‘Are you OK?’ Jeanne asked, curiosity coating her features. ‘You look a bit weird.’
‘Jeanne,’ Keeley said, moving away from the fire and backing towards the glass-paned door. ‘What’s the name of this hotel? The name of Ethan’s hotel?’
‘Opera,’ Jeanne said, both eyebrows meeting in the middle of her forehead. ‘Are you having a stroke?’
‘Opera?’ Now Keeley didn’t understand at all. Her heart was still racing into blind panic and she really did have to get out of the warm room.
‘Yes,’ Jeanne continued. ‘This one is called Opera because it is in the Opera District. And he has four others. All the hotels are named after the districts they are in, plus the brand… Perfect Paris.’
And there it was in all its finality. The answer Keeley was looking for. The answer she never wanted. It was like her whole body had seized up, except her heart and her brain both now in a battle with each other to see who was going to break first.
‘I… have to go,’ Keeley said, the lump in her throat making it difficult to commit the words to air.
‘Go?’ Jeanne asked, putting her hands on her hips. ‘Are you not staying for dinner? I thought Ethan was going to treat you to the new menu. The chef has made a cassoulet with sausage. We liked it, didn’t we, Bo-Bo?’
Keeley’s vision was starting to swim and she needed that fresh snow-ridden air more than anything else. Her eyes went up the corridor to where Ethan was still talking to Noel. Ethan. Gorgeous, enigmatic Ethan she had connected so perfectly with in every single way. She couldn’t see him now. She couldn’t talk to him now. She had to leave. She had to just get out of there.
‘Jeanne,’ she said, leaning heavily against the door, her body weight causing it to open a little, bringing the cold air in. ‘Please could you tell Ethan that I’m not feeling well.’
‘You are not feeling well?’ Jeanne asked, one eyebrow elevating. ‘Or you wish me to tell Ethan you are not well.’
‘I have to go,’ Keeley said. ‘I just have to.’ She attempted a smile at the girl but all the while she was backing away. The very last thing she saw before her feet hit the ground of outside was Bo-Bo dropping into a sit with a whine of displeasure.
Fifty-Eight
L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Tour Eiffel, Paris
‘I am going to get a key card from Antoine and I am going to go into her room.’
Ethan was out of breath. He had broken into a run the second the car had stopped at the traffic lights still a few yards away from the hotel. He hadn’t wanted Jeanne and Bo-Bo to accompany him, but Jeanne was never very good at taking no for an answer and he just wanted to get going. As soon as Keeley had ignored his twelfth call and the tenth text message he could sit around no longer. He had to know why she had left. What he had done? Or, maybe, what he hadn’t done?
The snow had started to fall again and it was rushing across his vision as he barrelled past tourists on the street, all of them wanting that night view of the Eiffel Tower lit up in all its glory.
‘If you get a key card and burst into her room she will think you are crazy,’ Jeanne said, catching him up. ‘I think you are crazy.’
‘I think there must be something you are not telling me,’ Ethan said, snow landing on his lips with every word that met the air. ‘What did she say to you again? Did she not like how the room looked? Was she really upset she did not win petanque?’ Ethan asked.
‘I told you,’ Jeanne said. ‘She told me she was not feeling well.’
Ethan blew out a breath. ‘But you and I both know that was an excuse.’
‘I never said that,’ Jeanne said straightaway.
‘You did not need to say it,’ Ethan answered. ‘Everything you feel is always written all over your face, Jeanne.’
‘That is not true.’
‘Why would she not answer my calls or my messages?’ He wanted to run faster, be there sooner, but even Bo-Bo was heavy breathing from the exertion and, whether it was official or not, he had made himself responsible for Jeanne’s welfare.
‘Perhaps she is in bed asleep. Or being ill in the bathroom. Or a combination of the two,’ Jeanne offered.
‘I do not believe that,’ Ethan said. ‘Something is wrong. I know her,’ he continued to protest. ‘I really know her and I know that she would not have left unless something was really wrong.’
‘OK,’ Jeanne said. ‘OK, I get it. Maybe something is wrong but… stop!’ She grabbed hold of his jacket sleeve and used all her might to pull him to a halt. ‘Please, just stop!’
The last word was a literal scream and Ethan cooled his heels and stopped his forward momentum. Instead he changed tack, beginning to pace up and down over a few yards while he waited for the girl to tell him whatever she was going to tell him. He felt that every minute that was passing was taking him somehow further and further away from Keeley.
‘You need to keep cool,’ Jeanne said to him with what sounded like a good deal of authority.
Ethan put his hands through his hair. He felt completely not cool. He felt absolutely out of control. He hadn’t felt this out of control since a year ago. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.
‘Not your appearance!’ Jeanne exclaimed.
‘I wasn’t “doing” my hair!’ Ethan blasted. ‘I was getting the snow out of it and waiting for you to tell me why we have stopped when we should still be going.’
‘Because you are not in the right place of mind to talk,’ Jeanne told him.
‘I am… exactly in the right place of mind to talk,’ Ethan insisted. Except his words had come out in a hurry and he could feel the irritation and downright fear bubbling under his skin. This felt like… being in Paris when his best friend was lying in a hospital bed in London. This was like getting to the Gare Du Nord determined to reach Ferne when Silvie made that phone call. He did not want this to turn into him collapsing on the riverbank wanting the water to swallow him up…
‘No, you are all… scrambled,’ Jeanne remarked, beginning to walk around him in a circle, Bo-Bo copying her exact moves. ‘Your brain is not thinking with logic, it is thinking with panic. And it will react with anger if you do not receive the answers that you want.’
He shook his head. ‘That is nonsense.’ He swallowed, not believing his own answer.
‘What are you hoping to achieve by bursting into Keeley’s room and demanding an explanation?’ Jeanne asked.
Ethan shrugged. ‘Isn’t it obvious? An explanation!’
‘Do you not think, that if she wanted to give you an explanation of how she is currently feeling then she would have stayed instead of leaving?’
‘I do not know,’ Ethan said. ‘How am I supposed to know?’
‘I know,’ Jeanne assured him. ‘I know that if someone runs away like that it is because they do not want to talk.’
‘Well… what about… if they only think they do not want to talk? Have you thought about that?’ Ethan asked, watching Jeanne. She was still circling him like she was a bird of prey ready to drop down and then feast. She somehow looked doubly threatening with that thick dark hair framing her ivory skin.