Chapter 45
45
21 DECEMBER
Back at the hotel, Manon is clutching her hair while she speaks fast on the phone. She hangs up with a loud sigh. ‘I can’t find an electrician in all of Paris who can come today!’
‘Oh no!’
‘We better go make up the rooms, including Renee’s, before they come back. Leave the calls for a moment.’
‘I’ll watch the front desk,’ Margaret says. ‘I can catch up on my socials.’ She throws me a devilish grin.
I fill Manon in on Margaret’s exposé and what that means for me. ‘She is an icon!’
‘She is.’
‘What about the electrician, what will we do?’
We open the family suite on the third floor and go to the bathroom. I flick the switch and the light comes on. ‘It works!’
‘How can that be?’ Manon frowns. ‘I tried it a number of times and it didn’t switch on at all?’
‘It might be a fuse on its way out, so it’s going off intermittently.’
‘OK, one problem solved for the moment.’ Manon exhales. ‘We need to hire a local handyman for things like this that crop up. Guests will expect things to be fixed instantly.’
‘ Oui , that’s a great idea. And let’s still get the electrics checked in here to make sure there isn’t a fault. Maybe JP might know a local handyman?’
‘I’ll ask.’ We spend the next hour making beds and tidying up the family suite.
‘Renee’s suite next.’
‘Urgh. Cleaning up after that man is the worst.’
We unlock the door and find the room in disarray. The bedding is pooled on the floor in a messy heap. ‘Our white linen, left disrespectfully like that,’ Manon says.
I pick it up and put it in a washbag. The quicker we do this the quicker we can leave. I go to the bathroom and wipe down the surfaces and replace the towels, as requested. When I come back, Manon is rifling through Francois-Xavier’s bag.
‘What are you doing!’
‘Looking for evidence. Watch the door, will you?’
‘Manon, that’s not?—’
‘Aha!’ She brandishes a folder full of paperwork. ‘It’s documents relating to the purchase of the hotel.’ She thumbs through them, speed-reading while I stand just outside the door, heart racing at the thought of being caught out but also curious about his motivations.
‘And?’
‘There’s a letter from his family firm, instructing him on how to get this place back.’
I gasp. ‘But how? The divorce is finalised. He can’t do that, surely? And why?’
Manon’s face pales. ‘He knows about suite nineteen. They mention it here.’
‘Oh no. They’re going to win the hotel back, aren’t they? They’re going to bury me so deep in litigation I’ll go bankrupt. Worse, I’ll lose Chloe’s manuscript and he’ll make a mockery of the whole thing. He won’t preserve their story. He’ll sell it to the highest bidder with no care or concern for…’
Manon takes her phone from her pocket and snaps pictures of the paperwork.
Once that’s done, we make up the suite with shaking hands. Now what? Will I lose to him again?
That afternoon, I sink into despair, pasting on a smile when the family of six arrive back, cheeks pink from the cold and the excitement of the Christmas fete. ‘The light is working but please let us know if you have any more trouble.’ We found an electrician, but he can’t get here until tomorrow, so I hope the light works in the meantime.
They go on upstairs when Manon appears behind me, making me jump in fright.
‘I’ve got an idea and I’m sure it’ll work. So be ready.’
‘OK,’ I say glumly. I wanted to surprise Manon on Christmas Eve with my decision to keep the hotel and make her manager. If everything went as planned with Chloe’s story, then I figured it would be a safe bet and Manon would be able to keep her dream alive in the place she finally feels like she fits. I’d get to stay too and, at night, I planned to write in suite nineteen and hope some of Chloe’s literary genius rubbed off on me.
Now that’s all been threatened with Francois-Xavier’s scheming.
‘Manon, I want to keep the hotel. And now…’
Her face dissolves into a grin and she claps a hand to her mouth. ‘Say no more. Keep it, we will. We owe it to Chloe and Lily-Louise, and I will not let that king of idiots steal it from us.’
‘But how?’ I’ve been down this road before. ‘The legal fees alone…’
‘Leave it to me. First, I need to set up a hidden camera.’
‘A hidden camera? Is that legal?’
‘Sure, for security in the hotel. Perfectly legal.’ I swear I wouldn’t be surprised if Manon did some kind of spy-like commando roll across the floor.
That evening, Francois-Xavier and Renee return, kissing and canoodling as they go, which I’m sure is for my benefit because it looks rather awkward to kiss like that in motion.
Manon stands in front of them as they are about to go upstairs. She gives me a surreptitious nod, which is my signal, but to do what I’m still not sure.
‘Francois-Xavier,’ she says in a saccharine voice that is very unlike Manon. ‘Can I have a private word with you?’
‘What about?’
‘The hotel.’
Renee goes to protest but he reassures her with a kiss and sends her on her way. ‘I won’t be long, ma cherie .’
He follows Manon to a table in the dining room and sits. She motions for me to join them. ‘It’s come to our attention that you’ve made enquiries about the hotel and are subsequently trying to win it back, even though you were the one who agreed you should get the apartment.’
‘I was railroaded, so we’re going to appeal; but how do you even know this?’
‘Lawyers talk.’
It’s all I can do to keep from screaming at him. But I trust Manon. She must have an ace up her sleeve. ‘And one other thing I found interesting is that you knew your family would bury Anais in paperwork that her lawyer would have to respond to, costing her a fortune in legal fees.’
He grins. ‘So?—?’
‘Well, I find your family’s support rather surprising after all the things you’ve said about them over the years.’
‘Like what?’ he asks.
Ah, now I see where she’s going with this. I say, ‘You said to me many times that “for well-educated prominent lawyers they are dim-witted and dull”. That they’ll always bail you out because they’re “easy to manipulate” and they can’t tell when you were lying right to their faces. Who says that about their own family?’ And why did I not run when I heard him speak in such a way? I’d put it down to him feeling spiteful about their success and his lack of it but now I see it for what it is. Calculating and cunning behaviour.
‘So? They are all of those things and more. Successful, oui , but boring and brainless. All I have to do is run home with a pained expression on my face and yet another dilemma is fixed by Père, who has no idea it’s his money I’m after.’
‘So you admit it?’
‘ Oui. But who cares?’
‘We care,’ I say. ‘We care about this hotel and everything inside of it. You’re not getting it back.’
‘Wait and see,’ he smirks.
‘I don’t think so.’ Manon sends him a cold smile. ‘Just so you know’ – she points to a camera above – ‘we have cameras situated in here for the safety of our guests and I’m sure we’ve got what you said on record and I think it’s best if we share it with your family, so they know exactly what they’re dealing with.’
‘You wouldn’t!’ He finally loses his composure, his face turns puce with worry.
‘We will if you try to take the hotel back. It’ll be the very first thing we do. We’ll send the video to every single person at your parents’ firm, so they all know what they’ve been dealing with over the years.’
‘Fine, fine! I’ll stop. You can have the hotel. But promise me they’ll never see that video? They will disown me and then where will I be?’
‘Where you deserve,’ Manon says. ‘On your own.’
He deflates. ‘I’ll go. But not before I tell Anais how much I love?—’
‘Save it,’ I say.
After he’s gone, I ask Manon, ‘How did you come up with that idea?’
‘True crime podcasts. They catch them all the time like that. Wasn’t that fun?’
‘I’m not sure if I’d call it fun but I must admit it was a little thrilling to see him cave so fast. He’ll be terrified of his family finding out all those things he’s said about them over the years. We might have seen the last of him!’
‘And now I get to run the hotel! We’re keeping it?’
I grin. ‘We’re keeping it!’