Dating the Rebel Tycoon (5 page)

Rosie gripped her spoon with her teeth and said, ‘Speaking of not being perfect…’

Cameron gave in, stuffed his napkin into his half-finished tub
and tossed it in the bin, the makeshift-sweet bite of vanilla no longer cutting it when he had the real thing right in front of him.

She watched the cup with wide eyes. ‘What on earth did you do that for?’

‘Because I get the feeling I’ll need both hands to defend myself against whatever’s coming next.’

She held a hand over her mouth as she laughed to hold in the melted
gelato
.

‘Come on,’ he said, beckoning her by curling his fingers into his upturned palms. ‘Get it off your chest now while I’m still in a state of semi-shock.’

She lifted her bottom to tuck her foot beneath, her body curling and shifting, the fabric of her T-shirt pulling tight across her lean curves. ‘Okay. Sharing family stories shouldn’t be like flint to dry leaves; it should be in the normal range of conversation on a date.’

He pulled his gaze back up to her face and reminded himself she was no intellectual small-fry. ‘I like to think a normal range includes favourite movies, a bit about work and a few
double entendres
to keep it interesting.’

Her wide mouth twitched. ‘I get that. But people are more than the movies they’ve seen. We’re all flawed. Frail, even. We make mistakes. We do the best we can under the circumstances we’ve been given. So why not just put the truth out there? I admit I have no dress sense. My dad was never around. My mum was unfit to be a parent. I can’t cook. Your turn.’

He broke eye contact, looked across the river and anchored himself in the integrity of concrete and steel, of precise engineering and beautiful absolutes. Everything else he’d once thought true had turned out to be as real as the monsters under his bed. ‘You want my confession?’

‘No. Yes. Maybe. It sure as hell might make sitting here with you a lot less intimidating if I knew you actually had something to confess.’

He turned back to her, monsters abating as she took precedence again. ‘You find me intimidating?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘No. You’re a walk in the park. Now, stop changing the subject. I’ve had the highlights, now give me the untold story before I start feeling like a total fool for thinking you might be man enough to hack a little cold, hard truth.’

God, she was good. She had his testosterone fighting his reason, and no prizes for guessing which was coming out on top.

He kicked his legs out straight ahead to slide his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The moonlight reflected off the water, making the glass buildings on the other side of the river shimmer and blur, until he couldn’t remember what they were meant to signify any more.

All he knew was that when his car swung into the botanical gardens that morning he’d been on a search for the truth. And he’d found her.

Maybe he’d regret it, maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but, with his mind filled with that siren voice calling for him to give himself a break, to admit his flaws, to confess…the words just tumbled out.

‘What would you say if I told you that I have spent my day certain that my father is gravely ill, and that I’ve kept it to myself?’

T
HE
second the words came out of his mouth Cameron wished he could shove them back in again. Rosalind was meant to be distracting him from worrying about the bastard,
not
inducing him to tell all.

‘That the kind of thing you were after?’ he asked.

‘I was kind of hoping you might admit to singing in the shower,’ she said with a gentle smile. But her voice was husky, warm, affected. It snuck beneath his defences and spoke to places inside him he’d rather she left alone.

‘Tell me about your dad,’ she said.

He ran a quick hand up the back of his hair and cleared his throat. ‘Actually, I’d prefer we talk about something else. You a footy fan?’

‘Not so much.’

He clamped his teeth together, betting that his stubborn streak was wider than hers. She leaned forward and sat still until he couldn’t help but make eye contact. The beguiling depths told him she’d give him a run for his money.

‘Look, Cameron, I don’t always have my head in the stars. I do know who you are. I get that it might be difficult to know who you can trust when everybody wants to know your business. But you can trust me. Nothing you say here will go any further. I promise.’

Cameron wondered what had happened to a promise of no
promises. Then realised things had been at full swing since they’d caught up, and he’d yet to make that clear.

‘Unless you’d really rather talk about football,’ she said, giving his concentration whiplash. ‘I can fake it.’

Her eyes caught him again, and they were smiling, encouraging, empathetic, kind. He couldn’t talk to his family; he couldn’t talk to his friends or workmates. It seemed the one person he’d taken into his life to distract him from his problems might be the only one who could help him confront them instead.

He ran his fingers hard over his eyes. ‘He was on TV this morning, talking oil prices, Aussie dollar, housing crisis and the like. He flirted with the anchorwoman, and ate up so much time the weather girl only had time to give the day’s temps. Nothing out of the ordinary. And for the first time in my life he seemed…small.’

‘Small?’

He glanced sideways, having half-forgotten anyone was there. ‘Which now that I’ve said it out loud seems ridiculous. Look, can we forget it? We don’t have to talk footy. We can talk shoes. Glitter nail-polish. Chocolate.’

‘I want to talk about this. You know your dad. He didn’t seem himself. Worrying about him isn’t ridiculous. It’s human. And you know what? It kinda suits you.’

‘Worry suits me?’ he asked.

‘Letting yourself be human suits you.’ She closed one eye, and held up a hand to frame him. ‘Mmm. It mellows all those hard edges quite nicely.’

Cameron rubbed a hand across his jaw as he looked harder at the extraordinary woman at his side. He wondered what on earth he’d done right in a former life to have had her offered up before him this morning of all mornings.

She opened her squinting eye and dropped her hand. Those eyes. Those wide, open eyes. Attraction mixed with concern, and unguarded interest. No wonder he hadn’t been able to resist.

She looked down into her melting
gelato
. ‘Are your family worried?’

‘I’m fairly sure they don’t suspect.’ If they had, there was no way they wouldn’t have all been on the phone to him, telling him to get his butt over there.

Her brow furrowed as she tried to fit that piece into the puzzle. But all she said was, ‘And your dad? Have you asked him straight out?’

Cameron breathed deep through his nose.
In for a penny in for a pound…
‘That’s a tad difficult, considering we haven’t spoken in about fifteen years.’

One edge of her bottom lip began getting an extreme workout by way of her top teeth. His physical reaction made him feel all too human.

Eventually she asked, ‘On purpose?’

How the hell did she know that was exactly the right question to ask? That no living soul knew how hard he worked to keep clear of the man in question without letting his family know why?

Slowly, he nodded.

‘Then why did I think you worked for him?’

‘Brendan does. Dylan does. I never have.’
Never will.

‘But you were planning to, right? Economics degree here, then Harvard Business School?’ Her mouth snapped shut and her cheeks pinked. Then her mouth drew up into a half-smile. ‘My turn again. I confess I overheard you talking to Callum Tucker about it once in the canteen. Of course, it only stuck with me because he said he was going to become a roadie for a rock band.’

Her smile was infectious. A bubble of laughter lodged in his throat. ‘Callum is an orthodontist. And I didn’t go to business school. I became a structural engineer. After several years in the field, I moved into property development.’

‘Impressive.’ She blinked prettily. ‘Callum Tucker’s an orthodontist.’

The bubble burst, and Cameron’s laughter spilled out into
the night. Her half-smile bloomed, full and pink and blushing. And, while her hair still whipped lightly about her face in the wind, it had been some time since he felt the cold.

She asked, ‘What is a structural engineer, exactly?’

‘I warn you, most people tend to go cross-eyed when I start talking structural systems, lateral forces and the supporting and resistance of various loads.’

‘Like I don’t get blank faces when I get excited about the chemical composition of celestial objects?’

‘Sorry,’ he said after a pause. ‘Did you say something?’

She lifted a hand and slapped him hard across the arm. ‘Not funny.’

‘Come on, it was a little bit funny.’

She snuck her foot out from under her and placed it next to the other one on the ground, facing him. ‘Why not just stick with the engineering?’

‘Ego.’

She shot him a blank stare.

‘The more things we Kellys see with our name upon them, the happier we are. It comes from having been born out of abject poverty. Generations ago, mind you.’

‘How’s that? No freshly churned butter on your crust-free organic toast-fingers every second Sunday?’

Cameron grinned. ‘Something like that. Ironically, business school would have saved me half the time it took to become profitable when I went out on my own.’

‘Nah,’ she said, flapping a hand across her face. ‘School can only get you so far. In the end you have to throw yourself at the mercy of the universe and take pride in your own ride.’

Cameron let that idea sink in. He was a meticulous planner, demanding control, assurance and perfection from himself and every employee he had. Then again, as a seventeen-year-old kid, he had broken free of the only world he’d ever known. If he hadn’t done so he would not be the self-made man he was today.

He nodded. ‘I’m damn proud of my ride.’

‘Well, then, good for you.’

Her eyes softened, and her smile made him feel like he’d been covered with a warm blanket.

The need to touch her again was overwhelming. Pushing aside her hair would not be enough. He wanted so badly to sink his hand into the mass, pull her in and kiss her until he could taste cinnamon. So, what the hell was stopping him?

The fact that she knew the worst about him certainly didn’t help.

Rosalind broke eye contact to eat another mouthful of melting
gelato
and the moment was gone. And, without her striking grey eyes holding him in place, he remembered: there was something wrong with his father. And worse: after a decade and a half spent keeping his whole family at arm’s length because the bastard had given him no choice, he still gave a damn.

He blinked, clearing the red mist from his vision and letting Rosalind fill it instead. At first glance, she seemed a ‘just what it says on the tin’ kind of person—playful, slightly awkward, with an impertinent streak a mile wide. But those eyes, those changeable, mercurial eyes, kept him wondering. He could have sworn she’d changed the subject back there, knowing it was what he needed.

Then, in the quiet, her hand reached out to his. It took him about half a second to give in and turn her hand until their fingers intertwined.

For the first time since that morning Cameron felt that everything was going to be all right.

He frowned. He’d managed to figure that out on his lonesome time and time again over the years. And at the end of the day, when they parted ways, he’d once again only have himself to count on. To trust.

He gave her hand a brief squeeze before pulling his away and leaning back to rest on the toadstool, cool, nonchalant, like nothing mattered as much as it had seemed to matter moments earlier.

‘Cameron—’

‘You done?’ he asked, gesturing to her melting
gelato
.

She licked the inside of her lips as though relishing every last drop of the delicious treat. But her eyes pierced his as she asked, ‘Are you?’

He didn’t pretend not to understand her. ‘Well and truly. I didn’t invite you out tonight for a therapy session.’

‘So, why did you invite me again?’ she asked, with just the perfect amount of flirtation in her voice to make his fingers spontaneously flex.

‘It was obvious you were the kind to appreciate the finer things in life.’

‘Quesadillas and
gelato
?’

‘God, yes.’

He stood.

She did the same, threw her empty container into the bin, pressed her hands into her lower back, then closed her eyes tight and stretched. ‘First, I’m a geek. Now I’m obvious. You sure know how to make a girl feel special.’

‘Stick around,’ he said, his voice gravelly. ‘The night is young.’

She stopped stretching and looked him in the eye. Attraction hovered between them like a soap bubble, beautiful, light and with a limited lifespan. Just the way he liked it.

‘I could do with walking some of that off.’ Cameron patted his flat stomach. ‘You game?’ He held out a hand.

She stared at it. Then she wiped her hands on her jeans and, after a moment’s hesitation, put her hand in his.

Holding hands made him feel like he was seventeen again. But, then again, the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a woman’s hand unless it was to help her out of his car made it feel far more grown up than all that.

As Rosie strolled beside Cameron down the length of South Bank, they talked movies, politics, religion and work. She made fun of him loving a sport that managed to keep a straight face while
giving a man a job title of “silly mid-on”, while he utterly refused to admit he believed man had ever really set foot on the moon.

But she couldn’t get her mind off the elephant in the room; Cameron and his father must have had some kind of falling out. She’d never heard about it in the press or on the grapevine. Yet he’d confided in her. She was caught between being flattered, and being concerned that what had started out as a fun date had become something more complicated so very quickly.

It would be okay so long as she remembered who she was and perhaps, more importantly, who
he
was. He might have fled the nest but he was still a Kelly. He walked with purpose even if that purpose was simply to walk. He had that golden glow that came with the expectation of privilege, while she knew what it was like to struggle, to trip over her own feet and her own words, and to feel alone even in a room full of people. They were manifestly wrong for one another.

They dawdled along the curving path. Moonlight flickered through the bougainvillea entwined in the open archway above. A group of late-night cyclists shot past and Cameron put an arm around her to move her out of their way. Once they were free and clear he didn’t let go.

Against her side he was all bunched muscle and restrained strength. His clean scent wrapped itself around her, and it took everything not to just lean into him and forget everything else.

To reforge the natural boundary between them, she asked, ‘So, what is it like being a Kelly?’

‘What makes you think there is only one way?’

‘I’m not sure. Terrible instincts. Stumbling about in the dark only to find the electricity has been cut off. No, wait—that’s how it is to be a Harper.’

His steps slowed until they came to a stop. ‘Right. Let’s stop talking around the real question, shall we?’

Rosie bounced from one foot to another, wondering what can of worms she’d inadvertently fallen into now. ‘And what’s that?’

‘If you were such a poor unfortunate in your youth, while I
was given every opportunity, how
did
you work out twenty percent faster than I did?’

Her head fell back as she laughed into the night. She bobbed her head in the general direction of the Red Fox, wondering briefly if everyone else had made it home to their nice warm beds. ‘Don’t beat yourself up. Spending time with that lot, how could you not revert to your teenage IQ?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not entirely sure that was in the slightest bit complimentary to any of us.’

She looked him dead in the eye and said, ‘Well, colour me surprised. You’re not as slow as you seem.’

His cheek slid into the kind of smile that would melt the icy crust of the moon Europa. No wonder she couldn’t stop moving. He was always so switched on, he made her feel like there were ants in her shoes.

‘So, how did a smart mouth like you end up in such a dry field as astrophysics?’ he asked, lifting his foot to lean it against a log on the edge of the garden beside them.

Rosie clasped her hands together behind her back. ‘I used to wish upon every star I saw. When I didn’t get a trip to Disneyland for my eighth birthday, I gave up on them.’

‘Stars?’

‘Wishes. Stars I couldn’t let go of quite so easily. So, while you hunkered down in your seat shaking like a little girl at the animated wormholes on your planetarium visit, I paid attention. I learnt about Venus, about how she always appeared alone, separate from all the other planets, and only at the most beautiful times of day, sunset and sunrise. That afternoon, I sat in the kitchen window of our apartment block and there she was—bright, constant and unblinking. A free show, for anyone in the world to see. That was the beginning of a beautiful love affair that has lasted til this day.’