‘So, no ice-sculptures then?’ Meg asked.
They both turned to look at the six-foot-tall melting bust of Quinn Kelly’s head in the centre of the twenty-foot long head table.
‘Ah, no,’ Rosie said. ‘Not that I can remember.’
‘And don’t you now think those parties were the poorer for it?’ Meg’s voice was deadpan, but her eyes were sparkling.
Yep, she thought, Meg Kelly is one of the good ones. She could barely imagine how hilarious she and Adele would be together.
‘So,’ Meg said, just as Rosie started to relax, ‘You and my brother are together.’
‘I think you’ll find your brother is over there,’ Rosie said carefully, ‘While I’m over here.’
Meg tapped the side of her nose. ‘I’m with you. Don’t want to jinx things.’
Rosie made to correct Meg, but then realised she had no way of defining what they were that would make sense to anyone outside the two of them. Actually, the longer she spent alone, she was finding it hard to make sense of it herself.
Suddenly Meg stood straight as a die. ‘Will you lookie there?’
Rosie’s gaze shifted back to Cameron, to find that his father had joined the group, and her relationship with Cameron once again moved to the back of the line.
Her eyes darted between the two men. They seemed civil, at least from a distance. Profile on, they looked so similar—both tall, both straight-backed, both broad and ridiculously good-looking. Princes among men.
Only she knew Quinn Kelly was a man who liked to keep secrets. Secrets that could destroy those who loved him and needed him most. Secrets that had already destroyed that part of Cameron that was open to trust.
She had to loosen her grip on her champagne glass for fear it might smash in her hand.
All she could do was stand on the sidelines and wait. Wait for him to sort himself out. Wait for him to come back to her. The irony of her situation in comparison with her mother’s wasn’t lost on her. And the rest of her champagne was downed in three seconds flat.
‘I truly never thought I’d see the day those two would manage to be in the same room together without shooting laser beams at one another with their eyes. Ever since Cam told dad he wasn’t going to work for KInG, it’s been the battlefield of Brisbane. What did you say to get him here?’ Meg asked.
‘Me?’ Rosie said, lifting her napkin to the rosette on her chest.
‘Yeah, you,’ Meg said with a smile. ‘It’s only since you came on the scene that he’s gone all soft and gooey around the edges. He called me twice this week. I don’t remember a time he called me that often in a month!’
Rosie’s stomach turned soft and gooey in half a second flat. But then she remembered that Cameron had not shared his fears about his father’s health with Meg. It was more likely he’d been fishing and the timing had been coincidental.
Then again, maybe not. Maybe the timing was everything. She stared into her champagne. Maybe everything in his life was backwards this week because of the situation with his dad.
An older couple who smelled of talcum powder and diamonds came wafting past, and Meg said just the right things to have them smiling and on their way.
‘You make it look so easy—the schmoozing,’ Rosie commented, her voice a tad breathless.
Meg sighed. ‘I sing rock songs in my head, imagine them all wearing suspenders and fish nets and carry a flask wherever I go.’
She tapped her bag, which clunked with a metallic sound, patted Rosie on the arm, winked and boogied back into the crowd, air-kissing along the way until she found Tabitha, and then together they danced like they were at a rave.
But Rosie had the distinct feeling that Meg Kelly was no more the ditzy socialite she appeared to be than Cameron Kelly had been the carefree, lackadaisical golden boy she’d once thought he was. Or the dark, hard character she’d thought he’d turned into.
‘What the hell is wrong with my brother, leaving you all alone in this crowd of vultures?’
Rosie turned to find Dylan Kelly leaning over her shoulder. She would have recognised him anywhere; he graced the social pages more than the rest of them combined. Fair, dashing, roguish, he grabbed her last hors d’oeuvre and popped it in his mouth.
‘There is nothing wrong with your brother,’ she said, snatching her near-empty champagne away lest he went for that too.
He grinned at her with his mouth full. ‘Meg was right—soft and gooey. The both of you.’
‘Sorry to disappoint,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a gooey bone in my body.’
He leant against the side of the column, close enough for her to smell his aftershave. It was nice, but it was not Cameron. Just the thought of Cameron’s clean, linen scent made her gooey, gooey, gooey.