Prologue

Etienne Pascal's world had been crumbling about his ears for a number of months before that fateful October day when the wife and mother of his children finally decided to let him in on the secret.

A neglected wife who had decided - with advice from a "friend" - that now those children were married and removed from the equation her life was ripe for some radical change.

Though her husband, if he proved as weak as her "friend" insisted, would still play a large part in that change that would prove equally as radical for him.

Perhaps even more so.

Not that the man himself could have had any clue as he drove home from the CEO's office of the successful Software Solution he headed from its offices in Honfleur in the new hard-top Mercedes AMG GT C he was so proud of and his younger wife thought made him look like just another early-fifties man applying a mechanised sticking partner to his receding youth.

Though she had approved the decision to move the office of "Solutions Chapelle" from the expensive Paris location on the edge of the Bois de Vincennes to the new generation business park at the foot of the Pont de Normandie. An ecological and sustainable office complex perfectly integrated into the landscape of the Seine estuary.

The wife's only surprise being that her husband, who enjoyed the Parisian lifestyle and fancied himself something of a Giacomo Girolamo - Casanova, for the uninitiated - had torn himself away from a city he always swore he would never leave.

She also knew that a massive - crucial - part in his decision had been played by the Indian woman and personal assistant who, she knew, was instrumental in most of the business decisions he made and to whom the success of the family business that was now hers in trust was owed.

Though she also knew he would have told himself there were women in Honfleur just as there were in Paris. So why not relocate there? Given the reduced overheads and sweeteners offered by the local chamber of commerce, it was win-win.

Or would have been were it not for some advice she had also received herself and the fact their move coincided with a sea-change in his attitude to the wife and mother he had been neglecting for so long as he bedded that part of female Paris willing to be seduced by him.

An attitude on his part which coincided with a not entirely dissimilar sea-change on behalf of the wife herself that had seen a return of both her confidence and the womanly attractions that, along with the business he knew would be hers eventually, had drawn him to her in the first place.

Now, as he drove towards their new home in a sought-after cul-de-sac not a stone's throw from the Port of Honfleur itself, having taken off from the office at lunchtime, the faithless and self-entitled husband and father pondered his new reaction to the wife he had stopped finding personally and sexually interesting long before.

And what he was going to do about it...

 

Chapter One

Simone Pascal - ne: "Chapelle" - sat alone with her thoughts, staring out from the bay-windows towards the view of the port in the near-distance as she had been for the last hour or so.

Things were reaching a head with her and the lover she had been growing closer to over the past few months. A lover growing restless with her inability to commit to the scenario they had drawn up to push things forward. But it wasn't just her husband she had to think about. There were three children to think about, and the fact all three were off-hand did not make her decision any easier.

Yes, their youngest, Odile, was in her second year of university in Edinburgh and had indicated she wanted to stay there when/if she gained her relevant degree in Microbiology; and yes, their middle-child Sidonie had been settled with her equally young husband in Quebec almost two years now; while Darianne her oldest was ensconced on the Riviera's Mediterranean shore with a lover of her own who, just like the painter Signac they both adored, was an artist herself and had settled in the beautiful little town of Cassis the great man's work had made famous.

The irony of yet another of her husband's "Girls" having a lover of her own was not lost on her and she was only too well aware of just how much her macho and reactionary husband detested his oldest girl's choice of a partner.

Her happiness, it seemed, not so important to him as the fact she was not...

"Normal."

Like so much with him that irritated her about the man she had once looked up to and adored, his hidebound view of life and how it should be lived - though he excluded himself from the so-called high moral standards he demanded of others - this reaction to his own daughter, being so close to home as it was, really stuck in her gullet.

So perhaps her lover was right and the distance between parents and children was something that made what they had in mind easier.

After all, money was not a problem and it was easy enough to visit the south of France, Edinburgh, or even Canada if she missed her babies too much.

Something those "babies" missed on her regard too if their frequent emails and Skype and groups Zoom calls spoke true.

Their father?

Not so much.

And yet... for all his faults and treatment of her and the nine-years separating them in age, she still found him attractive.

Etienne, she knew to her own humiliation and emotional pain, remained a handsome man still for whom affairs were not difficult to arrange. At fifty-three, he was still relatively lean and had a full-head of hair whose grey-streaks only embellished his looks. So, yes - resent her own reaction to him as she did - there was still that spark of sexual desire remaining for him whenever she took him in.

More interestingly, since their move to Honfleur and her as yet unsuspected dalliance with a lover of her own, she had sensed a revival of his feelings for her in that regard.

It had not warmed her to him.

In fact, if anything, this renewed interest she suspected for her on his part incensed her.

Did it take a betrayal of her own to make him want her again?

Even if he was unaware of it?

She shook her head grimly as she thought back on all the slights and cutting remarks of the past few years and realised he deserved everything her lover insisted she, Simone Pascal, could do to him if she were only committed enough.

Again her thoughts went over what had been outlined to her.

It still seemed outlandish in this day and age.

But...

More and more it was the thought that sent accompanied her into sleep and the one she woke to of a morning.

And with an increase in power each time.

A smile creased her face and of a sudden she realised the decision had been made.

Watching her husband's mechanical sticking-plaster pull outside the house, despite it being lunchtime, she realised her lover had pretty much thought of everything and when it came down to it Etienne was the one who carried no power in their marriage.

It was she, thanks to the way her father had set up his will and the rather penal pre-nuptial agreement Etienne had been forced to sign before she married him, who held all the cards in their relationship.

Cards that, for the first time she was more than ready to play.

Watching as he sauntered casually to the door with jacket thrown over a shoulder as if he hadn't a care in the world, Simone smiled an evil little smile and moved to the door also...