‘If it isn’t any trouble,’ Keeley answered. ‘The person who invited me has fallen asleep and the dog who was supposed to be pleased to see me couldn’t wait to shoot past me.’ She smiled.
‘The dog is trying to wake Jeanne up,’ Ethan replied. ‘Licking her face like she is an ice cream.’
Keeley stepped towards him. ‘Let me help.’
‘It is OK,’ Ethan said. ‘The kitchen… it is… petite.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Keeley said. ‘I would like to see it.’
Ethan smiled. ‘There is only about a metre to regard.’
‘Aren’t the very best things supposed to come in small packages?’ The second the sentence left her lips she blushed.
His smile widened then, a look of pure sexy mischief dancing in his eyes. ‘Ah, Keeley,’ he breathed. ‘But, sometimes, also what you see is not always what you get.’
Now her blush was turning bonfire hot and she wondered whether she could stand next to him in a confined kitchen space without wondering exactly what the true dimensions of his package was…
Ethan laughed then. ‘Come.’ He beckoned. ‘I will show you what the French stockpile in their cupboards.’
Fifty-Three
Ethan wanted to impress her. It was stupid, wasn’t it? To want to impress someone he had learned put more weight on feelings and comfort than she did on the size of someone’s living space or whether they had top-of-the-range kitchen appliances. Yet still he wanted her to like the place he lived the way he liked it. There was a reason it was small. There was a reason he hadn’t moved to a different part of Paris, somewhere considered more affluent. This was who he was. This was all he needed.
He had made hot chocolate and then he had lit the wood burner. It was the tiniest of fires against one bare brick wall, so close to the sofa that if you stuck your feet out too far you might catch your toes on the front of it. But it didn’t need to be of a size to adequately heat the living room. And it was warm now, perhaps a little too warm considering he and Keeley were sat close together on the only two-seater sofa he had found to fit in the room.
‘How is your hot chocolate?’ Ethan asked, plucking his mug from the coffee table and taking a sip.
‘It’s very good,’ Keeley admitted.
‘If I wanted to impress you I would tell you it is my mother’s recipe,’ Ethan said.
‘It’s not?’
‘It is out of a jar, with a touch of milk, blended together to form a paste, before you add the hot water.’
‘And now I have your secret to making it so well,’ Keeley said.
He smiled. There was a question he had been wanting to ask her almost since they had met, but he had battered it away as unimportant. If he asked it now he knew it would change things from living in the moment to making plans for something else. But his need to know the answer was now creeping up as December started to accelerate in numbers…
‘Keeley,’ Ethan began.
‘Yes.’
‘How long are you staying in Paris?’ It was out there now, but it felt altogether too blunt. He followed it up. ‘I do not know if you are… here on holiday or… with your work or… something else.’
‘A holiday,’ Keeley answered. She cleared her throat and leaned forward to put her mug of hot chocolate down on the coffee table. ‘Rach and I… well, we had some time off that needed to be used up before the end of the year and… we had never been to Paris before so…’
‘And you are returning when?’ He swallowed. He was now feeling anxious about her answer. What if she said she was leaving soon? Before Christmas. Sooner…
‘We haven’t actually fixed a date yet,’ Keeley said. ‘But my parents are expecting me back for Christmas Day. And if I don’t get back for Christmas Day it’s likely my mum will phone the British Embassy.’
Ethan smiled. ‘OK.’ Soon. But not so soon they couldn’t spend more time together. This was good. Or at least, better than bad.
‘What about your mother?’ Keeley asked then, sitting a little sideways so she was facing him. ‘Would she phone the gendarmes if you were overseas and didn’t come back when you said you would?’
‘Ah,’ Ethan said with a sigh. His mother. His parentage. The thing he never talked about. Immediately he got ready to change the subject or trot out the usual tired lines he gave to girls in bars who wanted more than a physical connection during a one-night encounter. But the words weren’t coming as easily as usual and one look at Keeley’s expression – soft, inquisitive, ready to be fully invested in his answer – told him this was not the time for brushing this off. ‘I… do not know my mother.’
He turned a little side-on too and watched the confusion appear on her face. ‘I… do not know my father either.’ He shrugged, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
‘You don’t know them very well?’ Keeley asked. ‘Or you…’ She stopped, as if trying to get her mind to catch up. He filled in the gaps for her.
‘I do not know them at all. I have… never known them,’ he stated. ‘The story is that I was left at the orphanage as a baby. No note. No information at all. Just me.’ Saying the words was still uncomfortable even though time had marched on. He didn’t give himself permission to dwell very often because what was the point? It achieved nothing. ‘I am… very much… like Jeanne.’ He shrugged again. ‘Perhaps that is why she is here with her very annoying dog.’ He smiled, cradling his mug in his hands.
‘I can’t imagine not knowing who I came from,’ Keeley said. ‘Sorry… that was really unfeeling. I didn’t mean—’
‘It is OK,’ Ethan told her. ‘But I have never known any different.’ He placed his mug back on the table. ‘Everyone around me at the orphanage was in the same position. Later, everyone I came into contact with on the street was either in the same position or hiding from the family they did have.’
‘So how did you build up a business? Where did you begin? What about school?’
‘So many questions,’ Ethan breathed, a hint of a smile on his lips.
‘Sorry,’ Keeley said. ‘Am I asking too much? Is it—’
‘Non,’ Ethan said. ‘It is OK.’
It was OK, wasn’t it? To share the truth of his past with Keeley? Usually there was hesitation and a small voice telling him not to tell his story, but this time the little whisper from his subconscious seemed to be cheering him on. ‘The reason I am here and not still living on the street. The reason I have a reason to get up in the mornings is because… I met a girl.’
*
Keeley felt her heart plummet and she was back in that bedroom picking up a photograph from the carpet. Was this the moment she was going to find out what she was undoubtedly the most terrified of? She tried to calm her inner turmoil and not let it show on the outside. How did you do that when everything itched and pulsed?
‘That girl, she made me realise that the world is a complicated place, but that at the heart of everything is the simple knowledge that no matter what our background, or our beliefs, or our status… we are all the same,’ Ethan said with true conviction. ‘We are all in this world together and she showed me that I counted exactly as much as the next person. And she taught me never to apologise for being who I am.’