The Affair - Danielle Steel Page 0,5

a girl. Venetia said she wanted more, but hadn’t convinced Ben yet. Somehow she managed to do it all, work, marriage, motherhood, just as her mother had. Unlike Rose, however, Venetia had a townhouse in New York that usually looked like a bomb had hit it, but she looked great, and so did the kids. They were all bright and lively, and her five-year-old daughter had her mother’s creative streak. She wanted to design sneakers with sparkles on them when she grew up.

In spite of how busy she was, Venetia always took time to listen to her sisters’ or her mother’s problems, and gave them impressively good advice.

When her assistant answered, Rose asked to speak to Venetia. She came on the line a few minutes later, happy to hear from her mother.

“Sorry, Mom, I was in a design meeting. What’s up?” Rose never called her at that hour. They usually talked when Venetia was on her way home from work in an Uber, which was often the only time she got to herself. Once she got home, she helped the boys with their homework and the kids would monopolize her for hours.

“I just heard something in a meeting that worried me, and I wondered if you know anything about it,” Rose said in a solemn tone.

“Hemlines are getting shorter? If mine get any shorter, my customers will get arrested.” She laughed. But she realized then that her mother sounded serious.

“It’s about Nicolas,” her youngest sister Nadia’s husband. “He’s supposedly having an affair with the girl who starred in his current movie, Pascale Solon. Has Nadia said anything to you? I haven’t talked to her in several days. I’ve been wrapped up in the September issue. I hope it isn’t true. Apparently, they outed themselves at the Cannes Film Festival last week. Doesn’t Nadia go there with him?”

“Yeah, usually. She was installing a house in Madrid, so she probably didn’t go with him this year or she only stayed for a day or two. I haven’t talked to her. We’ve been playing phone tag. I saw something about it on the front page of a tabloid at the grocery store.”

“You buy your own groceries?” Her mother sounded shocked. “What don’t you do?”

“It was my turn to cook for the kids, and I stopped to buy frozen pizza.” They had a housekeeper and a nanny, but Venetia tried to cook for them once a week.

“I feel better.” The women in the family were famously poor cooks, except for Athena, who made up for all of them and was a genius in the kitchen, if you liked vegetables.

“I was hoping it was just the usual tabloid crap, since she wasn’t there. What did you hear in the meeting?” Venetia sounded worried too.

“That Nicolas is having an affair with Pascale Solon, and she might be pregnant.”

“Oh God, I hope that’s not true. Maybe the whole thing is just Hollywood hype, to promote the movie,” Venetia said hopefully. She didn’t want her little sister to get her heart broken. Nicolas had been a flirt when he was younger, but not recently. It was just part of the culture, since he was French, but Venetia didn’t have the feeling it went further than that. Nadia had never complained to her about it, or said he cheated.

As she thought about it, Venetia was wearing one of her creations, signature leopard capri pants, a turquoise sequined sweater, and bright green alligator Hermès high-heeled pumps, with an armload of emerald and diamond bangles on one arm, a bracelet with a huge chunk of turquoise on the other, her red mane pushed up on her head with a diamond chopstick through it. They were standard work clothes for Venetia, and somehow on her it all worked. She was a beautiful woman and could get away with it. She was an icon in fashion and had a style all her own. She had been outrageous with what she wore since she was a teenager, and had made a successful career of it as an adult.

“I hope it’s not true,” Rose said fervently. “I just turned the girl down for the September cover, and I’m sure I haven’t heard the last of it. Especially if the rumor is true, about the affair. I don’t even want to think about a possible pregnancy.”

“That just sounds like tabloid crap, Mom,” Venetia reassured her.

“What do we do now? I don’t want to pry and upset Nadia if she hasn’t heard the rumor,”