ he shot back. ‘I think you did it the same way you appear to do everything, Gigi—without a firm grasp on the reality of the situation.’
She firmed her mouth. He was referring to her accusations earlier. Accusations she still hadn’t apologised for.
Someone else called out, ‘Barbare!’
Gigi shuddered at the viciousness of it. ‘What is wrong with people?’
‘Your cabaret has become a catalyst for public opinion, as you well know, and I’m newsworthy.’
Gigi hadn’t been aware that public opinion could be this scary. She yelped as flashes went off in her face and instinctively turned away. Khaled tugged her into the shelter of his body.
‘Paparazzi’ was the only word she understood in the short volley of Russian invective he released. Although her ability to concentrate was somewhat impaired by being pressed up against him. He was incredibly hard and big and honed, and she was inhaling him like an addict. His scent was the faint spice of aftershave, the musk of his skin and fresh male sweat. It was a heady combination and, given his hand had settled solidly at the base of her spine, she guessed he wanted her to stay where she was.
As suddenly as they’d arrived the photographers were gone, but neither of them shifted.
He was making her very much aware that she was a woman.
‘We need to move,’ he informed her, his breath brushing her cheek, but he didn’t.
Was he feeling it too? Gigi became excessively conscious of the hard muscles of his thighs against hers and how well their bodies fitted together. Warmth began to pool in her loins, her nipples tightened, and all of a sudden she became aware that she wasn’t the only one with a problem.
