‘It didn’t take any kind of genius on my part to know you were far too cool for the likes of me.’ He reached out and slid a finger under her fringe, pushing it off her face until he cupped her cheek. ‘You know what? Nothing you’ve said or done this week has made me think any differently. Only now I’m old enough not to give a damn.’
And then he kissed her, so softly, so gently, her heart turned inside out.
‘Well, if it isn’t little Cam Kelly. I’m not sure I believe my own eyes,’ a deep male voice drawled.
Rosie dragged herself out of the bottom of a beautiful dream and blinked into the warm light to find they’d stopped dancing.
And Cameron was no longer all hers.
His shoulders were stiff, his back straight, his neck tense as he stared at a taller man with slick hair and cold eyes.
‘Brendan, this is my friend, Rosalind Harper,’ Cameron said, his voice so cool if felt like the exhilarating warmth that had enveloped them both only moments earlier had all been in her imagination. ‘Rosalind, this is my brother, Brendan. He is the heir apparent to my father’s empire.’
Brendan gave her a short nod with a smile that didn’t light his eyes. She smiled back and offered a tiny curtsy. His eyes narrowed, but his smile broadened, and Rosie caught a glimpse of Cameron’s charisma therein.
‘Which by the old joke makes our Dylan the spare,’ Brendan said. ‘And what does that make you, brother?’
‘Delighted to be my own man.’
Feeling like she was in the middle of two lions circling one another, hoping to bite the other’s head off, Rosie disentangled herself from Cameron’s hold and waggled his little finger. ‘I think I’ll take a look around, see what there is to eat. Give you boys the chance to do what you need to do.’
‘I’ll come back for you soon,’ Cameron said.
Rosie smiled, but a shiver ran down her back as she thought it would be asking too much to have the same good luck twice. ‘Nice to meet you, Brendan.’
‘Likewise,’ he said, and this time she believed him.
As she walked away through a crowd of people she’d never met, and didn’t particularly want to, she glanced back to find Cameron and his brother already deep in heated conversation.
She’d brought him here, she’d made his first step bearable. Was that as far as she was needed? She kept walking straight ahead and ignored the sadness that had once again begun to settle in her chest.
It was all she’d ever known how to do.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TEN minutes later Rosie leant against a marble column in the corner of the room, a champagne glass in one hand, a couple of hors d’oeuvres secreted within a linen napkin in the other. The food hadn’t done much to ease the tightness in her chest; the champagne, on the other hand, had.
She watched Cameron and Brendan holding court with two politicians, a tennis pro and a guy with so many shiny medals on his chest she figured he was an army general.
For a guy who’d supposedly turned his back on all this guff, Cameron was in his element—while she was hiding lest she was forced to have another conversation about yachting, or golf, or the medical benefits of rhinoplasty.
‘Rosalind Harper, right?’
Rosie blinked and spun to find Meg Kelly at her shoulder, her chocolate-brown curls bouncing about her perfect pink cheeks, and her petite figure poured into a glittery copper number that could not possibly have been worn as well by another living soul.
‘Hey, Meg.’ Rosie clamped her fingers around her glass to stop herself from checking her hair, from tugging at her dress, from feeling awkward and gangly and everything Meg Kelly was not.
‘Having fun?’ Meg asked.
‘The mostest fun,’ Rosie said. ‘You?’
Meg’s face twisted in the way that only someone who somehow knew she would never wrinkle could twist her face. ‘I hate these things. So many ancient VIPs trying to kiss Dad’s butt. I mean, if they had vodka cruisers rather than this dry, old champagne then maybe, just maybe, these nights might not make me feel so much like my youth is just slipping away. You know what I mean?’
Rosie sipped her champagne and smiled with her eyes.
‘So how do your people celebrate birthdays?’ Meg asked.
Rosie spluttered on her drink. ‘My people?’
‘Your friends and family.’
Rosie mentally kicked herself. Cameron was from good people. His friends were at heart good people. It stood to reason Meg would be good person too. Just because this night had wrenched up some latent feelings of inferiority and doubt, that wasn’t her fault.
‘Pizza,’ Rosie said. ‘Beer. Ten-pin bowling. Birthday cake with used candles. Pressies under thirty bucks a pop.’