A Perfect Paris Christmas - Mandy Baggot Page 0,130

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