A Perfect Paris Christmas - Mandy Baggot Page 0,128

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