A Perfect Paris Christmas - Mandy Baggot Page 0,123
one of the reasons this hotel was so popular. Its fabric seamlessly blended between being a large building fit for hundreds of guests, but also with the quaint, appealing throwback features hinting at the villages of France and the countryside. And Ethan was going to make it his mission to do the same for the internal décor going forward. Tonight he had made this garden courtyard just for them, with himself and Jeanne working hard all afternoon to get it perfect. He looked to the windows of the hotel then, imagining the girl and Bo-Bo peering out at them. There was no evidence of this yet.
Her tone was exactly what he had hoped for. He watched her walk into the middle of the walled courtyard, the trailing ivy still present on the rough, old brick walls at this time of year, strings of tiny golden lights interwoven amid their vines. There were candles everywhere. Plain Mason jars holding tealights sat all along the path to the main building some also perfectly positioned on the small bistro table set for two – a bottle of red wine breathing in its centre – and finally there were half a dozen more marking out the perimeter of the petanque court. Lights on the wall focused their attention on the strip of sand and shining silver balls.
‘What is this place?’ Keeley asked. ‘Is it another part of hidden Paris no one knows about?’
‘Non,’ Ethan answered. ‘This is… one of my hotels.’
Keeley turned around then, her gaze moving from the twinkling romantic garden he had made, to him. ‘Is it really?’
He nodded, at last feeling nothing but the deepest pride in what he and Ferne had achieved over the time they’d had together. ‘It is.’ He swallowed. ‘Is it… what you imagined?’
‘Gosh,’ Keeley said. ‘I don’t know what I imagined. I suppose I thought it might be a little like the hotel I’m staying in. Although things there have changed a little bit over the past few days.’
‘They have?’ He held his breath, wanting her to say the changes were all for the better.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘The bread is much much nicer and the too big Christmas tree in the lobby has gone. Now it’s one a little less dramatic.’
She did approve. But he didn’t want to say anything yet. He wanted the interior of this hotel – the one he had put his heart and soul into today – to be another complete surprise to her… together with his proposal.
‘So,’ he said, spreading his arms wide, ‘a good surprise? A garden in the city, a little red wine and a game of petanque.’
She was smiling. ‘I’ve never played before. You are going to have to teach me.’
Her words thrilled him. He wanted to teach her many things. She had taught him a few things last night. She had taught him that sex could be so far removed from anything he had experienced before that it was almost another act entirely. There had been moments during the day when he had recalled a snapshot from their night together and his own lack of self-preservation, the freedom of his heart, had astounded him all over again. He had loved longer, harder and deeper last night than he had ever thought possible. And their lovemaking had most definitely been as much about the togetherness of their minds, hearts and souls as it had been about their bodies. Maybe even more so…
‘But of course,’ Ethan told her, stepping towards the sand. ‘Come.’
Fifty-Seven
‘Yes! Yes! I win! I win!
Keeley laughed as Ethan threw his hands into the night air and began to dance around the boules arena like he had just scored the winning goal in the World Cup. This was the third time he had won. Despite his expert tuition – that had involved much close contact she had absolutely enjoyed more than the game itself – Keeley just wasn’t skilled at the art of ‘chucking’. In fact, she was almost worse at petanque than she was at darts.
‘You are not celebrating with me,’ Ethan said, finally putting his arms down and stilling his moves. ‘You are a bad loser.’
‘Oh, no, hang on a minute,’ Keeley protested, all smiles. ‘That is very unfair.’
‘You are not congratulating me on my victory,’ Ethan continued.
‘You haven’t actually given me much of a chance,’ Keeley said, still laughing at him. ‘Anyway, it’s not the British thing to go around congratulating others who have beaten us by waving