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work all that hard to get a woman to do anything with him. For a simple distraction, Rosalind was fast proving to be more difficult than he’d anticipated.
    But he was born of stubborn Irish stock; he couldn’t leave well enough alone. The effort of the chase only made her vanilla scent seem that much more intoxicating, her soft skin that much more tempting, the need to have her with him tonight that much more critical.
    ‘Rosalind,’ he warned.
    ‘Can’t a girl change her mind?’ she asked.
    ‘Not without an explanation, she can’t.’
    The stubborn gleam faltered. She glanced down the block at the façade of the bar and bit her bottom lip.
    When her teeth slipped away he found himself staring at the moistened spot, transfixed. And imagined pulling her into his arms and leaning her up against the building wall, and kissing her until the dark clouds hovering on the edge of his mind vanished.
    He dragged his gaze to her eyes to discover she was still watching the bar, which was probably a good thing, considering his pupils were likely the size of saucers.
    As casually as possible, he let her arm go and took a step back. ‘So what gives?’
    Her chest rose and fell. ‘When you invited me to dinner, I thought you meant just the two of us. If I’d known it was to be a class reunion I might have pretended to be washing my hair.’
    He followed her line of sight to find one of the guys chatting to a girl lined up outside the bar, but he knew the cheeky bugger was there to give word back to the group. His world was excessively intimate. Everybody assumed a right to know everybody else’s business.
    Which is why this girl, this outsider, with her refreshing candour and her easygoing, cool spirit was just what he needed.
    When he turned back, Rosalind’s arms were crossed across her chest and her hip was cocked. Her patience was running thin.
    He reached out and cradled her upper arms; the velvet was freezing cold. On impulse he ran his hands down her arms to warm her up.
    And at his touch her eyes finally skittered from the bar and back to him. Mercurial grey. Luminous in the lamplight. And completely unguarded. He saw her restlessness, her disharmony, and the fact that she was searching for an excuse to be with him rather than the other way round.
    Arrested, he moved close enough to follow every glint of every thought dancing behind those amazing eyes, yet not so close he found himself caught up in the scent of her until he couldn’t think straight. And he did his best to be as forthright in return.
    ‘Rosalind, I invited you to dinner because I knew I’d enjoy a night out with you. I chose this place as it makes the best Mexican on the eastern seaboard. As to that lot in there, I had no idea they’d be here; I haven’t seen most of them in years. It would have been far more sensible of me to have avoided them once I realised Meg’s best mate Tabitha was there, as she can talk the hind leg off a horse, but another fellow is a union lawyer and, workaholic that I am, I saw my chance to talk business and took it. Scout’s honour.’
    Her eyes narrowed as she asked, ‘When were you ever a scout?’
    His laughter came from nowhere, shooting adrenalin through his body, putting every muscle on high alert. No longer much caring about keeping himself at a sensible distance from her pervasive scent, he moved in tight and said, ‘It’s on my to-do list.’
    She watched him a few long, agonising seconds before she gave a little shrug beneath his touch. ‘Okay, then.’
    Okay, then. He took a few more moments to enjoy her sweet scent, her gentle curves leaning into him, and thought about suggesting they skip dinner after all.
    He let out a long, slow breath and disentangled himself from Rosalind Harper’s corrupting wares. Self-restraint was an asset. It separated men from monkeys, and Cameron from being anything like his father. He needed to get some food into him and soon.
    He slid around beside her, placed a hand in