Caught In His Gilded World. Lucy Ellis

and said brightly, ‘There you go, Gigi. Maybe he’s not so bad for business after all.’

      ‘So he’s sent his friends?’ she grumbled. ‘One night does not a week make. We’re just a novelty act for a bored, spoilt-for-choice, testosterone-injected, arrogant—’

      But now even her best friend had jumped ship and was on her way out, giggling with the other girls, trailing the six-foot feather tail they all had attached to their waists for the first number.

      Troubled, Gigi finished attaching her own.

      That many customers wasn’t to be sneezed at, given they regularly performed to a half-empty theatre, and this had been their worst year yet.

      Maybe the other girls saw something she didn’t.

      Yes, she thought cynically, they saw something, all right. They saw Solange draping her skinny arms around Khaled Kitaev’s broad neck and a line of ambitious showgirls asking when was it their turn.

      Solange was apparently going to have hers, and it firmed Gigi’s chin.

      The lowest common denominator was not going to save this theatre or their jobs.

      Khaled Kitaev didn’t care about the cabaret. He had no stake in it. He’d won the thing in a card game. All he cared about was the bottom line. Specifically at the moment that bottom being Solange’s, but Gigi could well imagine him cutting a swathe through the other bottoms of the troupe. There were some very shapely bottoms.

      Gigi swished her plumage-heavy tail like a haughty lyrebird and took off after the other girls.

      She would see about that.

      * * *

      ‘Mademoiselle...?’

      ‘Valente.’

      ‘Mademoiselle, I’m afraid I cannot give you the information you seek. At the Plaza Athénée we value our guests’ right to privacy.’

      The concierge gave her that bland smile peculiar to people in his job all over the world. Only somehow the Frenchman managed to add that extra little soupçon of superiority.

      Gigi knew her bad accent wasn’t helping. She should have brought Lulu along this morning. Lulu was half-French, and her big brown Audrey Hepburn eyes and air of delicate femininity made grown men trip over themselves to help her out. With her propensity to help herself and make a mess of it, Gigi found she was mostly sidelined and all too frequently laughed at.

      Still, you could only work with what you’d got, and given she’d left her flat in such a hurry this morning she’d left off her make-up, and with her hair still damp and messy from being dunked in the sink, it wasn’t exaggerating to say she currently had the sex appeal of an otter.

      ‘But how am I supposed to reach him?’ she tried again.

      ‘Mademoiselle could try the telephone.’

      ‘You’ll give me his number?’

      ‘Non, I would assume that as you are the friend you say you are, you will have it.’

      ‘I’m not his friend, exactly,’ Gigi prevaricated, and because she had a detestation of lies and subterfuge, having seen the chaos her father left in his wake, she opted for the truth. ‘I’m his employee. I’m a showgirl at L’Oiseau Bleu.’

      For the first time the concierge looked directly at her instead of addressing that distant spot beyond her shoulder.

       ‘Vous êtes une showgirl?’

      She relaxed. Everyone loved a showgirl. It was like carrying a great big shiny key to the city.

       ‘Oui, m’sieur.’

      The concierge leaned closer. ‘Is it true, then? The barbarian is at the gate?’

      What gate? It took Gigi a moment to catch on. She’d forgotten in the other girls’ excitement that most of Paris shared her misgivings about the ‘foreign usurper’. Giving it her best, I’m as distressed as you are look, she manufactured a theatrical sigh. ‘I’m afraid so.’

      ‘Dieu sauver la France!’ He crossed himself.

      Gigi tried not to let her surprise show. Given she was the one with her job at risk, it was odd how personally the Parisian in the street was taking the new ownership of L’Oiseau Bleu.

      Perhaps if those same people transformed their outrage into actually coming to a show and pushing up box office receipts they’d have a chance of survival. Blaming the newcomer on the scene—even if he was a Russian oligarch with questionable intentions—didn’t seem quite fair.

      But she didn’t hesitate to press her advantage—it was one of the few things she had learned from her father that she could use.

      ‘Quite. Now, can I have that room number?’

      The concierge looked most sympathetic. ‘Non,’ he said.

      Gigi didn’t push it. She turned around, her shoulders sinking, and as she wondered if she should leave a message for him, which would probably go unread, everything changed.

      Khaled Kitaev had just entered the lobby.

      He was looking at his phone, which gave her the moment she needed to pull herself together, although the aggression in his body language should have had her second-guessing her decision even to try this.

      Be brave, Gigi, she lectured herself. You’ve had more auditions than hot meals. It’s just another audition... Only this was possibly her last chance, and it could all go so horribly wrong.

      As he strode towards her she took in the unruly dark hair, the beard that framed his beautiful face and enhanced that whole macho thing he was into.

      It was working. Women’s heads were turning as if they were EMF devices, picking up on his frequency, and not a few men were looking him up and down as they reconsidered the suits they’d so carefully dressed in this morning.

      It took a lot of machismo and confidence to render a pair of trainers, sweat pants and a long grey T-shirt with some indecipherable Cyrillic lettering on it stylish against the luxury of the hotel’s interior and its swish inhabitants, but Khaled Kitaev pulled it off. Everyone else just looked wrong.

      He was coming right for her.

      There was no hiding now.

       Think about what you’re going to say. Be polite. Be professional.

      She took some deep calming breaths.

       Have some of your material ready. But don’t shove it at him. Be friendly, but formal.

      She wasn’t sure how she’d manage friendly but formal.

      He looked up from his phone and at the concierge. All the nearby hotel staff had leapt to attention. He lowered the phone long enough to ask for two brand-new laptops to be sent up to his suite.

      ‘Landslide?’ he growled into the phone. ‘There’s one a day in that part of the world. Get a bulldozer in there and clear the damn thing.’

      Gigi observed this exchange with pulse-raised interest, flinching a little as she watched his hand flatten to its full wingspan dimensions on the desk, so close to her she could have reached out and touched it. But she was glad she didn’t when he fired some aggressive Russian into the ear of whoever was on the other end of his call. Maybe now wasn’t a good time...

      * * *

      Khaled slammed his hand against the nearest solid surface. He couldn’t believe it. Another meeting pushed back by the village council. Another surveyor’s report held up because of a landslide.

      He wouldn’t put it past the clan elders to plant a stick of dynamite into the escarpment and bring down half the mountain onto the highway below just to damn well spite him.