Даниэла Стил - The Affair

“Harley and Olivia almost broke up recently. He actually left her for a few days.”

“Harley? Why?” Nicolas looked shocked.

“She did something she shouldn’t have fifteen years ago, and she decided to confess it to him, and he took it badly. Very badly. But he forgave her, and they’re working it out,” she said, thinking about them, and how happy Olivia sounded now.

“I’m sure whatever she did wasn’t as bad as what I did, but at least he forgave her. Could you take a lesson from him?”

“I think it just boiled down to the fact that they love each other. And I suppose we do too.” She looked at him helplessly standing in the front hall of their apartment, and suddenly it just seemed like too much work to fight him. Maybe Venetia was right and if they loved each other, to hell with what everyone thought they should do. If it went wrong again, they could still divorce each other, or leave the papers in place. Suddenly trying again didn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen to them. He made her laugh. She had never known another man who could have fun the way he did, or make love like he did, which she had been trying to forget for the past eight months. She hadn’t made love to anyone else since, and hadn’t wanted to. Greg was a very attractive man, successful, interesting, smart, had great taste, but he didn’t excite her. Nicolas did. “Why don’t you stay here this weekend, and we’ll see how it goes? I’ll send the girls to friends. I don’t want to get their hopes up and then disappoint them.”

“We won’t,” he promised her, and then crushed her against him in an embrace. “Oh God, Nadia, thank you…thank you…I’ll be a saint for the next fifty years. I promise.”

“That sounds incredibly boring.” She grinned at him. He knew what he had to do and not do. Now it remained to be seen if he could maintain it. “If you have another affair, I’ll divorce you so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

“I know,” he said. “I wouldn’t blame you. It will never happen again.”

And then she thought of something. “Are we going to have Pascale hanging around to visit her baby?”

“She’s not interested in the baby,” he said. “He’s going to live with his grandmother. I can go to Brittany to see him if you want me to. But I do want him to come to Paris for visits. He needs his father.” Even more so with a mother he would probably see very rarely.

“No,” she said carefully. “He’s your child. He can visit us here. I’m just not ready for that whole family.”

“Neither am I. I think I should see him, and I want to, but he’ll have a life with them, and visits with us if he’s a decent kid. Pascale isn’t part of it. She doesn’t really want to be part of his life, let alone ours.”

“That’s sad for him.”

“I’m going to keep an eye on him, and the grandmother loves him.”

Nadia nodded. It sounded workable. Nicolas was trying to walk a fine line between benevolent supervision from a distance, and participation to a degree that was comfortable but not overwhelming, which was all she could ask of him. They’d have to see how things developed as the boy grew. He might not even want to be with them, or he might fit in very well. Nadia respected what Nicolas was trying to do.

“See you this weekend,” she said with a cautious smile. She was nervous about it, like a first date. She had never had those feelings about Greg, the butterflies in the stomach and sweaty palms. But Nicolas always gave her all those feelings and more. He still did.

He kissed her one last time before he left. She stood in the hall for a minute after he was gone, wondering what she’d done, and if she was crazy, but it felt right to give him another chance and try. Much better than getting divorced, or trying to feel something for Greg that she knew she didn’t, and never would. Or for someone else she loved less than Nicolas.

She went back to her office to call Venetia and tell her what had happened. This was what her sister had suggested when they talked about it. Nadia thought she’d be pleased.

She picked up her phone to call her, and the phone rang in her hand. She saw that it was from Venetia, and she laughed as she answered it.

“You’re psychic. I was just going to call you. Nicolas was just here and we were talking.” As she said it, she heard a terrible groan at the other end, and she suddenly realized that her sister didn’t sound well, she sounded like she was in pain. “Are you okay?”

“No…they think I might be in labor. I’m having terrible pains. Ben is getting dressed to take me to the hospital now. Don’t tell Mom. I just wanted you to know. I don’t want Mom to worry.” And then she started to cry with the next pain. “I’m so afraid I’ll lose her. I’m only five months pregnant. She wouldn’t survive.”

“Just take it easy. Go to the hospital and see what they say. Are you bleeding?”

“A little.” That didn’t sound good.

“I wish I were there.”

Ben helped her stand up then, and Venetia had to go. He half carried her out to the Uber he had called. Fortunately, they were in the city.

Nadia spent the next two hours waiting to hear from her, and talking to Olivia and Athena. She didn’t hear from Venetia until four in the morning in Paris. She sounded slightly drunk and said they had given her something to stop labor, and it had worked.

“They’re putting me on bed rest for a month or two and we’ll see what happens. How am I going to run my business?”

“You can do designs just as well in bed at home. You don’t have a choice,” Nadia said firmly.

“I know.” Her voice was very small and she sounded very scared. Nadia talked to Ben after that and he said the baby looked fine on the monitors and sonograms, they just had to keep it in now until it was cooked.

They kept Venetia in the hospital for a week to observe her and do tests. After that, Ben drove her home. She was lying down on the back seat of their SUV. As soon as they got there, he carried her straight to bed. They had a live-in nanny, so she was covered for childcare, but running her business from bed was going to be hard. Venetia wasn’t easy to keep down. She had her finger in every pie, came in and out of design meetings all day, and looked over everyone’s shoulder. They decided to put a video screen up in her office, with another screen in her bedroom, so she could see people and participate in meetings. Ben called and checked on her half a dozen times a day, and she was afraid to spend too much time out of bed. As soon as she did, she started having contractions. They had to keep her from having the baby for four more months. It sounded like an eternity to Venetia. With three young children and a booming business, it was going to be a huge challenge to stay in bed.

When Venetia felt better, Nadia told her that she and Nicolas were going to try to work things out.

“I don’t know if it will work, or if it’s too late for us. But you’re right. We love each other. I don’t want to throw that away yet.” Venetia was happy for her. It was what she had hoped would happen all along.

Chapter 14

Nadia flew to New York to see Venetia for a few days. Venetia had been in bed for a month, but she was busy too and had several new clients. She was doing one presentation after another. And things were going well with Nicolas so far. He was walking on eggshells, but they were both starting to relax. She told Venetia about it when she brought her Thai food on a tray.

“It’s not like it used to be, but it’s getting there,” Nadia told her. She hadn’t seen the baby yet, and Nicolas didn’t push her to. He still had his rented apartment, and had Isabelle and the baby stay there for their visits. The girls had gone to see him and thought he was very cute. Nadia said she hadn’t heard from Greg Holland again since she told him that she and Nicolas were giving it another try.