A Perfect Paris Christmas - Mandy Baggot Page 0,146

woman on you, and everyone else talking about second chances and making moments count. The poor poor girl hasn’t been given a minute to even process what her new life means.’ Silvie stood then, making her way around the table towards him. ‘Until she met you.’

Ethan didn’t dare look up. His heart was hammering against his rib cage and he felt rather like one of the rabbits from reception who got agitated if the children held them too long or too hard.

‘Because Keeley met you with no precursor,’ Silvie reminded him. ‘She told me you literally ran into each other. With the penguin.’

He swallowed. ‘Yes.’

‘And, for a moment, for the very first time, Keeley was simply herself. A bright, intelligent, young woman in Paris, the person she was before these tragic events, the person she so wants to be if only fate would let her.’

Ethan shook his head, the tears coming then. ‘I do not know what to do,’ he sobbed. ‘I cannot stop thinking about her. But every time I think about her I think about Ferne and how much I still miss her.’

Silvie slipped into the seat beside him then. ‘We all still miss her. And there is nothing wrong with that.’ She sighed. ‘I know that Louis thinks I have been spending too much time in Ferne’s room, but there is a reason for that. I have decided… that it is time to clear a few things out. Not all of it. Never all of it. But there are deserving people who would appreciate almost a whole house of fashion that lives in her wardrobes.’

‘She has more clothes than Givenchy,’ Ethan answered.

Silvie laughed. ‘She really does.’

Ethan smiled and rubbed at his eyes.

‘Ethan,’ Silvie said gently. ‘The only body part that makes us who we are cannot be transplanted.’ She sighed. ‘Our soul.’ She laid her hand on his. ‘And… I believe that the soul dies altogether at exactly the same time we do.’ Silvie smiled. ‘Everything else about us is… simply machinery.’

‘You really look at it like that?’ Ethan asked her.

Silvie nodded. ‘I also know that if Ferne had not been in the UK, in London, on that November night, Keeley would most likely not be here now.’ She smiled at Ethan, patting his hand. ‘Do not punish Keeley for being able to live because Ferne could not. I believe Keeley has been punishing herself for far too long already, with absolutely no grounds for it.’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Ethan said, watery eyes struggling to focus.

Silvie sighed. ‘Yes, you do,’ she told him sincerely. ‘And you also know what Ferne would want you to do too.’

Suddenly, loud barking erupted from outside the door and, looking through the glass into the lobby area beyond, Ethan saw Bo-Bo was running off with a whole cake lodged in between his jaws.

‘That dog!’ Silvie said, shaking her head. ‘It is a menace! And it needs a visit to the groomers.’

‘So did Jeanne before I saw a bun in her hair today,’ Ethan replied.

Silvie smiled. ‘You liked my handiwork?’

‘I knew you had done it. I just did not know why.’

‘Jeanne was worried about you. She made sure we were introduced. And while you have been… absent… she has asked for some books from my library and some of Ferne’s things to decorate her room.’

‘I… do not know what I am doing with Jeanne either,’ Ethan admitted. ‘I did not think. I…’

‘Oh no, Ethan,’ Silvie interrupted. ‘You did think. You thought very deeply with regard to Jeanne. Except you did not think with your head. You thought with your heart.’ She squeezed his hand then. ‘And that is what you should carry on doing. Come to the hotel tonight. Come and see what has changed.’ A smile crossed her lips. ‘I think you will be surprised.’

Sixty-Six

L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Tour Eiffel, Paris

‘I’m quite nervous,’ Keeley admitted. ‘Almost as if this is my hotel.’

‘Well,’ Rach said, sheening a rather light-coloured lipstick for her over her mouth as they both looked at their reflections in the mirror of the ladies’ toilets, ‘you’ve designed all these changes and made some of the curtains. You made it all happen so it is your project really.’

‘And it’s your big date,’ Keeley reminded. ‘Tonight could be the night with Antoine, right?’

‘I am counting on the romance in that yurt.’

Keeley smiled and touched a section of her hair, pulling it a little straighter. The yurt was a triumph even if she did say so herself. If the romantic or