He asked, ‘So are any other planets allowed a look in, or is this an exclusive relationship?’
She looked up, and the tightness in her chest ebbed away. ‘I’m a one-planet woman. Earth and Venus are the most similar in size of the planets in our solar system. They came into being around the same time with nearly the same radius, mass, density and chemical composition. But she has clouds laced with sulphuric acid, a surface hot enough to melt steel, and her surface pressure is equivalent to being a kilometre under the sea.’
‘She’s one feisty broad.’
‘Isn’t she?’ Having built up a safer distance, she spun to face him, and, walking backwards, said, ‘Sorry you asked?’
‘Not in the least. So, how long have you been working at the planetarium?’
She fell into step beside him, figuring it best to keep her eyes on the path ahead. ‘I don’t. I’ve known the manager there—Adele, who you met yesterday—since uni, and she lets me camp out in the observatory whenever I like. I travelled a lot after school, and now, being back, having the observatory on hand means I can mix things up.’
‘And it’s a living?’
She shot him a sideways glance. ‘As Australia’s pre-eminent Venus specialist, I’ve given talks at international conferences, guest lectured at universities, and even talked on TV about her. And I’ve worked freelance for NASA for yonks. So, yeah, I do just fine.’
‘You’re a humble little thing, aren’t you?’
‘The humblest.’
He moved alongside her, close enough she could feel the whisper of air from his swinging arm brushing her jacket against hers. Their footsteps found a rhythm; her heart on the other hand felt like it was skittering all over the place. It was a feeling she’d never experienced before, comfortable and sexy all at once. She wondered if he felt that way all the time, if being with him she would too.
Rosie slid her arm out of Cameron’s grasp, feigned having to unhook the back of her shoe from her heel, then walked on with a good foot’s distance between them.
They hit the end of a row of cafés at the southern end of South Bank, then veered around in a one-eighty-degree arc and headed back towards the Victoria Street Bridge. Towards their cars.
Towards the end of the night.
And Rosie’s relief and disappointment at the thought of their date coming to an end ran pretty much neck and neck.
On the other hand, Cameron was feeling strangely content. He would have expected by now to be over the elation that came with revelation, and to have moved on to disappointment with himself for giving into a moment’s weakness.
But instead his mind was completely filled with the fact that he was out on a stunning winter’s night with a beautiful woman. And, having given up so much of himself, he found himself wanting more from her. To restore the balance? That was the reason he was most comfortable admitting to.
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 passed 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.’