A Perfect Paris Christmas - Mandy Baggot Page 0,75
completely mad? To be getting this all off my chest now. When we’re supposed to be sightseeing?’
‘No, I don’t think that,’ Rach whispered, darting what looked like tears away from her eyes. ‘It’s just… I haven’t seen you look that way since…’
She didn’t need to finish the sentence for Keeley’s benefit. She knew. And she could feel it too. Coming here had been a kickstart she badly needed. The comfort zone of protection her mum had wrapped around her was understandable, but only when she had broken out of that did she see all the implications of its limitations. She was living but she wasn’t living. And that had to stop.
Keeley threw her arms around Rach and gathered her close, closing her eyes and trying to isolate her senses from each other like Ethan had got her to do. What had Rach used to smell like when smelling had been so easy to do? Keeley smiled to herself, recalling memories of bags of goodies from Price Squash – half-price Milka chocolate (the one with the strawberry bits in), toothpaste, pork scratchings, this bloody hair dye and the tin of red paint they’d first bonded over cleaning up on a bus eight years ago. Rach had been carrying six tins of it and trying to press the button to alert the driver to stop, one had slipped from her grasp and rolled down onto the floor, spilling open on its journey. Within milliseconds the whole of the 328 was filling up with fumes and everyone was coughing. Only Keeley hadn’t run for the exit door as soon as the driver ordered everyone off, instead choosing to offer Rach her large pack of handwipes and help remove the mess.
Keeley laughed then. ‘Did they ever get that paint off the floor of the bus?’
‘What?’ Rach asked, stepping back from her friend’s embrace and looking like she had no idea what Keeley was talking about.
‘The 328 bus. Where we met. The bus covered in… what was the name of that horrible paint again?’
‘Hickory Smoke,’ Rach said, laughing. ‘It never covered properly either! Apart from the bus floor. My dad did six coats on the lounge wall before he gave up on it. Bloody Adie!’ She shook her head. ‘Lucky it was cheap.’
Keeley put her arm through her friend’s and turned them towards the street and their proposed incline to take in the view of the golden dome of Les Invalides. ‘You do deserve more, Rach. You are an amazing negotiator.’
‘I know,’ Rach said with positivity. ‘But perhaps I need to think about a change in agency… or at least put the frighteners on Roland. Make him realise he would be lost without me.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Keeley said, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘We’ll work out a strategy so he can’t fail to realise.’ She shrugged. ‘And if he doesn’t, then House 2 Home’s loss will be someone else’s gain.’
‘Right there with you,’ Rach said.
‘So, shall we do a little more shopping? I ought to make a start on Christmas while I’m here. I need to find something for my mum that she’s going to love so much she won’t worry when I tell her I’m moving out and giving my business another shot.’ Keeley took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure even something by Coco Chanel was going to do the trick there. ‘And we can discuss Louis. Has he texted you yet?’
Rach hugged Keeley’s arm. ‘He did but… I don’t know.’
‘What don’t you know?’
‘I don’t know if he’s really my Pyjama Man,’ Rach said with a sigh.
‘Well,’ Keeley said, ‘there’s only one way to find out.’
Thirty-Three
L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Opera District, Paris
Ethan burst into his office knowing he needed to freshen up before he met with Louis, Silvie and Ferne’s solicitor. Somehow, even though he had changed, he smelled of street-kid, dog and coffee. It was the exact combination of things he had once smelled of each and every day up until he had met the Durand family. Except his plan for a quick shower at the hotel was thwarted by the fact that the three of them were already sat in the room adjacent, around the boardroom table and Noel was collating papers on his desk.
‘What is going on?’ Ethan hissed at his assistant. ‘I am not late.’
‘Non,’ Noel agreed. ‘They are early. I sent you three messages.’
He’d seen Noel’s messages and ignored them. The vet had called and he had rushed to the surgery with Jeanne, expecting the worst but… it hadn’t