The Affair

by Danielle Steel

  She reminded him that she was going to the wedding at the Hotel du Cap the next day, hoping to make him jealous, but he wasn’t.

  They hung up and he went back into the house then, feeling depressed about the situation. They had bought sausages, fruit, and salad for a simple country dinner. Nadia and the girls were in their rooms when he walked in. He was staying in a small study off the main bedroom, but the girls had no idea he wasn’t sleeping in the master bedroom. He wondered if Nadia was right, and it wasn’t fair to keep things hidden from them. He kept hoping there would be some kind of resolution, but there wasn’t. It unnerved him that Nadia had seen an attorney. This was the first he had heard of it. He had gone to a lawyer to make sure he didn’t make any glaring legal mistakes that would deal a final death blow to their marriage. Nadia had gone to see a lawyer to find out what those mistakes were and what grounds she had to end the marriage. Their goals were no longer the same. They were in direct conflict, like everything about their life.

  Nadia and Nicolas were quiet at dinner, and the girls chattered on. Laure wanted to decorate a shoebox with the seashells she’d collected, to make it a jewelry box for her mother. And Sylvie wanted to know how soon they would go to Disneyland after they got to L.A. They provided some distraction during the meal. Their father took them outside to throw a ball with them afterwards, and Nadia went to her room. She called Venetia in Southampton, who said it was blistering hot there, wished Nadia a happy Bastille Day, and asked how things were going with Nicolas there for the weekend.

  “He’s making me crazy. He still acts like we’re a happy family and tells me he loves me every five minutes. I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t think this is good for the girls.” Or for her either. And Nicolas seemed nervous too. It was putting pressure on both of them, and the tension was palpable. Nadia was worried that the girls were sensing it too.

  “He probably does love you,” Venetia said simply. “He just wants to have both of you for now. He can’t do that forever, and sooner or later it’s going to blow up in his face. She may walk out on him before you do. By the way, Ben and I talked about it last night. We can come for a week in August if you really want us. Three jet-propelled kids does not make for a restful week,” she reminded her sister, and Nadia smiled.

  “I’d love it. And so will the girls.” The cousins loved being together. Venetia and Olivia tried to get their children together as often as possible, and Nadia made sure that her daughters saw their cousins every summer. They wanted the next generation to be as close as the four sisters were.

  “When do you go back to Paris?” Venetia asked her.

  “Tomorrow night, at the end of the weekend. I can’t wait. I’m fed up with playing this game of happy family when our life is in shambles at our feet. We leave for L.A. on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to that.” They had planned a week after that in the Hamptons. And they were going to visit Rose at the magazine. Olivia and her family were in Maine for two months, so they wouldn’t see them. It was too long a trip for Nadia and the girls, a six-hour drive from New York.

  After the call to Venetia, the girls came in and Nadia put them to bed. They were happy after the day with their parents and they loved being at the château. They had freedom there and could run around, and they were enjoying the time with their father.

  After she put them to bed, Nadia went for a walk by herself and ran into Nicolas when she got back. He looked sad, as though he’d been crying.

  “I’m sorry I’ve made such a mess of everything,” he said in a low, raw voice, and she could see he was, but she didn’t want to fall prey to his charms. He was the only man she had ever loved and she wanted to forget that. “I want to fix it, but it’s like finding my way out of a maze right now.” She nodded but didn’t know what to say to him.

  “I think we need to be away from each other, until we figure it out, and decide what to do,” she said softly.

  “I don’t want to lose you, Nadia. Whatever it takes, I want to come back.” In truth he had never left, not fully. But he was afraid he had lost her anyway. There was something dead in her eyes when she looked at him, and he couldn’t blame her, after what he had done. He felt deep remorse about it, but he wasn’t sure that would ever be enough. “Please don’t make any big decisions while you’re gone. Give me a little more time.” She didn’t answer him, and a minute later, she went upstairs to her room and closed the door. She didn’t want to make him any promises she couldn’t keep.

  Nicolas spent Sunday night with them at their apartment when they got back to Paris. They were both subdued after the weekend. It had reminded him of everything he had risked and was about to lose. And Nadia didn’t want to talk to him about it again.

  First thing Monday morning, he took a commuter flight to the South of France from Orly. And it was no secret to either of them where he was going. Pascale was waiting for him in Ramatuelle, and the Mode interview was the next day.

  Nadia had to go to her office, and left the girls with their babysitter, and that night they showed her all the things they wanted to take with them to L.A., their favorite shorts and T-shirts, Laure’s light-up sneakers, and Sylvie’s sneakers that she said were “cool.” Nadia packed for all three of them and the girls were excited about the trip.

  Nicolas called them the next morning. Nadia was too busy to talk to him, and he wished the girls a wonderful time in the States. They promised to FaceTime with him while they were away, a miracle of modern technology which allowed them to show him everything and see each other while they talked. He was disappointed not to speak to Nadia before they left. Their weekend together had made him miss her more, and he’d been irritable with Pascale when he got back, but was really only angry with himself. He had created the hell he and Nadia were living in.

  Nadia and the girls left for the airport in a flurry of activity, and were right on time. Nadia sat back in the van, trying to figure out if she had forgotten to pack anything, although it was too late now. But everything was in order and she had made careful lists. She put an arm around each of her daughters with a smile.

  “We’re off to our big adventure. Aunt Athena says she can’t wait to see us,” Nadia said, feeling liberated to finally be free of Nicolas lurking around them like a ghost. He had looked miserable when he left them the day before, and she didn’t want to think about it. This was her time with the girls, and she didn’t want anything to spoil it.

  “I can’t wait to see Aunt Athena’s dogs,” Laure said happily. “I love Hugo…and Juanita and Chiquita, and Stanley.” She went down the list of dogs, while Sylvie sent another text to her father and told him how much she wished he was there with them. He responded immediately.

  “Me too.” He had told her he had to get back to work on his new book. Sylvie thought it was too bad that he couldn’t take a vacation with them, but at least they’d had the Bastille Day weekend with him. It had been perfect, from her point of view, with her mother and father together. They were both nervous and in bad moods lately, but probably things would be better when they got back. She hoped so anyway. She had asked her father about it, and he had promised they would never get divorced. And she knew he never lied to them.

  * * *

  —

  “You look incredible,” Nicolas said, standing in the doorway of their bedroom in the rented house in Ramatuelle. It was tropical and luxurious, with lovely gardens and an enormous pool. Pascale was wearing the white lace dress she had bought for the interview. You could see her belly clearly through it. She was wearing her bikini bottom but not the top under it. Her breasts were huge and full from the pregnancy. Her arms and legs were slim, her face was lovelier than ever, and her long white-blond curls looked like a halo that framed her face, with the rest of her hair piled on her head. She looked more womanly and less like a young girl with her pregnant belly, and she was every bit as sexy as he said, definitely not like a madonna, as s
he stretched her long legs out on a chaise longue under a large beach umbrella next to the pool. A waiter with a starched white jacket who had come with the house served her a tall glass of lemonade. There was a splash of gin in it, which Nicolas didn’t know.

  He was wearing shorts, Hermès sandals, and a white linen shirt. They looked like some kind of ad for yacht owners, or people who had tons of money. They appeared to have it all. Nicolas was less nervous than he’d been the day before, when he’d arrived, and had settled down. Pascale had sensed his dark mood as soon as he walked in, had lured him into bed, and cheered him up considerably. He said she had magic powers over him. She bewitched him.

  A few minutes after Pascale installed herself on the chaise longue, the house man escorted two people out to the pool, a small woman in jeans and a T-shirt, with dark hair in a braid down her back, holding a large notebook, and a man also wearing jeans, but with a Mexican embroidered shirt. They were the writer and photographer who had come to do the article. They were young and looked somewhat awestruck in the presence of such luxury and beauty, and two very famous people. Nicolas stood up and shook hands with them, and Pascale remained reclining, not wanting to disturb her “look.” She was wearing high-heeled white sandals, which laced up her legs to the knee, and were very sexy too. She was so appealing and sensual one almost forgot she was pregnant. She wasn’t ready to be the poster child for motherhood yet. There was a white Hermès Birkin bag on the ground next to her, which Nicolas had bought her.

  Nicolas asked if they’d eaten and offered them lunch as soon as they arrived. They said they’d eaten at the Gorilla Bar in Saint-Tropez, and weren’t hungry. But they both accepted wine, and the photographer set up his cameras while Barbara Jaffe, the writer they’d flown out from New York, sat down and chatted informally with them. Pascale was playing the star, which Nicolas didn’t mind. It suited her, and kept the attention off him. He didn’t want to be the focus of the interview and wasn’t planning to stay long.

  The photographer suggested a few casual photographs before they started, and Nicolas sat on the arm of her chair, feeling awkward at first, and then slowly relaxed as Pascale leaned toward him. They stood up near the pool then, and the photographer positioned her so they got a good view of her profile to show off the baby. Then in a more relaxed moment between shots, she sat on Nicolas’s lap while they were laughing, and kissed him. It was a perfect moment of tenderness and humor, and the photographer snapped it instantly, knowing the shot was pure gold. Then the interview began.

  Barbara had a full list of questions in her notebook, about how and where they had met, what they had thought when they first laid eyes on each other, was it love at first sight? What had it been like working on the film together? How had their relationship developed? How did they like to spend their time? Where were they living? How did they envision their life together now as parents? She asked about their views of the future and how their relationship would affect their work. She wanted to know if they planned to work together again and how they thought the baby would impact their careers, and their life together. It was the full-court press about everything people wanted to know, both their fans and their detractors. And the answers the writer culled from them were everything Nicolas hadn’t wanted to tell them and promised himself he wouldn’t, but she was artful and adept and got what she wanted, although most of it wasn’t true. Pascale was much more relaxed than he was, and willing to tell Barbara anything. Nicolas was less accustomed to giving interviews, which he seldom did. Barbara never asked him directly about Nadia and their marriage, but her existence was implied in several of the questions.

  Nicolas successfully deflected some of it, and whenever he did, Pascale leapt into the breach and supplied everything they wanted to know. Nicolas cringed a few times as he listened, and tried to temper what she said, but Pascale would not be curbed. She wasn’t afraid to voice her opinion that she thought marriage was a ridiculous, antiquated tradition, which no longer served any purpose in today’s fast-moving, ever-changing world. She said that people needed to be free in order to grow, and no relationship was meant to last forever. That was a fairy tale, not reality. She said she thought that having babies was a natural part of life, and you didn’t have to be married or even be with the same partner to give a child a happy life. She used the example of native tribes in different cultures where the tribe raised the child, and not the mother or father. She said she’d been raised by her grandmother when her mother was working, and she had benefited from it. And their child was going to spend time with her mother when she was busy. Her answer inspired Barbara to ask her if she intended to bring up her baby and care for it herself at all.

  “I hope not,” she said, laughing, and explained that she was going to leave him with her mother most of the time, while she pursued her career. She said she was too young to be tied down changing diapers, and Barbara asked Nicolas how he felt about that. He said, in his charming French accent, that Pascale’s point of view was very different from his. He said he had grown up with a traditional mother and father and a stable family life. He mentioned too that he had two daughters who were also being brought up in his more traditional style.

  “And how do they feel about the baby?” Barbara asked him. She was inching up on his marriage, but he saw her coming and sidestepped her. But he had walked right into her trap about his daughters.

  “I’m sure they will be delighted,” he said smoothly, without saying that they knew nothing about it.

  “And your wife?” Barbara lobbed a potential bomb at him, and he sent it right back to her with a smile.

  “She’s not part of this interview, Miss Jaffe. She’s not here to speak for herself.”

  “Thank God,” Pascale said, and laughed, and Nicolas shot her a warning look, then realized he had stayed far too long, and waited for an opportune moment to leave.

  “Has the transition from one woman to the next been difficult for you?” the interviewer asked him. He smiled and didn’t answer. She had been warned not to go there, but couldn’t help trying, and she got nothing from him. Instead, he thanked her for her time, kissed Pascale on her forehead, and quietly disappeared. But despite his elusive exit, which took the writer by surprise, he knew that he had said more than he should have and was worried about how his answers would look in print, especially to Nadia if she read it, and he feared she would.

  They took more photographs of Pascale then, nearly naked in her bikini bottom, without the lace dress, getting into the pool. She had a body that every woman would have died for, pregnant or not. They wanted some of her in the pool with Nicolas, but he said he was busy and did not reappear.

  When Pascale told him the interview was over, Nicolas returned to thank them and say goodbye. The two emissaries from Mode left a few minutes later, and Pascale lay dripping wet on a deck chair and smiled at him.

  “I thought that went great, didn’t you?” He wasn’t so sure.

  “They asked quite a lot of questions they weren’t supposed to.” He was worried about some of Pascale’s answers, and his own, which gave them too much information they could use that he hadn’t wanted to reveal. Pascale was naïve and assumed they’d be kind, and said she didn’t care what they said about her. But he did. He didn’t want them making his situation with Nadia even worse than it was, or wounding her even more than she already had been. The fact that Pascale was in his life was enough. Her words were dangerous. She had supplied all the ammunition they wanted, gift-wrapped, and handed it to them. And even worse, he feared he might have too.

  * * *

  —

  When Rose saw the first draft of the interview, she sat at her desk and groaned out loud. Barbara Jaffe had quoted Pascale on every subject, and her answers made her sound stupid, narcissistic, amoral, irresponsible, and hard, all of which was probably true. Nicolas seemed like a besotted fool who had thrown his life out the window for a girl wi
th a sensational body, little brain, and no heart.

  “I’d like to trim this down,” Rose said through pursed lips when Barbara came to her office a few days later. “I think you have more than you need. We don’t have to drive the point home.”

  “She said all of it, and so did he,” the writer said innocently, disappointed that Rose wanted to cut it down. “It doesn’t run too long. I counted the words.” But Rose had final say.

  “True, but she repeats herself quite a lot. It’s obvious that she’s a young woman with loose morals, who isn’t looking to a future with him, and has very little interest in her child. We always have to keep our eye on the periphery. Who is standing just out of sight who is going to be hurt by this? His wife, his two daughters. I’d like to keep the piece as clean as possible. It slides too easily into the tawdry with what she says. It’s obviously a story about lust and not love, and the baby was an unfortunate accident. I want to keep it simple. She’s a movie star, people will forgive her some of it. But let’s not go too far.” She had used a red pencil to indicate where she wanted it cut. The writer looked disappointed but knew better than to argue with her. That wouldn’t have been a smart move, and Barbara Jaffe was ambitious. This was a big break for her. And her enthusiasm had caused her to cross some boundaries that she normally wouldn’t have. She also knew from the grapevine that Nicolas was Rose’s son-in-law, so it didn’t totally surprise her that she was protecting both of them and wanted to trim the piece.