‘Do you think Antonie looks hot today?’
‘Mmm.’
‘That’s it. You really aren’t listening, are you?’ Rach exclaimed, pouring herself a glass of orange juice.
‘Mmm.’
‘Keeley!’ Rach shouted.
The bellow had Keeley jumping in her chair and connecting her elbow with her bowl of healthy fruit she had known she wasn’t going to eat from the moment she ladeled it in there. ‘What?’ She took a breath. ‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘I said Antonie looked hot and you said “mmm” which means you weren’t listening to me.’ Rach explained. ‘You haven’t been listening to me since last night. What happened upstairs with Silvie? Did it get a bit creepy being in Ferne’s bedroom?’ Rach gasped. ‘She didn’t get out that puppet, did she?’
Keeley shook her head. ‘No.’
Should she ask Rach’s opinion? Tell her about the photograph? How sure was she that it could have been a picture of Ethan?
‘Louis asked me out again last night,’ Rach announced, sipping at her juice.
‘Oh,’ Keeley answered. ‘And what did you say?’
Rach took a breath. ‘I said no.’
‘You did?’
Rach nodded firmly with a big smile on her face. ‘Well, it would have been easy to say yes, wouldn’t it? He’s cute now the allergy’s worn off a bit. I’m hot. But… he would have been another “for now” not a “forever”.’ Rach sighed. ‘And, you know, I might not exactly be looking for my “forever” yet, but I am, I think, looking for my “for more than a fortnight”.’
Was that what Keeley was looking for too? Or was this connection with Ethan only going to last as long as their stay in the French capital? Did it matter? She hadn’t exactly been rife with romance this past year, unlike Rach.
‘Please tell me I didn’t just say no to something I should have said yes to!’ Rach begged. ‘I mean he’s good-looking and he’s rich and he’s into me and he has that slight vulnerable edge of sadness filtering through his preppy jumpers and—’
‘Does he?’ Keeley asked.
‘You can tell he loved his sister,’ Rach carried on. ‘Just in the way his expression changes when he talks about her. He sounded so proud of the work she did at the hotels and he showed me some photos of them when they were kids. Both of them really glowed up!’
‘Ferne had a massive bed,’ Keeley said with a smile. ‘And the mattress was so comfortable.’
‘Better than Premier Inn?’
‘I’m not sure—’
‘Apparently a family friend was meant to be at dinner last night. Someone Louis doesn’t get along with. Whoever that is, they’re apparently a thorn in his side at the moment. Might have made for a bit of excitement if they’d turned up.’
‘Silvie didn’t mention anything to me,’ Keeley answered.
‘I think Silvie was focused on trying to matchmake you and Louis. If only you hadn’t met a man with a penguin and a dog on its last legs.’
‘You saw for yourself that Bo-Bo’s fine now.’ She sighed, her mind still delivering her that grainy Polaroid image.
‘And are you fine?’ Rach asked a little softer now.
Keeley nodded. ‘Yes. Of course. Dinner last night was nice. I feel I know Silvie and Ferne even better now.’
And, all she had to do, if she really wanted to know if there was a possibility that Ferne might have a photo of Ethan in a book beside her bed was ask. Or she could completely forget she had ever set eyes on it and whoever it might be in the picture.
Keeley offered up her coffee cup. ‘OK, let’s have a toast.’ She took a breath. ‘Here’s to having a little French fun today. Let’s see some more sights, do a little Christmas shopping, not worry about anything. What do you say?’
‘I say oui,’ Rach replied with a grin. ‘Magnifique.’
Fifty
Cirque Pinder, Paris
‘She has been excited all day,’ Ethan said that night, his eyes on Jeanne who was galloping ahead towards the grand entrance. A yellow and red striped big top, French flags flying from the uppermost struts was standing ahead of them, the sound of a fairground organ filling the night. ‘All day long it has been “what time is it?” and “how many hours to go?”.’
Keeley smiled. Her stomach was full of butterflies despite the date pep talk Rach had given her before she’d left their suite for the car waiting outside. She needed to chill. She needed to take things at face value and forget the ‘what might be’s’. Mindfulness. Calm. And if she really couldn’t do any of that she just needed to ask Ethan if he knew Ferne Durand and see what happened next. Except what did she say if Ethan was somehow connected to Ferne? Was she just going to blurt out ‘by the way I had a kidney transplant a year ago that I haven’t mentioned and I’m the proud owner of one of Ferne’s kidneys?’ She shivered at that thought. It was much better to still hope that there was no association at all. If there was no association then nothing had to change. She could still enjoy exploring the connection they had made together. And it was the thought of that opportunity being taken from her that was concerning her the most.
‘You are quiet,’ Ethan said, nudging her arm a little as they walked towards the archway bearing the name ‘Pinder’ in lights.
‘I’m taking it all in,’ Keeley answered. ‘I’ve never been to a circus at Christmas time before.’
‘For me, I feel it is the perfect time to go,’ Ethan said. ‘The snow on the ground, the carol singers outside, the electric atmosphere inside the tent.’ He pointed ahead to Jeanne. ‘The very excited child.’
Jeanne was looking back to them now, a scowl on her face that was visible even from this distance and likely in response to the pace of their stroll.
‘I know it is unorthodox,’ Ethan began. ‘To bring a child along on a date. But, from what I remember of this circus, she is going to be transfixed from the very beginning.’ He edged a little closer. ‘So transfixed that she will not notice if we… sit a little close to each other and maybe…’
A date. It was definitely a date. Now Keeley’s heart was definitely telling her to forget everything else. She could close off all the dialogue in her head, concentrate only on how this man was making her feel. Before she knew it, her fingers were finding his and she curled them around his hand, loving the way they felt when they were fitted together. He didn’t need to finish the sentence. She knew completely what he meant.
*
The scent of the sawdust, plus the slight smell of heat from all the spotlights stirred Ethan’s memories as they entered the big top to a rapidly growing audience. Everything here was a harkening back to when he was Jeanne’s age, seeing exotic animals and crazy characters for the very first time.
‘Are we close?’ Jeanne asked, tugging on his sleeve. ‘Will I be able to see everything?’
‘Are we close? I do not know,’ Ethan answered, drawing the tickets from the pocket of his coat. ‘I did not think to—’