a difference. It was a relief to get back to Paris, after two weeks in Brittany. His time there seemed surreal, despite the arrival of his son. The baby wasn’t integrated into his life and never would be.
When he got back, he took the girls to the château for the weekend. It was beautiful there in the fall, and he filled his lungs with the familiar air of Normandy, thinking about the infant he had left in Brittany who had no place in his Paris life, which seemed sad to him.
He took the girls to the beach, even though the sea was rough and the weather chilly. The girls suddenly seemed so big and grown up to him. They were filled with tales about school and their friends. He’d seen Nadia when he picked them up and she waved from the distance. She was busy. The girls told him that she was doing a big job for an American.
He’d had a letter from her lawyer when he returned, asking him to acknowledge their legal separation. And this year, when she had the traditional Thanksgiving dinner she had every year to keep the girls in touch with their American connection, she didn’t invite him. He hadn’t expected her to, but he was disappointed anyway. They had agreed to share the girls during the holidays. She was getting them for Christmas Eve, and the week before. He would pick them up on Christmas Day, and have them until New Year’s Day. He made arrangements to take them skiing in Val d’Isère, where he had many friends. He didn’t know yet what Pascale’s plans were, or when she would return to Paris. They’d spoken on the phone and he had told her he would be with his children over Christmas, and she didn’t seem to mind. She seemed less interested in spending time with him now that the baby was born, and she had plans of her own. She told Nicolas she was going to St. Barth’s with friends to get some sun, and didn’t suggest he come along, which he couldn’t have done anyway.
She came to Paris when the baby was a month old, and had left him with her mother in Brittany, as she had planned. She didn’t look as though she’d had a baby. She had her figure back, and was starting her next movie in January.
She had her life back too, her mobility and independence, and Nicolas was less a part of it than he’d been before. He spent a night with her in his new apartment, but everything was different. The magic was gone, and it was clear that their blazing, white-hot romance was over. He was a man she had had a baby with, but he could tell that she wasn’t as in love with him. She had conquered him and was ready to move on. And his feelings for her had dissipated. His heart had remained with Nadia, not Pascale. He had to face the consequences of what he’d done. And he didn’t want his son to pay the price for his foolishness.
Nadia congratulated him when she saw him a few weeks after the baby was born, but she was cool and distant with him, and he thanked her politely. The girls weren’t asking to meet their half brother. After seeing the first photographs of the baby, they didn’t mention him again. They could tell that they hadn’t lost their father to him, which was all that concerned them, and it was obvious that he loved them as much as ever. He didn’t talk about the baby either. He didn’t want to upset them.
At Nicolas’s request, he and Pascale were going to arrange some kind of visitation schedule when Benoit was older, and he was paying her enough in support to amply cover all his expenses, including a nanny to help her mother. He expected to pay for Benoit’s education. And according to French law, since Nicolas had acknowledged him legally, Benoit would inherit equally with his half sisters from Nicolas’s estate one day. It was all about details now. But physically, the child wasn’t really part of his life, or Pascale’s either, which worried Nicolas, but didn’t bother Pascale at all. Nicolas didn’t go to Brittany, and the baby was too young to visit him in Paris.
Shortly after Pascale got back to Paris in November, he wasn’t surprised to see her in the tabloids with a new man, the male lead in