Dating the Rebel Tycoon(29)

Rosie's hand lifted off his shoulder to slap across her eyes. 'Oh no,   I'd forgotten that part. That was my "separate myself from the preppy,   pastel suburban princesses before they separate themselves from me"   phase. You know what? I'm not sure I ever grew out of that.'

Cameron slipped a finger beneath her chin and didn't slide it away until   she was looking into his eyes. Those beautiful, corn-flower, soulful,   sexy, smiling eyes. 'I'm glad. And for the record you looked adorable.   And scary as hell.'

She blinked up at him, her brow furrowing. 'Scary?'

'God, yeah. I was mucking about, pretending to dance with my mates, and   when I turned there was this stunning creature right under my eyes,  chin  up, eyes fierce, daring the world to even try telling her off for   simply being herself. I was fairly sure that girl must have thought me   ridiculous.'

'Ridiculous?' she repeated, beginning to feel like a parrot, but it was   either that or say something she'd never be able to take back. That, in   that moment, she'd been fairly sure she was looking at the most   beautiful boy in the whole world.

She gripped his shoulder a tad too tightly, but he didn't seem to   notice. He just looked deep into her eyes with that barely there smile   lingering upon his mouth.

'It didn't take any kind of genius on my part to know you were far too   cool for the likes of me.' He reached out and slid a finger under her   fringe, pushing it off her face until he cupped her cheek. 'You know   what? Nothing you've said or done this week has made me think any   differently. Only now I'm old enough not to give a damn.'

And then he kissed her, so softly, so gently, her heart turned inside out.

'Well, if it isn't little Cam Kelly. I'm not sure I believe my own eyes,' a deep male voice drawled.

Rosie dragged herself out of the bottom of a beautiful dream and blinked into the warm light to find they'd stopped dancing.

And Cameron was no longer all hers.

His shoulders were stiff, his back straight, his neck tense as he stared at a taller man with slick hair and cold eyes.

'Brendan, this is my friend, Rosalind Harper,' Cameron said, his voice   so cool if felt like the exhilarating warmth that had enveloped them   both only moments earlier had all been in her imagination. 'Rosalind,   this is my brother, Brendan. He is the heir apparent to my father's   empire.'

Brendan gave her a short nod with a smile that didn't light his eyes.   She smiled back and offered a tiny curtsy. His eyes narrowed, but his   smile broadened, and Rosie caught a glimpse of Cameron's charisma   therein.

'Which by the old joke makes our Dylan the spare,' Brendan said. 'And what does that make you, brother?'

'Delighted to be my own man.'

Feeling like she was in the middle of two lions circling one another,   hoping to bite the other's head off, Rosie disentangled herself from   Cameron's hold and waggled his little finger. 'I think I'll take a look   around, see what there is to eat. Give you boys the chance to do what   you need to do.'

'I'll come back for you soon,' Cameron said.

Rosie smiled, but a shiver ran down her back as she thought it would be   asking too much to have the same good luck twice. 'Nice to meet you,   Brendan.'

'Likewise,' he said, and this time she believed him.

As she walked away through a crowd of people she'd never met, and didn't   particularly want to, she glanced back to find Cameron and his brother   already deep in heated conversation.

She'd brought him here, she'd made his first step bearable. Was that as   far as she was needed? She kept walking straight ahead and ignored the   sadness that had once again begun to settle in her chest.                       
       
           



       

It was all she'd ever known how to do.





CHAPTER TWELVE




TEN minutes later Rosie leant against a marble column in the corner of   the room, a champagne glass in one hand, a couple of hors d'oeuvres   secreted within a linen napkin in the other. The food hadn't done much   to ease the tightness in her chest; the champagne, on the other hand,   had.

She watched Cameron and Brendan holding court with two politicians, a   tennis pro and a guy with so many shiny medals on his chest she figured   he was an army general.

For a guy who'd supposedly turned his back on all this guff, Cameron was   in his element-while she was hiding lest she was forced to have  another  conversation about yachting, or golf, or the medical benefits  of  rhinoplasty.

'Rosalind Harper, right?'

Rosie blinked and spun to find Meg Kelly at her shoulder, her   chocolate-brown curls bouncing about her perfect pink cheeks, and her   petite figure poured into a glittery copper number that could not   possibly have been worn as well by another living soul.

'Hey, Meg.' Rosie clamped her fingers around her glass to stop herself   from checking her hair, from tugging at her dress, from feeling awkward   and gangly and everything Meg Kelly was not.

'Having fun?' Meg asked.

'The mostest fun,' Rosie said. 'You?'

Meg's face twisted in the way that only someone who somehow knew she   would never wrinkle could twist her face. 'I hate these things. So many   ancient VIPs trying to kiss Dad's butt. I mean, if they had vodka   cruisers rather than this dry, old champagne then maybe, just maybe,   these nights might not make me feel so much like my youth is just   slipping away. You know what I mean?'

Rosie sipped her champagne and smiled with her eyes.

'So how do your people celebrate birthdays?' Meg asked.

Rosie spluttered on her drink. 'My people?'

'Your friends and family.'

Rosie mentally kicked herself. Cameron was from good people. His friends   were at heart good people. It stood to reason Meg would be good person   too. Just because this night had wrenched up some latent feelings of   inferiority and doubt, that wasn't her fault.

'Pizza,' Rosie said. 'Beer. Ten-pin bowling. Birthday cake with used candles. Pressies under thirty bucks a pop.'

'So, no ice-sculptures then?' Meg asked.

They both turned to look at the six-foot-tall melting bust of Quinn   Kelly's head in the centre of the twenty-foot long head table.

'Ah, no,' Rosie said. 'Not that I can remember.'

'And don't you now think those parties were the poorer for it?' Meg's voice was deadpan, but her eyes were sparkling.

Yep, she thought, Meg Kelly is one of the good ones. She could barely imagine how hilarious she and Adele would be together.

'So,' Meg said, just as Rosie started to relax, 'You and my brother are together.'

'I think you'll find your brother is over there,' Rosie said carefully, 'While I'm over here.'

Meg tapped the side of her nose. 'I'm with you. Don't want to jinx things.'

Rosie made to correct Meg, but then realised she had no way of defining   what they were that would make sense to anyone outside the two of them.   Actually, the longer she spent alone, she was finding it hard to make   sense of it herself.

Suddenly Meg stood straight as a die. 'Will you lookie there?'

Rosie's gaze shifted back to Cameron, to find that his father had joined   the group, and her relationship with Cameron once again moved to the   back of the line.

Her eyes darted between the two men. They seemed civil, at least from a   distance. Profile on, they looked so similar-both tall, both   straight-backed, both broad and ridiculously good-looking. Princes among   men.

Only she knew Quinn Kelly was a man who liked to keep secrets. Secrets   that could destroy those who loved him and needed him most. Secrets that   had already destroyed that part of Cameron that was open to trust.

She had to loosen her grip on her champagne glass for fear it might smash in her hand.

All she could do was stand on the sidelines and wait. Wait for him to   sort himself out. Wait for him to come back to her. The irony of her   situation in comparison with her mother's wasn't lost on her. And the   rest of her champagne was downed in three seconds flat.

'I truly never thought I'd see the day those two would manage to be in   the same room together without shooting laser beams at one another with   their eyes. Ever since Cam told dad he wasn't going to work for KInG,   it's been the battlefield of Brisbane. What did you say to get him   here?' Meg asked.                       
       
           



       

'Me?' Rosie said, lifting her napkin to the rosette on her chest.

'Yeah, you,' Meg said with a smile. 'It's only since you came on the   scene that he's gone all soft and gooey around the edges. He called me   twice this week. I don't remember a time he called me that often in a   month!'