She smiled. “I don’t think you’re old, Mom.”
“So let me say my piece then. You went through a scary, scary thing, and as a consequence, you might be making choices that you otherwise wouldn’t have made. That’s fine. Understandable. Healthy even.”
She added in an undertone, kicking a stray piece of ice under the machine herself, “Though your father would kill me if he knew I was saying that to you because I think we both know what I mean by that.”
Camilla leaned back against the ice machine. “What are you trying to say?”
“Don’t beat yourself up for anything that happened after the crash, but please, please don’t jump into anything now. You’re not thinking like yourself. You’ve gotten very close to pulling back that veil, and you’re still not seeing too clearly.”
No use pointing out she hadn’t been seeing too clearly before the crash either. Not when it came to Mason.
“And even if the other person seems sincere, heck is sincere at the time, he might not be seeing too clearly, either.” Her mother shook a finger at her. “Did you know Christy Brinkley married a guy she barely knew who she’d gotten into a helicopter accident with and they were divorced, fighting like fiends over custody of their baby, a year later? Did you know that?”
“Who’s Christy Brinkley?”
She threw up her hands. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
Camilla laughed and kissed her cheek, leading her back into the hallway and pushing the button for the elevator. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m not marrying anybody right now. It’s just that with the veil back—” She paused. “Is that a poem or something?”
“You don’t go to mass anymore, do you?”
Camilla hurried on. “I want to take some time while I’m seeing whatever it is I’m seeing to try to figure out what I really want to do.”
The elevator arrived. “Well, I can’t argue with that.” With a last hug, she got on the elevator. “Keep us posted about you coming home. I think that’s a very good idea for you right now.”
“Will do.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too,” she said to the closing doors.
If Brandy really hadn’t said anything to their mother, she was a lot more perceptive than Camilla had thought. Or she and Mason were a lot more obvious.
When she returned to her suite, Mason’s door was open, and he emerged as she put her card key into her own. His brand-new khakis and white oxford looked very out of place with the same beat up sneakers.
“Marcia works fast,” she said as they went into her suite.
“She sent them over last night it turns out. They were at the front desk.”
The bed where they’d made love all night was still rumpled, the sheets half on the floor, the comforter pushed to the bottom. She turned away from it.
“Your parents get off okay?”
“Fine.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t, ah, whatever,” he said ambiguously, brushing her hair from her eyes, linking his arms around her waist.
She shrugged away. Time to bite the bullet. Fish or cut bait. Whatever. “I need some time.”
He froze. “Time?”
“Yes, to think things over.”
He dropped his eyes and stared at his shoes. “We’re all set to take a charter back this morning. The pilots are standing by. London or New York, you say the word.”
“I can’t do that right now.” Not just the plane, but everything, this sudden closeness with him, her intense feelings. Her mom was right. She didn’t know if the gut wrenching ache in the pit of her stomach at the thought of being anywhere but in his arms was a real thing or if it was just an extreme reaction to life and death circumstances.
“All right, we’ll stay here for a few days. I can put off the meeting. I’d rather be alone with you anyway.”
“I don’t think we should jump into that. Us, I mean. In fact, I might go home for a while. To Michigan.”
“A…a vacation?” He stumbled over the word, like he’d never used it before.
But a short week away, then back in the boardroom and bedroom, wasn’t what she was proposing. He couldn’t be her boss and her lover. She had known that all along. The only question was whether he could still be even one of those. Whether they were really right for each other, as different as they were.
“No, not a vacation. I have some money saved, and if I live with my parents temporarily, my only expense will be my student loan payments. I can last for a while until I… I don’t know. Decide what I want to do.”
“Don’t do this, Camilla.” His voice was low and intense, the blue eyes focused on her now, not his sneakers. “Come back with me.”