‘I don’t think much of it, either.’

‘Too bad. You’re stuck with me. Just think of the money, honey. You’re getting well paid to put up with my moods for a while.’ He snatched up an untouched glass of champagne and swigged back a hefty amount before glowering over at her. ‘I do realise you thought today would end differently to this. But you thought wrong.’

Natalie stiffened. ‘What do you mean—end differently?’

He walked slowly towards her across the thick blue rug that separated them, his eyes doing what they had done earlier, only much less respectfully.

‘You thought you could play games with me,’ he ground out. ‘Teach me a lesson that my testosterone wouldn’t forget.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she lied breathlessly.

He stopped right in front of her, his eyes now glittering and cold as he glowered down at her. ‘You know exactly what I mean,’ he ground out. ‘You’re a smart girl, Natalie. Smart and devious.’

‘I wasn’t playing a game,’ she defended, the champagne having given her some Dutch courage. ‘I just wanted you to see that I could look attractive, and sexy. Call it female vanity, but I didn’t like you criticising the way I looked.’

‘Let’s call a spade a spade, Natalie. You wanted to turn me on. That’s the bottom line.’

‘All right,’ she blurted out. ‘Yes! I wanted to turn you on!’

‘Well, you succeeded.’

Her whole insides contracted at his gruff admission.

‘Not that it’s going to do you any bloody good,’ he added angrily.

Natalie was to wonder, afterwards, if it was the champagne that opened her mouth so boldly.

‘I’m not after your heart, if that’s what you’re thinking. I just want your body!’

His lips pulled back into a cynical sneer. ‘That’s what lots of women say. But it’s not what they mean.’

‘Well, I do,’ she insisted. ‘Remember what you said to me the first day we met? You said that I needed you to sex me up a bit. You were so right. After the fiasco with Brandon, I’d fallen into shocking habits, with my dress and my attitude towards men. But my worst habit was not staying sexually active. I was in danger of becoming a dried-up old maid. But when you came into my life, my female hormones got a wake-up call. You’re a very sexy man, Mike.

‘Not a man I could ever fall in love with, mind,’ she hurriedly pointed out. ‘Or want to stay married to. But a man I would like to go to bed with. Trust me when I say I will divorce you, once you’ve got your precious partnership.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MIKE could not have been more taken aback. Damn it all, that was his speech. He was the one who usually said he wouldn’t be falling in love, etc. etc. etc.