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He stepped out of the gloom and into the light and the dust motes.
She wouldn’t be surprised if he was just a figment of her imagination.
Then, ‘Gigi...’ he said. His voice was low and rough...and so familiar.
She pulled herself together. There would be no fainting at his feet on her watch.
Gigi was highly aware that this was approximately the spot where she’d landed at his feet just a few weeks ago.
Given the cabaret was now a shell around them, and the place looked as if a bomb had gone off, it was somehow appropriate.
He’d hit her life like a meteor, and if L’Oiseau Bleu was in the process of transformation she could be said to be too.
Only Gigi didn’t hold by all that hokum. She had always been capable—she just hadn’t been given the means by which to bring things off.
‘You’re cutting it fine,’ he said, in that dark, roughened voice, stepping towards her.
Six weeks and that was what he said to her?
‘On the contrary,’ she said, and her voice only shook a little bit, ‘we’re ahead of schedule.’
‘The press conference, Gigi. It’s in an hour.’
‘I’m not going to that.’
‘I’m afraid it’s in your contract. You did read your contract, didn’t you?’
‘I read enough.’ He was so close now she had to tilt back her head.
Actually, she hadn’t read anything—but she had used a lawyer, and she knew there was something about media appearances in it, but until now hadn’t made that link.
Why on earth would anyone want to hear from her?
‘You should have had a closer look at what you signed on for.’
She didn’t respond.
He was looking at her with the strangest look in his eyes and giving her all the wrong messages again.
‘I’ll drive you over.’
Every kind of refusal was on her lips, but what came out was an exasperated, ‘All right.’
He didn’t touch her as he walked her out into the street but she could feel him—and it was a special kind of wonderful torture.
In the bright daylight she could see there was a grey tinge to his skin. He didn’t look well.
‘Have you been ill?’ She had to ask.
‘Flu,’ he said, and shrugged, all the while holding her with his eyes.
‘Me too,’ she mumbled, and then noticed the limo hovering.
‘Not the Spyder today,’ he said, as if reading her mind. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘About my job?’
‘No, Gigi, about us.’
She began to shake. She couldn’t look at him.
She shook her head. ‘No, no, no...’ And kept walking.
‘Gigi! Be fair!’
Somewhere she found it in herself to shout, ‘Life’s not fair, Khaled! I’m going home to change. I guess I’ll see you at the press conference.’
* * *
There was no way she was climbing into the back of that car with him.
Everyone would talk.
She couldn’t bear it—not when she’d made a little progress over the last month or so. She might not have everyone’s respect, but she had their co-operation and that was a start. She told herself she wasn’t risking that by hopping in and out of limos with their billionaire boss.
Gigi went home and took a quick shower, and she almost put on her version of a suit she wore to most meetings when her eye was caught by the white and scarlet frock she’d picked up on a whim under Lulu’s influence in a vintage clothing sale.
She had it on and her hair swept up when Lulu walked in.
‘You are so not wearing that to the press conference?’
But Lulu sounded thrilled.
‘Yes, I am,’ said Gigi, knowing now what Lulu meant when she said that some days the right frock was the only thing that stood between you and despair.
Well, only vintage Givenchy was going to hold her together this afternoon.
‘In that case,’ said Lulu resolutely, ‘we all will.’
* * *
The press conference was being held in a reception room on the ground floor of a luxury hotel.
Half of Paris seemed to have turned up, and the audience had spilled over into the lobby. The hum of preparation and the sound of chairs being shifted ceased as the doors swept open and the Bluebirds arrived en masse.
Gigi led them, in their showy old-time frocks: twenty-four glamour girls lined up in a row.
Clicking cameras responded.
‘It’s like something straight out of Fashion Week,’ said one journalist.
