The Affair - Danielle Steel Page 0,84

the movie she would start in January. He was a hot young French actor, twenty-four years old. Nicolas didn’t call her after that, and she didn’t call him either. Their relationship was over, but their bond through their son had only just begun.

“Are you still with her, Papa?” Sylvie asked him about Pascale one day when they were at the château. He thought about it and shook his head. He wasn’t, and hadn’t talked about it until then with anyone. The whole episode was embarrassing, especially with them.

“No, I’m not,” he said quietly. Their affair had lasted less than a year, just long enough to have the baby, who would grow up with his grandmother now, with occasional visits from his father, and a mother who was a movie star. Nicolas intended to visit him, but living apart he would probably never be as close to Benoit as he was to Sylvie and Laure, and he was sad about it. It wasn’t the fate he would have wanted for his son, but it was what had happened, given the circumstances. He would provide him a good life, and comforts he wouldn’t have had otherwise, but his father wouldn’t be close at hand as he grew up. He was the product of their passion and their indulgence. Nicolas regretted it, whenever he thought about it, and wanted to do as much as he could for Benoit to make up for it.

A letter from Nadia’s lawyer in December told him that the divorce was going forward. Nadia wanted support for the girls, and none for herself. She wanted their apartment put in the girls’ names, and the use of it herself, as long as she wished to live there, which was customary in French law. She was taking nothing for herself from the marriage. The château was his and would belong to the girls one day too, with a third equal share for Benoit now. Nadia’s requests in the divorce were very restrained and seemed very cut-and-dried to Nicolas. There was nothing greedy about her, she wanted no revenge for the pain he’d caused her. She was an entirely honorable woman. All she wanted was to end the marriage as quietly and fairly as possible, which was typical of her, and made Nicolas feel even worse about his own behavior toward her. He had to live with that now. She barely spoke to him anymore except when she had to about their daughters.

It was a dark winter for him, and he wrote all the time, whenever he wasn’t with the girls. He was writing a book about a passion that had burned everything and everyone in its path, and had destroyed a marriage. He learned a lot about himself, and how selfish he had been, as he wrote it. He missed Nadia every day, but didn’t feel he had the right to intrude on her. He had hurt her enough.

* * *

A week before Christmas, Nadia accomplished what she had worked so hard for. The final installation of Greg Holland’s house was complete. She didn’t let him visit for the final days, and placed everything where they’d agreed it should go. It looked spectacular. She made him close his eyes when they walked in, and then told him to open them. He almost cried it was so beautiful, and so exactly what he wanted. She was smiling broadly as she watched him.

“Do you like it?” She’d been so busy she had hardly seen him for weeks.

“Oh my God, it’s incredible. How did you get it done so quickly?”

“Magic.” She laughed, and he went upstairs to see his bedroom, and then the floor with the gray flannel guest room, and his study with the dark green leather chairs, his desk, and a fireplace. She could imagine him working there late at night. Every inch of the house was exactly as he had envisioned it.

“I’m going to give a housewarming after the holidays, Nadia. You have to be here.” He had spent a fortune on the house, and she had earned a handsome fee, but it was worth it, and his Picasso in the living room was stunning. She had designed the whole living room around it, the lighting, the comfortable couches, the textures, the colors. She had even found the perfect rug for the room, and the huge central hall had the white couches and rug that he had wanted. It looked like a magazine cover, and it would be one

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