Даниэла Стил - The Affair

He’d had a letter from her lawyer when he returned, asking him to acknowledge their legal separation. And this year, when she had the traditional Thanksgiving dinner she had every year to keep the girls in touch with their American connection, she didn’t invite him. He hadn’t expected her to, but he was disappointed anyway. They had agreed to share the girls during the holidays. She was getting them for Christmas Eve, and the week before. He would pick them up on Christmas Day, and have them until New Year’s Day. He made arrangements to take them skiing in Val d’Isère, where he had many friends. He didn’t know yet what Pascale’s plans were, or when she would return to Paris. They’d spoken on the phone and he had told her he would be with his children over Christmas, and she didn’t seem to mind. She seemed less interested in spending time with him now that the baby was born, and she had plans of her own. She told Nicolas she was going to St. Barth’s with friends to get some sun, and didn’t suggest he come along, which he couldn’t have done anyway.

She came to Paris when the baby was a month old, and had left him with her mother in Brittany, as she had planned. She didn’t look as though she’d had a baby. She had her figure back, and was starting her next movie in January.

She had her life back too, her mobility and independence, and Nicolas was less a part of it than he’d been before. He spent a night with her in his new apartment, but everything was different. The magic was gone, and it was clear that their blazing, white-hot romance was over. He was a man she had had a baby with, but he could tell that she wasn’t as in love with him. She had conquered him and was ready to move on. And his feelings for her had dissipated. His heart had remained with Nadia, not Pascale. He had to face the consequences of what he’d done. And he didn’t want his son to pay the price for his foolishness.

Nadia congratulated him when she saw him a few weeks after the baby was born, but she was cool and distant with him, and he thanked her politely. The girls weren’t asking to meet their half brother. After seeing the first photographs of the baby, they didn’t mention him again. They could tell that they hadn’t lost their father to him, which was all that concerned them, and it was obvious that he loved them as much as ever. He didn’t talk about the baby either. He didn’t want to upset them.

At Nicolas’s request, he and Pascale were going to arrange some kind of visitation schedule when Benoit was older, and he was paying her enough in support to amply cover all his expenses, including a nanny to help her mother. He expected to pay for Benoit’s education. And according to French law, since Nicolas had acknowledged him legally, Benoit would inherit equally with his half sisters from Nicolas’s estate one day. It was all about details now. But physically, the child wasn’t really part of his life, or Pascale’s either, which worried Nicolas, but didn’t bother Pascale at all. Nicolas didn’t go to Brittany, and the baby was too young to visit him in Paris.

Shortly after Pascale got back to Paris in November, he wasn’t surprised to see her in the tabloids with a new man, the male lead in the movie she would start in January. He was a hot young French actor, twenty-four years old. Nicolas didn’t call her after that, and she didn’t call him either. Their relationship was over, but their bond through their son had only just begun.

“Are you still with her, Papa?” Sylvie asked him about Pascale one day when they were at the château. He thought about it and shook his head. He wasn’t, and hadn’t talked about it until then with anyone. The whole episode was embarrassing, especially with them.

“No, I’m not,” he said quietly. Their affair had lasted less than a year, just long enough to have the baby, who would grow up with his grandmother now, with occasional visits from his father, and a mother who was a movie star. Nicolas intended to visit him, but living apart he would probably never be as close to Benoit as he was to Sylvie and Laure, and he was sad about it. It wasn’t the fate he would have wanted for his son, but it was what had happened, given the circumstances. He would provide him a good life, and comforts he wouldn’t have had otherwise, but his father wouldn’t be close at hand as he grew up. He was the product of their passion and their indulgence. Nicolas regretted it, whenever he thought about it, and wanted to do as much as he could for Benoit to make up for it.

A letter from Nadia’s lawyer in December told him that the divorce was going forward. Nadia wanted support for the girls, and none for herself. She wanted their apartment put in the girls’ names, and the use of it herself, as long as she wished to live there, which was customary in French law. She was taking nothing for herself from the marriage. The château was his and would belong to the girls one day too, with a third equal share for Benoit now. Nadia’s requests in the divorce were very restrained and seemed very cut-and-dried to Nicolas. There was nothing greedy about her, she wanted no revenge for the pain he’d caused her. She was an entirely honorable woman. All she wanted was to end the marriage as quietly and fairly as possible, which was typical of her, and made Nicolas feel even worse about his own behavior toward her. He had to live with that now. She barely spoke to him anymore except when she had to about their daughters.

It was a dark winter for him, and he wrote all the time, whenever he wasn’t with the girls. He was writing a book about a passion that had burned everything and everyone in its path, and had destroyed a marriage. He learned a lot about himself, and how selfish he had been, as he wrote it. He missed Nadia every day, but didn’t feel he had the right to intrude on her. He had hurt her enough.

—

A week before Christmas, Nadia accomplished what she had worked so hard for. The final installation of Greg Holland’s house was complete. She didn’t let him visit for the final days, and placed everything where they’d agreed it should go. It looked spectacular. She made him close his eyes when they walked in, and then told him to open them. He almost cried it was so beautiful, and so exactly what he wanted. She was smiling broadly as she watched him.

“Do you like it?” She’d been so busy she had hardly seen him for weeks.

“Oh my God, it’s incredible. How did you get it done so quickly?”

“Magic.” She laughed, and he went upstairs to see his bedroom, and then the floor with the gray flannel guest room, and his study with the dark green leather chairs, his desk, and a fireplace. She could imagine him working there late at night. Every inch of the house was exactly as he had envisioned it.

“I’m going to give a housewarming after the holidays, Nadia. You have to be here.” He had spent a fortune on the house, and she had earned a handsome fee, but it was worth it, and his Picasso in the living room was stunning. She had designed the whole living room around it, the lighting, the comfortable couches, the textures, the colors. She had even found the perfect rug for the room, and the huge central hall had the white couches and rug that he had wanted. It looked like a magazine cover, and it would be one day, with Nadia credited for the design.

He was going home to Texas for the holidays, and she was going to New York to visit Venetia, her mother, and Olivia between Christmas and New Year’s, when the girls would be skiing with their father. Venetia’s wish for a fourth child had come true, and she had gotten pregnant at the château in August. She was four months pregnant now. They knew it was another girl, which was exactly what she’d wanted, so she would have two girls and two boys.