Caught in His Gilded World

by Lucy Ellis

  ‘What did you just say to me?’

  ‘Stupid girl,’ he said in English, but his tone was almost warm. ‘Come on, I’ll feed you.’

  ‘Stupid being here with you,’ she muttered. But she trotted after him.

  * * *

  He took her downstairs to the kitchen. He dug out fresh bread, ham, cheese, salad stuff, and went to work on sandwiches.

  He did everything he could to get his mind off her soft-as-rose-petals lips, the pointy curve of her breast that fitted perfectly into the palm of his hand, her sweet enthusiasm even as she pushed him away and twittered nonsense at him about it not happening.

  ‘You cook for yourself?’

  He looked up. She was sliding her pretty little behind onto a stool at the bench, her blue eyes on him.

  ‘Why not?’ he growled, feeling like a bear with a sore head. Because she was right—it shouldn’t happen. ‘Every man should be self-sufficient.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m getting that vibe off you.’

  She fell quiet. He didn’t trust her when she was quiet. Gigi’s mind didn’t stop whirring.

  ‘When I first saw you I thought, Now there’s a man who’s been somewhere,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘I have been somewhere. Central Asia and the Arctic Circle, with a band of scientists and geologists.’

  ‘To do with your oil?’

  She was a quick study—he’d give that to her.

  ‘To do with my oil. There’s nothing like being on the ground, seeing the erosion for yourself, experiencing it, watching the visible proof of changing migration patterns, the changes to the soil. Stops me from getting comfortable or lazy about my responsibilities to the planet.’

  ‘You sound like a bit of a green.’

  Khaled shrugged. ‘I grew up in the mountains—it’s difficult not to be ecologically aware.’

  ‘Do you miss it, now you’re living in cities?’

  ‘I head back into the mountains when I can. I also have shares in alternative energy source companies, and I’m moving away from petroleum.’

  ‘What’s it like, running the world?’

  ‘Is that what I do?’

  ‘All that money—do you ever count it? Or do you stop thinking about it at a certain point? I mean, I live from month to month, and my budget is always blown by week two.’

  Khaled frowned. She was nervous—was that why she was talking so much nonsense?

  He wasn’t accustomed to sexual nervousness in a woman. The women in his life were bold, mostly self-serving, conscious of the desirability which they put such a value on.

  Gigi’s actions upstairs began to make a bit of sense to him.

  ‘You need a good accountant, dushka.’

  ‘I don’t earn enough to warrant one. Not all of us own oil fields.’

  ‘Money isn’t always the answer, Gigi. I’ve got a project in the Caucasus Mountains facing local objection and I think a good deal of it is connected to my billions in the bank.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  He laid down the knife and leaned forward on his hands. ‘I’m the local boy made good—it doesn’t go down well there.’

  ‘I just assumed you were from Moscow.’

  ‘The first time I saw Moscow I was fresh out of the army and I’d washed up with a duffle bag and some ambition. Until then all I’d known was the mountains.’

  Gigi settled her elbows on the bench, her chin in her hands, and fixed her beautiful blue eyes on him.

  ‘Were you born there?’

  ‘I was. My father was a career soldier stationed in Chechnya.’

  He began piling the sandwich filling high, slapping thick crusty bread on top. His housekeeper was an angel.

  ‘Isn’t that a dangerous place?’

  ‘My father took a bullet from a sniper when I was four,’ he confirmed, eyeing her when she sat back, clearly perturbed. ‘After that my mother struggled. She was forced back to her family in the mountains further west and remarried a sheep farmer. We never had any money—we just had sheep.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your dad,’ she said. ‘It must have been awful for you and your mum.’

  ‘Difficult for my mother. She was in her early twenties, had little education, and not much chance of supporting me on her own.’

  ‘But she remarried?’

  ‘He had land, a home—respect in the village. He rose to be head man. She believed it was better than what she’d had.’

  ‘She had you,’ said Gigi.

  ‘She had a corner in her parents’ home, where she was the disgraced daughter who’d married a Russian soldier.’

  ‘Disgraced? Why?’

  ‘She was pregnant before she married him—and where I come from, Gigi, Russian soldiers aren’t exactly welcomed with open arms. There’s a long history of guerrilla warfare in the mountains between Russia and the peoples of the Caucasus. Nobody was happy with their marriage.’

  ‘Were your parents happy?’

  Khaled suddenly became aware that he’d just told Gigi more about himself than he’d ever revealed—to anyone.

  He didn’t talk about this. Ever. He didn’t need reminding of that part of his life. Why was it at the forefront of his mind now? Probably because at the moment the building of that road down south was swinging over him like an axe.

  ‘How did we get on to this topic?’

  His tone was one that had made grown men fall silent in his presence. He hadn’t meant to use it on her, but he couldn’t stem the tide of anger when it came to his parents.

  Gigi blinked. ‘I just wanted to find out a little about you.’

  Yeah—her and a lot of busy journalists.

  Then he remembered that photograph of her mother and her own sentiments regarding her father. He wasn’t a reliable man. He guessed Gigi knew enough about broken families for him to give her a little of what she wanted to hear.

  ‘My parents loved one another very much.’

  Gigi raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t seem over the moon about it.’

  ‘“Love” is a word that’s used to cover a lot of ground,’ he replied. ‘I’m not a big fan.’

  ‘I don’t think we have too much say in who we love.’

  He pulled a chilled jug of cold chay from the fridge.

  ‘Love didn’t save my father from a stray bullet, and it didn’t feed and clothe my mother, or shield her from criticism when she was forced to come home. In fact love only made it a lot harder for her.’

  ‘But how do you know that? Why couldn’t it have been the opposite? She’d known love and it was a wonderful memory for her, something she might find again.’

  The chay sloshed as he lifted the jug towards the bench. ‘I’ll tell you why, Gigi. My stepfather couldn’t forgive her for being in love with my father. It didn’t matter what she did—it was never enough to assuage his jealousy.’ Khaled banged the jug down with force. ‘There was nothing wonderful about the way he treated us.’

  He realised he was breathing hard.

  Gigi sat back, her brow pulled in that knot he remembered from their first encounter, but she wasn’t backing away from him.

  ‘I think Carlos was in love with my mother even after she refused to have him in her life. I’m sure that was why he came for me after she died. But it didn’t translate into love for me. He pretty much resented me from the start.’

  ‘You were his blood—why would he resent you?’

  ‘Because she loved me,’ Gigi said, with devastating simplicity, ‘but she didn’t love him.’

  Khaled stilled.

  ‘You see,’ she said quietly, ‘we have more in common than either of us realised.’

  His chest wall tightened. She was looking at him with those bright, hopeful blue eyes and
all he could think was that it was like putting a little field hare in a cage with a grey wolf to compare their lives in any way. He could so easily tear her apart.

  Gigi didn’t seem to understand this. She didn’t understand who he was.

  Right now he was relieved that he’d turned down the stairs and not up—because if he took her to bed she was bound to read more into it than there was.

  He would put her in a guest room tonight and a hotel tomorrow. It was time to reassert the barriers between them.

  Instead he heard himself ask her gruffly, ‘Your father is no longer in your life?’

  ‘He’s in Barcelona. We talk on the phone. I’m not good at holding grudges. You don’t seem to be either.’

  He tried to ignore the fact that she was telegraphing something else with her eyes—something about what had happened upstairs. She was biting her lower lip.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ he murmured. ‘Tell me about your dad.’

  She gave a rueful little shrug that held a great deal. ‘He tries to make amends, but he’s very old-school traditional—he thinks the way he raised me was right: being strict, withholding praise...’

  ‘Winding cords around your young feet?’

  ‘Oh, no, I did that myself, trying to please him. It was being lifted and lowered on the ropes every day that did it. Carlos is many things, but he’s not a sadist.’

  ‘Those marks on your feet make me want to meet your father in a quiet place,’ he said with intent.

  ‘It’s not necessary.’ She looked up at him through her lashes. ‘Although the cavewoman in me appreciates the gesture.’

  Shoving aside his very real desire to clear the table and haul her into his arms, he pushed a plate towards her and poured cold chay into glasses.

  She needed food in her stomach—that was the only reason they were down here together—and then he would do the right thing and send her to bed alone.

  If it killed him.

  Gigi bit into her sandwich with gusto and moaned.

  He was a dead man.

  ‘Good, this is so good,’ she mumbled. ‘You’re like the King of Sandwiches.’

  ‘I’ll mention that to my investors,’ he murmured, watching her eat. ‘You really are hungry.’

  ‘This is normal for me. I eat like a horse. It’s all the dancing.’ She swiped at her mouth unselfconsciously.

  Many women had gone to great lengths to seduce him. Not one of them had ever thought just to eat a sandwich.

  He noticed he hadn’t touched his own. Food wasn’t a priority for him right now.

  His skin felt tight, hot, and he couldn’t help looking at the wondrous architecture of her dancer’s body and the soft female curves of her breasts and bottom beneath her clothes. He’d had his hands on her, and he wasn’t going to forget that any time soon.

  To take his mind off it he concentrated on what she needed. He knew she must still be hungry and dug out some kirsch-flavoured dessert from the fridge.

  While he was fossicking around Gigi was collecting the two plates and wiping up where she’d splattered bits from her sandwich. He paused with the fridge door open, taking in the sight of Gigi pottering around his kitchen. Rinsing the dishes. It all felt weirdly domestic.

  He slammed the fridge door behind him.

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ he said, more harshly than he’d meant it to sound.

  She finished wiping the plates and gave him a self-conscious smile. ‘I’m much messier at home.’

  ‘But you’re not at home.’

  The smile faltered. ‘No.’

  Send her upstairs now. His conscience was drumming it into him, but something primitive and a lot more persuasive was rushing hot and insistent through his veins. Knocking out the more civilised switches and allowing everything that was natural and male in him to take over.

  His resolve was gone.

  She was so lovely, in every way, and he knew how the night was going to unfold.

  There would be no guest room.

  ‘Come here. I’ve got something for you.’

  Pink colour zoomed up into her cheeks, which told him he wasn’t the only one feeling this, but she approached him, and Khaled was well aware that the hunter in him was responding to the fact she was a little skittish around him.

  Her eyes fell on the bowl of dessert and then she lifted them with an almost guilty expression on her face.

  Sex and food.

  How was he going to resist this?

  Without even thinking about it, he spooned some straight into Gigi’s lips.

  She held it in her mouth and her lashes drifted down as she savoured it.

  He felt it in his groin.

  She swallowed.

  He groaned silently.

  ‘Feeling better?’ he asked in a thickened voice, offering her another spoonful.

  Those golden lashes came up. ‘Yes.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Still hungry?’

  She nodded and reached for the spoon, but he held on to it.

  ‘Let me.’

  She licked her lips and a coil of heat thrummed in his belly. But there was nothing salacious about her actions—she was just enjoying her food. And strangely enough he was enjoying feeding her, looking after her, making her happy.

  ‘No more.’ She refused her sixth spoonful, shaking her head, all that heavy auburn hair tumbling forward to frame her narrow face.

  Bozhe moy, she was lovely.

  He was playing with fire.

  She leaned forward unexpectedly and reached out, caught the sway of his silver chain and cross, tangled it around her fingers.

  It reminded him of how she’d tangled her fingers in his chest hair to drag him into their first kiss. She was doing it again.

  His libido growled.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘My baptismal cross.’ His voice had deepened with arousal but also with pride in something he hadn’t always been proud of. ‘I was christened Aleksandr, after my father and the saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.’

  ‘Where did Khaled come from?’

  ‘My mother. When she came back to the village she thought it was politic that I be known by the name of her father, and his father before him. It was the only name I knew after the age of four.’

  Strange how after all this time it still weighed on him.

  ‘I’m Catholic,’ she said, tracing the cross. ‘I don’t have anything so beautiful.’

  ‘I disagree.’ He brushed the line of her jaw with his fingertips.

  Her expression was a speaking look of welcome. It would have been easy to lean down and capture her mouth with his.

  It had been his intention.

  But upstairs he’d had an intention, and Gigi’s little performance was still there in the forefront of his mind. If she needed seducing he shouldn’t be messing with her.

  Gigi knew before Khaled moved that he wasn’t going to kiss her. She saw the decision in his eyes, in the way his jaw tightened, and although the air between them was thrumming she knew this man had a whole lot more self-control than she did—and if he’d made up his mind he wouldn’t be changing it.

  Her heart sank as he turned away and said something about showing her to her room.

  Right. Okay.

  She probably wouldn’t see very much more of him after this. Tomorrow he would go back to being the guy in charge and she’d have to start thinking about her future, because the writing was on the wall.

  Only right now they were alone together. His barriers were down and, although it might have been lack of sleep and all the excitement of the long day, she felt as if she might die a little if this was going to be it.

  She already knew she was going to miss him when she we
nt home, and that whatever happened with L’Oiseau Bleu she would never forget him. He was the sort of guy a girl would look back on a little wistfully and wonder What if? for ever.

  Did it really matter at this late stage if she made the rumours true?

  It was just between the two of them. It didn’t have anything to do with the cabaret, or the other girls, or the Paris press. It was private—and couldn’t what happened behind closed doors remain private?

  Lulu had a hundred rules about men and dating, and all of them came down to the same thing. Respect yourself.

  But Gigi rather thought the better thing was to be true to yourself.

  It was the reason she’d climbed up on that tank two days ago, risking if not her limbs then her dignity. Despite that, she didn’t regret it—and she wasn’t going to regret this. Because sometimes a girl just had to do what a girl had to do...

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THEY NEEDED TO SEPARATE.

  Khaled reached into the fridge and grabbed a bottle of chilled water to take upstairs. He’d put Gigi in the guest room and book a flight home for her in a few days. He’d hardly have to see her.

  ‘You’ll probably be happier in a hotel,’ he said, closing the fridge. ‘I’m not going to be here and you might get lonely on your own.’

  He turned around, bottle in hand, expecting her compliance.

  Only Gigi was in the process of peeling her sweater off.

  She was wearing a thin thermal vest underneath.

  He’d wondered what that extra layer was upstairs.

  No bra and visibly erect nipples.

  That would account for why a thermal vest suddenly became the sexiest item of clothing he’d ever seen on a woman.

  That was until she stripped it off and everything sensible stopped working inside his head.

  Milky freckled skin...delicate, gracile build...and small, high breasts tipped with—surprise, surprise—cinnamon-pink nipples.

  It crashed through him. He’d thought he’d seen her naked onstage. He’d seen nothing.

  She’d been telling him the truth.

  This was Gigi as she was. Not some kitsch cabaret fantasy of a woman, but real, warm, not entirely sure of herself and incredibly sexy because of it.