by Ally Blake
She loved him. She was in love with him. Rosie Harper loved Cameron Kelly.
After a while the words stopped making sense.
How could they? How could she have let herself love this man of all men? Cameron might have come here to broker a peace, but the cuts from his father’s betrayals ran deep. They had screwed with his sense of gallantry so much that, even if a miracle occurred and he ever came close to loving her back, his critical fear of hurting those he loved would be one great reason for him to let her go.
That was what he’d been trying to tell her that night after the Chinese at his place. He’d been warning her. Subconsciously he’d seen this coming, even if she had pretended she was fine.
Her flutter of instinct when she’d been with Meg had been spot on. While Cameron had thought he’d found himself an easygoing girl who would know better than to fall for him, Rosie had gone against character and done just that.
She’d fallen head over heels in love with the one man who could never be hers.
Punch drunk, Rosie inhaled deeply, but this time the air felt like it barely touched her lungs. There were too many people. Crowding into her personal space. Making it impossible to breathe.
‘It’s been lovely to meet you all, Mrs Kelly. You have an amazing family,’ she managed to get out without choking. ‘Please excuse me.’
She blindly stumbled onto one of a dozen half-circle balconies leading off the gallery, towards fresh air. And open sky.
Looking up into the infinite stars—all of them seemingly serene and quiet, yet crashing, imploding, living and dying out of control right before her eyes—she managed to get air into her lungs once more.
Cameron leant in the frame of the balcony doorway, watching Rosalind.
Her hair flickered in the soft breeze. Her dress clung to her subtle curves. His blood warmed as he imagined wrapping himself about her again tonight. Celebrating with her. Taking her with him to the heights he was feeling, and finding solace in her arms as he came to terms with his father’s mortality. And his own.
Her long, lean fingers gripped the columned balustrade, her eyes looking up.
That was one of the many things that drew him to her: her restless energy. She was hard to satisfy. He felt exactly the same way. At least, he had for years.
But looking at her now, her delicate shoulders braced to take on whatever her stars might throw at her, he felt something inside him shake free and settle.
The three steps that took him to her felt like they took an eternity. He slid his arms around her waist, leant his chin on her shoulder and kissed the tip of her ear.
She melted against him, a perfect fit, and he felt her whole body sigh.
But then her hands clasped down on his; she peeled his hand away from her waist and stepped away.
She glanced at him from beneath her lashes, and he realised she was upset. Soft swirls of wet mascara bore witness to the tracks of her tears.
His fists clenched, ready to take on Dylan or Meg or Brendan or whoever had said something to make his big, brave girl so distressed.
He went to touch her again. ‘Rosalind, honey…’
She held up a hand, and he stopped mid-step.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she whispered between her teeth.
‘Do what?’ he asked. But while his fists unclenched all of the newly settled places inside him began to squeeze in expectation.
‘This.’ Her arms flew sideways, taking in the balcony, the ballroom, the immaculate grounds.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ve done what I came here to do. Why don’t we go home?’ He wasn’t sure where that would be, his place or hers, but as long as she was with him he didn’t really much care.
He reached out to take her hand, which even in the beginning had always felt like the most natural thing in the world. But she pulled her hand away as though burnt.
‘I can’t,’ she croaked. ‘No more. Enough is enough.’ Two fat tears slid down her blotchy pink cheeks. She swiped them away in frustration. ‘Why did you even bring me here?’
He opened his mouth to tell her, then realised what a complicated question that really was. Less than a week earlier she’d been a welcome distraction. But tonight…
‘This was always going to be a difficult night, and knowing you were here with me, for me, made all the difference. I could never have done this without you.’
He took another step. She shook her head so hard her curls drooped.
Realising she was more than upset—she was so distraught he wasn’t sure she even heard him—he thought harder, went deeper. ‘Asking you to come was not a decision I made lightly.’
Her eyes were like chipped ice when she looked up at him. ‘Neither was my agreeing to come.’
He slid his left foot back to meet his right, keeping space between them while he tried to figure out what was happening.
It had all seemed to be going so well. Meg thought her fun, Dylan thought her hot, she’d earned his father’s respect in an instant, and his mother had merely kissed him on the cheek and smiled, which told him everything. What had happened during Happy Birthday?
‘Rosalind, I’m sorry, but I’m at a loss as to what’s going on here.’
‘It’s Rosie,’ she shot back. ‘Just plain old Rosie. Which is exactly why you asked me here. But that doesn’t make me some oddment you can flash about to get a rise out of your father. Or a diversionary girl to get Meg and Dylan off your back. Or a false hope for your mum. That’s just not cool. I don’t deserve that.’
She was so upset her voice was catching on her words, as though she could scarcely draw breath. It physically pained Cameron not to gather her up in his arms and make everything better.
But the truth was she was spot on—from the beginning he’d used her. Even when he’d realised she was too smart, too clued into him, not to figure it out. Now he’d hurt her when he’d promised himself he would never hurt anyone he cared for.
His only chance was to show her, and himself, that deep down he wasn’t the cold, calculating man he’d been acting like for the past week.
‘This has been a night for fresh starts,’ he said. ‘Maybe we could take a leaf out of that book and try for one ourselves.’
She laughed, but it was tinged with bitterness, the likes of which he’d never felt from her. He felt it like a slap across the face.
She said, ‘You are on a high, and I get that. I am honestly so happy for you that you have that. But let’s be honest—you’ve never pretended that you had any intention of committing further time and energy to this than you absolutely had to. Don’t start messing with me now.’
God, but the woman was stubborn! His hands clenched into fists rather than reaching out and shaking her. ‘You want me to be brutally honest?’
His frustration came through his voice. She glanced up at him, her eyes like silver charms in the moonlight.
‘Why the heck not?’ she said.
‘Fine. Then here it is. You are honestly the most difficult, defiant, demanding woman I have ever met. And I think you ought to try to find it in you to give me a break. Now, do you really want to talk about commitment?’
‘Yeah. Let’s.’ She crossed her arms and glared at him. She was so fierce it brought about a growl deep down inside his chest. He would have grabbed her and kissed her had it not been for the fact that she was driving him so damned crazy.
He said, ‘As far as I can tell, apart from some far-away planet that can’t answer back, you’ve never committed to a thing! Not to a job that isn’t freelance. Not to a home that you can’t up and move with an hour’s notice. Not even to your own name.’
The heat in her eyes made his lungs burn as he breathed deep to keep from saying any more; his skin felt a hundred degrees. And he’d never been so turned on in his whole life. Not by success, or power, or by being the one man in town gutsy enough to build the tallest, greatest, most spectacular buildings his city had ever se
en.
‘Fine,’ she shot back. ‘If I’m the world’s greatest hypocrite, then you are the most wilfully pig-headed man in the universe. Do you have any kind of clue what you have? You are surrounded by people who love you so much.’ Her eyes flickered from his for a moment before slamming into him again. ‘Family who need you, who want you in their lives no matter what. You have roots in this place a mile deep, and you’ve done everything in your power to chop them off. One of these days they might not grow back, then you’ll have the faintest clue what it truly feels like to be alone in the universe.’
Two fat tears slid from her eyes and peeled pathetically down her cheeks. The ache it created inside him knocked him sideways. He wished he knew how to tell her. He wished she would let him hold her, kiss her, show her, so that he didn’t have to find the words—as he wasn’t even sure he knew what the words should be. But she let him off the hook by staring hard at her shoes.
‘Can you please thank you mother for a lovely party? Give my regards to the rest.’
She looked up and captured his eyes with hers. He felt like his whole life had led him to this one minute in time. The defining minute of his life. Was he really a good man after all? Would a good man get on his knees and tell her how he felt, or would a good man realise he’d hurt the woman enough and let her go?
All of a sudden an explosion of sounds startled them both rigid. A half-second later fireworks burst and sparkled in the sky over the river.
The balcony quickly became crowded with guests, oohing and ahhing, and Cameron felt Rosalind being tugged from him. It wasn’t until he lost her within the sea of faces that he realised she’d been the one doing all the tugging.
Suddenly she was gone.
And, though he was surrounded by people, including the family he’d taken back into his life this night, he already felt more alone than he’d even known it was possible to feel.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CAMERON had ditched his jacket and tie, his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, his forearms leant against the cold stone of the ballroom balcony and he watched blue turn to pink as morning came round.
Venus was already up, steadfast in the sky. Unlike the other heavenly bodies that had set with the moon, there was no unsteady flickering, no distracting twinkling. She was constant, unwavering, enchanting and all alone.
Something hard and heavy thumped behind his ribs, and not for the first time in the past twelve hours. In fact, the thumping and heaviness had come over him the moment Rosalind had left him standing in this exact place.
The hours had passed. He and his family had retired to the library once all the guests had gone, and he had told them all about Quinn’s heart attacks and stubborn refusal to seek treatment, and together they had fought, reconciled, laughed and cried—and he’d come to realise that he’d never in his life been really alone.
But Rosalind had—solitary in her work, isolated in her home, alone even in her family. And it didn’t matter any more that she might have done everything in her power to keep at arm’s length those things that could provide her the same easy comfort he’d enjoyed; he finally understood the reason.
Loving something, then losing it, hurt like hell.
Was she out there hurting right now? Hurting and alone, because of him? Because he’d been too stubborn, too scrupulous, too disenchanted to take on the mess that came with the good in any real relationship?
A good man would suck up his pride, put himself in the unpleasant position at being rejected twice in twenty-four hours and do what he had to do to to make sure the person he cared about knew she would never have to be alone again.
He glanced at his watch. The hour was nearly polite enough. Home, a shower, a change of clothes; he pushed himself upright, stretched his tight arms over his head then felt in his pocket for his car keys.
If she slammed the door in his face afterwards, he’d never darken her door again. If her eyes confirmed how deeply he believed she cared, if she opened the door wide and let him in…
The rush of his next thought was stripped from him as a hard hand slapped down upon his shoulder. Dylan sidled in beside him, dressed much the same way as Cameron since none of them had yet been to sleep.
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding since the big brouhaha?’ Dylan said.
Cameron slapped a hand around his brother’s shoulder and turned them back inside. ‘You know as well as I do there are far better and darker places to hide in this monstrosity than on an open balcony.’
Dylan grinned. ‘I’m thinking right about now Dad would pay good money to know just one.’
They meandered through the upper level, gravitating towards the kitchen as they had a thousand times before. It didn’t feel like he’d spent years away from this place. It just felt like home.
And there was one person he had to thank for showing him the way back. He glanced at his watch again, restlessness beginning to take hold.
Dylan held open the swinging door of the massive white-and-wood kitchen, but not quite so far that Cameron could slip through.
His dress shoes came to a squeaking halt, and he looked up at his brother in time for Dylan to say, ‘Thanks, mate.’
‘For what?’
‘For opening our eyes. For not letting the old man twist your arm. For giving us all the chance to remind him that he was the one who always told us to put family first, and it’s about time he remembered that. It’s tense in there right now, but once everyone calms down they’ll realise the air in this place has never seemed so clear.’
Dylan let the door swing closed to give him a hug. Cameron hugged back, wondering how the hell he’d forsaken this all these years. Not for one more day would he forsake his own happiness for the sake of some cold, loveless principle.
When Dylan let him go and headed into the kitchen, Cameron looked to his watch again. It was nearly seven. She was a morning bird; she’d be up.
Not for one more day? He wasn’t going to deny himself the chance at happiness another minute.
Dylan grabbed a slice of birthday cake and a glass of milk from the fridge. ‘You staying for breakfast?’
Cameron shook his head, his mind a million miles away from there already. ‘Not this time.’
‘Damn it. I was itching to find out what new bombshell you might drop over waffles—Brendan’s gay? Mum voted Labour? Meg’s adopted, as she always hoped? No? Fine; so what are your plans for this fine day? Tell me they involve that fabulous young thing who accompanied you here last night and I might forgive you.’
Cameron took a swipe of icing. ‘I have high hopes.’
Dylan paused. Then said, ‘How high, exactly?’
‘Ridiculously, I’m afraid.’
‘Do tell.’
‘She accused me lately of having no staying power, and I am of a mind to prove her wrong.’
‘Wow. Don’t tell me you’re in need of the little blue pills yet? You’re younger than me.’
Cameron elbowed his brother neatly in the solar plexus and was rewarded with a satisfying, ‘Oomph!’
He slipped the icing into his mouth, and the sweetness exploded on his tongue. Then he said, ‘Rosalind knew I was making excuses. What I didn’t realise was that with her I didn’t need to.’
‘She’s figured you out, then?’
Cameron breathed in deep through his nose. Then he pushed away from the island to head to the door leading outside, to his car, to her. ‘That she has.’
‘Excellent,’ Dylan said with a chummy grin. ‘It seems I may have a bombshell to drop over breakfast after all.’
Rosie sat on Adele’s couch, staring unseeingly at the shifting yellow stripes on the wall left by the early-morning sun spilling through the wooden blinds behind her. Her feet were tucked beneath her, her legs covered in the blanket beneath which she’d slept—kind of. A bit. Not really.
In fact she’d been awake pretty much all night having deep and meaningful conversations with herself across a range of matters tha
t had all led back to the one crucial fact: that she had gone and done the most stupid thing she could ever do and fallen for Cameron Kelly.
About three minutes after the cab had pulled out of the Kelly Manor driveway, the words, ‘Turn this cab around right now!’ had crowded her throat. Shouldn’t she at least have allowed herself the chance to be loved back?
A deep breath, a sharp tug of the hair at the back of her neck and an extra five kilometres distance, and she’d been certain that she’d been on the verge of unashamedly setting herself up for heartache again, and again, and again…
Repeat one-hundred times, and that had been her night.
Adele came into the lounge with a tray of coffee, cake, chocolate, salt-and-vinegar chips, and lollies in the shape of milk bottles.
‘How you doing, snook?’ Adele asked, pouring her a strong cup of coffee.
‘Better.’ She uncurled her legs before they got stuck that way, and let her toes scrunch into the coarse, woven rug at her feet.
Adele’s eyebrows rose. ‘All better?’
Actually she felt like a walking bruise. She wrapped her hands around the hot mug and glanced at Adele over the top. ‘Thanks for letting me stay.’
Adele blinked down at her several times before saying, ‘Thank me later.’
Then the doorbell rang.
Adele jumped. She glanced at the door, back at Rosie, then back at the door. She said, ‘I think I left the iron on. Can you get that?’ And then shot from the room.
The doorbell rang again.
Rosie dragged herself from the couch, ran fingers through her thicket of hair, rubbed her hands hard over her face to make sure all the bits were where they were meant to be and trudged to the door in her borrowed pyjama bottoms, T-shirt and bare feet. The delivery guy would just have to suck it up and pretend she didn’t look like a one-woman freak show.
She hauled open the door and found herself face to face with a crumpled khaki shirt with rolled up sleeves, revealing the greatest pair of forearms God had ever created. And on the end of them…
