“And how do they feel about the baby?” Barbara asked him. She was inching up on his marriage, but he saw her coming and sidestepped her. But he had walked right into her trap about his daughters.
“I’m sure they will be delighted,” he said smoothly, without saying that they knew nothing about it.
“And your wife?” Barbara lobbed a potential bomb at him, and he sent it right back to her with a smile.
“She’s not part of this interview, Miss Jaffe. She’s not here to speak for herself.”
“Thank God,” Pascale said, and laughed, and Nicolas shot her a warning look, then realized he had stayed far too long, and waited for an opportune moment to leave.
“Has the transition from one woman to the next been difficult for you?” the interviewer asked him. He smiled and didn’t answer. She had been warned not to go there, but couldn’t help trying, and she got nothing from him. Instead, he thanked her for her time, kissed Pascale on her forehead, and quietly disappeared. But despite his elusive exit, which took the writer by surprise, he knew that he had said more than he should have and was worried about how his answers would look in print, especially to Nadia if she read it, and he feared she would.
They took more photographs of Pascale then, nearly naked in her bikini bottom, without the lace dress, getting into the pool. She had a body that every woman would have died for, pregnant or not. They wanted some of her in the pool with Nicolas, but he said he was busy and did not reappear.
When Pascale told him the interview was over, Nicolas returned to thank them and say goodbye. The two emissaries from Mode left a few minutes later, and Pascale lay dripping wet on a deck chair and smiled at him.
“I thought that went great, didn’t you?” He wasn’t so sure.
“They asked quite a lot of questions they weren’t supposed to.” He was worried about some of Pascale’s answers, and his own, which gave them too much information they could use that he hadn’t wanted to reveal. Pascale was naïve and assumed they’d be kind, and said she didn’t care what they said about her. But he did. He didn’t want them making his situation with Nadia even worse than it was, or wounding her even more than she already had been. The fact that Pascale was in his life was enough. Her words were dangerous. She had supplied all the ammunition they wanted, gift-wrapped, and handed it to them. And even worse, he feared he might have too.
* * *
—
When Rose saw the first draft of the interview, she sat at her desk and groaned out loud. Barbara Jaffe had quoted Pascale on every subject, and her answers made her sound stupid, narcissistic, amoral, irresponsible, and hard, all of which was probably true. Nicolas seemed like a besotted fool who had thrown his life out the window for a girl with a sensational body, little brain, and no heart.
“I’d like to trim this down,” Rose said through pursed lips when Barbara came to her office a few days later. “I think you have more than you need. We don’t have to drive the point home.”
“She said all of it, and so did he,” the writer said innocently, disappointed that Rose wanted to cut it down. “It doesn’t run too long. I counted the words.” But Rose had final say.
“True, but she repeats herself quite a lot. It’s obvious that she’s a young woman with loose morals, who isn’t looking to a future with him, and has very little interest in her child. We always have to keep our eye on the periphery. Who is standing just out of sight who is going to be hurt by this? His wife, his two daughters. I’d like to keep the piece as clean as possible. It slides too easily into the tawdry with what she says. It’s obviously a story about lust and not love, and the baby was an unfortunate accident. I want to keep it simple. She’s a movie star, people will forgive her some of it. But let’s not go too far.” She had used a red pencil to indicate where she wanted it cut. The writer looked disappointed but knew better than to argue with her. That wouldn’t have been a smart move, and Barbara Jaffe was ambitious. This was a big break for her. And her enthusiasm had caused her to cross some boundaries that she normally wouldn’t have. She also knew from the grapevine that Nicolas was Rose’s son-in-law, so it didn’t totally surprise her that she was protecting both of them and wanted to trim the piece.
They went over the photographs together then, and Rose couldn’t help noticing Pascale’s flawless body. She circled the friendlier, more casual shots to include in the piece, eliminated the naked ones with a red “X,” and tried not to focus too much on her belly. Nicolas was sitting close to her in several of the shots. They selected one where she was dressed and you couldn’t see her belly at all. They were the most benign, least suggestive shots of the shoot, all in good taste.
The photos she chose would illustrate the story well, but didn’t have the tabloid feel Rose wanted to avoid. She was thinking of both her daughter’s and the magazine’s best interests. She initialed what she had approved and felt sorry for her daughter to have her husband’s affair so blatantly exposed. Rose hoped she would be rid of him soon. The embarrassment and the pain had gone on long enough, and too many people were going to suffer. It had been mentioned in the interview, though, that Nicolas was still very close to his wife and daughters, and planned to stay that way. So he hadn’t betrayed her entirely. All she could hope now was that Nadia would divorce him in the near future. He might not be an evil man, plotting to destroy her with heartless cruelty and premeditated motives, but at best, he was certainly a fool.
Chapter 8
Joe went with Athena in their SUV to pick up Nadia and the girls at LAX when they arrived. He was a big, burly teddy bear of a man, and loved kids. He was the perfect partner for Athena. They looked just right together. Both were tall, heavyset, warm, jovial people who always had a smile on their lips and laughter in their eyes. He knew some of what had been happening to Nadia, but not all of it. Athena didn’t want to give away all of her sister’s secrets and confidences, but he knew enough to strongly disapprove of the mess Nicolas had gotten himself into. Joe had come into the family after Nadia had met Nicolas and was dating him. She had already been living in France for three years. He had been an usher in their wedding, and had always enjoyed being with them. Although he and Athena weren’t legally married, and didn’t want to be, they acted as though they were, and after so many years, Joe had a respected position in the family as her mate. He was five years younger than Athena, and was thirty-eight, four years younger than Nicolas but wiser about life. He’d never been married and had no children. He would have liked to have children, but Athena had been clear from the beginning that it wasn’t what she wanted, and he accepted that. He had enough nephews and nieces and friends’ children to satisfy him, and they had their dogs.
Nicolas was from an aristocratic family, and an only child. He had gone to the best schools in Paris, studied political science at a prestigious university, and had a master’s degree and the means and encouragement to pursue a career as a writer from a young age. He had never had to worry about how he would support himself.