His father, clearly recovered from his pneumonia, sat on one of the damask couches with his mother, whose stylish black hair showed a few streaks of silver. Dominic’s older sister, Quinette, and her husband, Philippe, both serving on the board, had settled on the love seat. Etienne wasn’t there because he hadn’t shaken his flu completely.
He kissed his parents and sister and nodded to his brother-in-law, but he didn’t sit down. “I came as soon as I could. It’s obvious you’ve heard news before I could tell you myself.”
“Corinne’s mother called me this afternoon to tell me you won’t be seeing her anymore.”
“That’s right, Maman. We’ve been thrown together at various family parties you arranged, but I never was seeing her.”
“I simply don’t believe it.” Her voice shook. “She sounded hysterical. We’ve all been planning on your marriage.”
“I can’t help that. I’m not in love with Corinne, and she doesn’t want to be married to a man who can’t give her the kind of love she needs.”
She turned to his father. “Talk to him, Gaston.”
“I tried talking to him when
he left home at eighteen. My foolish son has cavorted with Parisian women with no class for too long. His judgment disgusts me.”
His chilling pronouncement couldn’t disturb Dominic. His father was lamenting all the money Corinne would have brought to the marriage. “I’m aware of that, Papa, but I have to please myself.”
His mother’s dark eyes filled with tears. “What’s wrong with you, Dominic?”
“Maman,” his sister remarked. Having been stuck in a bad marriage, she’d begun to see the light and had taken his side.
He smiled at Quinette before he said, “If I ever find the right woman, you’ll be the first to know, ma mere. In the meantime, if you’ll excuse me, I have plans. Bonne nuit.”
Now that his parents had let him know they were devastated, he left to meet Raoul at Chez Gaspard, a café on the outskirts of Vence where they could enjoy privacy.
They met there when they needed to talk away from the estate. Tonight there were two households in chaos at the chateau.
Raoul was already waiting for him when he entered and walked to the back table in the corner. The waiter brought coffee Raoul had already ordered for them. Once he’d left, Dominic handed Raoul the financial report.
“Thanks for this.” He lifted his dark head and sat forward. “I promised you some new information. As you know, I’d been dating Sabine and made the mistake of sleeping with her once, a mistake I regretted because as time went on I knew my feelings for a permanent relationship with her weren’t there. I had to tell her the truth even though it hurt her and I broke it off with her.
“Right after that I happened to meet Toinette Gilbert and found myself in love for the first time in my life. She’d become my heart’s desire. We saw each other for a month and I wanted to marry her.
“But out of the blue I got a phone call from Sabine. She told me she was expecting our baby and we had to get married immediately. Her doctor verified it with me.
“I was horrified. Of course, I had to tell Toinette the truth, the most painful thing I’d ever had to do in my life. She said goodbye to me and refused all my phone calls. I never saw her after that. My world had crashed around me.”
Dominic could attest to that fact. “You did the honorable thing, Raoul. When I heard you two were expecting, I knew that was the only reason you would have married her, especially after telling me you were in love with Toinette. But what is it I still don’t know?”
“I’m getting to that. Only the birth of little Celine helped me to go on. I loved our daughter and was devastated after she died. While I was at the hospital, I talked to the doctor and asked if her heart was the reason why she’d been born a month early. The doctor told me no. Celine had been a full-term baby.”
A gasp came out of Dominic. “So the baby wasn’t yours.”
Raoul stared straight at him. “No. If I hadn’t asked the doctor that question, Sabine would have kept that a secret for the rest of our lives. After coming home from Saint Tropez the other night, I decided it was time to tell her I was divorcing her, and I confronted her about the baby that wasn’t mine.”
“How did that go?”
“She admitted it. Her explanation was that she’d always wanted me, but turned to another man because I’d never proposed.”
“Incroyable. Did the other man ever know?”
“No,” he said in a solemn voice.
“So you’ve been living with the pain of that lie ever since the funeral.”
His cousin nodded. “Because you were in Paris, I didn’t want to burden you. Instead I got some professional advice and was warned to put off a divorce until Sabine had recovered enough from Celine’s death to deal with it.”