She stiffened as he fingered it, her skin breaking out into goose-bumps when he slowly looped it behind her ear.

‘How long is it, I wonder,’ he said in a low, husky voice, ‘since you really let your hair down?’

Natalie’s head whirled at the thought of doing just that. With him.

Their eyes met, and held.

‘Have a good weekend,’ he said abruptly, then turned on his heels. ‘I’ll see you Monday morning,’ he threw over his shoulder as he strode towards the front gate.

‘Oh, and Natalie…’ He turned back again at the gate. ‘Start wearing your grandmother’s engagement ring.’

She clenched her teeth and sucked in some much-needed air. ‘Anything else?’ she bit out.

He looked her up and down again. ‘Some new clothes wouldn’t go astray. But I guess that can wait till I take you shopping. I don’t trust your taste. Now off you go and do your female things. I have some male things I have to do. See you.’

Natalie found herself gripping her keys with white-knuckled intensity. What kind of male things?

But deep in her heart of hearts she knew, didn’t she?

He was going to have sex, with one of those many females he could have married, but hadn’t. He would probably spend the whole night with her—maybe the whole weekend—making love in all sorts of ways.

By the time Natalie managed to insert her key into the deadlock and let herself inside, a dark and self-destructive jealousy had taken possession of her. The temptation to do anything to spoil Mike’s plans for a sex-filled weekend almost extended to telling her parents the truth.

Because she knew how they’d react.

Her mother would be consumed with curiosity and her father with worry. They would both demand to meet this man who planned to marry their daughter, but not stay married to her. The money angle might sway total objection up front, but they would still want to look Mike over before letting their precious child put pen to paper and sell herself like that.

Which was only sensible, of course. There were a lot of weirdos in this world. And whilst Natalie didn’t think for one moment that Mike was a weirdo—just a ruthlessly ambitious, impossibly sexy man—she relished the idea of her parents giving him the third degree.

And they would. Both of them!

In the end, however, Natalie was forced to abandon that idea. It would be more trouble than it was worth. One look at Mike and her mother would start imagining that there was more to this marriage than met the eye. She knew her daughter’s taste in men.

But she would still have to ring her mother tonight and tell her something to explain how she would soon have the means to pay off their mortgage.

A version of the truth came to her that just might work.