Dating the Rebel Tycoon by Ally Blake

incomparable monoliths he had in the planning.
    ‘Some view, don’t you think?’ he said, his voice rough with pride.
    Rosalind squinted up at the sky and frowned.
    Cameron said, ‘Try ninety-degrees down.’
    ‘Oh.’ Her chin tilted and her nose screwed up as she watched the red and white lights of a hundred cars ease quietly across the Riverside Expressway. ‘What am I missing?’
    He held a hand towards the shimmer of a trillion glass panels covering the irregular array of buildings. ‘Only the most stunning view in existence.’
    She stared at it a few moments longer as she nonchalantly tapped her spoon against her mouth. ‘I see little boxes inside big boxes. No air. No light. No charm.’
    Cameron shifted on his spot on the toadstool. ‘I am in the business of building the big boxes. Skyscrapers are my game.’
    She turned to look at him, resting her chin on her shoulder, a lock of her long, wavy hair swinging gently down her cheek. ‘Sorry.’
    ‘Apology accepted.’
    ‘Though…’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘A city is a finite thing. Some day, in the not too distant future, someone like you will come along and tear down your building to make a bigger one. Doesn’t that feel like wasted effort?’
    He laughed, right from his gut and out into the soft, dark silence. ‘You sure don’t pull your punches, do you?’
    Her cheek lifted into a smile—a smile that made him want to reach out and entwine his fingers in her kinky tresses.
    Before he had the chance, she shook her hair back and looked out at the city. ‘Growing up, my only chance at being heard was by having something remarkable to say.’
    ‘I hear that. Big family?’
    ‘Like yours, you mean? Ah, no. My mother and I did not skitogether, or turn on the City Hall Christmas-tree lights together. My mum cleaned houses and waited tables and took in ironing, and I can’t remember five times we ate dinner together. Much of the time she had other things on her mind.’
    She glanced back at him, the reflection of the river creating silver waves in her eyes. And she smiled. No self-pity; no asking for compassion. Only Rosalind Harper just as she was, wide open.
    While he sat there, the most mistrustful man on the planet. The secrets he’d kept had led him to play his cards close to his chest his whole life. Hell, he had three accountants so that no one man knew where he kept all his money.
    She hid nothing. Not her thoughts, her past, her flaws, her quirks. He wondered what it might feel like to be that transparent. To leave it up to others to take you or leave you.
    Oh, he wanted to take her. Badly. But though a level of shared confidence came with them having gone to the same school, and though he was attracted to her to the point of distraction, and though she made him laugh more than any woman he’d ever met, there was nothing he wanted bad enough to make him quit his discretion.
    He tightened all the bits of himself that seemed to loosen around her, as he gave as little and as much as he could. ‘Is this where you expect me to try to convince you how difficult my childhood was?’
    ‘Cameron,’ she said, white puffs of air shooting from her now down-turned lips. ‘I have no expectations of you whatsoever.’
    And, just like that, tension pulled tight between them. It was so sudden, so strong, he felt a physical need to lean away, but the invisible thread that had bound them together from the beginning refused to break.
    He finally figured out what that thread was.
    He’d convinced himself he’d been merrily indulging in an attraction to a pretty girl with a smart mouth. He should have known that wouldn’t be enough to tempt him. He was a serious man, and, beneath the loose Botticelli hair, the uncensored wrywit and carefree, sultry clothes, Rosalind Harper’s serious streak ran as deep as a river.
    It would no doubt make for further unpleasant clashes; it would mean continuously avoiding the trap of deep discussions.
    Unless he walked away now.
    His