Dating The Rebel Tycoon Part 7

He said, 'What's your relationship with your father like?'

She tilted her face towards him; her hair shifted against his shoulder, long, soft, kinky, fabulous. He breathed in deep to stop himself from ravaging her then and there. She really tried his self-control, this one.

'You ask that question like it should have an easy answer.'

'Complicated man?'

She shrugged beneath his arm. 'I wouldn't know. He and my mum met, married, he left, then she had me.'

Cameron's neck tensed. Not in surprise, but in disillusion at the levels to which some men would sink in the grips of their own self-interest. 'That can't have been easy on your mum.'

'Not for the whole time I knew her. They knew one another less than a year, but she dropped out of uni when she met him and never went back. It was as though she always thought one day he'd come back, and she wanted everything to be the same as when he left.'

'So where did a grown-up daughter fit into that?'

Her smile was as rich as always. Could nothing floor her? 'With difficulty, and tantrums and killer grades. Whatever it took to break through the fog. Mum pa.s.sed away a few years ago when I was overseas. I wish she was still around so that she could see that I've landed on my own two feet. Him too, actually-which is the nuttiest thing of all.'

Her voice was strong, as though she was telling a story she'd told a thousand times. But Cameron was close enough to feel the tremble beneath the gusto.

'Cousins? Grandparents?'

She shook her head. No blood ties. No fallback. No choice about whether or not to turn her back on the man who'd hurt her...

'But I've known Adele since I was seventeen. She's as bossy as a sister, as cuddly as a grandparent, as protective as a dad ought to be. So as far as family goes, I'm more than covered.'

He held out an arm, an offer, and she sank into him. It took a whole other kind of strength not to lean against her, not to kiss the top of her head.

'Argh!' she said, curling away all too soon. 'The last thing I meant to do was get slushy. You just happened to hit a soft spot.'

She slid round in front of him, out of his embrace, though her hand stayed resting on his arm as though she couldn't break all contact. 'Can I poke at one of yours?'

Okay, so she was touching him because she knew he might try to get away. 'You're asking this time?'

She tilted her head, not to be brushed off. 'You have the kind of family some of us only dream of.'

'You know those suburban news reports when a neighbour says "they always seemed like such a nice family"?'

'I never a.s.sumed they were nice nice. They might all be stark raving mad for all I know. Nice seems such a bland word to describe...' She waved a hand at him, her eyes touching on his shoulders, his chest. She blinked quickly as they scooted past the zipper of his jeans.

'Nevertheless there are many members of your family. Talk to them about your dad. Talk to your dad. And soon.'

He jawed clenched so hard his back teeth hurt. 'I have my reasons not to.'

'Which are?'

'Impeccable.'

She stared him down, wanting more, but there was no more he would give.

When on that dark day many years before he'd discovered his father had been cheating on his mother, he'd realised that the man his family held up with such reverence and esteem-the cornerstone of everything they represented, everything they were-didn't really exist. And, even if he wanted to explain any of that to Rosalind, unburdening himself would only hurt the others.

When she realised it would take more than silence for him to talk, she said, 'A few years back my mum accidentally let on that she'd been in contact with my father again. He was living in Brisbane. Had been for years. In all that time, he'd never once bothered to look me up. He pa.s.sed away before she did, and, ridiculous as I know it is, today I still wish I'd had the chance to meet him-to know him, for him to know me-no matter what kind of man he might have been. I'd really hate for you to one day wake up feeling that way.'

Her big, grey eyes were bright in the lamplight. Dazzling with resolve. Could she really be as staggeringly secure as she seemed?

Either way, this conversation was over. 'I give up,' he said, deadpan. 'You win.'

She rolled her eyes and then bent double from the waist, as if he'd finally exhausted her determination. 'It wasn't meant to be a contest. It was meant to be a cautionary tale!'

'You don't like winning?'

She brought herself back upright and grinned at him. 'Depends on the prize.'

Back on solid ground again, on territory in which he was far more comfortable, it took very little effort for Cameron to think of about a dozen prizes he'd happily provide without breaking a sweat. Or, better yet, sweating up a storm.

'Here we are again,' she said.

Mmm, there they were again.

It took a moment for him to realise she was being literal. They'd reached the end of South Bank, and turning left would take them back to the Red Fox and their cars.

He could do as he'd originally planned, kiss her cheek, thank her for a most enlightening night and get on with his life.

Considering the awkward particulars she now knew about him, and perhaps even more importantly what he knew about her-that she was no more the easy, lighthearted-dalliance type than he was a court jester-that would be the smart thing to do.

But it seemed tonight he'd left his smarts behind at the office.

'Thirsty?' His heart thundered harder than he could have antic.i.p.ated as he awaited her answer.

'What did you have in mind?' she asked, the matching huskiness in her voice making him feel an inch taller.

'The casino's only two blocks away.'

She looked up at him, all luminous eyes, wide lips, sparkle and street smarts, pluck and temptation. He wondered, and not for the first time, how he'd managed to get through high school without noticing her. He'd been seventeen. Maybe that was enough.

Her nose creased; she nibbled at the inside of her bottom lip and picked at a fingernail, and took her sweet time deciding. He had the feeling she might be smart enough for the both of them.

'So, what do you say to one more stop?' he asked, promising himself it would be the last time.

But then her wide, open eyes gave him his answer even before she said, 'There's a tiny corner lounge on the second floor of the casino where they make hot chocolate to die for.'

CHAPTER SIX

ROSIE'S body clock told her it was some time after midnight by the time Cameron walked her from the beautiful old Treasury Casino to her car. Which meant that barring a cat nap in the afternoon, she'd been up for around twenty hours. body clock told her it was some time after midnight by the time Cameron walked her from the beautiful old Treasury Casino to her car. Which meant that barring a cat nap in the afternoon, she'd been up for around twenty hours.

No wonder she'd been delirious enough to agree to hot chocolate. Okay, so if he'd suggested they walk the city til they found a greasy kebab van she would have said yes.

She unlocked her old runabout before Cameron reached down to open the driver's side door.

She threw her bag over to the pa.s.senger seat and turned to find him standing close, still holding her door, trapping her in the circle of his arms. Close enough so the street lights above created a glow around his dark hair and kept his face in shadow. But the determined gleam in his eyes could not be hidden by a mere lack of direct illumination.

'Tonight was...fun,' he said.

'Which part? The stream of your friends interrupting dinner. Me annoying you so much you had to throw out half your gelato. Or the bit where I tripped on the stairs at the casino and almost broke your toe?'

One dark eyebrow raised. 'I saw the look on your face when you had that first sip of hot chocolate. You were having x-rated fun.'

'Fine,' she said. 'The hot chocolate was heavenly. For that I will be forever in your debt.'

That was the moment she should have waved goodbye, ducked into the car and hooned home. But, even though she felt her life complicating with every new glimmer of light that fractured the darkness within him, she couldn't will herself to leave.

Heck, after she'd let slip that both she and her mum had worked behind the scenes in restaurants, he'd surrept.i.tiously left a crazy-monster tip for the guy who'd served them their hot chocolate when he'd thought she wasn't looking. How was any girl supposed to just walk away from a guy like that?

Wrong. How could Rosie not not walk away? walk away?

While her will played games, her body came to the rescue as she was forced to reach up and stifle a yawn. 'I'm so sorry. I have no idea where that came from.'

'It's after two in the morning, that's where.'

'It can't be!'

He took her wrist, and turned it until the soft part underneath was facing upwards. A small frown appeared between his brows. 'You don't wear a watch.'

She shrugged. 'Even when I used to wear one it never occurred to me to look at my wrist. So I gave up.'

His gaze travelled up her arm to her face. 'I must look at my watch a thousand times a day.'

'Think what you could have done with your lost time if you hadn't been so centred on knowing what the time was.'

Even in the darkness she could sense the s.e.xy grooves dinting his cheeks as he smiled at her. 'You have a strange way of looking at the world, Miss Harper.'

'I look at it exactly the same way you do, Mr Kelly. Just from a few inches closer to the ground.'

'Perhaps. Though what happens to that information when it gets beyond those gorgeous eyes of yours and hits that wild, wily brain, I'm sure I'll never know.'

Rosie hadn't heard all that much past 'gorgeous eyes'. Dangerously familiar and long-since buried parts of her began to unfurl, warm and throb.

When Cameron ran a careless thumb over the raised tendons of her inner wrist, he created even more havoc within her. If he thought her mind a wild and wily place, it had nothing on the state of her stomach.

'Rosalind,' he rumbled. Boy, the guy had a way of saying her name...

'Yes, Cameron?' she sighed.

He closed his hand about her wrist and tugged her away from the protection of the car door. The sigh became a moan, thankfully quiet enough that he would have had to be two feet closer to have heard. Two feet closer would mean his lips would have been close enough to kiss.

She stared at them a while in silent contemplation. A good while. So long a while that the night stretched between them like a tight rubber-band, and if somebody didn't speak soon Rosie was afraid it would snap.

'I'd really like to see you again,' he said.

Snap! Rosie's eyes flew north til they met his. Deep, blue heaven...'Seriously?' Rosie's eyes flew north til they met his. Deep, blue heaven...'Seriously?'

He laughed. She bit her lip.

Just because he used her full name in such a deferential way, and how more than once she'd caught him looking at her like she was the most fascinating creature on the planet, didn't mean she should go forgetting herself. On the contrary, she never intended on being just who she seemed in someone else's eyes.

He said, 'Do you want a list of reasons why, or would you prefer them in the form of a poem?'

She shook her hair off her face and looked him dead in the eye, tough, cool, impa.s.sive. 'Is that the best you can offer? No wonder you had a blank night in your calendar.'

'Who says it was blank?' he rumbled.

Rosie's heart danced. She blamed exhaustion. She knew that taking guidance from one's heart was as sensible as using one's liver for financial-planning advice, having witnessed first-hand what listening to the dancing of your heart could do to a woman. If she needed any further reason to call it a day...

And then he had to go and say, 'What are you doing tomorrow?'

Her heart did the shuffle. She tried to concentrate on her liver instead. But it seemed every organ was on Cameron-alert.

'Tomorrow?' she said. 'I'll be sleeping. Eating. Watching telly. Looking up. The usual. You?'

'Working. Working. And working some more. Though I too will need to fit some eating in at some stage.'

'What a coincidence.'

'Dinner, then?' he insisted. 'This time just the two of us.'

The two of them. Didn't that sound nice? She looked skyward, but couldn't for the life of her see a star above the canopy of cloud and bright city-lights with which to anchor herself.

She took care to get her next words just right. 'How about you check you diary, and down the track, if you have a window, call the planetarium and they'll get a message to me, and I'll get back to you if my window matches up, and we'll see how we go?'

He let her wrist go which gave her a moment of reprieve before he brushed a lock of hair from her cheek, his fingers leaving trails as light as a breeze across her skin.

'I need a diary,' he said, 'Like you need a watch. And it would make things simpler if you'd just give me your home number.'

He brushed a lock from the other cheek, leaving his hands resting on either side of her neck, leaving her feeling extremely exposed. She'd had to work so hard in her youth to be seen, she'd never had the need to develop a poker face. But she needed it now. All she could do was look at the top of his shirt, where a triangle of tanned skin peeked out from the expanse of blue.

'Can't do that,' she said.

'Why not?'

'Don't have one.'