A Perfect Paris Christmas

by Mandy Baggot

  Fifty-Eight

  L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Tour Eiffel, Paris

  ‘I am going to get a key card from Antoine and I am going to go into her room.’

  Ethan was out of breath. He had broken into a run the second the car had stopped at the traffic lights still a few yards away from the hotel. He hadn’t wanted Jeanne and Bo-Bo to accompany him, but Jeanne was never very good at taking no for an answer and he just wanted to get going. As soon as Keeley had ignored his twelfth call and the tenth text message he could sit around no longer. He had to know why she had left. What he had done? Or, maybe, what he hadn’t done?

  The snow had started to fall again and it was rushing across his vision as he barrelled past tourists on the street, all of them wanting that night view of the Eiffel Tower lit up in all its glory.

  ‘If you get a key card and burst into her room she will think you are crazy,’ Jeanne said, catching him up. ‘I think you are crazy.’

  ‘I think there must be something you are not telling me,’ Ethan said, snow landing on his lips with every word that met the air. ‘What did she say to you again? Did she not like how the room looked? Was she really upset she did not win petanque?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘I told you,’ Jeanne said. ‘She told me she was not feeling well.’

  Ethan blew out a breath. ‘But you and I both know that was an excuse.’

  ‘I never said that,’ Jeanne said straightaway.

  ‘You did not need to say it,’ Ethan answered. ‘Everything you feel is always written all over your face, Jeanne.’

  ‘That is not true.’

  ‘Why would she not answer my calls or my messages?’ He wanted to run faster, be there sooner, but even Bo-Bo was heavy breathing from the exertion and, whether it was official or not, he had made himself responsible for Jeanne’s welfare.

  ‘Perhaps she is in bed asleep. Or being ill in the bathroom. Or a combination of the two,’ Jeanne offered.

  ‘I do not believe that,’ Ethan said. ‘Something is wrong. I know her,’ he continued to protest. ‘I really know her and I know that she would not have left unless something was really wrong.’

  ‘OK,’ Jeanne said. ‘OK, I get it. Maybe something is wrong but… stop!’ She grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve and used all her might to pull him to a halt. ‘Please, just stop!’

  The last word was a literal scream and Ethan cooled his heels and stopped his forward momentum. Instead he changed tack, beginning to pace up and down over a few yards while he waited for the girl to tell him whatever she was going to tell him. He felt that every minute that was passing was taking him somehow further and further away from Keeley.

  ‘You need to keep cool,’ Jeanne said to him with what sounded like a good deal of authority.

  Ethan put his hands through his hair. He felt completely not cool. He felt absolutely out of control. He hadn’t felt this out of control since a year ago. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  ‘Not your appearance!’ Jeanne exclaimed.

  ‘I wasn’t “doing” my hair!’ Ethan blasted. ‘I was getting the snow out of it and waiting for you to tell me why we have stopped when we should still be going.’

  ‘Because you are not in the right place of mind to talk,’ Jeanne told him.

  ‘I am… exactly in the right place of mind to talk,’ Ethan insisted. Except his words had come out in a hurry and he could feel the irritation and downright fear bubbling under his skin. This felt like… being in Paris when his best friend was lying in a hospital bed in London. This was like getting to the Gare Du Nord determined to reach Ferne when Silvie made that phone call. He did not want this to turn into him collapsing on the riverbank wanting the water to swallow him up…

  ‘No, you are all… scrambled,’ Jeanne remarked, beginning to walk around him in a circle, Bo-Bo copying her exact moves. ‘Your brain is not thinking with logic, it is thinking with panic. And it will react with anger if you do not receive the answers that you want.’

  He shook his head. ‘That is nonsense.’ He swallowed, not believing his own answer.

  ‘What are you hoping to achieve by bursting into Keeley’s room and demanding an explanation?’ Jeanne asked.

  Ethan shrugged. ‘Isn’t it obvious? An explanation!’

  ‘Do you not think, that if she wanted to give you an explanation of how she is currently feeling then she would have stayed instead of leaving?’

  ‘I do not know,’ Ethan said. ‘How am I supposed to know?’

  ‘I know,’ Jeanne assured him. ‘I know that if someone runs away like that it is because they do not want to talk.’

  ‘Well… what about… if they only think they do not want to talk? Have you thought about that?’ Ethan asked, watching Jeanne. She was still circling him like she was a bird of prey ready to drop down and then feast. She somehow looked doubly threatening with that thick dark hair framing her ivory skin.

  ‘I think that is not your decision to make,’ Jeanne said. ‘I think this is up to Keeley.’

  ‘She won’t answer me! I have called. I have sent messages. What else can I do?’ Ethan threw his arms in the air and a pigeon took flight from the pavement, soaring through the driving snow and up into the sky.

  ‘Give her some space?’ Jeanne suggested. ‘At least do not behave like a mad clown.’

  ‘I am not a mad clown,’ Ethan insisted, in a way only a mad clown would.

  ‘Then stop acting like it,’ Jeanne said, ending her sentence with a finger point.

  ‘I am… confused and… concerned and…’ He didn’t quite know what to say next so he stopped talking altogether.

  ‘You are in love with her.’

  ‘No!’ Ethan said all too forcefully. ‘No, of course not.’ He felt like he was betraying his own soul by the vehemence he was showing now, but what was the alternative? Admit the opposite. That he was in some sort of… love? He was shaking his head at himself now.

  ‘You are in love with her,’ Jeanne repeated.

  Ethan growled in frustration, clenching his fists together as Jeanne finally stopped circling around him. Maybe he had said too much too soon. He had asked her to help him make his hotels into the kind of ‘comfortable’ she had talked so passionately about. After their night together he had thought they had shared themselves completely. Except there was that large scar on her belly she had laughed off when he had asked her about it… Fear was in complete control of his reactions now. What if there was something wrong with her? What if she was sick?

  ‘I have to see her,’ Ethan said, powerwalking towards the hotel. ‘Not crazy or angry, perhaps not cool either but… I have to see her.’

  ‘Wait!’ Jeanne called. ‘Do not ask anyone for a key card! Ethan!’

  Sixty-Nine

  The Durand House, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris

  Keeley was still shaking like the branch of a Christmas tree being attacked by a cat as she sat on a two-seater chaise longue by the fire in Silvie’s living room. She was nursing an elegant cup and saucer that was mainly filled with coffee, but had also been liberally splashed with brandy that came from a decanter that looked like it could star alongside Fiona Bruce.

  ‘Keeley,’ Silvie said, padding closer to her, another blanket in her arms. ‘You are still cold?’

  Keeley shook her head. She wasn’t cold, she was grieving. She was mourning the loss of the first relationship with a man she’d had that had any real value to it. Something so unexpected. Something that had happened so quickly yet snowballed and snowballed until it had meant the world. Tears slipped from her eyes, one of them dropping into the dark coffee.

  ‘Keeley, tell me,’ Silvie begged. ‘Tell me what has happened to make you this way.’

  Keeley sniffed, turning her head a little to face the French woman. An employee had opened the door to Keeley’s ringing on the doorbell as the taxi drove out of the Durands’ gate. Her face red from tears and her hair covered in snow, she had stood by the giant Christmas tree, the weather dripping off her boo
ts and pooling on the tiles. Silvie had appeared on the stairs dressed in a full-length light pink silk dressing gown, kitten-heeled slippers on her feet, two large plastic curlers in her hair that she was taking out as she regarded her. And Keeley hadn’t said anything. She had just kept on silently crying, shoulders quivering, emotion seeping out of her until Silvie had ushered her inside, stripping her of her coat.

  ‘Keeley,’ Silvie breathed. ‘Please. I am worried for you. Have you been… attacked? Are you hurt? Where is Rach?’

  ‘No,’ Keeley breathed. She looked at the coffee cup, wondering whether to drink some of the liquid or to put it on the antique-looking table next to her. ‘And Rach… is OK.’

  Keeley hadn’t gone back to their hotel. She had hailed a taxi and come straight here looking for answers she hadn’t had the strength to ask anyone the questions for yet. She needed to try and distance herself from her feelings for Ethan for a moment and quieten the roar of her heart to get to the truth.

  ‘Then what can I do?’ Silvie asked her, eyes full of deep concern. ‘Please, Keeley, tell me what I can do.’

  Keeley reached for her hand then, drawing the woman closer until Silvie dropped down into the seat next to her. The blanket fell out of the woman’s arms and hit the floor.

  Keeley took one of the biggest breaths she had ever taken, feeling the air fill her entire body, and her eyes drifted then to a photograph on the mantle. Ferne. She let out a sigh, really concentrating, trying to look into the heart of the woman who had given her the ultimate gift. Had Ferne loved Ethan too? Was that what she was going to hear from Silvie when she dared to ask? How could that happen? How could fate allow that to happen?

  ‘Keeley, you are worrying me,’ Silvie spoke then. ‘Are you ill? Do you need me to call a doctor?’

  ‘No,’ Keeley said straightaway. ‘It’s… not like that.’ She gave Silvie’s hand a squeeze. ‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed. ‘For turning up here and, well, for… turning up here.’

  ‘Keeley, you can come here any time. It is my wish to spend as much time with you as you are willing to give me. I have not pushed things because, well, we both know it is a difficult situation and I really would not wish for you to feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Keeley reassured, nodding. ‘I really don’t.’ She swallowed. ‘At first, perhaps, because I was nervous, I felt a little overwhelmed. But, getting to know you, it has been so nice and you are so nice. And I feel like I know Ferne so much better now.’

  She felt Silvie squeeze her hand back and it only made her want to start crying again. Except, if she wanted answers she needed to hold it together. ‘But what I need for you to tell me about now is… someone else.’

  ‘Someone else?’ Silvie asked, frown lines arriving on her forehead.

  Keeley nodded. ‘I… want you to tell me about…’ This was so hard. Because as much as she wanted to know, there was still a big part of her that didn’t want this to be the case. She swallowed. ‘I want you to tell me about… Ethan Bouchard.’

  ‘Ethan?’ Silvie asked, now looking even more confused.

  Keeley nodded. ‘You know him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Silvie began. ‘Of course. I was hoping so much to introduce you to each other. I invited him to dinner here and to our lunch today, but he said he was busy with something for the hotels.’ She sighed. ‘And losing Ferne was as hard for Ethan as it was for the rest of the family. And, to be honest, I think that he was a little overwhelmed about the prospect of meeting someone with that kind of… tie to Ferne.’

  Keeley squeezed her lips together and closed her eyes for a second, all her worst fears being rapidly realised. She hadn’t got this wrong. Ethan was connected to Ferne. His hotels and the Perfect Paris hotels were one and the same. She should have seen it before. The moment they had first met chasing Pepe – it was right outside her hotel – Perfect Paris Eiffel Tower. Why hadn’t she asked the right questions from the outset? Why had it taken until now to know?

  ‘Does he know who I am?’ Keeley asked. ‘Does he know my name?’ He couldn’t know, could he? He couldn’t have, all this time, been playing some kind of game with her feelings?

  ‘I… do not know,’ Silvie said, looking confused. ‘When I first mentioned it, he shut me down so fast. I…’

  Silvie pulled her chair a little closer, recapturing Keeley’s hand. ‘Have the two of you met already?’ she asked. ‘Ethan spends much of his time at our flagship hotel in the Opera District, but I know he has been determined to do something special this Christmas at all the hotels. We have had… certain difficulties of late, but we will… work through them… as a family.’

  As a family. Keeley couldn’t stop her body reacting to that sentence. What did that mean? Tears were seeping from the corners of her eyes again.

  ‘Who is he?’ Keeley asked. ‘To you… and to Ferne?’

  Silvie sighed, sitting back a little and raising her slipper-covered feet towards the fire. ‘That is a question the Durands have been asking themselves for around twenty years.’ She smiled. ‘Ethan, he is like an… adopted son you could say… just without the paperwork. Ferne, she started bringing Ethan to this house when he was perhaps eight or nine. And, when we found out where he was living, we arranged official visits and trips out, weekends here. Then, eventually, as the years went by, he was more here than anywhere else.’ She smiled again. ‘So you have met him. I am glad. He was a very big part of Ferne’s life. He knew her the best out of everybody.’

  Keeley nodded, her body beginning to shake again. ‘They were in love, weren’t they?’

  ‘Oh! No!’ Silvie said immediately, her head shaking. ‘Goodness, no. Ferne, she was never interested in boys in that way.’ Silvie looked directly at Keeley then. ‘I never had any doubt about that.’ She patted Keeley’s hand. ‘Before Ferne left for London… before the accident… she told me that she had just started to date someone new.’ Silvie smiled. ‘She said that if it was still going well after Christmas then she very much wanted me to meet her.’ Silvie sighed. ‘Ferne had many dates, but she had never suggested I meet anyone before. I did not think that the place I would be first meeting Nicole would be Ferne’s funeral.’ She sighed again. ‘But… I was very glad to meet her. I could tell that she cared for Ferne very much and it was nice to know that my daughter was at her happiest romantically before she passed away.’

  Despite Silvie’s sad story, a flicker of hope burned brightly in Keeley’s heart. Ferne and Ethan had never been together, never been in love. But he hadn’t wanted to meet her. Hadn’t wanted to share dinner with the person who had the kidney of someone he was close to. What did that mean for them now?

  ‘Keeley,’ Silvie said softly. ‘Ethan and Ferne, they were the very best of friends. At times, inseparable. And, at the beginning, I did have my concerns about the relationship. Ethan, he was always an unknown entity. I think he will forever be a little like that. But what I have discovered, from getting to know him, is that the core of a person does not come from the people that made them, it comes very much from the nurturing.’ She took a breath. ‘Has he told you the kind of life he was leading when he was young?’

  Keeley nodded. ‘A little. But I… didn’t push.’

  ‘Well, you should know that someone who has had the kind of treatment I imagine Ethan has had goes one of two ways. There is the tragic way, where they can never find the exit from the vicious circle they have grown up with, or there is the way where they take everything that has been dealt to them and they turn it on its head and rise above it.’ Silvie adjusted herself in her seat. ‘It takes the strongest of characters to do that. Can you think how it might be? To not let the scars of your past taint your future? I am not saying that his upbringing has not affected who Ethan is today, only that he has somehow successfully used it as a weapon to drive him to better things. Yet still, all the time, Ethan believes he is not good enough, when the truth is, actually he is better than all of us.’

  Keeley took in everyth
ing Silvie had said. It was a brief story of the man she already knew had a good heart. And she knew that because he had shown it to her. But that was before. How were things going to change if he found out who she was? How did she feel now she knew he had been like a brother to her donor?

  ‘Tell me,’ Silvie said gently. ‘What is it you really want to know about Ethan?’

  What did she say now? The absolute truth? That he had captured her heart like no other, but now there was this undeniable bond between him and the woman who had saved her life it felt unsurmountable, almost incestuous.

  She shook her head, tears escaping again. ‘I met Ethan… when I first arrived in Paris. He was carrying a penguin. And somehow, through every twist and turn of my visit here, he’s been there.’ She took a breath. ‘And, after the shortest time, I found myself wanting him to be there.’ She swallowed before starting again. ‘And then it was as if we were meant to find each other. And I don’t understand that at all but… somehow it happened.’

  ‘Oh, Keeley,’ Silvie gasped.

  ‘I had no idea who he was. I had no idea he knew Ferne. He told me about his hotels eventually, but still I never connected the two things until…’

  ‘Until?’ Silvie asked, still holding Keeley’s hand.

  ‘Until when I was here for dinner,’ she admitted. ‘And we were in Ferne’s room and a book fell on the floor.’ She closed her eyes, remembering. ‘A photo fell out and… I don’t know… I wish I hadn’t looked. I wished I’d left it on the floor.’ She sighed in frustration and gazed at the flames. ‘I told myself it wasn’t Ethan. As if anyone else could have those eyes?! And then… tonight… he took me to one of his hotels and… it was one of your hotels.’ She paused. ‘Perfect Paris Opera.’

  ‘Keeley, what has actually happened to make you so sad? Has Ethan done something? Said something?’

  She shook her head, trying not to fall apart again. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, he hasn’t done anything. Except… get to know me like no one’s ever done before.’ She wiped tears from her face with the back of her hand. ‘And now… it’s ruined.’