Dating the Rebel Tycoon(23)

She turned her back, put in the order for the taxi, then threw the phone into her bag.

'Rosalind. Come on. Nobody's dumping anybody. All I'm saying is that we   be sensible and look at where we are going here with open eyes.'

She closed her eyes, took a breath and her shoulders relaxed. Somewhat.   But that warm, husky voice that he'd become so used to turned as cold  as  the river at night as she said, 'You want me to be sensible? Well,  you  obviously haven't been paying close enough attention. If I'd been   sensible I would never have agreed to go out with the guy I had a crush   on through high school. That is obviously one fantasy best left   unfulfilled.'

Cameron's heart slammed hard and fast against his ribs. She'd had a   crush on him? And fantasized about him? His voice was deep and dark when   he said, 'Come back, sit down and talk to me.'

She waved a frantic hand across her eyes. 'Please. You were right. I'm   just overtired. I get it; we've both monopolised one another's time so   much these past days. You're busy and I'm busy, and neither of us ever   meant for this to be more than it has to this point been. It's fine.'

In the end all she could do was shrug.

If he wanted out for good, this was the moment. He had no doubt she was   just waiting for the word-goodbye. It was a simple enough word. Benign,   unambiguous, final.

But he couldn't do it. He couldn't be that cool with her. Unlike every   other woman he'd ever dated, she'd never been cool with him. She'd given   him nothing but the complete truth, and she deserved the same.

'Rosalind, it's not you.'

'Where the hell's the damn cab?' She paced to the bottom of the stairs. He followed.

'Rosalind, I need you to hear me out.' He knew it was manipulative, but   in order for her not to leave feeling hurt and angry he needed her to   hear what he had to say, so he said it anyway. 'Please.'

At the 'please', she turned back to him. Her jaw was tight, her eyes wild with emotion. But at least she stopped walking away.

Having to ground himself if he was really going to say this, Cameron   parked his backside against a corner of the lounge and looked out across   the city view.

'I was in the eleventh grade when I saw my father come out of a city   hotel with a woman who wasn't my mother. As I stood on the opposite side   of the street, on my way to meet him at his office after school, he   kissed her. Right there on the footpath, in front of peak-hour   traffic-my father, who the whole city knew by sight. No thought for   discretion or propriety or the woman the world thought he'd been   blissfully married to for the previous thirty years … or anyone but   himself.'

He blinked, dragged his eyes from the city view and looked to her. She   stood still as a statue, those grey eyes simply giving him the space to   keep going. Deeper. To places he'd never let himself go before.

'My mother … She had to put up with a lot, being married to a man like my   father. The long hours, the ego, having to raise his four headstrong   children in public. She did so with grace, humility, and love. So the   fact that he could show such contempt towards her, to all of us … '

His fingernails bit into his palms as he fought down the same old desire   to take a swing at his father the next time he laid eyes on the man.

'Why I am telling you this, what I'd like you to take from this,' he   said, 'Is that I won't be like him. I'd rather see you walk away   now-right at the very moment I can barely think straight for how much I   want to continue what we started back there in the kitchen-if that  means  not hurting you by giving you false hope that I might one day  offer you  anything more. I can't. Not when I know that even the most  solid  relationships ultimately fail beneath the weight of secrets and  lies.'

He came to an end and needed to breathe deep to press out the sudden   tightness in his lungs. His eyes locked onto hers, her strength keeping   him amazingly steady.

'Cameron,' she said on a release of breath, 'You expect far too much of people.'

'Only what I expect of myself.'

'I was including you too.'

He shifted on his seat. 'You think loyalty and good faith are too much   to expect, even after how your father treated you and your mother?'

A muscle in her cheek twitched but her steady gaze didn't falter. 'For some people they are too much.'                       
       
           



       

He shook his head hard. 'I'm sorry, but I can't accept that.'

'Then that's a real shame.'

Cameron shot to his feet and ran a hard hand across the back of his   neck. This wasn't how this had been meant to go. He'd hoped that by   being forthright and upfront with her he'd feel justified in slowing   things down, like he'd done right by her. Instead she was somehow making   him feel like he hadn't done right by himself.

She tugged her poncho over her head, flicking her hair out at the end   and running fingers through it until it fell in messy waves over her   shoulders.

His response was chemical. His insides tightened and burned with a need to have her lose layers, not put them back on.

The doorbell rang; her taxi. She slipped her feet back into her shoes then looked back at him.

Her eyes said, ask me to stay.

But her tilted chin and tense neck said, let me go.

He went back to her eyes. Those beautiful, sad, grey eyes, so wide open   he felt himself falling in, wanting more than he knew he could give. He   pulled himself back from the brink just in time to say, 'I'll call  you.'

She nodded, gave a short smile that held none of the mischief and humour   he was so used to seeing therein, and jogged up the stairs without   looking back.





CHAPTER TEN




ROSIE was exhausted. Which was naturally manifesting itself in a complete inability to sleep.

The minute the clock beside her bed clicked over to a quarter to three, she dragged herself out of bed.

She wouldn't be able to see Venus until about an hour before sunrise,   but it had to be better outside than staring at the low ceiling of her   caravan, wondering how on earth she'd let herself get to the point where   she'd decided she might be able to allow Cameron deeper into her life   at the precise moment when he had decided he wasn't sure that he wanted   her in his.

She ran her hands over her face, then through her hair, tugging at knots   in the messy waves, then trudged into the bathroom to splash water on   her face. As she wiped it dry, she caught sight of her reflection in  the  mirror. Eyes dark. Mouth down turned.

She blinked and for a moment saw herself at fifteen, locked in the   bathroom of the tiny flat she'd shared with her mum, and this feeling,   the same familiar, cutting pain, crawling beneath the surface of her   skin. It wasn't the pain of a girl pining for a man in her life. It was   the pain of a girl who'd never been bright enough, good enough, devoted   enough to fill the subsequent hole in her mother's heart.

How could an invisible girl like that ever hope to be enough to fill anyone else's heart?

Rosie licked her dry lips, then wiped fingers beneath her moist eyes.   Time to go. Focussing on the colossal mystery of the universe would   render her woes less important. It had to.

Too cold and too miserable to get completely naked, she pulled her   clothes on over the top of her flannelette pyjamas-a fluffy wool   knee-length cardigan she'd picked up in a thrift shop years before, a   thick grey scarf, a lumpy red beanie with two fat, wobbly pom-poms on   top, and the jeans she'd worn the day before. She didn't bother with her   contacts, leaving her glasses on instead.

The hike to the plateau with her massive backpack was not in the last   bit invigorating. It was cold, uncomfortable, and when she hit the spot   the night sky was covered in patchy cloud.

She popped up the one-man dome tent which was just tall enough for her   to stand up in, threw in all her stuff to keep the dew away and laid a   canvas-backed picnic blanket upon the already moist grass. She set up   her telescope. And turned on the battery-operated light attached to her   notebook.

She sat on the ground cross-legged, waiting for the cloud cover to open up, revealing a sprinkle of stars.

Time marched on and the sky gave her nothing.

No mystery, no majesty, nothing to take her mind off the world at her   feet and all the heartache that came with it. She slumped back onto the   rug and closed her eyes.

She and Adele had both been wrong. Cameron wasn't really any different   from any of the others. They all left her eventually; location had no   effect on the matter.

She heard a twig snap, and her eyes flew open.

It could have been a possum. Or there had long since been rumours of a   big cat loose in the area. And crazy axe-murderers were a genuine fear   for some people for a good reason.