The Affair - Danielle Steel Page 0,15

but the baby would.

Pascale wanted him around to play and sleep with, until they got tired of each other, which she fully expected to happen sooner or later. As she put it, you don’t choose a partner for life at twenty-two. But he had at twenty-six, when he’d met Nadia, and it had worked wonderfully for sixteen years, eleven of them married, until he ruined everything with the affair with Pascale. He was an interlude for Pascale, a chapter. Nadia was his life. He told her he realized that more than ever now. But extricating himself from Pascale wasn’t easy. She fully expected his constant presence now, at least until the baby came.

He and Nadia talked about it again on Friday night, after she put the girls to bed. Dinner had been strained, although Nadia was determined to put a good face on for the girls for as long as she could bear it, but it was becoming harder each day, knowing that Nicolas was still with Pascale, at least some of the time. She had inherited her mother’s stiff-upper-lip genes, never airing problems in the presence of others. Sylvie had asked her recently why she cried so much and was in such a bad mood, and she had said that some of her decorating clients were giving her a hard time. Sylvie had asked her then if she and Papa had had an argument. Nadia had smiled through her tears and denied it, and made an extra effort to seem cheerful and pleasant when Nicolas came home for dinner that night.

Nicolas appreciated what she was doing, and knew full well that another woman would have thrown all his belongings out on the street, although they both knew that many French women put up with their husbands having affairs and mistresses. It was part of the culture, even for some people their age. And many wives in France weren’t faithful either. After eleven years of marriage, many of the men they knew cheated on their wives regularly, and some of the women did the same. It wasn’t how either Nadia or Nicolas wanted to live, and wasn’t their vision of marriage. After his one earlier slip, Nadia thought that that was over for him, which made this all the worse now. This had blindsided her completely. She thought they were happy and settled forever, and now their whole life had blown up in their faces.

Nadia was having a hard time getting through it, and he felt terrible about that too. She looked tired and strained, had dark circles under her eyes, and had lost at least ten pounds, which she couldn’t afford. She looked sick. She was still working as hard as ever and taking care of their daughters admirably.

“I’ll spend this weekend at home. We’ll do something together,” he promised with a mournful look. Guilt was his constant companion now, whichever woman he was with.

“You can’t,” she said in a small sad voice. She knew she should be angrier at him, and at times she was, but most of the time, she was desperately hurt. Anger hadn’t had time to set in. At first she had been shocked and numb, and now she felt crushed by what he had done, living with it every day, as he went back and forth between the two women like a metronome.

“Why can’t I?” He looked panicked. So far Nadia hadn’t forbidden him to come home or spend the night, although she had threatened to, but she did make him sleep in their guest room now when he stayed, and warned him not to let the girls see it. She refused to share a room with him, and they had had no sexual contact since she learned of the affair after the Film Festival. And Nicolas wisely didn’t try to approach her.

“My mother is coming for the weekend. She’s arriving early tomorrow morning,” she said simply. He groaned.

“Oh Christ. Why now?”

“Why do you think?” Nadia gave him a dark look and he nodded.

“She knows, of course,” he said glumly, as they sat at the kitchen table.

“Obviously. The whole Western Hemisphere knows. It’s been in every tabloid in the world and on the internet. There are dozens of pictures of you with Pascale. We’re just lucky no one has told the girls yet.” But sooner or later, it would happen. His books were sold and successful in translation in many languages and countries around the world. And Pascale had already become famous