Dating the Rebel Tycoon(26)

She squeezed her forehead tight, trying to push away how wonderful those three words-I need you-felt.

Once upon a time all she'd wanted was to feel needed, wanted, loved.   She'd been a good kid, she'd studied hard, and she'd silently hugged her   mum whenever she'd found her crying, even when deep down she'd known  it  would never be enough.

Since she'd been on her own in the big, wide world all she'd needed was   fresh air, food, water and basic shelter. She'd never once felt that   need to be needed by anybody else.

Yet now those three little words danced behind her eyes, waving   streamers and skipping through fertile fields, singing at the top of   their lungs. It had been so long since she'd shoved the wish down so   deep inside that the moment it came to the surface it was intoxicating.

'I'll think about it.'

'Don't think, just come,' he murmured against her shoulder.

She extricated herself from his wandering hands and slipped out of the   tent, happier to be half-naked beneath the open sky than to see how much   more he could get her to promise him from just a simple touch.

'So, I'll pick you up at your place around eight,' he called out.

She found her functional white, cotton briefs hanging provocatively over   her tripod, and shoved them into a pocket of her telescope bag. 'Oh,   for Pete's sake, fine! I'll go. Are you happy now?'

'Now I am happy.'

All her fidgeting stopped. He might have been playing like he was   flirting, but the thread of truth lacing its way beneath his words got   to her like nothing else.                       
       
           



       

She glanced back into the tent to find Cameron was lying back with his   arms over his head, his biceps cradling his head, watching her.

'It's black tie,' he said with a grin.

Her eyebrows lifted so fast she almost pulled something. 'Are you intimating that might be a reason for me to back out?'

His gaze meandered down her crazy get-up. 'Not at all. So far you   haven't found it at all difficult to just say no to me when you really   wanted to say no.'

'You have no idea,' she muttered.

'What was that?'

She wrapped the tie of her fluffy cardigan ever tighter. 'Cameron, I'll   go with you to your father's party because I'm madly proud of you for   listening to my words of wisdom. No hidden agenda. Nothing more. As   agreed last night.'

He stared at her for a few moments, then nodded. She was mighty glad he   believed her, as she wasn't even close to sure that she believed   herself.

She shielded her eyes and looked to the sun, which had risen, making it   some time after seven in the morning. The faint crescent of Venus had   been hovering above the horizon for some time without even getting a   look in.

She said, 'Shouldn't you get going? Don't you have minions to boss around at the worksite? Won't Bruce be lost without you?'

'I'm not so worried about Bruce right this second. How about you?'

'Bruce isn't high on my list of priorities either.'

He smiled. A smile so stunningly sexy that Rosie's knees forgot how to work.

'I meant, do you have anywhere else to be,' he said.

She blinked down at him, arms crossed. 'Um, no. I don't. Because this is my place of work.'

Cameron didn't move a muscle. He simply lay naked in her tent, while she   realised that from the minute he'd walked into her glade-all gorgeous   and conciliatory, talking of how he couldn't keep his hands off her-she   hadn't given her work, her time, her warm bed, her breakfast, or   anything else usually so important to her, a single thought.

Warning bells began to chime inside her head, telling her to finish   getting dressed. To get moving. To just let him keep the damn tent.

'Then what are you doing out there in the cold when it's still so warm   in here?' he asked, flapping open the sleeping bag, leaving room for   her.

That was all she'd done for him too-left room. And if that meant having a   little less room for herself then maybe that was the price a girl had   to pay for getting a man who came back for her.

Rosie bit her lip, weighed her options, became trapped in his eyes, then   said, 'Oh, what the hell,' as she tore off her beanie and threw it  over  her shoulder before she dove back into the tent.

'Now, tell me more about this crush you had on me in high school,' he muttered as he stripped her down.

'I think it was you I had the crush on. You were the captain of the footy team, right?'

'No, I was not. Now, stop sassing me and tell me about the moment you   first laid eyes on me and your teenaged heart went pitter-pat.'

'Cameron Kelly,' she said on a sigh as he went to work, 'You'll have to   do much better than that if you think I'm ever going to spill a single   detail.'

He did better. Like a lightweight, she spilled.

And, just as she'd hoped, the warning bells were soon drowned out by the   symphony of sensations only this man could make her feel.





CHAPTER ELEVEN




MOST of that next day and night Rosie slept like a log. Saturday morning   she woke late, crinkled, ruffled, and blissfully replenished in every   which way.

It was after lunch by the time she stood staring unseeingly at the   window of the designer boutique on the top floor of Queens Plaza.

Adele was puffing when she arrived at her side. 'Sorry, sorry. Lipstick   disaster. Don't ask.' Puff, puff, puff. 'What's the big emergency?'

'I have to buy a new dress to wear tonight.'

'I know a dress from a pair of trousers, so I'm your girl. Do you have any maybes as yet?'

'Not exactly. I have yet to venture inside.'

Adele turned to stare into the window at the shimmery, wispy, frothy   frocks hanging off obscenely thin mannequins. 'Any reason you're looking   in this particular window?'

'It's for Cameron's father's birthday.'

In the reflection Adele's eyes shimmied down a mannequin whose dress was   low cut in places, high cut in others and barely worth putting on, it   covered so little flesh. 'Happy birthday, Quinn.'

Rosie slapped her on the arm without even turning her head.                       
       
           



       

'Ow. So I take it you and the great and wondrous Camster are still on?'

'We're not on,' Rosie said, running her thumb hard down the middle of   her palm to stop the tingle that had spread up her fingers at the memory   of his hands touching her cheek, getting lost in her hair, stroking  her  naked back. 'We agreed that our relationship only extends so far as   dining together on occasion, and now we are attending an event in   tandem.'

Adele's eyes left the dresses to turn slowly her way. Her voice was   impassive as she said, 'Heck, Rosie, I've never seen you so very giddy.'

Rosie squinted. 'I don't do giddy, and you know it. It's just new. He's different. And … Oh, shut up.'

Adele grinned. 'Mmm. Now he's invited you to his father's   biggest-bash-Brisbane-has-ever-seen birthday party, where you will meet   his whole family including his parents. Sounds ultra low key to me.'

Rosie scowled. 'Just help me find a dress.'

Adele's mouth quirked as she looked back at the window. 'Have you seen the price tags hanging off those there garments?'

Rosie shrugged. 'I can afford it.'

'That one costs as much as a small car.'

'There are side benefits to living in a caravan.'

'So it would seem.'

Rosie stared at a more demure black, shimmery sheath. It was beautiful.   It was what someone who Cameron Kelly took to a party would be expected   to wear.

She hadn't been kidding when she'd told Cameron how proud she was that   he was going to face his dad. And she knew how hard it would be. She   wanted to be there for him. And if she was truly honest the more she   thought about it the more she wanted to be there, like she could somehow   vicariously live through his experience now that it was too late for   her to do the same with her own father.

And if that meant straightening her hair and pumping up her assets with   chicken fillets, and stuffing herself into some dress that she'd never   in a million years have picked out if she'd had the choice, could she  do  it? Should she do it? Was every new decision going to mean making  room  for him? Was it either do that or lose him?

'So, are we going in?' Adele asked. 'I'm fairly sure the sales assistant   won't bring them out here unless you flash a platinum Amex.'

'Give me a minute,' Rosie said.

Adele rubbed a hand down her arm. 'Kiddo, you're starting to look a little flushed. Are you feeling quite yourself?'

And then it hit her.

She was as different as a person could be from the kind of date Cameron   Kelly usually had on his arm at parties-She, in her unapologetic   hand-me-down glory, with her au naturel hair desperately in need of a   cut, and the big trap she couldn't keep shut. And he knew that.