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‘Everything okay?’ Cameron asked, his hand touching her elbow in reassurance.
Over the top of the box hedges, Brisbane twinkled in the distance. ‘Everything’s fine. And for the record the view from your place is way better than this.’
Cameron grinned as the twelve-foot front door swung open, and he guided her inside. ‘I knew I brought you for a reason.’
If the Kelly family had intended the front of their home to be imposing, it had nothing on the ballroom in which the party was being held.
Rosie’s cold hands gripped the edge of a curling wrought-iron railing as she looked down from the gallery into the main room below.
Over two hundred people in evening dress milled about the massive rectangular space. A gleaming parquet floor shone in the light of six crystal chandeliers hanging from the multi-vaulted ceiling; a string quartet played in one corner of the room, a jazz band was setting up in the other, and white roses tumbled from every surface available.
She felt a sudden need to hitch up her dress.
‘Come on,’ Cameron said.
He took her hand and practically dragged her down the staircase and through the crowd so fast that he didn’t have to stop and talk to anyone, and onto the dance floor, where several couples were swaying to the beautiful music.
He took her in his arms, pulled her close and together they danced.
With a blinding flash that had her losing her footing for a second, Rosie found herself deep in the middle of a memory she’d long since forgotten.
She was at the only school dance she’d ever attended. She’d been invited by a boy in her science class—Jeremy somebody. He’d been two inches shorter than her, and had always worn his trousers too tight, but in those days even to be asked…
Halfway through the night, dancing alone within the pulsating crowd, she’d turned to find herself looking into a pair of stunning blue eyes brimming with effortless self-belief. Cameron Kelly. A senior. She’d looked and she’d ached, if not to be with him then to be like him—content, fortunate, valued. He hadn’t looked away.
And like that they’d danced with one another for no more than a quarter of a song before one of his friends had dragged him away for photos with the gang.
Cameron pulled her closer and drew her back to the present, just in time to hear him say, ‘If only you’d let me dance with you this close all those years ago then who knows what might have happened?’
Rosie snapped her head back so fast she heard her neck crack. ‘Excuse me?’
He pulled her back into his arms and wrapped her tighter until her cheek was back against his chest, and she could feel the steady beat of his heart as he twirled her around the floor.
‘My senior-year dance,’ he said, the sound rumbling through her. ‘You were there, weren’t you?’
She closed her eyes lest he realise what she could no longer deny—that she was still very much the young girl with the naïve, wide-open heart that had seen something exceptional in him all those years ago.
‘You remember,’ she whispered.
‘Mmm. I remembered a couple of days back, actually. I forgot to mention it til now.’
Her knees wobbled in recognition of the smile in his voice. Her poor, struggling heart wobbled right along with them.
‘Skinny black jeans,’ he continued. ‘Hot-pink tank top, enough eyeliner to drown a ship. And I might be getting this part wrong, but did you have your hair in two long plaits?’
Rosie’s hand lifted off his shoulder to slap across her eyes. ‘Oh no, I’d forgotten that part. That was my “separate myself from the preppy, pastel suburban princesses before they separate themselves from me” phase. You know what? I’m not sure I ever grew out of that.’
Cameron slipped a finger beneath her chin and didn’t slide it away until she was looking into his eyes. Those beautiful, corn-flower, soulful, sexy, smiling eyes. ‘I’m glad. And for the record you looked adorable. And scary as hell.’
She blinked up at him, her brow furrowing. ‘Scary?’
‘God, yeah. I was mucking about, pretending to dance with my mates, and when I turned there was this stunning creature right under my eyes, chin up, eyes fierce, daring the world to even try telling her off for simply being herself. I was fairly sure that girl must have thought me ridiculous.’
‘Ridiculous?’ she repeated, beginning to feel like a parrot, but it was either that or say something she’d never be able to take back. That, in that moment, she’d been fairly sure she was looking at the most beautiful boy in the whole world.
She gripped his shoulder a tad too tightly, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just looked deep into her eyes with that barely there smile lingering upon his mouth.
