A Perfect Paris Christmas - Mandy Baggot Page 0,14

separate their joined hands so they could cut Keeley free…

‘My dad said that, at the time, after it happened, we agreed that if the donor’s family wanted to get in contact we were happy for our details to be passed on.’ Keeley took a breath. ‘I think, my parents were so grateful, so happy that I was alive… that they would have agreed to pretty much anything.’ Not that it wasn’t a good thing. She swallowed as that thought went across her mind. Was it a good thing? She wasn’t sure, if her mum had the time over again, that she would agree to contact.

‘And who is she? Is she really the mother of your donor? I mean, there are hundreds of people emailing other people telling them they know they’re entitled to compensation from an accident they never had.’ Rach sniffed. ‘So, how do you know she is who she says she is?’

There had been many things that had crossed Keeley’s mind since she had read the email from Silvie Durand, but the woman being an imposter wasn’t one of them. What would there be to gain?

‘You don’t think I should go,’ Keeley translated.

‘I don’t think someone sending you an email inviting you to Paris is a normal, everyday thing, that’s all.’

‘I know,’ Keeley breathed. ‘But my whole life isn’t a normal every day thing, is it?’

‘What does your mum say?’ Rach asked.

Keeley curled a hand around her glass, fingers tightening. Rach knew very well how Lizzie would have reacted. Rach was well aware of Lizzie’s overprotective bent.

‘She thinks Silvie Durand is going to imprison me in a Perspex, soundproof box in a storage facility and start calling me Beck… or, you know, Ferne,’ Keeley sighed. Why had this situation arisen? Why now? When the Andrews family were just, somehow, beginning to mend.

‘Ferne?’ Rach queried, snowmen still jangling.

Rach obviously had no idea who Ferne was. And the name hadn’t meant anything until the email. But now her donor had a name and a mother, Ferne was becoming one of the most important names in Keeley’s world.

‘That’s the name of my donor. Ferne Durand. She’s French. Was French. Hence the invitation to Paris and—’

‘French?’ Rach queried, brow furrowing. ‘How does that work?’

‘Um, what do you mean?’

‘Well, what was she doing here in England when you had your accident? Was she sick? Did she have an accident too? Or did they fly in the body part from France? Isn’t there some sort of use-by date with a kidney?’

‘I…’ Keeley didn’t know where to start. She only had some of the puzzle pieces. Which was maybe why she needed to speak to Silvie Durand. But was it speak to her? Or meet with her? She took a breath. ‘Rach, I wanted your take on it. Because you’re my best friend and because you’re not my mum and because you don’t always take the safe option.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Rach asked, sniffing as if offended. ‘You’ve somehow just made me sound super-slutty.’

Keeley sat a little taller in her chair, taking a glance outside at London life on the street below. There were workmen on ladders, attaching festive signage to lampposts, swarths of thick green fake fir swags under their arms. What would Paris feel like at this time of year? What did Paris feel like at any time of the year? She focused back to Rach and steadied her nerve. ‘I want to go.’

‘You want to go?’ Rach exclaimed.

Keeley hadn’t known she actually wanted to go until the words were out of her mouth and she felt them in her soul. How could she not go? How could she not want to meet the mother of her donor? She was only here because of this woman’s daughter’s selfless act. She nodded at Rach.

‘You want to go,’ Rach repeated, softer this time, as if saying the words again, more slowly would help them feel more agreeable.

‘She sounds normal in her email. It’s not pushy. It’s a request. It doesn’t sound like any kind of demand. She simply wants to meet me and—’

‘And she’s paying for tickets on the Eurostar to make it happen.’ Rach still looked suss. But Rach looked suss a lot. Particularly when designer goods were marked down in a Boxing Day sale and she thought they had to be counterfeit. Counterfeits she could get even cheaper from someone she knew…

‘I think,’ Keeley started, putting a hand through her hair and pushing it off her shoulders, ‘she’s offered that because she’s