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.
Pascale was still hanging out with her friends, going to parties, smiling for the press, showing off her round belly. Her mother had been an actress of little note, her father had disappeared when she was born and she’d never met him. She had had a very loose upbringing among her mother’s boyfriends, and had been brought up by her grandmother most of the time. She had lost her virginity at fourteen. And it wasn’t lost on him that in being with him, she was sleeping with one of the producers of the movie, which was a good career move for her. Pascale kept her eye on her career, and knew how to get where she wanted. It had worked well for her so far, and luckily for her, she had talent and was a major star now at twenty-two. He couldn’t imagine her settling down for many, many years. Pascale was not planning to alter her life significantly after