The Affair

by Danielle Steel

  “Actually, I was a virgin when I met him. It feels like several lifetimes ago, as though it happened to someone else. Your father used to tease me once in a while, and said he loved me more because I was a woman with a past. I was such a baby then, even when we married. It always stuns me how fast the time goes. You don’t realize that when you’re young,” she said wistfully. “You think you’ll be young forever, and then suddenly you’re not, and the best part is over.” The wine was starting to make her morose, and they all realized how much she missed their father. She was widowed so early, and hopefully still had many full, creative years ahead of her. But she had not looked at another man since he’d died. She filled the void his absence left with work, and time with her girls.

  They sat and chatted for another hour, and no one else came forward with shocking revelations. They all gave Olivia a warm hug when they said good night, and Olivia clung to each of them for a moment, grateful that whatever any of them did, the others accepted it. They were all determined never to raise the issue of Will’s paternity again. It simply didn’t matter. And Nadia hoped that her somewhat harsh, judgmental older sister would be a little more compassionate in future about her situation. If anyone was going to get tough with Nicolas, it had to be Nadia herself, and not because Olivia was prodding her. She was angrier at him now than she wanted to admit to her mother or sisters. She wanted to scream every time she thought of him with Pascale. He had been such a damn fool and had ruined everything. She was furious with him, but she didn’t quite hate him yet. She was discovering that it took longer than she thought for love to turn to hate. And even longer for love to die. But she knew she’d get there in the end.

  She felt sorry for Olivia when she went to bed that night. Then the wine they’d drunk caught up with her too, and she fell asleep and dreamed of Nicolas holding a baby. She couldn’t remember if the baby was hers or not, but a beautiful young woman was standing near, watching her and laughing. She could see clearly that the woman was Pascale. And then, Nicolas and Pascale walked away with the baby and left her. She woke up in tears. She tried not to think about the symbolism of the dream and didn’t want to know. But it was obvious to her anyway. Pascale and Nicolas were together, with their baby, and she wound up alone.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning at breakfast, none of them mentioned Harley or Will. Out of the blue, Venetia commented that she wanted to have another baby. She had loved growing up as one of four girls. It pleased Rose to hear that.

  “I’d actually love to have five or six,” Venetia said with a mischievous smile, “but Ben would probably kill me. Our life is chaotic as it is. Big families always seem so cozy to me.”

  “I wanted another one too. We wanted to wait till next year,” Nadia said wistfully. “Now that’s not going to happen. I’m happy with my girls.” With the current state of her marriage, whatever happened, she couldn’t see herself having another child. Only if she divorced Nicolas and married someone else. She would never trust him enough again to have another baby with him.

  “My dogs are more than enough for me,” Athena said, content as always.

  “Your father loved having four daughters.” Rose smiled at them. “He was so proud of all of you.”

  They lay at the pool after breakfast, enjoying their last few hours together before they had to leave. The weekend had gone too quickly, but it felt like they had been there for longer than four days.

  “Why don’t you and Sylvie and Laure come to California this summer?” Athena suggested to Nadia as they lay there. “I’ll still be on hiatus, and it would be fun for them. We can take them to Universal Studios and Disneyland.” The idea appealed to Nadia, but Nicolas hadn’t told her his plans yet.

  “I’m not sure when he wants to see them. But I’d like to come out. I assume he’s going to want to use the château at some point,” presumably with Pascale. The thought of it felt like an open wound and almost made her wince. California, visiting her sister, would be a pleasant escape. “I’ll figure it out and let you know.”

  “You can come to Southampton too. I take three-day weekends in August, and stay out for a couple of weeks, and so does Ben. We’d love to have you,” Venetia spoke up. And their mother would be at her own small house there on weekends.

  “Will you be in the Hamptons this summer, Mom?” Venetia asked her. Rose’s house was like a dollhouse, but she enjoyed it.

  “If I’m not too busy working on October and November.” Rose never stopped, year round. Her life was a constant merry-go-round of perfecting the next issue. Venetia knew that Olivia would be in Maine with Will and Harley, spending as much time as they could on their sailboat. Athena would be happily at home in California, trying out new recipes for the show for after the hiatus. Nadia was usually at the château all summer, but this year, she was grateful for their invitations. It would be nice to leave France for a while and get away from the furor over Nicolas and Pascale. She was sure Nicolas would want to use the château part of the time. And she had nowhere else to go with the girls.

  They ate a light lunch at the pool, and then Rose and Nadia’s sisters went to their rooms to pack. Olivia and Venetia were flying back to New York together that night. Athena was going to the airport with them and catching the L.A. flight.

  The van Nadia had hired for them came to pick them up, and the five women hugged, and almost cried as they said goodbye to Nadia, while Laure and Sylvie watched. It had been a perfect weekend, full of good moments, happy times, and startling revelations. Venetia had confessed to Nadia privately that she was finding it hard to put out of her mind what Olivia had shared with them.

  “Every time I see Will or Harley, I’m going to think of it. I almost wish she hadn’t told us.” Nadia admitted she felt the same way about it.

  “I don’t know how she has lived with a secret like that for all these years.”

  “Maybe that’s why she’s so hard on everyone else,” Venetia ventured.

  “You’d think it would make her more forgiving and compassionate,” Nadia said.

  “Maybe it will now.”

  She and the girls stood waving as the van pulled away. Rose went with them, since she had meetings the next day and was flying back to New York on Monday night. She was spending the night at the Ritz. The van was going to drop her off after they dropped the others at the airport.

  Nadia knew that the time they had just spent together would provide warm memories for a long time.

  “I hope that one day you two love each other the way I love my sisters. A sister is a very special thing,” she reminded them, as Sylvie rolled her eyes, and Laure stuck out her tongue at her sister. They had dinner in the kitchen that night and Nadia missed her mother and sisters.

  “When is Papa coming home?” Sylvie asked. She was eager to see him. He had been away so much lately. She missed him.

  “I don’t know. You talked to him. What did he say?” Nadia said noncommittally.

  “He said he’d be back tomorrow.”

  “I have to go to London on Tuesday, so he can stay with you then.” The girls liked the sound of that, though Sylvie had noticed and already commented that they were getting to be like their friends whose divorced parents alternated being with them, and were never there at the same time. Nadia didn’t respond. She knew that the girls would figure something out sooner or later. They couldn’t fool them for much longer. She was working less during the summer, but still trying to keep her clients happy, despite the upheaval in her private life.

  Nicolas called them that night before bedtime. Nadia knew that her sisters would be on their flights by then, she was thinking of them. Then Sylvie handed the phone to her mother. Nadia didn’t want to talk to him, but took it anyway, so as not to arouse any more suspicion in her children. She had to play the game for them, as though they were still truly married.

  “How was the weekend?” he ask
ed her.

  “Really nice. It was lovely being together. How was yours?” she inquired with an edge to her voice.

  “Hot. There’s a heat wave in the South, and it was jammed.” She didn’t ask who he’d been staying with and didn’t want to know which of their friends had welcomed the famous movie star with open arms. She knew many had, and she didn’t consider them friends anymore. She told him about her trip to London, to see a new client, and he sounded delighted to have the excuse to stay with the girls. Then Nadia got off the phone. She didn’t want to spoil the warm glow of the weekend by getting upset with him.

  Nadia and the girls drove back to Paris the next morning, and when she saw the newspapers, she was angry all over again. There was a brief mention that he and Pascale had rented a house in Ramatuelle, near Saint-Tropez, for the summer, and there was a paparazzi photo of Pascale looking ravishing in a bikini, with her round six-month belly showing, and Nicolas looking blissful beside her. Nadia threw the paper away before the girls saw it.

  She dropped the girls off with friends for the day, and went to her office, and when the girls got home that night, Nicolas showed up minutes later. He had a deep tan, which made his fair hair look even blonder, and his green eyes seem even greener. When the girls left them for a few minutes, Nadia spoke to him in an angry undertone.

  “We have to say something to the girls soon. Someone else is going to tell them. For God’s sake, you’re having a baby in three months, and you were in the newspaper again.”

  “It’s a boy,” he said, trying not to look as elated as he was, but he was happy to see Nadia and his daughters too. His heart seemed to have expanded to include all of them, which was impossible to explain to her. “I agree, we have to tell them something. But after the baby comes, I want to come home and try to put our marriage back together. I love you, Nadia. I’ve been a fool for the past few months, but that hasn’t changed.” He looked serious as he said it, and she wanted to hit him. These days, he brought out the worst in her. Her nerves were stretched to the limit whenever she saw him, or even thought about him. What he wanted was just too unreal.

  “How can you say that? You’re living with another woman half the time. You use our home like a hotel, and you expect me to be the innkeeper, and just sit here patiently waiting for you. Why don’t you make a clean break, and at least try and do it right with her?” She was tired of his hanging on to both of them.

  “She’s twenty-two years old. She knows she’s too young and immature to be married, and she’s right. She wants me around, at least until the baby, but she’s not looking to the future. This is all about now for her. And it has been for me too. Nadia, we’re adults. We have a life, a history, a future. This is some kind of aberration I’ve fallen into. I know it sounds terrible, but can’t you give me time to work this out as decently as I can and then come back to you?” His eyes pleaded with her, and she had a knot in her stomach looking at him. Not a knot of longing, just a knot of frustration and fury. What he wanted from her sounded impossible and wasn’t fair to her.

  “And then what? Wait until you do it again? Life doesn’t work like that, Nicolas. I’m not going to forget these months of hell you’ve put me through.” He had tears in his eyes when she said it. But this time, she didn’t.

  “I swear to you, I’ll make it up to you every way I can for the rest of our lives. Just give me these few months.” She shook her head, speechless at what he was asking for, and determined not to give in to him.

  “You’re as much of a child as she is if you think you can walk in and out of marriage, take a break, have a baby with someone else, and come back and pick up where you left off. You’re crazy.” Her eyes blazed at him.

  “I probably am crazy, but I’m also still very much in love with you.” He wanted her to know.

  “Then you’re a selfish asshole on top of everything else, and a damn fool,” she said, as Sylvie walked into the kitchen. She could see that her mother was angry, and had heard her father’s pleading tone, although she couldn’t make out the words, since they were whispering. She wanted them to stop fighting. They had been arguing almost constantly for the past two months, and it frightened her. Laure didn’t understand it, but she was upset too.

  Nicolas turned to Sylvie then, gave her a big hug, and promised to watch a movie with her the next day when their mother went to London.

  “We’ll stay up late, just don’t tell her,” he said in a stage whisper Nadia could hear, and Sylvie grinned. Then Laure came bounding in and begged her father to sit down to dinner with them. Nadia didn’t stop him, and he sat down looking embarrassed, but she couldn’t eat. The weekend with her sisters had done her so much good to restore her strength and self-confidence, and he was rapidly undoing it.

  “Are you going to use the château at all this summer?” she asked him after the meal, once the girls had gone to their rooms. She had been silent all through dinner. She had nothing to say to him.

  “I’d like to be there in August, with you and the girls,” he said cautiously, not wanting to infuriate her. He hadn’t told Pascale yet, but he wanted vacation time with his children, and Nadia if she was willing. Pascale had plenty of friends to keep her busy in Saint-Tropez, and several who owned boats or chartered them. She moved in a very jet-set crowd, and he was enjoying it, but he wanted to use his ancestral home too. And she would only be seven months pregnant in August, so he felt it wasn’t urgent that he be with her. She wouldn’t be about to give birth then. And she was still busy, going to parties, and wanted to have fun with her friends.

  “I’m going to take the girls to visit Athena and Venetia, in L.A. and the Hamptons, probably for a few weeks in all,” Nadia said coolly. He nodded, feeling he didn’t have the right to argue with her, or make demands, given what he was putting her through, and doing himself.

  “I thought I’d spend the Fourteenth of July weekend with you, if that’s all right,” he said cautiously. “We can go to see the fireworks in Deauville.” He knew how much their girls loved fireworks, and Nadia didn’t want to disappoint them or argue with him. She had wanted to be with the girls and not with him. But she knew the girls would prefer them together. She wondered what he was planning to do with Pascale then. Leave her in their rented house in Ramatuelle apparently. She wondered why Pascale was willing to put up with it, or what he’d tell her to explain it. Nadia didn’t understand their seemingly open relationship. But she was fourteen years younger than Nadia, a child in many ways, and wanted a considerable amount of freedom herself. Nadia didn’t want to share her summer with Nicolas, as long as he was involved with Pascale. But she also didn’t want to upset her kids.

  Nicolas left the kitchen to see the girls while she put the dishes in the dishwasher, and she realized that if she didn’t refuse, she would now be stuck with a family Bastille Day weekend, to accommodate him and their daughters. It was untenable, and she felt torn between trying not to upset her children and wanting breathing room and space from Nicolas herself. It felt like it was time to see a lawyer to set down some rules for visitation, and a plan for how to get through this awkward time. She went straight to her room after that and closed the door. She knew that Nicolas wouldn’t dare to come in. He would stay with the girls until bedtime, and then take refuge in the guest room where they didn’t know he was sleeping. He would remove all trace of himself in the morning before he left. Nadia was relieved that she didn’t see him again that night. She didn’t want to.

  Her mother called her from the airport before she flew back to New York. She was rushing for the plane but wanted to give her a kiss before she left.

  “Are you okay? You sound upset,” Rose asked her.

  “He’s here, driving me crazy,” Nadia responded.

  “I saw the papers today,” Rose said seriously.

  “So did I,” Nadia said. “And the photo of Pascale with him in Saint Tropez.”

&n
bsp; “I’ll call you from New York. I love you,” Rose said, and they hung up.

  After her mother’s call, Nadia lay on her bed thinking of something Venetia had said to her that weekend, that Nadia should get pregnant too, and then his loyalties would be to her, and not Pascale. She had history on her side. But Nadia couldn’t imagine doing something like that. The war of the babies. And he had absolutely glowed when he had told her the baby was a boy. The whole situation seemed disgusting to her. She was relieved that he would be gone the next morning, before they all got up and she left for London. His presence in the apartment made it feel toxic to her.

  “Why does Papa go to work so early now?” Laure asked her at breakfast. Nadia fumbled for an answer and burned the toast.

  “He has a lot to do,” was all she could come up with. As soon as they left for the day with their regular babysitter, Nadia made two phone calls. One to the airline to book her flights for their visits to Athena in L.A. and Venetia in the Hamptons, and the second to the lawyer whose name her mother had given her. Rose had gotten it from someone in their Paris office, whose discretion she trusted. The lawyer was out of the office, and Nadia left him a message. She booked the flights for right after the Bastille Day weekend. She was willing to sacrifice herself for a weekend with him and the girls. After the weekend, he could enjoy his château alone, or with whomever he chose to invite, but not with her. She had to draw the line somewhere.

  It was going to be a relief to spend the day and the night in London with a client and get the whole mess out of her head. And she couldn’t wait to go to the States to visit her sisters and her mother.

  * * *

  —

  “Why do you have to spend the holiday with them?” Pascale asked Nicolas, looking petulant, when he told her his plans to be at the château with Nadia and the girls for the Bastille Day weekend. “That’s ridiculous. And we’re invited to a wedding at the Hotel du Cap. I booked a room for the weekend.”