Dating the Rebel Tycoon

by Ally Blake

  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!’

  Rosie’s stomach turned soft and gooey in half a second flat. But then she remembered that Cameron had not shared his fears about his father’s health with Meg. It was more likely he’d been fishing and the timing had been coincidental.

  Then again, maybe not. Maybe the timing was everything. She stared into her champagne. Maybe everything in his life was backwards this week because of the situation with his dad.

  An older couple who smelled of talcum powder and diamonds came wafting past, and Meg said just the right things to have them smiling and on their way.

  ‘You make it look so easy—the schmoozing,’ Rosie commented, her voice a tad breathless.

  Meg sighed. ‘I sing rock songs in my head, imagine them all wearing suspenders and fish nets and carry a flask wherever I go.’

  She tapped her bag, which clunked with a metallic sound, patted Rosie on the arm, winked and boogied back into the crowd, air-kissing along the way until she found Tabitha, and then together they danced like they were at a rave.

  But Rosie had the distinct feeling that Meg Kelly was no more the ditzy socialite she appeared to be than Cameron Kelly had been the carefree, lackadaisical golden boy she’d once thought he was. Or the dark, hard character she’d thought he’d turned into.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with my brother, leaving you all alone in this crowd of vultures?’

  Rosie turned to find Dylan Kelly leaning over her shoulder. She would have recognised him anywhere; he graced the social pages more than the rest of them combined. Fair, dashing, roguish, he grabbed her last hors d’oeuvre and popped it in his mouth.

  ‘There is nothing wrong with your brother,’ she said, snatching her near-empty champagne away lest he went for that too.

  He grinned at her with his mouth full. ‘Meg was right—soft and gooey. The both of you.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a gooey bone in my body.’

  He leant against the side of the column, close enough for her to smell his aftershave. It was nice, but it was not Cameron. Just the thought of Cameron’s clean, linen scent made her gooey, gooey, gooey.

  ‘And what do you know of my brother’s body?’ Dylan asked.

  ‘Are you absolutely certain the two of you are related?’ she asked. ‘Because I just can’t see it.’

  Dylan’s laughter rang in her ears, and she wondered how Adele, Meg and Dylan would be in a room together. Add Tabitha, and it would be such a riot she’d be able to charge admission.

  Her chest expanded expectantly at the thought that, if things continued to go well, her friendship circle could triple overnight. And all because Cameron had chosen to include her.

  The second she had the chance, Rosie sought him out. To her eyes he stood out like a lantern on a foggy night. His dinner jacket was open, his left hand in his trouser pocket, his right hand lifting and falling as he told a story which held the group enthralled. Though his eyes never once touched on his father, who stood quietly to the side focussed completely on his youngest son, she knew Cameron knew he was there.

  Dylan was mistaken; Cameron hadn’t left her alone. She hadn’t been rendered invisible once her work was done. She’d kept herself away, giving him the space she knew he needed.

  Right?

  Cameron’s mind wandered, and not for the first time. Only once his gaze found Rosalind, and he knew she was being entertained—that she was smiling, happy and in safe hands—could he begin to relax.

  Right now she was being entertained by Dylan, a guy he’d never been stupid enough to leave alone with a date even without the added benefit of trust issues. But seeing his brother with Rosalind…

  Nothing.

  It wasn’t ambivalence he was feeling. Quite the opposite. He knew Rosalind was with him even when she wasn’t with him. His trust in her was absolute. And, in a night filled with extraordinary moments, that was one of the more unexpected.

  Dylan leant in close to her to point out something on the ceiling. The guy took the opportunity to place a hand on her waist, feigning a need for balance.

  And in the blink of an eye Rosalind had hold of the offending hand, bending his fingers back ninety degrees, and his brother was begging for mercy.

  Cameron’s first thought was, that’s my girl.

  That was the moment he felt his father slide in beside him.

  ‘Nice girl,’ Quinn said—the first words that had been spoken directly to him by the man in years. He couldn’t have been less surprised.

  ‘Nice doesn’t even begin to cover it,’ Cameron said, turning to look his father in the eye.

  He looked older. Thinner. In person there was the same air of gravitas and power about him that there had always been. But he couldn’t deny he’d seen what he’d seen, felt what he’d felt. There was no point in putting it off any longer.

  ‘You’re sick, aren’t you, Dad?’ His voice was dry. Emotionless. He had no idea how, as the words burned the inside of his throat as he said them.

  ‘Wherever did you get that idea?’ Quinn asked, smiling for his audience of hundreds.

  ‘Dad,’ Cameron pressed. ‘Come on. This is me you’re talking to—the one person on the planet who knows better than to fall for your line of bull. So tell me what’s wrong?’

  Quinn blinked at him as though not only seeing him for the first time in a decade and a half, but really seeing him for the first time.

  ‘Nothing major. Just a couple of minor heart-attacks.’

  Knowing had been one thing, having that thing confirmed was a whole other level of hell. Somehow he managed to keep his cool. ‘How minor?’

  ‘Minor enough I was able to call for Dr Carmichael myself when I felt them coming on. He brought me round both times without the need for anyth
ing so gauche as an ambulance. Just as well; those drivers would have sold some trumped up version of events to some shoddy paper within the hour.’

  ‘So you’ve had no treatment apart from Dr Carmichael?’

  ‘Not necessary.’

  Cameron took a breath. ‘Dr Carmichael is ten years older than you, and barely strong enough to hold a syringe, much less resuscitate a man your size.’

  ‘Proving I was fine.’

  ‘He has no other job but keeping you well. The guy wouldn’t tell you it was serious for fear you’d fire him!’

  ‘Which I damn well would. The man has no idea what a health scare would do to KInG. You, on the other hand, are smart enough to figure it out. So I trust you’ll keep your concerns to yourself.’

  Cameron scoffed. ‘I’ve heard those words before.’

  His father’s face turned red, the kind of red that went with high blood pressure and too many whiskeys over too many years. Cameron’s fingers stretched out to touch his arm, to stay him, to make sure he was okay—but Quinn jerked away as though one show of vulnerability would be enough to let the crowd in on the truth.

  ‘Son,’ he barked, ‘It’s not your secret to tell.’

  ‘Well, then, that’s a pity, because I’ve recently discovered the healing quality of letting secrets go.’

  ‘Think of your mother,’ Quinn warned.

  Cameron got so close to his father he could count the red lines in the man’s eyes. For that reason alone he kept his voice as calm as he could as he said, ‘You’re the one who needs to think of my mother a hell of a lot more than you ever do. I don’t give a flying fig about the business, or the press, but I do care about the family. They may think you’re a god, but I know that you are just a man. And I’m not keeping this secret—not from them—because if something happened to you and they didn’t see it coming they’d never forgive you. So I’m back. Today’s a new day for the Kelly clan.’

  ‘Cameron?’

  Rosalind’s soft voice was enough to bring him off his high horse and back down to earth.

  ‘Cameron?’ she said again. ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt, but Meg was looking for you. She needs you for a reason I can’t mention in front of the birthday boy.’

  Her hand clamped down on his forearm, gently but insistently. His vision cleared enough to tell him they had an audience. She’d just saved him from telling everyone in the room what even the family did not yet know.

  Her other hand slid around his back, sliding along the beltline of his trousers, slow, warm, supportive. Vanilla essence, purely feminine warmth. Rosalind.

  ‘Quinn,’ she said, ‘Happy birthday. And can I steal him away?’

  His father nodded, then looked back to him, the slightest flicker of sadness damping his sharp, blue eyes before it disappeared behind the usual wall of invulnerability. But it was something. It was regret. It was a beginning.

  ‘Happy birthday, Dad,’ he said, leaning in to give his father a quick kiss on the cheek before turning and walking away.

  ‘Oh God!’ Rosalind whispered. ‘I so apologise if that was the exact wrong moment, but you looked like you were about to bop him one. I thought you might need a distraction.’

  The woman was a mind reader. He took a deep breath, wrapped his arm about her waist, leaned over and kissed the top of her head. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  For what? For far too many things for him to extrapolate right now.

  ‘Just thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure. And your dad?’

  He held her tighter and set his gaze straight ahead. ‘I was right. Heart problems. Certainly worse than he is making out. The man simply won’t admit weakness no matter what it costs.’

  ‘And your family?’

  ‘Know nothing. But not for long. I’ll let them have tonight, but tomorrow I’ll be back to tell them all. Give them the chance to make their peace.’

  ‘Good man.’

  Rosalind looked up into his eyes. She’d meant it when she called him a good man. And with it he felt the last of the places inside him that had been hard, fast and immovable for so very long melt away.

  ‘Now Meg really does need you,’ she said. ‘Are you up for it? Whatever it is?’

  ‘You bet.’

  And as they joined his brothers and sister in an ante room he couldn’t keep his eyes off Rosalind standing quietly in the doorway, watching the interplay between the four musketeers with a wistful smile on her face.

  Tonight, rather than her distracting him from his family’s dramas, his family’s dramas had been distracting him from her. Being with her was where he constantly wanted to be. The words gathered in his throat, but not in any order he recognized, so he swallowed them back down.

  ‘Cam!’ Meg called out, clicking fingers in front of his eyes. ‘Pay attention, Bucko, or I’ll make you jump out of the cake instead of me!’

  He blinked, then stared at his sister. ‘You are not jumping—?’

  ‘No.’ She grinned. ‘I’m not. But pay attention so we can get this done, and then, my little friend, the rest of the night is yours to do with as you please.’

  He couldn’t help himself. He looked to the doorway, only to find Rosalind had gone.

  Happy Birthday had been sung by the world-famous St Grellans Chorale. A cake the size of a piano had been wheeled out by Quinn’s four children, and a line of people had snaked around the room as everyone awaited their chance to get a piece of cake and slap some Kelly flesh.

  Rosie stayed in the gallery, leaning on the railing and watching the proceedings from a more comfortable distance.

  ‘You must be Rosalind.’

  Rosie spun from the rail to find herself face to face with Mary Kelly, the matriarch of the Kelly clan, as petite as Meg, but overwhelming all the same—resplendent in a royal-blue gown, her ice-blonde hair swaying in a sleek bob. She was so elegant Rosie had to swallow down a raging case of stage fright.

  And then the woman smiled, and Rosie knew where Cameron’s natural warmth had come from. She couldn’t help but smile right back.

  She held out a hand. ‘Rosie Harper. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Kelly.’

  ‘Rosie. Please, call me Mary.’ Mary clasped Rosie’s hand between both of hers. ‘And the pleasure is all mine, I assure you. You’re the girl who finally brought my Cameron home.’

  Rosie realised how hard she was shaking her head when a lock of hair fell from her up-do and stuck to her lip gloss. She peeled it out as she said, ‘Really, you’ve all got to stop saying that. I promise, it was all Cameron’s idea, his attachment to you guys, that made him come. I was just the lucky girl who got a party invite.’

  She could tell by the steely resolution in the older woman’s eyes that she was having none of it. But before Rosie could press her case home—to somehow explain what they were, or maybe more easily what they weren’t—Mary turned to glance out over the crowd, every inch a queen surveying her land and peoples.

  ‘My Cam’s always been a stubborn boy. He’d never accept help with his homework. Never come in from playing outside until he’d achieved whatever sporting milestone he’d set out to accomplish. He can want a lot from others, but is much harder on himself. Much like his father.’

  Don’t tell him that, Rosie thought.

  ‘I’d never tell him that,’ the woman said with an eloquent smile. ‘Though it’s why the two of them could never see eye to eye. They are both bull-headed. Determined. Competitive. Ambitious. And sadly unforgiving of human limitations.’

  Rosie stopped nodding along when she hit the final word. Her skin broke out in a splatter of goose bumps as the whole truth dawned: her husband’s infidelity, his current illness, Mary Kelly knew it all.

  What she didn’t know was that her youngest son knew it all too. If she had, Rosie had no doubt she would have done everything not to let him suffer being an outcast to protect them all.

  The fiercely independent side of her nudged her towards feeling sorry for t
he woman. But really Rosie just thought her immensely brave.

  Mary Kelly’s valiant choices had shaped four formidable children. Rosie had witnessed how naturally close they were in the ante room downstairs. If she’d still believed in wishing on a star, her wish would have been to be a part of that. To be able to tap into Meg’s humour, Dylan’s confidence, Brendan’s strength, to be cushioned by that much unconditional devotion.

  But she especially wanted to hug Mary Kelly for creating Cameron—a man who might well be bull-headed, but then so was she. While he was also gentle. Gentlemanly. Incredibly strong. Generous. Funny. Attentive. He had a huge heart and the soul of a dreamer.

  Her cheeks began to warm. She’d never let herself list his good points in one go before, as though deep down she’d known that all together they would be overwhelming.

  When she realised Mary Kelly was awaiting her response, she casually fanned her cheeks with her clutch bag as she said, ‘Thank goodness for the renowned Kelly charm, then. I’d bet it gets them both out of a lot of trouble their mulishness gets them into.’

  Mary smiled. ‘Thank goodness for that. And for the fact that they are both men who have always known who they are. And what they want. That’s a rare thing indeed.’

  Rosie smiled back. All the while her mind spun and spun.

  Cameron Kelly was a rare man. A man who worked hard and played hard, but above all wanted to be a good man. He was a good man. The best man. That such a man had pursued her, looked out for her, desired her, needed her…

  And right there, standing next to Cameron’s mother, it dawned on Rosie with the gently rising glow and warmth of a winter sunrise that it had taken a rare man to give her—a woman who had been certain that she would go a lifetime without knowing love—all the room she’d needed in order to know one thing with all her heart.

  Rosie loved him. She was in love with Cameron Kelly. She loved him with a mad, aching, tumbling, soaring, absorbing, textured, lovely love.

  Her lungs filled so deeply that the resultant burst of oxygen made her feel lightheaded, weak-kneed and tingly all over. Trying to find some kind of centre, she repeated the words over and over again in her head.