Chapter 6 - The Life We Almost Had
Falling in love with someone a second time is nothing like falling in love with them the first.
The first time, you see possibilities.
The second time, you see scars.
I knew Julien’s worst mistake.
He knew mine too.
Because although his betrayal had been greater, I had eventually admitted something to myself.
After the divorce, there had been moments when I could have forced the truth into his hands.
I could have appeared at his office.
I could have bypassed Marc.
I could have demanded a paternity test.
I didn’t.
At first because my pregnancy was dangerous.
Later because I was furious.
Then because the girls became my entire world.
None of that made Julien’s choices acceptable.
But healing required me to examine my own.
One evening, nearly a year after the airport encounter, Julien and I sat beside Lake Geneva while the girls played nearby.
“Why didn’t you ever remarry?” he asked.
I smiled.
“That’s subtle.”
“I’ve improved. I’m not perfect.”
“I dated.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Did you?”
“Don’t look so surprised.”
“I’m not.”
“You look offended.”
“I’m French.”
“That’s not a defense.”
He laughed.
“There were two serious relationships,” I admitted.
“What happened?”
“One wanted to move to Canada.”
“And the other?”
“He wanted me to send the girls to boarding school.”
Julien’s face changed immediately.
I laughed.
“There. That expression.”
“What expression?”
“The one that says you’re about to buy his company and close it.”
“I’m working on that.”
I smiled.
Then I asked, “Camille?”
Julien looked surprised.
“What about her?”
“You were together.”
“Briefly.”
“She seemed nice.”
“She is.”
“What happened?”
“The airport.”
I stared at him.
“You broke up because you saw me?”
“No.”
He looked toward the girls.
“Because she understood before I did that my life had just changed.”
Camille had apparently told him something afterward.
You’re going to spend the rest of your life trying to repair this. And you should.
She had been right.
Julien turned toward me.
“Évelyne, there’s something else.”
My body tensed.
Old instincts.
Old fear.
He noticed.
“No disaster.”
“Good.”
“I’ve changed my role at the company.”
“What?”
“I’m stepping back as chief executive.”
I stared at him.
“You love that company.”
“I do.”
“Then why?”
“I spent years believing success required sacrificing everything else.”
He watched Sophie chase Lucie along the grass.
“I know what that belief costs now.”
“You shouldn’t abandon your career because of guilt.”
“I’m not.”
He smiled.
“I’m becoming chairman. Someone else gets the daily emergencies. I get to attend school plays.”
I didn’t know what to say.
He continued.
“I’m also moving permanently to Geneva.”
My eyes widened.
“You bought another mansion?”
“A house.”
“How many rooms?”
He hesitated.
“Julien.”
“Eight.”
“That is a mansion.”
“It’s smaller than the other one.”
I laughed despite myself.
Then he became serious.
“I’m not moving here to pressure you.”
“I know.”
“I need you to know that.”
“I do.”
That was the remarkable part.
I actually did.
Trust had returned quietly.
Not as one grand moment.
As hundreds of small ones.
Julien arriving when he said he would.
Calling when delayed.
Listening when I disagreed.
Accepting no.
Apologizing without adding “but.”
One rainy evening, the girls asked him to stay for dinner.
Then dinner became a movie.
The movie became three sleeping children sprawled across the sofa.
Julien and I carried them upstairs.
When we returned, thunder rolled outside.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“At eleven at night?”
“You used to drink espresso at midnight.”
“I was thirty.”
“You’re forty.”
“That was unnecessarily cruel.”
I laughed.
We sat in the kitchen.
Then Julien reached into his jacket.
My heart stopped.
“If that’s a ring, I’m throwing you outside.”
He looked horrified.
“It’s not.”
“Good.”
He placed something on the table.
An ultrasound photograph.
The original.
I stared at it.
“I had it restored.”
I touched the edge.
Three tiny shapes.
Three lives.
“I’ve carried it for a year,” he said.
“Why?”
“To remind myself.”
“Of your mistake?”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Of the moment I should have listened.”
I felt tears sting my eyes.
“Julien…”
“I loved you then.”
I closed my eyes.
“And I love you now.”
There it was.
No performance.
No demand.
No expectation.
“I’m not asking for anything,” he said.
“You just told your ex-wife you love her.”
“I’m aware.”
“That usually comes with expectations.”
“Not this time.”
I looked at him.
“What if I can’t?”
His expression softened.
“Then I’ll still be their father.”
“What if I never trust you the way I did?”
“You shouldn’t.”
That surprised me.
“The way you trusted me before was unconditional,” he continued. “I don’t deserve unconditional trust.”
He touched the photograph.
“If we ever have anything again, I want the kind I earn.”
Something inside me finally gave way.
I reached across the table.
Took his hand.
Julien went completely still.
It was only a hand.
But after six years, it felt more intimate than a kiss.
He looked at our joined fingers.
Then at me.
“Don’t ruin this by talking.”
His mouth closed.
I smiled.
For several minutes, we sat like that.
Then a small voice came from the hallway.
“Mommy?”
We jumped apart.
Lucie stood there holding her stuffed rabbit.
She looked at me.
Then Julien.
Then our hands.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Were you kissing?”
“No,” I said immediately.
Julien coughed.
Lucie looked disappointed.
“Why not?”
“Go back to bed.”
She sighed dramatically.
“Grown-ups are weird.”
She disappeared upstairs.
Julien started laughing.
I covered my face.
“This is your fault.”
“How?”
“She gets the interrogation thing from you.”
“She gets the dramatic exit from you.”
I lowered my hands.
Our eyes met.
This time, neither of us looked away.
Julien didn’t move toward me.
He waited.
That mattered.
So I moved toward him.
The kiss was gentle.
Brief.
Nothing like the desperate kisses of our twenties.
It carried six years of grief.
Three children.
One destroyed marriage.
And the possibility that maybe love did not have to return in the same form to be real.
When we separated, Julien whispered:
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
Then the smoke detector upstairs started screaming.
We both jumped.
Julien ran toward the stairs.
I followed.
There was no fire.
Sophie had attempted to warm a cookie using a bedside lamp.
Within minutes, all five of us were standing in the hallway, laughing.
And as I looked at Julien holding one sleepy daughter while another clung to his leg, something struck me.
This was the life we almost had.
But “almost” was no longer the right word.
Because somehow, impossibly, we were building a new one.
Then, three weeks later, Julien asked me to meet him in Paris.
At our old penthouse.
There was one final piece of our past he said I needed to see.
May you like
And when I walked into the room where our marriage had ended, I found something waiting on the table that I had never expected to see again.
---
