and indiscriminately, and with no thought of self-protection.
She now protected herself so vigorously, even the common cold had a hard time getting near.
‘Small world,’ Cameron finally said, almost hiding the fact that he still couldn’t place her behind the charming, crinkle-eyed, dimpled smile that had likely got him out of trouble his whole life.
His hand moulded ever so slightly more snugly around hers. She’d forgotten they were still holding hands, while he held on with a purpose she was only now just beginning to fathom.
His smile warmed, deepened, drew her in, as he said, ‘In the interests of remaining corny, what do you say we—?’
The door behind him slammed open before he got out another word, and a harried-looking woman burst inside.
Rosie sprang away from Cameron as though they’d been two teenagers caught in flagrante. She ran the hand he’d been holding across the back of her hot neck, only to find the hand was hotter still.
The anxious woman said, ‘Sorry to intrude. I’m Miss Granger, Kenmore South grade-four class teacher. Please tell me I can send the kids in? Another minute in the open and they’ll be beyond my control.’
The teacher somehow managed to smile through her stress. Probably because she directed her comments entirely towards Cameron, who did look more in charge in his blazer and tie than Rosie did in her vintage get-up—and that was putting a nice spin on it.
Or maybe it was that indefinable X-factor that meant every woman he ever encountered ended up inexorably spinning in his orbit. Rosie, it seemed, was destined to be within perilously close proximity to this particular heavenly body once every fifteen or so years.
Fifteen years earlier he’d been a beautiful boy who’d brushed shoulders with her once or twice in a crowd. This time round he was a fully grown man who saw something in her that made him rethink moving on just yet. She’d hate to think what another fifteen years might do to the man’s potency. Or aim.
She glanced up after a good few seconds staring at his shoulders to find him watching her. Unblinking. Radiating authority and curiosity.
Break eye contact, her inner voice said; back away, roll into the foetal position, whatever it takes to make him head back to his side of the street leaving you to yours.
‘Pretty please?’ the teacher asked Cameron.
Rosie had a feeling the woman was asking a completely different question from her first.
Before Rosie had the chance to tell Miss Granger she was barking up the wrong man, Adele called out, ‘Send ’em on in, hon! Who are we to turn away those ready and raring to learn about the mysteries of the universe?’
‘Who indeed?’ Cameron asked.
Rosie steadfastly ignored him and his rumbling voice as Miss Granger heaved the heavy side-door open again, letting in wisps of cool late-winter air and a throng of kids in green tartan school uniforms, half-mast beige socks and floppy wide-brimmed hats.
They slid into the arena like water spurting through a bottle neck. But at the first sign of a break Cameron slipped through until he stood beside Rosie, well and truly within her personal space.
She kept her eyes dead ahead, but couldn’t ignore the tug of his gravitational pull, the scent of new cotton, winter, and clean male skin. She breathed in deep through her nose, then pinched the soft part of her hand between her thumb and her index finger in punishment.
‘Any feet seen touching any chairs will be forcibly removed!’ Adele said as she was carried away with the noisy crowd.
And all too soon it was just the two of them again. Alone, in the unforgiving fluorescent light that couldn’t seem to find one bad angle on him.
‘It seems you really do have to get to work,’ Cameron said, a hint of something that sounded a heck of a lot like the dashing of hope tinging his words.
Rosie’s heart twitched, and kept on twitching. She coughed hard, and it found its regular steady pattern once more.
‘No rest for the wicked,’ she said, turning to him, thus allowing herself one last look before she brought this strange encounter to a halt.
Looking was allowed. Looking at pretty, bright, hot things was her job. And as it was much safer doing so from a great distance she began backing away, thus setting in motion the next fifteen years until they crossed paths again.
‘It was great seeing you again, Rosalind.’ A glint lit eyes that she was entirely sure had been that exact cornflower-blue from the moment he’d been born.
A jaunty salute and she was gone, hitting the top step at a jog and not stopping until she reached the control room at the bottom, as from there she couldn’t tell if he had turned and left or if he’d watched her walk away.
The outer door shut behind Cameron with a clang, sending him out into the cold over-bright morning.
He stood on one spot for a good thirty seconds, letting the winter sun beat down upon his face, savouring the pleasant, hazy blur that an encounter with an intriguing woman could induce.
Rosalind Harper. St Grellans alumnus. How had he managed to go through the same school without once noticing that soft, pale skin, those temptingly upturned lips that just begged to be teased into a smile and the kind of mussed, burnished waves that made a man just want to reach out and touch?
He took a deep breath through his nose and glanced at his watch. What he saw there brought him back down to earth. And lower still.
Into his father’s world.
Quinn Kelly was a shameless, selfish shark who a long time ago had convinced Cameron to keep a terrible secret to keep his family from being torn apart.
He’d done so the only way he’d known how, cutting himself off from the family business. As he saw it, if the man was as unscrupulous in his business dealings as he was in his personal life, God help the stock holders. Quinn on the other hand had seen it as a greater betrayal, and had cut him off completely, which in the end made for a nice cover as to why the two of them couldn’t be in the same room together.
It hadn’t for a minute been easy, looking his mother, brothers and sister in the eye while knowing what they did not. In the end he’d worked day and night to establish his own career, his own identity, his own manic pace with nonexistent down-time in which to miss those things he no longer had, or yearn for things he’d learnt the hard way didn’t really exist, or scratch himself, giving himself a reasonable excuse to decline attendance at enough family gatherings that it was now simply assumed he would not come.
There was the rub. There was no subtle way to sound the others out. The only way to know for sure was to ask the man himself.
The opportunity was there, winking at him like a great cosmic joke. His father’s seventieth birthday was less than a week away, and that was one invitation he had not managed to avoid. Every member of his family had called to remind him, all bar the big man himself.
There was no way he’d attend. For if it gave that man even an inkling that deep down he still gave a damn…
The echo of a bombastic musical-score sprang up inside the domed building behind him, more than matching the clashing inside his head. The star show had begun.
Cameron looked to his watch again. It didn’t give him any better news. He shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets, turned up the collar of his jacket against the cold and jogged towards the car park, the diminishing crunch of pine leaves beneath his feet taking him further and further from the gardens.
He turned to watch the great white dome of the planetarium peek through the canopy of gum trees. Quite the handy distraction he’d found himself back there. With her sharp tongue and raw, unassuming sex-appeal, Rosalind Harper had made him forget both work and family for as long a while as he could remember doing in one hit in quite some time.
He