Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

wouldn’t have to ask her for reports, but she has yet to fill me in on whether the seeds she’s planted with various travel agencies and tour-booking sites have paid off.

“Can you at least give me a hint as to how you’re doing with bookings for the rest of the year?” I ask.

“What?” she looks up from her phone as if just realizing I’m in the room.

“Our tour bookings?” I say as I push a yellow pin into the Paris city map that’s hanging on the bulletin board on the wall. The yellow pins represent possible alternate stops on the tour. “The clients you’re supposed to be getting.”

“Oh… yeah… I need to call Glen at Tripadvisor and see if he’s gotten our second ad up yet.”

I glance at her over my shoulder. Her fingers are flying across her phone screen again. I turn back to my map.

“If you don’t know if the ad is running yet, that means you have no idea if it has generated bookings. Marla, I need hard numbers soon. We have a lot riding on the first six months of tours. It will make or break us. What are you working on over there?”

“Well, I know this probably isn’t an opportune time to bring this up, but I need to go out of town for a couple of days.”

I turn around and face her. “Where do you need to go?”

“It’s complicated, Hannah.”

As if that’s supposed to placate me with less than two weeks before the tour starts.

“Well, if it’s complicated, maybe it should wait until after we get the tour up and running. I really need all hands on deck for the next month and I need you to focus.”

She chews her bottom lip.

“My trip can’t wait.”

“Just tell me what it is.”

“I’d rather not.”

I shake my head because I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation.

“Do you remember what we talked about when I hired you? I told you I was afraid something like this would happen. I don’t enjoy being a hardnose, Marla, but I need you to focus all your efforts on helping me get this tour off the ground. If you can’t tell me why you want time off right now, then what am I supposed to do? What would you do if you were in my place?”

“Hannah…” She studies something on her phone for a moment, then types a quick message. Finally, she looks up.

“Okay. I’ll tell you. I was wanting to keep it a secret until I looked into it more, to make sure it wasn’t a wild goose chase. But I suppose you need to know. I looked into the Andres Armand Foundation that Dr. Campbell mentioned. I was able to locate that Étienne Armand he spoke of. Not only does he run the foundation, it turns out he’s Andres Armand’s great-nephew. I’ve set a meeting with him to discuss the authenticity of the manuscript. If it pans out that Andres wrote it, it could be a really cool element to add to the tour.”

That’s true, but I’m not sure we’ll be ready to announce the discovery in ten days, much less incorporate it into the tour.

“When is your meeting?” I ask.

“It’s tomorrow.”

“Is there any way you can push it off a few weeks? At least until after the tour launches?” I ask. “I know it’s important, but right now, we need to put the tour first.”

“Will it be any easier to get away after everything is rolling?” Marla asks. “I think we’re going to be even busier.”

She has a point.

When I hesitate, she says, “This is about family, Hannah, or at least someone who was important to Granny Ivy. Maybe you need to rethink your priorities.”

I bristle inside, but I do my best to keep a neutral face.

“How long will you be gone?”

“I could make it a quick trip. Say, down and back in the same day. Leave tomorrow morning and then come back tomorrow night.”

“But Marla, even if you take the TGV, the trip down there will take hours. It’s not like going from Paris to London. How can you get there, meet with Étienne Armand, and get back in the same day? Plus, don’t forget we have that presentation to Procope brasserie on Saturday afternoon between the lunch and dinner rushes.”

“No worries, if I can’t do the round trip in one day, I’ll catch an early train Friday morning. So, really, since I’m working Saturday helping you with the presentation, Friday should be my day off. And since the trip is about the manuscript, which could help the tour, it’s sort of work related.”

“Sort of. It’s not an essential trip right now given everything else we have on our plates. A few days ago, we agreed that we would work hard and be extra focused until the tour launches. Then we will all be due some extra time off.”

It’s the truth. She agreed to it, but she has that determined look on her face that says she’s already made up her mind. She’s going to Antibes.

“Will you get me the tour numbers before you go?” I say. “Emma will ask and I’d like to know where we stand on bookings. Two months of tours is a good start, but we can’t build a business on that.”

“Sure thing.”

We’ve barely finished the conversation when she’s texting again. My gut tells me she’s not texting with Étienne Armand.

Something doesn’t smell right.

But giving her due credit, Marla has surprised me in some regards. I want to believe I can count on her. I’ll never know unless I allow her to show me.

“Okay, go ahead and make the trip to Antibes, as long as you’re back for the Procope presentation. Is that a deal?”

“Absolutely. As soon as I look at the train schedule, I’ll send you my itinerary.”

She turns her attention back to her phone.

“Thanks, that would be great,” I say. “But before you do that, I need to talk to you about something else. Can you please give me your full