When he had spoken with the clan council they had taken him to task about his Russian investors and the lack of consultation. Khaled had stood, arms folded, at the back of the low dark room that served as a community hall in the town and refused to react or engage.
All he had seen was the memory of his stepfather’s eyes, narrow like slits, as he beat him with a piece of horse tack as if that would make him less another man’s son.
Unable to withstand the brutality of the memory, without a word Khaled had walked out into the bright daylight, jumped into his truck and driven out of the valley. His last communication with the council was when he was much further north, flying over the Pechora Sea, inspecting a Kitaev oil platform, and a message had been sent to him via his lawyers.
Where is your home? Where is your wife? Where are your children? When you have these things come to us in the proper way and we will talk.
In other words, Respect our customs and we’ll see it your way.
Customs... He was a modern man, and he had made his fortune in a modern world—he wasn’t entering into that kind of old-world game-playing...
He turned away from the desk, snapping his phone closed, catching his elbow on someone’s round, firm...
‘Ow!’
He looked down and golden-lashed blue eyes turned up to his like searchlights, complete with a little scowl that brought her fine coppery brows together and formed a knot.
‘You...’ he said, clearing his throat.
‘Yes, me!’ Her low-pitched, softly accented voice was like Irish whisky—unexpected in a girl so slight and young. She had one hand clamped over her breast and was tenderly massaging the area, her expression pained.
‘Forgive me.’ His gaze dipped to what little he could see, given her hand was stashed under her jacket.
When she’d pulled out that bit of libel yesterday she’d flashed a purple bra cup and the swell of a firm milk-pale breast marked on the gentle upper slope by a single dark brown freckle. It was a freckle he’d had on his mind ever since.
Only today she appeared to be wearing some kind of pink T-shirt, high-necked, completely unrevealing, along with jeans and a blue wool jacket.
She’d also ditched the pigtails, and her hair hung heavily over her shoulders—coppery red, long, thick and wavy...messy, if you got down to it. Sexy.
Sexy he didn’t need. For one thing, he was signing her pay cheques. Ostensibly. Although he’d seen how much those girls were paid. He’d laid down more on a tie than on her monthly wage.
All the more reason to keep moving...
Which he did.
* * *
Gigi watched him walk away from her without another word, as if their encounter had never happened. She tried not to be offended. She’d pretty much expected it would take some effort. After all, she wasn’t sexy Solange, offering who knew what? She was woman-on-a-mission Gigi, offering flyers and a presentation.
Not that he knew that. But she guessed he only needed a glance to work out the difference between them.
Nevertheless, she hurried after him, swinging her backpack forward over one shoulder and rummaging inside for the vintage-style flyers she’d brought to show him—evidence of how classy the Bluebird had once been and could be again.
He’d see that she was serious and had done her research, and he might sit down and talk to her.
She was right behind him when there was a whoosh of movement in the air beside her—and for the second time in as many days Gigi found herself on the floor, the stuffing knocked out of her.
A MALE VOICE GRUNTED, ‘Do not move.’
Gigi didn’t think she’d be moving. No, not moving at all. She was too stunned to do anything other than lie there, even once the knee resting on the base of her spine was gone and her arms, which had been pinned to her sides, were once more her own.
She only began to react when she was being hauled—not ungently—to her feet. She swayed as blood rushed back into her head and an arm came around her waist to support her. She staggered, and her nose and forehead banged against a hard male chest. She inhaled faint spicy aftershave and heat.
Gigi edged up her chin and her gaze locked on eyes so lustrously dark it was like being dropped into a hot, dark night.
The world shrank down to his thick, steady heartbeat and her short, rapid breaths.
He was speaking to her, but it was like being underwater. All she could make out was that no one was attacking her and the big male arms clamped around her felt like protection.
Which was when she spotted a gorilla—the same one who had knocked her down—turning out her backpack.
It was a replay of her worst memory.
Her limbs exploded and she desperately tried to free herself.
‘‘That’s mine! Give me back my things! You have no right to touch my things!’
She made a hopeless grab for it, but Khaled Kitaev had hold of her elbow.
‘Calm down, dushka.’
She wasn’t going to calm down! The last time she’d had her belongings confiscated she’d had handcuffs slapped on her wrists and spent a night in the cells, thanks to her dad.
She struggled, but his strength was all over hers. Gigi lashed out with her elbow and struck him in the chest. Unlike her own chest there was nothing soft and tender about it—instead there was considerable muscle and definition and she only jarred her shoulder.
‘That’s enough!’
She stopped flailing long enough for him to release her. She pushed her hair out of her eyes with hands that were shaking uncontrollably. So much for being professional. Both of them.
‘Mr Kitaev, do we have a problem?’
The discreet enquiry was made by the concierge she had spoken to earlier. He materialised at her side, every inch the gatekeeper for the wealthy and influential. Gigi’s insides turned to liquid.
Khaled saw the effect on Red. She looked as if he was about to throw her to the lions.
‘Nichevo. No problem. A slight misunderstanding.’
‘Yes, sir, these things can happen. But the young lady—’
‘Mademoiselle Valente,’ said Khaled smoothly, and her name was right there, given he’d just happened to take a look at her file last night, ‘is my guest.’
‘I see, sir.’
‘My security team didn’t recognise her and were over-zealous. I apologise for the inconvenience to your other guests.’
‘Not at all, Mr Kitaev.’ But the concierge continued to regard Red with interest.
The look on her face had been comic in its alarm and indecision as she followed this exchange, but now as they both turned their attention her way she visibly pulled herself together.
‘That’s right,’ she said gamely. ‘I’m here to speak to him.’
Him being the hotel’s highest paying guest.
Khaled fully expected the staff to evaporate,