‘I am sure hating your boss is a prerequisite in most businesses,’ Ethan answered, deftly spreading his napkin over his lap. ‘I can deal with a little hate today, as long as I am going to love the food.’ Ethan leaned forward in his seat and sniffed the air. The most fragrant scent was rising with the steam from two rustic bowls on the tray Noel was balancing. The bowls belonged to a large set he had found hidden away in a suitcase under a table in the large market. They looked like something Jesus and his disciples might have used during The Last Supper. Thick, unrefined and slightly uneven rims in sturdy pottery with a deep bowl. They were exactly the right style to serve the spin on paupers’ food he hoped his chef had perfected in double quick time. He was going to see where he could source similar tableware for all the hotels if this new avenue proved as popular as he hoped it would.
Ethan breathed in the aroma of chicken, sausage, thyme, red wine and garlic and, if his stomach had hands, it would be applauding. He looked at Jeanne then and watched as she took the bowl from the tray before Noel had a chance to set it down. Grabbing a spoon, the girl attacked the food like she attacked any food put in front of her. But then, as the first mouthful must have hit her taste buds, she paused, closing her eyes and loudly snorting air through her nose in a show of nothing short of exaltation.
‘This is… so good,’ Jeanne announced, a cannellini bean falling from her lips.
Noel placed a bowl in front of Ethan and shook his head. ‘I have seen better bowls put in front of dogs.’
‘But feel it,’ Ethan said, his hand wrapping around the pottery, the warmth from the meal seeping through it, its solidity somehow strong and comforting. ‘This is… hunkering down during a snowstorm… or having a flu and being given that first taste of food you have not been able to smell or stomach for a week or—’
‘Knowing this might be the only meal you get for a week and it makes you remember someone you lost.’
This last thought came from Jeanne, but the girl wasn’t truly engaging with him and Noel. Ethan wasn’t sure she even knew that she had spoken at all. She was eating more slowly, carefully scooping up the cassoulet with her fork and looking like she was being completely present in her own moment with every portion she took. It was as if she was finally giving something, including herself, space and time to breathe.
‘Has anyone else ordered this dish tonight?’ Ethan wanted to know.
This was the most mini of trials, but he needed to get some feedback if he wanted to go all out for Christmas. He was hoping that reviews would be positive. He wasn’t sure what he would do if they weren’t positive.
‘Eighty per cent of diners have ordered it so far,’ Noel said with a sigh of disapproval. ‘Chef tells me he has not made this since he lived with his grandmother. Before cooking school. When he was around twelve.’
Ethan couldn’t halt his smile. He had been right to go with back to basics. He had felt it. And Keeley, she had made him feel it.
‘One moment and I will bring you some more water,’ Noel said, picking up the jug from the table.
As his assistant departed, Ethan lifted his fork, preparing to eat. And then he stopped.
‘Are you not going to eat it?’ Jeanne asked.
‘Food can talk to us, can it not?’ Ethan asked her.
‘You are mad.’
‘I see it talking to you.’
‘You do not see talking. You hear it.’ Jeanne wiped sauce from her mouth with her sleeve.
‘How does the food make you feel, Jeanne?’
‘A lot less hungry than I was before I ate it.’
‘Well, I feel rich,’ Ethan proclaimed, the idea really hitting him in the soul. ‘I am sitting here with this cassoulet and I feel like the richest man on Earth.’
‘You are rich,’ Jeanne reminded. ‘You own five hotels.’
‘It has nothing to do with the hotels. It has to do with… food on the table and… a fire in the grate and… the Christmas music in the air.’
‘And your heart filled with love? Blah blah blah.’
Ethan still hadn’t eaten a mouthful, although the aroma was continuing to wind its way through him, as were Jeanne’s words. Was his heart filled with love? He was too scared to think to those depths, but what he did know was that his heart was here, beating, awake and more alive than it had been in the past year. And his mind, well his mind was full of Keeley plus this strange little girl he seemed to have given a home to…
‘Do you make Christmas dinner at your hotels?’ Jeanne asked suddenly.
‘Of course!’
‘On Christmas Day?’
‘Yes, of course. We have many guests who stay here all over the festive period.’
‘But can anyone come here, on Christmas Day, and eat the food?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Ethan started. ‘But ordinarily we are fully booked a long time in advance.’
‘Oh,’ Jeanne said, shoulders sagging a little. ‘Not everyone then.’
Not everyone. Those two words hung in the air, somehow contrasting firmly with the delicious fragrant food, the air of joy to the world coming from the light conversation around them and the festive music being played by the pianist near the bar. Not everyone. How many times had Ethan been excluded in his lifetime? You never forgot how that felt.
‘I can change that,’ Ethan whispered.
‘What?’ Jeanne almost missed her mouth with the fork.
‘This year,’ Ethan continued. ‘We can make Christmas for everyone.’
He didn’t wait any longer. Digging his fork into the meal, he heaped up chicken, sausage and all the other flavours and brought it to his mouth. Closing his eyes, as well as his lips, he experienced all the textures and tastes, the nuances of herbs on his tongue, mixing so perfectly with the thick yet tender chunks of meat. It might have been based on a poor man’s meal, but it really did taste like it was fit for a king.
This was going to work. He was going to make it work.
Fifty-Nine
L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Tour Eiffel, Paris
‘The bread’s got better. Have you noticed? All the time we’ve been here it’s been fine, you know, white thin sliced and a few rustic baguettes, but now it’s like they went out and bought a bakery,’ Rach remarked the next morning as they sat eating breakfast.
‘Mmm,’ Keeley answered. She had been saying ‘mmm’ quite a lot in response to Rach’s questions since last night. Last night, when she had returned to the dining room at the Durands and a chocolate bombe, she just kept seeing that photo in her mind’s eye. Those grey soulful eyes. Did someone else have that same intense look? Or was it… could it really be… Ethan? And then Keeley’s mind started galloping away with that idea. If it was Ethan, why would Ferne have a photo of him? Inside a book. At the side of her bed. The obvious explanation was that they had been together. Ethan and Ferne. Ferne her kidney donor. Together. A couple. Ferne in a relationship with the only man ever to bring her out in goose bumps just from thinking about him… but that was crazy! Until, that was, you started thinking about the ‘hotel’ connection. Ethan said he part-owned hotels. The Durands owned the Perfect Paris chain. What if the two things were connected? That would make the photo fall into perfect place. And why, oh why, hadn’t Keeley asked Silvie any of this last night? One question, one answer, would have provided her with clarity. She could have thought about the ‘what then?’ afterwards.