She was still wearing trousers, this time a black linen pair, topped by a crisp cream shirt that resembled a schoolgirl’s blouse. Her hair was somewhat schoolgirlish as well, tied at the nape of her neck with a black ribbon.

Mike did not have a schoolgirl fetish. He liked his women to look like women.

Only her face got his approval. She seemed to have taken some trouble there, make-up making her big blue eyes look bigger and bluer, and her full mouth look…

Better not look at her mouth, he told himself sternly. Lush lips enhanced with scarlet lipstick did wicked things to him at the best of times.

Her perfume was on the seductive side as well.

‘Shall we get going, then?’ he said abruptly.

‘I’ll just get my bag and jacket.’

‘You won’t need a jacket. It’s twenty-eight degrees.’

She set decidedly cool eyes on him, making him wish he’d brought his jacket.

‘I always take a jacket with me. You never know in Sydney when a southerly change is going to sweep in.’

‘Fine,’ he said, with a nonchalant shrug.

‘Are you always this impatient?’ he grumbled when she returned with a black handbag.

No, Natalie wanted to confess, shame and self-disgust bringing a guilty colour to her face. Only when I’ve been sitting there for the last fifteen minutes like a cat on a hot tin roof, forcing myself not to run to the front window with every passing car. Telling myself I was crazy to feel like this over a man who wanted nothing from me but an act. Hating myself for feeling physically sick when one-thirty came and you hadn’t arrived.

‘I guess I’m a bit nervous,’ she bit out by way of an excuse. ‘It’s not every day that I agree to marry a man I hardly know.’

‘Not having second thoughts, are you?’ he asked.

Natalie suppressed a shiver as her gaze swept over him. She’d found him attractive in blue jeans and leather jacket yesterday. Today, she found him devastating.

Was it her dream of last night that had heightened her hunger for him? Or was it the tight black jeans and equally tight black T-shirt that made her crave to touch his magnificent body?

Nothing was hidden from her eyes today. She could see it all, from his broad shoulders and incredible biceps down to his flat stomach and slim hips.

Natalie worked out at a gym herself three times a week and was used to seeing good male bodies. But Mike’s was something else.

He made Brandon look like a weakling, which he hadn’t been. He’d been very fit and toned.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Your being a friend of Richard Crawford’s is an excellent reference. He’s a very reputable man. But I got to thinking last night and I want a pre-nuptial agreement which guarantees what you promised me.’