“I try not to,” he said, looking defensive and suddenly very young. “Besides, it’s only been two months.”
“And you don’t even know for sure yet if you’ll get back together with her or not. You won’t know that till you go back to Caldwell and see her again,” Blaise reminded him. “That’s a lot more scary for me than a guy I broke up with four years ago should be for you.” And they had no claims on each other, which they both knew and were acutely aware of. All they had were attraction and feelings, and the life they shared every day. “For all I know, you’ll go back to her like a boomerang the minute you get back to school,” she said softly. She thought about it a lot, and it was one of the reasons she hadn’t allowed her heart to rule her head with him. She was convinced he would. She could sense that his affair with Megan wasn’t over yet. And she didn’t want her heart broken again, or a brief affair. There were plenty of reasons for them not to get involved with each other. And Blaise was trying very hard not to, for both their sakes. She desperately wanted to be reasonable. And Simon had been sensible too.
“I’m not going back to her,” he said, sounding sullen, as he finished his tea. “I never should have gotten involved with her in the first place, while she was still married.”
“And if she gets divorced?”
“She won’t.” As he said it, their eyes connected again, and he leaned over and kissed her and held her close to him, and all thoughts of Andrew flew out of her mind. She was trying so hard not to give in to desire and passion, and do the right thing, but it was almost impossible to resist. What they felt for each other seemed huge, and in many ways it made sense. And without the issue of his wanting children, she might have given in. She didn’t want to deprive him of something so important to him, particularly not at his age.
Neither of them mentioned Andrew again, nor Megan, and Blaise was swamped at work. Simon took Salima Christmas shopping, and she had very definite ideas about what she wanted to buy. She bought a beautiful bag for Lucianna to carry her sheet music in, because Salima said she always had things in paper bags and dog-eared folders. Even Salima had noticed it. And she got her a bottle of Chanel No. 5, hoping she would change perfume, which made Simon laugh. And she used her allowance to buy a bracelet for her mother at Barneys. It was a wide ivory bangle, which Salima thought she’d love when Simon described it to her. And she wrapped all the packages herself, and did it impeccably, at Simon’s suggestion. She and her mother had gotten a cashmere scarf for Simon, and warm leather gloves.