The Affair

by Danielle Steel

  They joined the others on the terrace shortly after, had a glass of champagne, and then everyone went to change for dinner, and returned in pressed white slacks or clean white jeans. Venetia came down from her room dressed in a bright turquoise silk shirt, with orange satin pants and gold sandals, all of which looked great on her with her tan and red hair. They were a handsome group, and Harley livened up when he joined them. Venetia smiled at what Olivia was wearing: white silk slacks and a navy-and-white silk blouse with a string of pearls and her hair in a knot. She looked years older than she was. Harley was a very distinguished-looking man, but also seemed old for his age. He was only sixty, but the way he moved and spoke and his natural gravitas made him seem older.

  They had bouillabaisse for dinner, brought in from a local restaurant, sole meuniére that the housekeeper made, bread and cheese, and a big bowl of fresh berries for dessert. The berries were from the estate and were served with delicate chocolate cookies that melted in your mouth.

  Eventually, all the children went to bed, so they’d be fresh for the next day. The adults stayed up late, talking and drinking wine after dinner. It was two a.m. before the adults climbed the stairs to their bedrooms, with Nicolas’s ancestral family portraits all around them. It made Nadia feel odd to be there without him, and she was thinking of Nicolas as she left the others and went to her enormous master bedroom. She was grateful that she and her family could spend a week there together, thanks to him. It reminded her of happier times when they’d had house parties with friends for the weekends, and when she had been helping him to restore it. Most of their eleven years of marriage had been happy ones, it was sad to think that it was all ending in disgrace now. It seemed a terrible way to end their marriage. A year before, she would never have expected them to be separated. She tried not to think about it as she slipped into bed between the beautiful Porthault sheets she had bought for all the beds.

  They drove to several of the local villages the next day, and then went to walk on the boardwalk in Deauville. The kids loved it. They had a late lunch at a small, noisy local restaurant. The weather had gotten warmer, and they were eager to get back to the pool after lunch.

  Nadia had rented a van for the week so she could chauffeur them around. When they got to the château, all the children changed into bathing suits and dove into the pool, while their mothers walked in slowly from the shallow end. Ben and Harley got into a serious political discussion, with similar opinions, despite their differences in politics and age. The two brothers-in-law liked each other, and were a good balance to their wives, who couldn’t have been more different too.

  Ben and Will finally started a chess game a little later, while Nadia chatted with her sisters on three lounge chairs, and they FaceTimed with Athena again. It was only eight in the morning for her, but she was an early riser. They could hear the dogs barking in the background.

  They rented a sailboat big enough for all of them on one of the days. Ben, Olivia, and Harley were expert sailors, and so was Will after years of sailing camp. They went from one day to the next, doing fun things and having lively conversations. They truly enjoyed each other’s company and it showed. The children were caught up in the warm family atmosphere too.

  Whenever Nicolas called the girls, he told them to give everyone his love. He had been thinking about them a lot, and missing them. He was getting tired of Pascale’s jet-set life with endless hangers-on in Saint-Tropez. They were all along for a free ride, and he hadn’t had a serious conversation all summer. He was eager to get back to work in Paris, although he had no place to stay now, or to write, if Nadia was serious about his getting his own apartment. Pascale was going to stay in Brittany with her mother until the baby was born, and for a month or two after, until she recovered. She had given up her Paris apartment, so he was camping at a friend’s. He was beginning to think he had to get an apartment of his own after all. He had nowhere to stay long-term, and he could no longer count on Nadia letting him stay at their apartment.

  On the last day of the vacation, Olivia was watching Will play an intense game of chess with his father, and she leaned over and whispered to her sisters.

  “Ever since I told you guys, I feel like I should tell Harley. I hate to be so dishonest with him. Sooner or later, the lie will corrode our relationship,” she said pensively, and both her sisters looked horrified.

  “Don’t you dare tell him,” Venetia whispered back. “Harley is much too straightlaced and old school to understand it. You’ll break his heart.”

  “What if he leaves you?” Nadia added, frightened for her sister.

  “He wouldn’t. He has too big a heart, and he loves Will too much to do that.”

  “I don’t think he’d abandon Will, but he might leave you for lying to him. Harley is pretty rigid,” Venetia whispered to Olivia. “You can’t tell him after all this time. And what would you gain from it? What difference does it make now?”

  “It’s a matter of integrity,” Olivia insisted.

  “You should have thought of that fifteen years ago,” Venetia said, sounding very definite. “Why would you tell him now?”

  “After I told you, I realized how wrong it was not to have told him sooner.”

  “But you didn’t, so just forget about it now,” Nadia insisted.

  “What if he finds out one day after I die? He’d hate me forever,” Olivia said to both of them.

  “He’s twenty-one years older than you are. That’s not going to happen,” Venetia said practically.

  “It could,” Olivia said. It had weighed on her heavily since the Fourth of July, and she thought about it all the time now. Venetia and Nadia did everything they could to convince her to just put it behind her and forget about it. Her window of opportunity was long past.

  * * *

  —

  It was with genuine regret that they said goodbye when the week ended. Venetia and Olivia and their families flew back to New York together. And late on Sunday afternoon, Nadia drove Sylvie and Laure back to Paris in the rented van that seemed so empty now, without the six cousins talking and laughing, the three sisters chatting, and the two men in earnest conversation about a variety of topics. Ben had liked Harley more than ever, with more time to explore the different facets of him. He could see why Olivia loved him. He was an extremely intelligent, very well-balanced man, with deep knowledge of many fields of interest.

  Sylvie and Laure fell asleep on the drive back to the city, and Nadia drove in silence, thinking about how much she loved her sisters and how lucky she was to have them. And she loved both of her brothers-in-law, and Athena’s long-term boyfriend, Joe. The three men couldn’t have been more different, just as she and her sisters were, and their children. They all had distinct personalities and diverse interests. She woke the girls up when she got home, and they helped her carry the bags in, and get them up to the apartment in the elevator. The housekeeper had left food in the refrigerator, but they only wanted a snack for dinner. They ate cheese, cold meats, and fruit they’d brought home from the château.

  For the next several days, Nadia had a lot to do to get the girls ready for school. Nicolas had texted her that he wanted to see them and asked when he could come to the apartment. She was grateful for the break they’d taken, being away from each other. Her heart didn’t ache quite so acutely. She had started enjoying life again, after their trip to the States, and her family’s visit to the château.

  Nicolas showed up faithfully the next afternoon, after Nadia had chased around with the children all day, doing errands, buying notebooks and school supplies, and new backpacks to put them in. They found pink ones that the girls loved. They showed the backpacks to their father as soon as he walked in, and he assured them they were terrific. Nadia smiled when she saw him with them. Sometimes for an instant she forgot the chasm that had opened between them.

  “Did you have fun with your sisters?�
�� he asked Nadia when he saw her.

  “Lots. Thank you for the use of the château. They love it there.” She was trying to keep her distance.

  “Are you serious about my getting my own apartment?” he asked her when the kids were out of earshot. Pascale had made a big fuss about wanting to live with him, and instead she was going to be with her mother in Brittany for a few months. She’d had a temporary furnished rental apartment in Paris she didn’t like, and it was going to be too small for her and the baby, so she had given it up.

  “Yes, I am serious,” Nadia answered him. “I don’t think it’s healthy for us to live together, or for you to stay here a few nights a week. If you have your own life, you should have your own place. It’s misleading and confusing for them and for us if you stay here.” Now that they knew about Pascale and the baby, she felt more comfortable asking him to move out.

  He nodded reluctantly. He was in no position to argue with her. “I’ll call a realtor tomorrow. Are you still going to see the lawyer?” he asked her cautiously.

  “Yes, I am. I think he’s back from vacation next week. I just want to establish some ground rules for both of us to follow.” They had actually been managing well without them, but he dropped by whenever he wanted, without warning. Lately, he had been calling first, but not always. He still felt as though he lived with them.

  “I’ll be in Brittany for a couple of weeks in October,” he said, and they both knew why, although he didn’t say it. He was going to be there for his son’s birth. But it didn’t sound as though he would be seeing him regularly, if Pascale was planning to leave him with her mother. That way she wouldn’t have to hire a nanny or worry about him. She joked about it and said she had never liked babysitting when she was younger, which shocked Nicolas. And yet she had wanted the baby, like a doll to play with when it suited her.

  Thinking about it made Nadia realize how difficult it would be to go back to him, if she had wanted to. They would always have his son as a reminder of his affair with Pascale, even if they were no longer together. The child would be a living reminder of the hearts that had been broken when he came into the world. She felt sorry for the baby, with an absentee mother and a father who had another family he felt closer to. She wondered if Nicolas would fall in love with him, as he had with their girls. He had been crazy about them when they were born. Maybe he would with this one too, since he was a boy.

  “Where are you staying now?” she asked Nicolas before he left, since she knew that Pascale was still in Ramatuelle.

  “I’m staying with a friend. And I’m going to move to a hotel. It seems less complicated.” She nodded, and didn’t feel guilty about it. It was necessary, and a natural consequence of his actions. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, until he turned around and looked at her right before he left. “I still love you, you know,” he said softly. She didn’t know what to say at first.

  “That’s too bad for both of us,” she said. She knew he missed the apartment, their shared lifestyle, and their daughters. She wasn’t convinced he missed her. “You’ll get used to it. We both will. It’s a big change for all of us,” she responded quietly.

  “I’m not so sure I will get used to it. I’ve made some terrible mistakes in the last several months,” he said.

  “Let’s not talk about it now,” she said. She was tired and didn’t want to dredge it all up again. “It happened. Now we have to live with it.” Forever, she thought. “Good night.” She walked to her room, and a minute later, she heard the front door close behind him.

  * * *

  —

  The September issue of Mode came out, as it always did, in the last week of August. It sat on the corner of Rose’s desk, and she didn’t handle it with pride this time. She always loved the look of the thick magazine, with all its wonders. She was usually so proud of it, and it represented such a huge collaboration and so much work and inspiration. This time, she cringed every time she saw it. It pained her almost physically to see Pascale Solon on the cover. She was wearing a ruby red evening gown, extraordinary makeup, and the photograph itself was a work of art. The girl on the cover was a beauty, almost like a gem herself. And the photographs taken in Ramatuelle were inside the magazine, with the interview.

  Olivia, Athena, and Venetia had gotten their copies, since they subscribed. Nadia always bought hers at a newsstand. She saw it on her way home from work, the day the girls started school. The red dress caught her eye, and she stood staring at it for a minute, not wanting to buy it, but feeling compelled to. It was as though it had beckoned to her. She had promised herself she wouldn’t buy it this time, but after standing in front of the kiosk for a full five minutes, she finally reached into her wallet, pulled out the money, handed it to the vendor, and grabbed a copy. She clutched it to her chest like something alive that she was shielding, as though it could leap out of her arms. Once she’d bought it, she hurried home, wanting desperately not to read it, but she knew she had to. It would not let her go now, as though it had tentacles, which held her fast.

  She threw it on her bed when she walked into the apartment, sat down and stared at the cover for a long time, looking at every inch of Pascale’s face as though she were alive, and then she checked the table of contents, found the page number, and opened the magazine to the feature story. There was a full-page photograph of Nicolas and Pascale sitting on a lounge chair together, his arm casually around her, Pascale in a white lace dress, where you could almost see her breasts but not quite, and the full belly, which was carrying his baby. It nearly choked Nadia when she saw it, and she studied each photograph carefully, then read the interview. The questions were painful for Nadia, and Pascale’s answers were innocuous. Nicolas’s more artful answers were even more so. He had tried to glide through each question they had asked him, and in every image of them, he appeared happy. Looking at it, Nadia wondered why she had hesitated to divorce him. He appeared to be so in love with Pascale, and so bewitched by her. She finished reading the article and had to admit that none of it was actually tasteless. At one point she could see that they had pressed him about his marriage, and they had printed his response, “I love my family very much,” and then he had changed the subject. He said he was excited about the baby, but that was all he’d said about it. The rest of the time, he had talked of their working together on the film, what a powerful experience it had been for everyone in the cast, and what a talented actress she was. He had thrown many compliments her way for her acting, and he had spoken as little as possible about their relationship. He had handled it artfully, and defused most of the loaded questions. Pascale had spoken almost entirely about herself. All roads led to Rome with her. She was the classic, young narcissistic actress, and Nicolas almost seemed like a backdrop for her, a piece of stage scenery put there to enhance her. He didn’t seem stupid so much as deluded, and Nadia didn’t find her touching or innocent or sympathique in her responses. It was what you’d expect from a girl her age, who had recently exploded into stardom. She was very taken with herself. And the poses she melted into were invariably sexy. Nadia glanced through the photographs again until she’d had enough, and then she called her mother in New York. It was lunchtime for her, and Nadia got her on her cell.

  “I know how terrible you feel about the interview, Mom,” she said simply, and Rose made a groaning sound, almost as though she was choking, or the interview was stuck in her throat. “I just wanted to tell you that I think it was done very tastefully. It’s better than I expected. It hurts to see him with her, but it’s nothing I don’t know, and he was careful and respectful with his responses.” She wanted her mother to know that she had survived it and had suffered less than her mother feared.

  “Do you really think so?” her mother asked, amazed, and deeply grateful for the call.

  “Yes, I do,” Nadia said, relieved that it hadn’t been worse. She thought it would rip her heart out, but it hadn’t.

/>   “I was so worried about how you’d feel about it. It made me sick to publish it. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you, but there was an incredible amount of pressure about it.”

  “They’re the hot topic. You did it as elegantly as ever, Mom. I’m proud of you. I know it can’t have been easy to pull it off without being sleazy. It’s a pretty cheesy story to work with.” Rose had sat on the writer relentlessly, and had edited it herself several times. She felt as though Nadia had just lifted a thousand-pound weight off her shoulders.

  “Your call means the world to me,” Rose said gratefully.

  “I just wanted you to know that it’s fine, I’m okay, and I love you.”

  Each sister had a different reaction to it. Venetia told her husband and her sisters that she thought it was disgusting and the writer was a little bitch. Athena thought Pascale looked like a whore in the lace dress. And Olivia read Nicolas’s responses and called her mother and said he was a “sick fuck” and she was embarrassed to know him. When Nicolas read it, and saw the photographs of him and Pascale, he sat and cried, knowing how Nadia must have felt when she read it. The only one who was okay with it was Nadia, because she had expected something so much worse, and she could see how hard her mother must have tried to rein it in and keep it clean and aboveboard. Rose was just grateful that Nadia didn’t hate her, and it hadn’t broken her heart, again. Like Nicolas, she just sat at her desk and cried, but hers were tears of relief. She would rather have died than hurt any of her daughters, and was so relieved that Nadia didn’t hold it against her.

  Chapter 10

  The day after Nadia read the interview that she’d been so terrified of, she felt strangely free, as though she didn’t have a care in the world and everything was going to be okay. It was the first time she had felt that way since May. She walked to her office, and was smiling when she got to work. Her assistant, Agnes, had read the article the night before too, and didn’t dare comment on it to her, not sure how she might react. She noticed Nadia’s good mood immediately.