Dating the Rebel Tycoon - By Ally Blake Page 0,38
who both came with convenient expiry-dates built in, Cameron Kelly isn’t going anywhere.’
Rosie waited for the heat in her belly to cool to room temperature. But for some unknown reason the idea of Cameron being around a while longer than her normal guys didn’t scare her silly.
Which of course only scared her out of her mind.
That evening, as they snaked up the steep cliff-face of exclusive, riverside Hamilton in Cameron’s MG, Rosie kept doggedly to her side of the car, arms crossed beneath her poncho, knees pointed towards the outer window, feet bouncing against the low-slung floor.
She’d been pacing outside the front door of the planetarium when he’d appeared through the trees, gorgeous in dark low-slung jeans, a black T-shirt under a designer track-top, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing his strong, sculpted forearms that she found so irresistible. His hair was ruffled, his cheeks slightly flushed from the cold. His heavenly blue eyes had been on her. Focussed. Unwavering.
He’d kept an arm about her waist as he’d guided her to his car, then had hastened to put the soft-top up, reminding her how spontaneously nice he was. Then, just before she’d hopped in the car, he’d pulled her close to kiss her hot, hard and adamantly, and she’d remembered how beautifully not nice he could be.
Yet all she could think the entire time was that he was gorgeous. It was their third date. And he wasn’t going anywhere.
They turned down a street where mature palm trees lined the perfectly manicured footpath and all the houses were hidden behind high fences and brush-box hedges. The MG slowed to a purr as Cameron pulled up in front of a cream rendered-brick wall. A double garage door whirred open and they slunk inside.
Golden sensor-lights flickered on at their arrival, revealing a simple room with polished-wood floors and just enough room for two cars. Or in Cameron’s case a car, a mountain bike, a jet ski and three canoes suspended from the far wall.
He took her hand and helped her out of the car.
When he let go she snuck her hand back beneath her poncho and eased round him to give herself space to breathe.
Cameron twirled his keys on the end of a finger as he opened the unassuming doorway to the left and waved her through. ‘Welcome to my humble abode.’
On the other side of the door, at the bottom of a tall, curved floating staircase, lay an open-plan room with shiny blonde-wood floors, a far wall made up of floor-to-ceiling windows and a dramatic two-storey canted ceiling. On the right, a raised granite-and-oak kitchen with a six-seater island bench rested beneath a charming skylight the size of a small car. In a living area on the left was a soft, cream leather lounge-suite that would easily seat ten, and a flat-screen TV that must have been six-feet wide. The fireplace in the corner was filled with half-burnt logs and fresh ash. Outside the windows she could see a large, dark-blue, kidney-shaped pool.
Rosie stopped cataloguing and swallowed. ‘You built this?’
‘It gave me blisters, took a toenail and dislocated a shoulder, so I wouldn’t forget. It was the best education for a guy who would one day have labourers in his employ. My empathy when they whinge is genuine, as is my insistence that if I could do it so can they. Come in,’ he said as he placed a hand in the middle of her back and encouraged her to get further than one step down.
Her feet moved down the stairs, past the lounge and to the windows as she stared at the view. Beyond the smattering of orange-tiled rooves meandering down the cliff-face below, established greenery bordered the Hamilton curve of the Brisbane River. Half-baked shells of what would one day become multi-million-dollar yachts rode the water surface. In the distance the Storey Bridge spanned the gleaming waterway, and the city glowed in the last breath of dying sunlight while the moon rose like a silver dollar between the towers.
This place was more than just a building; the personality, the warmth, the lovely, lush detail made it more than a house. It felt like a home.
For a girl who took enormous gratification in the fact that the place in which she slept was just that—a place to sleep, with no history, or memory, or attachment, nothing she would fear losing. It was an extraordinary feeling.
Extraordinary and emphatic. Adele was dead right: Cameron Kelly may appear a lone wolf, but he