‘Alright! Alright! I get it,’ Rach said with a sigh. ‘Although I’d be slightly more grateful if I had a large strong coffee in my hands right about now.’
Noel cleared his throat in a manner that gave off irritation. ‘Are you interested in the history?’ he asked. ‘Or would you rather we skip to the boutiques again? There are at least a hundred other places I could be, although I am too polite and too in need of my job to tell Madame Durand that.’
‘I’d like some of the history please,’ Keeley told him. Despite being London-Marathon-in-a-heatwave-wearing-a-bear-costume-kind-of-exhausted she was also feeling energised. Perhaps it was the soul-searing sex with Ethan or maybe the early-morning wake-up when Bo-Bo decided to leave the comfort of Jeanne’s bed for the master bedroom. Or maybe it was the knowledge that something had changed in her. Keeley Andrews, penned into a pre-ordained life model where everything is triple-checked and planned with the fine detail of crisis management, was breaking out of her fragile mould.
‘Keels!’ Rach moaned.
‘Come on,’ Keeley said, putting her arm around her friend and walking closer to the July Column that was ahead of them. ‘It’s good to learn about what happened in the past. It makes you appreciate what we have now.’
‘Did you actually have sex last night or did you just spend the small hours reading books?’
Noel cleared his throat again. ‘The prison that was here was stormed in 1789 at the very beginning of the French revolution. Now the only thing that remains of it is the outline traced in stones that differs from the rest of the pavement. I will show you.’ He strode on.
‘You haven’t told me all the details of it yet,’ Rach reminded, taking Keeley’s arm. ‘And if we are going to be best friends as well as apartment sharers when we get back home then I am expecting all the details of everything, even more so than I normally do.’
Sex with Ethan. Keeley’s whole body was still humming from it. It was like her skin had been lightly glossed in a golden syrup and was still softly simmering from the heat they’d made together. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling. Even the snowflakes that seemed to be settling – and sticking – on her eyelashes more than anywhere else weren’t as annoying as they might have been.
‘It was,’ Keeley began, ‘incredible.’
‘Give me it in a food analogy,’ Rach ordered, expression eager.
‘It was like… devouring the best Chinese takeaway you’ve ever had, really really slowly, and feeling completely warm and full and… the end result is not putting any weight on and ending up with the figure of Emma Willis.’
‘Jesus!’ Rach exclaimed. ‘That good.’
‘That good.’
‘Did he—’ Rach started.
‘Regarde!’ Noel all but shouted. ‘Opera Bastille.’
Keeley looked up at the silver façade just ahead of them. It was all chrome and glass and granite. Nothing like the tiny alleyways and courtyards she had been hoping to see on this morning’s tour.
‘It was built in 1989 by a Canadian architect and you can take part in a tour inside if you so wish,’ Noel informed them. ‘It is approximately ninety minutes long.’
Keeley looked at Rach and Rach looked back at her. If Keeley was honest she was enjoying the snow, the Christmas trees sparkling from business premises along their route, the sound of carols in the air, even the city traffic was oddly pleasurable today. ‘Could we carry on walking? Is there somewhere nice we can stop for coffee?’
‘Now you’re talking my language,’ Rach said happily.
‘As you wish,’ Noel replied.
*
Noel had led them underneath a large red canopy where patio heaters were warming the patrons sitting underneath it. He had then instructed a waiter to take their order while he disappeared somewhere else citing he would be back in an hour’s time. Keeley thought their guide seemed slightly more harassed than usual today, his mind definitely elsewhere. Their coffees having arrived, it was pleasant sitting here, the chill taken out of the air by the heaters and still very much able to people-watch, Parisian life going on around them.
‘So,’ Rach said, sipping at her coffee. ‘Tell me, are you still not Kidney Girl or did you tell Ethan last night while he was all over you like chow mein?’
‘Still not Kidney Girl,’ Keeley admitted.
‘Whoa! It must be a record.’
Keeley smiled. ‘We might need to phone Guinness.’
She couldn’t deny, despite feeling like a bubbling ball of mercury waiting to rise up the thermometer, it had been on her mind the whole time Ethan had been stripping her of her clothes in his bedroom. She was going to be naked, fully exposed, for the first time since the accident. Would he find her scars off-putting – the four almost dent-like marks at her centre and the other longer curved scars at one side of her body. Would he ask about them? And if he did ask, what would she say? In the end, this morning, while she was dressing again and wanting to leave before Jeanne awoke, Ethan had finally asked her about them and she had given him the only answer she was ready to at the moment.
‘He kissed my scars,’ Keeley told Rach, the memory of Ethan’s hot mouth tracing every line making her shiver all over again. ‘And this morning he asked me what had happened.’
Rach shifted forward on her seat. ‘What did you say?’
Keeley smiled. ‘I told him if he thought my scars were bad he should have seen the shark.’
Rach laughed.
Keeley knew she had to tell Ethan the truth. She also knew she wanted to tell him the truth. But telling him would mean talking about her weakened immunity, her probable need for further transplants and her shorter-than-average life expectancy. She just wanted to complete one perfect Paris night without any of those complications. That wasn’t a lot of ask for, was it?
‘What did he say to that?’ Rach asked her.
‘He said he was never going to go swimming with me,’ Keeley answered.
Fifty-Five
L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Opera District, Paris
Ethan had never felt so energised. Suddenly he felt he had become superhuman. Today he was the personification of organised and capable, the leader of the hotel he should have been when they went through the despair of losing Ferne. He placed a deep green velvet chair in the corner of the dining room, next to the fireplace he had got Jeanne to decorate with whimsical ornaments that looked like they might have come from the circus. Bright turquoise fir cones mingled with nickel bells and dancing fairies on strings, aged Santas on sleighs and red apples with silver centres reflected the flames flickering in the grate. An old-fashioned radio with big chunky buttons on the mantle was playing a festive soundtrack as Ethan worked, making tweaks, re-arranging, bringing in more pieces from the hotel’s garage.
‘What the hell is going on?’
It was Louis’s voice, audible from the dining area, even above the music, but definitely coming from reception. Ethan straightened the collar of his shirt as well as his demeanour and headed out of the room.
‘Antoine, why are there rabbits in the reception area?’ Louis boomed. ‘And why are guests touching them?’