Chapter 1 #3
Her mother asked her frequently if she was happy, when they saw each other, and Dominique always said she was, and most of the time it was true, although not always.
Legally and in fact, Bill belonged to someone else, and it bothered her at times, but at the same time, she had freedom and independence to run her life and business as she chose to, which she might not have had if she and Bill were married.
And she worked hard. Her children were well aware of Bill as a good friend and liked him.
He was a more reliable presence than their own father, the only man close to them.
His own children didn’t know about the affair, out of respect for his wife.
They thought Dominique was a client of his law firm, and a friend.
They had no idea of how much Dominique meant to him, but her children suspected that there was more between them than they admitted.
Somehow Dominique and Bill had gone from year to year loving each other in secret, and she had accepted what he could give her, however limited their time together.
They saw each other once or twice a week.
She no longer expected him to leave his wife and marry her.
She had given up that hope years before and told herself it didn’t matter to her.
And most of the time she thought it was true.
The subject didn’t come up anymore. She was just happy to be with him when they could be, she ran her business with an iron hand, and her children were adults and busy too.
It seemed like enough to her, just as Armand had been enough for Marie-Aurélie, even though they never married.
But they had been able to live together.
Bill and Dominique couldn’t. Dominique had seen how happy they were when she was growing up, and they were inseparable.
Their circumstances had been acceptable in France and wouldn’t have been in the States.
Bill and Dominique had to remain hidden in order to avoid a scandal, which would have impacted them, their children, his wife, and even her business.
Dominique said pubicly that marriage wasn’t important to her since her parents had been happy without it.
She had a full life, children she loved, a satisfying career and extremely successful business, and a man she loved in secret.
It was enough for her. She regarded marriage as a sacred state and never wanted to be responsible for destroying his.
The love she had lavished on Bill had made his dry, empty marriage tolerable for the last sixteen years.
Ironically, without Dominique in his life, he could never have stayed married to Eileen for as long as he had.
Dominique gave him everything he needed emotionally, and he was a stable force in her life.
She knew that she could count on him, even though officially he belonged to someone else.
In her own way, she had followed her parents’ model, although at a different time, in a different country and culture.
In America, it would have made sense, and been less scandalous, if Bill had gotten divorced and she weren’t his mistress.
But it had never seemed like the right time to shake up their families, admit to their affair, and turn their lives upside down, so they had chosen to continue loving each other in secret.
It was the one thing she had sworn she would never do, be a married man’s mistress like her mother, and yet she had.
Dominique wondered about it now. But even with his youngest son, Tyler, having left for college in the fall, Bill wasn’t offering to get divorced.
Keeping things as they were was always easier, and Bill didn’t have to get into a messy legal battle or give up half of what he owned to his wife.
Bill and Eileen had married without a prenup when they were young.
Staying married now was easier and less costly.
And Bill said he felt too old now to start his life over.
Dominique would gladly have married him if he would have.
Bill and Eileen still lived in the same house in Greenwich, Connecticut, and saw each other as little as possible.
He and Dominique couldn’t spend holidays together, but she had her own children to spend them with, and she and Bill went on a vacation together every year after Christmas, usually somewhere in the French Alps, in order to ski, which they enjoyed doing together.
Bill had met Dominique’s mother and she liked him very much.
He was a kind, intelligent man and a good father, but Marie-Aurélie always questioned why he didn’t leave his wife.
She wasn’t sure if it was a sign of responsibility or cowardice, or perhaps both.
She and Armand had been completely open about their relationship.
Dominique had been Bill’s dark secret for sixteen years and her mother didn’t like that for her.
Originally, Dominique had resisted becoming his hidden mistress, but over time, she had gotten used to it, and they accepted their relationship now as it was.
Their separate lives had some advantages. Dominique made all her important decisions on her own, about her children, her business, and her life. She answered to no one and was captain of her own ship. And no one complained about how much she worked. She spent most of her free time working.
Dominique’s relationship with her children had always been close and their bond strong.
Their father had been so superficial and absent in their lives that it had brought them closer to their mother.
But that had been changing for the past few years, as they grew up and had their own lives, and she felt their absence sorely.
Their growing up and moving on created a void in her life, which she knew would only become worse in time.
She tried to fill the emptiness they left with her business, which worked to some degree, but not always.
It was now that she regretted not living with Bill and only seeing him twice a week, and sometimes only once.
He had a busy life too. Tyler, his youngest child, was at Princeton, so he would be home frequently on weekends, which would alter their plans, and Justin, the older boy, was at Boston University, and was home often too with no advance warning, and in their status, they had to cancel their plans instead of including him.
Bill had not experienced yet the ache of emptiness one’s children left once they were really gone.
Dominique’s children were on the cusp of thirty, just enough older that she had already felt the chill winds of their adulthood in her life, and the loneliness it brought with it, especially without a full-time partner herself.
Because of her own childhood, and the unspoken stigma of having unmarried parents, Dominique had been conservative in her own life, and traditional in the upbringing of her children.
As a child, she had suffered from the disapproval of some of her friends’ parents.
Her ex-husband came from a family that had been firmly ensconced in the Social Register for generations.
He came from old money and had added large quantities of new money to it, which he thought gave him the freedom to be as much of a libertine as he wanted.
He had a rebellious nature, set no admirable example for his children, and chafed against the restrictions of marriage with his affairs while he and Dominique were married, and with countless unsuitable women once divorced.
In contrast, Dominique had been faithful to Andrew while they were married, and to Bill afterward.
She had never remarried. She wanted to give her children a perfect life, and set high standards for them and herself.
She was an honorable, honest person who valued traditions.
Her children went to the best private schools in New York.
Her older daughter, Felicity, had made her debut at the most respected debutante ball.
Her youngest, Violet, named after Dominique’s paternal grandmother Violette, had refused to make her debut and considered it politically objectionable.
Violet was a rebel to her core. Their father had spent little time with them when they were children.
Dominique had taught them that hard work was important.
She set the bar high for herself and for them.
Respectability was important to her. She was a dignified woman, with a decidedly aristocratic air.
Having unmarried parents had left a deep mark on her.
And as a result of her hard work in her business, a debut dress or wedding gown by Dominique Dupont was every young woman’s dream, which their fathers paid dearly for. Her business had been a stunning success, and she used it to give her children every advantage she could provide for them.