A Perfect Paris Christmas - Mandy Baggot Page 0,18

in the lobby, then exquisite and festive artisan meals in the restaurant.’

Even before he had finished, Silvie was shaking her head. Ethan wasn’t sure whether to keep talking or to cut his losses and stop. Perhaps he should have paid more serious attention to Noel earlier.

‘Ethan,’ Silvie said with a heavy sigh. ‘The way you speak. It is like you think you are telling me what it is that I want to hear. Except what I am hearing makes me feel like you do not care about the hotels any longer.’

He didn’t care. He had only cared about Ferne. What did it all matter now she was gone? She had been his one true friend. She had never let him down… until she had, by leaving him. And in a dark, twisted and selfish way, he hated her for that! He could not count the number of nights of not sleeping he had spent cursing her name for not being around, for abandoning him. She had been his one constant and he had adored her. Why couldn’t she have held on a little longer? Fought a little harder? He swallowed. He couldn’t admit these feelings to Silvie, to anyone. Silvie would have him under the scrutiny of a shrink before he could say ‘brain drain’. But he needed to say something and fast…

‘I thought maybe ballet,’ he said tentatively. ‘Sleeping Beauty. The hotels could embody the story somehow. We could have a princess and a prince to greet customers, a small ballet performance after dinner on some evenings.’ He truly had no idea why he had said that. It was madness. ‘It is festive, but it is also different.’ What he did know was it wasn’t really leaning towards blue and silver…

‘Ferne loved Sleeping Beauty,’ Silvie breathed. There was definite reverie now, but still there was control.

‘I know,’ Ethan admitted.

Silvie then seemed to straighten in her seat, adjusting the scarf at her neck and taking him in anew. ‘But I do not think we should be looking at the past.’ She took a breath. ‘I think we should be looking at how to shape the future. The future of the Perfect Paris hotels and your future, Ethan.’

An uncomfortable feeling stirred in his stomach now. Suddenly all those calorific nut products were doing the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, pirouetting amid the wine and water and the fear about what Silvie was going to say next. What exactly did the emphasis on ‘your’ future mean? Except he did know. Deep down he knew exactly what it meant. It meant what it always meant when it came from a figure in authority. Stupid boy. Idiot. Useless. Good for nothing. You couldn’t change the hand of destiny you had been dealt. And his cards had been marked from the very beginning. Here was the moment when the hotels were going to be stripped from him. And it wasn’t the financial implications of that that bothered him. It was the idea of losing another part of Ferne.

‘I am thinking of stepping back from… things,’ Silvie told him.

‘Things?’ He felt the need to repeat the word to seek some sort clarification.

‘Louis is coming back from America.’

Now Ethan’s hackles were really rising. Louis Durand. Ferne’s older brother. His nemesis. If you were allowed to have a nemesis within the family who had practically raised you. Ethan had never been able to put an actual finger on the reason he had always disliked Louis as much as he had always adored Ferne. Perhaps it was Louis’s entitled attitude and the fact that he was good at pretty much everything. He worked for a big corporation in the US as a head-hunter. Paris and Ferne’s hotels had always been small-time to him, like tiny Monopoly properties on a small-scale board.

‘Is he staying long?’ He couldn’t think of anything better to say, but he hoped he had managed not to weave too much animosity around the four words…

‘Perhaps,’ Silvie replied, pouring herself another glass of wine. ‘It depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On how you feel about working with Louis instead of with me.’

Ethan’s chest tightened. He hated the idea. He hated the idea of the idea. He loathed it! He wanted to stamp all over the idea and set fire to it! Whatever Silvie was about to tell him, he was sure he wasn’t ready to hear it.

‘I am getting old, Ethan,’ Silvie explained, sighing. ‘I am too old to be concerned with profit and loss and accountability. I did not