Nicolas left the kitchen to see the girls while she put the dishes in the dishwasher, and she realized that if she didn’t refuse, she would now be stuck with a family Bastille Day weekend, to accommodate him and their daughters. It was untenable, and she felt torn between trying not to upset her children and wanting breathing room and space from Nicolas herself. It felt like it was time to see a lawyer to set down some rules for visitation, and a plan for how to get through this awkward time. She went straight to her room after that and closed the door. She knew that Nicolas wouldn’t dare to come in. He would stay with the girls until bedtime, and then take refuge in the guest room where they didn’t know he was sleeping. He would remove all trace of himself in the morning before he left. Nadia was relieved that she didn’t see him again that night. She didn’t want to.
Her mother called her from the airport before she flew back to New York. She was rushing for the plane but wanted to give her a kiss before she left.
“Are you okay? You sound upset,” Rose asked her.
“He’s here, driving me crazy,” Nadia responded.
“I saw the papers today,” Rose said seriously.
“So did I,” Nadia said. “And the photo of Pascale with him in Saint Tropez.”
“I’ll call you from New York. I love you,” Rose said, and they hung up.
After her mother’s call, Nadia lay on her bed thinking of something Venetia had said to her that weekend, that Nadia should get pregnant too, and then his loyalties would be to her, and not Pascale. She had history on her side. But Nadia couldn’t imagine doing something like that. The war of the babies. And he had absolutely glowed when he had told her the baby was a boy. The whole situation seemed disgusting to her. She was relieved that he would be gone the next morning, before they all got up and she left for London. His presence in the apartment made it feel toxic to her.
“Why does Papa go to work so early now?” Laure asked her at breakfast. Nadia fumbled for an answer and burned the toast.
“He has a lot to do,” was all she could come up with. As soon as they left for the day with their regular babysitter, Nadia made two phone calls. One to the airline to book her flights for their visits to Athena in L.A. and Venetia in the Hamptons, and the second to the lawyer whose name her mother had given her. Rose had gotten it from someone in their Paris office, whose discretion she trusted. The lawyer was out of the office, and Nadia left him a message. She booked the flights for right after the Bastille Day weekend. She was willing to sacrifice herself for a weekend with him and the girls. After the weekend, he could enjoy his château alone, or with whomever he chose to invite, but not with her. She had to draw the line somewhere.
It was going to be a relief to spend the day and the night in London with a client and get the whole mess out of her head. And she couldn’t wait to go to the States to visit her sisters and her mother.
* * *
—
“Why do you have to spend the holiday with them?” Pascale asked Nicolas, looking petulant, when he told her his plans to be at the château with Nadia and the girls for the Bastille Day weekend. “That’s ridiculous. And we’re invited to a wedding at the Hotel du Cap. I booked a room for the weekend.”
“You can go without me,” he said gently. There was nothing shy or reclusive about Pascale, and he knew she would shine at the wedding, and probably upstage the bride. “I need to spend some time with my daughters.”
“Fine. Then bring them to Ramatuelle some other weekend. Or we can go to the château with them.”
“They don’t know about you yet,” he reminded her.
“When are you going to tell them? When our son goes to college, so they can attend his graduation? You should tell them. They’ll be excited to have a baby brother,” she said naively.
“It’s not as simple as that, and you know it.” He had explained it to her before. He had unlimited patience with her, almost as though she were a child too, which she was to him, or it seemed that way at times. He was twenty years older. He found her childish side charming most of the time, but not always. “We were premature with the baby, before they even met you. And I’m still married to their mother. It makes introducing them to you now difficult. They don’t have time to get used to the idea of us.” She was suddenly very visibly pregnant in the last two weeks. “This isn’t the example I want to set for them. And it will be hard for them to understand. Everything has happened so fast.” They had no plans to marry. Pascale didn’t believe in marriage, like much of her generation, and her own parents hadn’t been married. She didn’t see marriage as a necessity, or even desirable. And she saw nothing wrong with having a baby out of wedlock, which was not what he wanted to teach his children. But it was a fact of his life now, and it would be difficult to explain to them.
“For your age, you act like we live in the Middle Ages. People don’t get married to have babies anymore. No one I know does,” she said blithely.
“Some people still do. Their mother and I did. At their ages now, I’m not happy to demonstrate alternate lifestyles to them. I don’t want them doing this one day. And they’ll be upset for their mother.”
“Don’t be such a prude,” she said, smiling at him, and slowly unzipping his trousers. The languid sensual way she did it, and slipped her hand inside them, drove him insane, which was how it had all started. He was a gentleman and wouldn’t have accused her of it, but she had seduced him while they were working on the film together. She had flirted with him shamelessly until he could no longer resist her, although he had tried at first. She wanted him, and he had found her naked in his bed one night, waiting for him. It was beyond his abilities to refuse her, and he thought it would just be a lark while they were on location. Their passion had overcome reason, and a few times, they had been careless about protection. And the lark had turned serious when she got pregnant. Then he had lost his mind in Cannes, and momentarily forgot he was married. But the baby would have outed them anyway. It didn’t bother Pascale at all to be having a baby, unmarried. What bothered her was that he was still halfway living with Nadia, and was still emotionally attached to her, which he had told Pascale. He wasn’t willing to drop everything for a girl who took relationships as lightly as she did, even if they were having a baby. He had risked enough. And he was sure that she had no idea what she was getting into, or the ramifications of it. Her life was about to change forever, even if her mother was going to take care of the baby and keep it in Brittany with her. Pascale would be as free as before, but she still had a responsibility to her child, she couldn’t totally ignore it. She was planning to do exactly what her mother had with her.
His life had already changed far more than hers. And he had far more at risk.