Dating the Rebel Tycoon(2)

Surprising himself, he laughed out loud, something he had not expected   to do today. It wasn't often people dared to tease him. He was too   successful, his reputation too implacable, his surname too synonymous   with winning at all costs. Perhaps that was why he liked it.

'Your expertise on the ways of big boys aside,' he said, 'I saw the show years ago in middle school.'

'Years ago?' the husky voice lobbed back. 'Lucky for you, astronomers   hit a point at exactly that point in time when they said, "Well, that'll   do us. We've found enough stars out there for a hundred generations of   couples to name after one another for Valentine's Day. Why bother   studying the eternal mystery of the universe any more?"'                       
       
           



       

He laughed again. And for the first time in hours he felt like he could   turn his neck without fear of pulling a muscle. He had not a clue if  the  woman was eighteen or eighty, if she was married or single, or even   from this planet, but he was enjoying himself too much to care.

He took a step away from the door. He couldn't see the floor beneath his   feet. It felt liberating, like he was stepping out into an abyss.

Until he stubbed his toe, and then it felt like he was walking around in a strange building in the dark.

Something moved. Cameron turned his head a fraction to the left, and   finally he saw her: a dark blob melting into the shadows. If she was   standing on the same level as him, she was tall. There was a distinct   possibility of long, wavy hair, and lean curves poured into a floaty   calf-length dress. When he imagined seriously chunky boots, he realised   he didn't have any kind of perspective to trust his eyes.

But he'd always trusted his gut. And, while he'd come to the gardens   searching for the means to navigate his way around a difficult truth,   the only real truth he had so far found was the voice tugging him   further into the blackness.

'How about you turn on a light?' he said. 'Then we can come to an arrangement that suits us both.'

'Would you believe I'm conserving power?'

There wasn't a single thing about the tone of her voice that made him   even half believe her. His smile became a grin, and the tightness in his   shoulders just melted away.

He took another step.

'Not for even half a second,' he said, his voice dropping several notes,   giving as good as he got to that voice-that husky, feminine voice.   Mocking him. Taking him down a peg or two. Or three, if he was at all   honest.

He-a Kelly and all.



Rosie kept her distance.

Not because the intruder seemed all that dangerous; she knew the nooks   and crannies of this place like the back of her hand, and after   stargazing half her life she could see in the dark as well as a cat. And   from the lazy way he'd held his fists earlier, like he'd instinctively   known nobody would dare take a swipe, she'd surely have been able to  get  in a jab or two.

She kept her distance because she knew exactly who he was.

The man in the dark jeans, pinstriped blazer, glossy tie and crisp   chambray shirt poking out at the bottom of the kind of knit V-necked   vest only the most super-swanky guy could get away with was Cameron   Kelly.

Too-beautiful-for-words Cameron Kelly. Smart, serious,   eyes-as-deep-as-the-ocean Cameron Kelly. Of the Ascot Kellys. The huge   family, investment-banking dynasty, lived their lives in the social   pages, absolutely blessed in every possible way Kellys.

She would have recognised that untameable cowlick, those invulnerable   shoulders, and the yummy creases lining the back of that neck anywhere.   God only knew how many hours she'd spent in the St Grellans school   chapel staring at them.

Not that getting up close and personal or turning on the light would   have rendered her familiar. She'd been the scholarship kid who'd taken   two buses and a train to get to school from the indifferent council flat   she'd shared with her single mum. He had attended St Grellans by   birthright.

Post-school they'd run in very different circles, but the Kellys had   never been far from the periphery of her life. The glossy mags had told   her that dashing patriarch Quinn Kelly was seen buying this priceless   objet d'art or selling that racehorse, while his wife Mary was putting   on sumptuous banquets for one or another head of state. Brendan, the   eldest, and his father's right-hand man, had married, had two beautiful   daughters, then become tragically widowed, adding to the family   folklore. Dylan, the next in line, was the charmer, his wide, white   smile inviting every magazine reader to dare join the bevy of beauties   no longer on his speed dial. Meg, the youngest, was branded bored and   beautiful enough to rival any Hollywood starlet.

Yet the one Rosie had always had a soft spot for remained mostly absent   from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. He'd played into the Kelly  legend  just enough by sporting fresh new consorts every other week: a  fabulous  blonde senator on his arm at some party here, a leggy blonde  dancer  tucked in behind him at a benefit there.

Yet the minute he'd appeared without a blonde in sight, her soft spot had begun to pulse.

'Rightio,' she said, curling away to her left, away from Cameron and   towards the bank of stairs leading to the front of the auditorium. 'What   are you doing here if not to once and for all find out who truly did   hang the moon and the stars?'

'Central heating,' he said without missing a beat. 'It's freezing out there.'                       
       
           



       

She grinned, all too readily charmed considering the guy still seemed to   have blinkers when it came to skinny, smart girls with indefinite   hair-colour and no cleavage to speak of.

And now she was close enough to make out the subtle, chequered pattern   of his vest, the fine platinum thread through the knot of his tie, and   the furrowing of his brow as his eyes almost found hers.

She took two definite steps back. 'The café just up the hill has those   cool outdoor furnace-heaters-big, shiny brass ones that have to be seen   to be believed. And I hear they also serve coffee, which is a bonus.'

After much longer than was at all polite, his voice drifted to her on a   rumble. 'The allure of coffee aside, the warmth in here is more   appealing.'

Her knees wobbled. She held out both arms to steady herself. Seriously,   how could the guy still manage to incapacitate her knees without trying   to, without meaning to? Without even knowing her name.

She wrapped her russet beaded-cardigan tighter around herself, squeezing   away the return of an old familiar ache that she thought she'd long   since cast off: the sting of growing up invisible.

Growing up with a dad who'd left before she was born, and a mum who'd   never got over him, being inconspicuous had come with the territory.   Being a shy unfortunate in a school saturated with the progeny of   politicians, moguls and even royalty hadn't helped the matter.

But since then she'd achieved a master's degree in astrophysics, run   with the bulls, stood at the foot of the sphinx, spent a month on grappa   and fresh air on a boat off Venice and surveyed the stars from every   corner of the globe. She'd come to terms with where she'd come from. And   now hers was a life lived large and not for anyone else to define.

Cameron took another step forward, and she flinched, then indulged in a   good eye-roll. An eyelash caught in her contact lens, which was about   all she deserved.

As she carefully pulled it free she told herself that, just as she'd   evolved, this guy wasn't that Cameron Kelly any more-the Cameron Kelly   who'd seemed the kind of guy who'd smile back if she'd ever found the   pluck to smile first. Maybe he never even had been.

Right now he was the guy wasting the last precious minutes she had with   the observatory telescope, before Venus, her bread and butter,   disappeared from view.

'Okay, tell it to me straight. What do I have to say or do to get you to   vamoose?' She paused to shuffle her contact lens back into place. 'I   know Italian, Spanish, a little Chinese. Any chance "off you pop" in any   of those languages will make a dent?'

'What if I leave and not another soul turns up?'

Rosie threw her arms out sideways. 'I'll … grab a seat, put my feet up on   the chair in front and throw popcorn at the ceiling, while saying all   the lines along with the narrator. It wouldn't be the first time.'

That got her another laugh, a deep, dry, rumbling, masculine sort of   laugh. Her knees felt it first, then the rest of her joined in,   finishing off with her toes curling pleasurably into her socks.