A Perfect Paris Christmas - Mandy Baggot Page 0,150
worries I am going to teleport to heaven if I eat more than the recommended daily fat intake of… I don’t know… Bo-Bo.’ She sighed. ‘And also because I’ve been cautious. Too cautious. I’ve been the one marking time instead of making time. I don’t want to do that anymore, Ethan. I want to live my life. Really live it.’
Her heart was thudding now. He was so close to her that if she reached out she could touch him. And she so wanted to touch him, more than anything else. But he had to want it too. He had to be sure. Because he knew everything now. Who she was. What her life had been like. Hopefully, what it could be.
‘You think my life is straightforward?’ Ethan asked, stepping away from her and heading to the basket of logs.
‘No, of course not,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t say it was.’
‘I have a child living with me, Keeley. Me! Ethan Bouchard… has a child!’ He quickly opened up the stove and threw another log into the flames. ‘You know, people, they have sex without contraception and they ask themselves what happened when pregnancy occurs. Me, I find a girl taking chocolate from a Christmas tree and she moves in… with her dog! I do not even know her real name or how old she is! Am I completely mad?’
‘Yes,’ Keeley answered. ‘But not when it comes to Jeanne.’
‘Am I even the right person to be guiding her?’
‘Ethan, she has been living on the streets for a reason. I suspect not just because there is no one else, but because she has never met anyone else who immediately cared like you did.’
Ethan turned around to face her, brushing his hands together. ‘I barely know how to look after myself. Two days ago I ate something from the back of the fridge I could not even distinguish.’
‘But you’ve been making meals for Jeanne and leaving them in boxes with her name on,’ Keeley replied.
Ethan sighed. ‘She told you that?’
‘She has been worried about you. She cares about you almost as much as she cares for Bo-Bo.’
‘I am surprised she has any care left the amount she gives to that chien.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not know what the future holds. I have never really known. Some of the very first things I do remember involve not knowing if I was going to survive the day. When you have felt like that it is hard to start doing any kind of planning but…’
‘But?’
He sighed. ‘Ma crevette.’
It was that name again. The name of the person Ethan had talked about before. Who was she?
‘Ferne,’ he said. ‘I called her “my shrimp”. I have never known anyone be able to eat shrimp like she did.’
Keeley closed her eyes and shook her head. So much misunderstanding had gone on from the very beginning. But there was one thing she really needed to know if they were going to try to resolve things.
‘I… care about you, Ethan,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t ever felt for anyone what I feel for you.’ She swallowed, feeling exposed by that admission. ‘But I know how my connection with Ferne might have made you feel.’
‘Keeley…’
‘No, I know it feels weird and it is weird I suppose. But I need to know that, when you look at me now, you still see the woman you met outside the hotel who chased a penguin down the street with you. That I’m still to you the woman who went running in her dad’s darts jumper and whispered to an almost-dying dog, who somehow rose again, and laughed at the clowns at the circus and played very bad petanque and—’
The rest of her words never made it past her lips as her mouth was captured by Ethan’s in a kiss that pulled her off her feet and into his embrace. It was as passionate as it was magical and it left her in no doubt that he had listened to every word she’d said. When Ethan broke off Keeley was out of breath and he was looking at her, gazing in wonder as if she were something precious that might evaporate if he took his eyes away.
‘I only see you, Keeley,’ he told her. ‘I promise, I will always only see you.’ He ran a thumb gently down her cheek to the curve of her lips. ‘You are my “comfortable”.’
This time it was Keeley who joined their lips together again. And as they kissed, she knew,