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 asked 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.