Dating the Rebel Tycoon (3 page)

For a girl who’d been happy to travel for many a year, the second she’d seen the spot she’d fallen for it. The gently undulating parcel of land had remained verdant through the drought
by way of a fat, rocky stream slicing through a gully at the rear. High grass covered the rest of the allotment, the kind you could lie down in and never be found. A forest of achromatic ghost-gums gave her privacy from the top road, lush, subtropical rainforests dappled the hills below and in the far distance beyond lay the blue haze of Moreton Bay.

But it was the view when she tilted her head up that had grabbed her and not let go.

The sky here was like no other sky in the world. Not sky diffused with the glare of city lights, distorted with refraction from tall buildings or blurred by smog. But
sky
. Great, wide, unfathomable sky. By day endless blue, swamped by puffy white clouds, and on the clearest of winter nights the Milky Way had been known to cast a shadow across her yard.

She wrapped her arms about her denim-clad knees, quietly enjoying the soothing coo of butcher birds heralding the setting of the sun.

A mere week earlier her work day would have been kicking off as Venus began her promenade across the dusk sky, masquerading as the evening star. Now that Venus had begun her half-yearly stint as the morning star, Rosie was still getting used to the crazy early starts to the day, and finding it tricky to know what to do with her evenings.

This evening she had no such trouble, filling it ably by reliving her curious encounter with Cameron Kelly. The way one side of his blazer collar had been sticking up as though he’d left the house in a hurry. The way he still hadn’t worked out how to stop his fringe from spiking out in all different directions. The way she’d felt his smiles even when he’d been little more than a Cameron-shaped outline. The way her skin had continued to hum long after she’d last heard his deep voice.

She sighed deep and hard, and figured she’d at least get some pleasant dreams out of it!

All of a sudden her bottom vibrated madly. When she realised it was the wretched mobile-phone Adele had made her
buy when she’d moved back to Brisbane—lest they live within the same city but never see one another—she picked it up, stared at the shiny screen, and jabbed at half a dozen tiny buttons until it stopped making that infernal ‘bzz bzz’ noise that made her teeth hurt.

‘Rosie Harper,’ she sing-songed as she answered.

‘Hey, kiddo.’ It was Adele. Big surprise.

‘Hey, chickadee,’ she returned.

‘I have someone on the other line who wants to talk to you, so don’t go anywhere.’

‘Adele,’ Rosie said with a frown, before she realised by the muzak assaulting her ear that she was already on hold. ‘Girl, I’m gonna throw this damn thing in the creek if you’re not—’

‘Rosalind,’ a deep, male voice said.

Rosie sat up straight. ‘Cameron?’

She slapped herself across the forehead as she realised she’d given herself away. If she hadn’t been thinking of him in that moment it wouldn’t have made a difference. Deep, smooth, rumbling voices like that only came around once in a lifetime.

‘Wow, I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘Did your stars tell you I was going to call?’

‘You’re thinking of astrology, not astronomy.’

‘There’s a difference?’ he asked.

Her skin did that humming thing which told her that wherever he was he was definitely kidding, definitely smiling.

‘So you
are
an astronomer, then?’ he asked.

‘That’s what my degree says.’

‘Hmm. I did consider you might be a ticket-seller, but then when I thought back on how hard you were working to not let me buy a ticket I had to go with my third choice of occupation.’

‘What was the second?’

After a pause he said, ‘Well, it wasn’t a choice so much as a pipe-dream. And I’m not sure we know one another well enough for me to give any more away than that.’

The humming of her skin went into overdrive, a kind of fierce, undisciplined overdrive that she wasn’t entirely sure how to rein in. She went with a thigh pinch, which worked well enough.

‘What’s up, Cameron?’

‘I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed my morning.’

She turned side-on so that her back could slump against the doorframe, and lifted her boot-clad feet to the step. ‘So, you did stay for the show. Good for you.’

‘Ah, no. I did not.’

Her brow furrowed. Then it dawned: he was calling to say he’d enjoyed the part of the morning he’d spent with
her
. Okay. So this was unanticipated.

When she said nothing, Cameron added, ‘I couldn’t do it. The wormholes, remember?’

She laughed, loosening her grip on her phone a little. ‘Right. I’d forgotten about the wormholes.’

‘I, obviously, have not.’

‘If one was smart, one might have thought this morning might have been a prime opportunity to overcome such a fear, since you were already there and all.’

‘One might. But I’ve not often been all that good at doing what I
ought
to do.’

First calloused hands, now rebellion. Where was the nice, well-liked Cameron Kelly she’d known, and what had this guy done with him?

‘You were in Meg’s year at St Grellans,’ Cameron said. Meaning he’d been asking around about her.

Rosie unpeeled her fingers from the step and lifted them to cradle the phone closer to her ear. ‘That I was.’

‘And since then?’

‘Uni. Backpacking. Mortgage. Too much TV.’ After a pause her curiosity got the better of her. ‘You?’

‘Much the same.’

‘Ha!’ she barked before she could hold it back. She could
hardly picture Cameron Kelly splayed out on a second-hand double bed watching
Gilligan’s Island
reruns on a twelve-inch TV at two in the afternoon.

‘No kids?’ he added. ‘No man friend to give you foot rubs at the end of a long day telling fortunes?’

Rosie didn’t even consider scoffing at his jibe. She was too busy trying to ignore the image of him splayed across her bed.

‘No kids. No man. Worse, no foot rubs,’ she said.

‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘Try harder.’

He laughed. Her cheek twitched into a smile. She slid lower on the step, and told herself she couldn’t get closer to being physically grounded unless she lay on the dirt.

‘You’re in a profession which must be teeming with men. How is it you haven’t succumbed to sweet nothings whispered in the dark by some guy with a clipboard and a brain the size of the Outback?’

‘I’m not that attracted to clipboards,’ she admitted.

‘Mmm. It can’t help that your colleagues all have
Star Trek
emblems secreted about their persons.’

‘Oh, ho! Hang on a second. I might be allowed to diss my fellow physicists, but that doesn’t mean you can.’

‘Is that what I just did?’

‘Yes! You just intimated all astronomers are geeks.’

‘Aren’t they?’ he said without even a pause.

She sat up straight and held a hand to her heart to find it beating harder than normal, harder than it had even when she’d been a green teenager. It had more than a little to do with the unflinching, alpha-male thing he’d found within himself in the intervening years. It spoke straight to the stubborn independence she’d unearthed inside herself.

‘You realise you are also insinuating that I am a geek?’ she said.

This time there was a pause. But then he came back with, ‘Yes. You are a geek.’

Her mouth dropped open then slammed back shut. Mostly
because the tone of his voice suggested it didn’t seem to be the slightest problem for him that she might be a geek.

‘Rosalind,’ he said, in a way that made her want to flip her hair, lick her lips and breathe out hard.

‘Yes?’ she sighed before she could stop herself.

His next pause felt weightier. She cursed herself beneath her breath and gripped the teeny-tiny phone so tight her knuckles hurt.

‘I realise it’s last minute, but I was wondering if you had plans for dinner.’

Um, yeah
, she thought;
cheese on toast
.

He continued, ‘Because I haven’t eaten, and if you haven’t eaten I thought it an entirely sensible idea that we make plans to eat together.’

Oh? Oh! Had Cameron Kelly just asked her out?

R
OSIE
looked up at the sky, expecting to see a pink elephant flying past, but all she saw were clouds streaked shades of brilliant orange by the dying sunlight.

To get the blood flowing back to all the places it needed to flow, not just the unhelpful areas where it had suddenly pooled, Rosie dragged herself off the step and walked out into the yard, running a hand along the fluffy tops of the hip-high grass stalks.

Dinner with Cameron Kelly. For most girls the answer would be a no brainer. The guy was gorgeous. She couldn’t deny she was still attracted to him. And there was the fantasy element of hooking up with her high school crush. One of the invisibles connecting with one of the impossibles.

But Rosie wasn’t most girls. She usually dated uncomplicated, footloose, impermanent guys, not men who made it hard for her to think straight. She
liked
thinking straight.

The only time she’d ever broken that rule was with a cardboard cut-out of a gorgeous A-list movie star Adele had nicked from outside a video store for her seventeenth birthday. He was breathtaking, he never talked back. Never stole the remote. Never left the toilet seat up. Never filled any larger part of her life than she let him. Never left…

She wrapped her hand round a feathery tuft of grass and a million tiny spores flew out of her palm and into the air, floating like fireflies in dusk’s golden light.

Her mother had been the very definition of other girls. She’d fallen for the wrong man, the man she’d thought would love her for ever, and it had left her with a permanently startled expression, as though her world was one great shock she’d never got over.

After years of thought, study and discovery, a light-bulb moment had shown Rosie that, contrarily, the way to make sure that never happened to her was to
only
date the wrong men—those who for one reason or another had no chance of making a commitment. She could then enjoy the dating part dead-safe in the knowledge that the association would end. And when it did she wouldn’t be crushed.

So, back to Cameron Kelly. He was gorgeous. He was charming. But most importantly beneath the surface there was a darkness about him. A hard, fast, cool character that he was adept at keeping all to himself. He was fascinating, but there was no mistaking him for some sweet guy looking for love.

And, of all the men who’d asked her out, she knew exactly what she was up against. Cameron Kelly was the least likely man in the world Rosie would again make the mistake of falling for, making him the ideal man for her, for now.

‘I haven’t lost you, have I?’ he asked.

You can’t lose what you never had
, she thought, but said, ‘I’m still deciding if I’m hungry enough for dinner.’

‘It’s a meal, on a plate. I was thinking perhaps even cutlery may be involved.’ His voice resonated down the phone, until cheese and toast was the last things on her mind. ‘We can reminisce about average cafeteria food, bad haircuts and worse teachers.’

‘When did you ever have a bad haircut?’

‘Who said I was talking about me?’

‘Ha! You know what? I don’t remember you being this ruthless at school.’

‘Have dinner with me and I’ll do my very best to remind you just how bad I can be.’

Suddenly her hands began to shake. She wiped them down her jeans, dusting off the tiny fragments of plant residue. Then said, ‘Where would we go?’

‘Wherever. Fried chicken, a chocolate fountain, steamed mung-beans; whatever you want, it’s yours.’

‘Steamed
mung beans
?’

She felt him smile, and even without the visual accompaniment it made her stomach tighten. But now that she’d reconciled herself to her attraction to him she let herself enjoy it. It felt…wonderful. A little wild, but she had a handle on it. This was going to be fine.

‘I didn’t want to be all he-man and impose my carnivorous tastes upon you,’ he said. ‘For all I know you might well be a vegan, anti-dairy carb hater.’

‘So happy to know I give off such a flattering vibe.’

‘Your vibe is just fine,’ he said, his voice steady and low and, oh, so tempting.

She stopped brushing at her jeans and hooked her thumb tight into the edge of her pocket. ‘Imagine me as the least fussy woman you’ve ever taken to dinner.’

‘Then I know the place. It’s so informal, it’s practically a dive. They make the best quesadillas you’ll ever have.’

‘Mexican for grilled cheese, right?’
How ironic.

It was his turn to pause. ‘It seems I have failed in my attempt to impress you with my extensive knowledge of international cuisine. Mmm. I’ll have to up my game.’

Rosie took a moment to let that one sink in. It left a really nice, warm glow where it landed; her hand clutched the fabric of her old black T-shirt against the spot. ‘And I guess dinner would be one way of making up for the astrology jibe.’

‘I admit, it was hardly gracious.’

‘It was hardly original, either.’

He laughed again, the sound sliding through the phone and down her back like warm honey.

The distant tones of a warning bell rang in the back of her
mind, but she was confident enough of him and of herself to say, ‘So, yes. To dinner. Sounds fun.’

He gave her the time, and address of the place that made the exotic grilled-cheese, and they said their goodbyes.

When Rosie hung up the phone she realised her knees were wobbling like mad. She slumped down upon the metal step, hugged her arms around herself and looked up.

The clouds had moved on, the colour of the sky had deepened, and several stars had shown themselves. When she hadn’t been paying attention, the world beneath her feet had turned.

The world turned some more until night had well and truly fallen upon Brisbane. The bark and bite of peak-hour traffic had subsided to a low growl, and Rosie pulled her caramel velvet jacket tighter around herself to fend off the night chill as she walked briskly down the city footpath. Late for her date.

A minute later the
maitre d’
at the Red Fox bar and grill pointed the way through the bustling bar crowd towards a table along the far wall.

A dive, Cameron had promised. The place was anything but. It was bright, shiny, cool, filled with men with more product in their hair than she had in her bathroom, and women wearing so much bling around their necks she wasn’t sure how they kept upright. While she’d been in so many seedy places in her time she could practically write a guide, Cameron it seemed was still very much a Kelly.

She ruffled her hair, wished she’d washed it or put it up, or had a haircut in the past six months, and excused herself as she nudged a group of hot young things out of her way.

Her hand was still delved deep into her hair when she saw him sitting at the head of a loud, rowdy table peopled by ex St Grellans students.

Kids who’d been given sportscars for their sixteenth birthday while she’d taken on an after school job cleaning dishes at a diner. Kids who’d skipped class to shop but had still magi
cally got into universities she’d worked her butt off to attend. Kids who hadn’t given her the time of day when, having been accepted to St Grellans, she’d so hoped she’d finally found a place where she might shine.

Suddenly she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it had been about Cameron Kelly that had made her convince herself dinner was a good idea. To put on lip gloss. To walk through a cloud of perfume. To wear her nice underwear.

She took a step backwards and landed upon soft flesh. A woman squealed. She turned to apologise, then glanced back at the table where several pairs of eyes were zeroed in on her chest. She wasn’t sure if they were collectively less impressed by her lack of top heaviness or the rainbow-coloured peace symbol splashed across her black T-shirt.

But it wasn’t so much their eyes she was concerned about as Cameron’s. And she remembered why she’d said yes. He was standing, his eyes locked onto hers with a kind of unambiguous focus that was almost enough to send her hurtling towards him like an object falling from the sky.

But not quite.

He was beautiful. He was irreverent. He made her knees wobble in an entirely pleasant way. But she had no intention of going to a place where she had to perform cartwheels to feel remarkable. No man on the planet was worth that.

She offered him a shrug by way of apology then backed into the crowd.

Cameron’s backside hovered several inches off his chair as he watched Rosalind disappear into the crowd.

His chair rocked, screeched, and he had to reach out to catch it lest it crash to the ground. His old schoolmate in the chair next to him raised an eyebrow in question.

Cameron shook his head as he brought the chair back upright, and then made a beeline for the front door.

He hit the pavement, looked right then left, and then saw her.
In amongst the night owls in their barely-there attire, she stood out like a rare bird, striding down the city street in skinny jeans, flat shoes, a soft jacket nipped at her waist, a multi-coloured scarf dangling to her knees, her long, wavy hair swinging halfway down her back, everything about her loose and carefree. Unpretentious.

And, just as before, having her within reach he felt as though for now the weight of the world could be someone else’s problem.

He took off after her at a jog. ‘Rosalind!’

When she didn’t turn, he grabbed her elbow.

She stopped. Turned. A stubborn gleam lit her eyes before she glanced pointedly at where he still held her arm. But if he was the kind of guy who got scared off by a little defiance he wouldn’t be where he was today.

‘What’s with the hasty exit?’

Her chin tilted skyward. ‘Would you believe, I suddenly realised I wasn’t hungry after all?’

‘Not even if you donged me on the head and hypnotised me before saying so.’

She kept backing away. He kept following, the sounds of the bar fading behind him.

It occurred to him that he didn’t usually have to work this hard to get a woman to eat with him. In fact, he’d never had to work all that hard to get a woman to do
anything
with him. For a simple distraction, Rosalind was fast proving to be more difficult than he’d anticipated.

But he was born of stubborn Irish stock; he couldn’t leave well enough alone. The effort of the chase only made her vanilla scent seem that much more intoxicating, her soft skin that much more tempting, the need to have her with him tonight that much more critical.

‘Rosalind,’ he warned.

‘Can’t a girl change her mind?’ she asked.

‘Not without an explanation, she can’t.’

The stubborn gleam faltered. She glanced down the block at the façade of the bar and bit her bottom lip.

When her teeth slipped away he found himself staring at the moistened spot, transfixed. And imagined pulling her into his arms and leaning her up against the building wall, and kissing her until the dark clouds hovering on the edge of his mind vanished.

He dragged his gaze to her eyes to discover she was still watching the bar, which was probably a good thing, considering his pupils were likely the size of saucers.

As casually as possible, he let her arm go and took a step back. ‘So what gives?’

Her chest rose and fell. ‘When you invited me to dinner, I thought you meant just the two of us. If I’d known it was to be a class reunion I might have pretended to be washing my hair.’

He followed her line of sight to find one of the guys chatting to a girl lined up outside the bar, but he knew the cheeky bugger was there to give word back to the group. His world was excessively intimate. Everybody assumed a right to know everybody else’s business.

Which is why this girl, this outsider, with her refreshing candour and her easygoing, cool spirit was just what he needed.

When he turned back, Rosalind’s arms were crossed across her chest and her hip was cocked. Her patience was running thin.

He reached out and cradled her upper arms; the velvet was freezing cold. On impulse he ran his hands down her arms to warm her up.

And at his touch her eyes finally skittered from the bar and back to him. Mercurial grey. Luminous in the lamplight. And completely unguarded. He saw her restlessness, her disharmony, and the fact that she was searching for an excuse to be with him rather than the other way round.

Arrested, he moved close enough to follow every glint of every thought dancing behind those amazing eyes, yet not so close he found himself caught up in the scent of her until he couldn’t think straight. And he did his best to be as forthright in return.

‘Rosalind, I invited you to dinner because I knew I’d enjoy a night out with you. I chose this place as it makes the best Mexican on the eastern seaboard. As to that lot in there, I had no idea they’d be here; I haven’t seen most of them in years. It would have been far more sensible of me to have avoided them once I realised Meg’s best mate Tabitha was there, as she can talk the hind leg off a horse, but another fellow is a union lawyer and, workaholic that I am, I saw my chance to talk business and took it. Scout’s honour.’

Her eyes narrowed as she asked, ‘When were you ever a scout?’

His laughter came from nowhere, shooting adrenalin through his body, putting every muscle on high alert. No longer much caring about keeping himself at a sensible distance from her pervasive scent, he moved in tight and said, ‘It’s on my to-do list.’

She watched him a few long, agonising seconds before she gave a little shrug beneath his touch. ‘Okay, then.’

Okay, then.
He took a few more moments to enjoy her sweet scent, her gentle curves leaning into him, and thought about suggesting they skip dinner after all.

He let out a long, slow breath and disentangled himself from Rosalind Harper’s corrupting wares. Self-restraint was an asset. It separated men from monkeys, and Cameron from being anything like his father. He needed to get some food into him and soon.