‘If Helsinger has been having me investigated, then we’re already busted. I mean…any PI worth his salt would have found out that my new bride runs an agency called Wives Wanted. What do you reckon Helsinger would make of that? Only a fool would think our marriage was the real McCoy.’

‘In that case he isn’t having you investigated,’ Natalie reasoned aloud. ‘Or he’d have cancelled the invitation to join him on his yacht and taken back the offer of a partnership. I’ll bet my house on it.’

‘I hope you’re right, Natalie. But I have a negative feeling about this. Maybe Helsinger likes to play with people’s lives. Maybe he’s bored with being a billionaire.’

‘Life is full of maybes, Mike. We’ve gone this far. We have to see it through.’

Mike stared at her. She was right, of course.

But he still didn’t want to. Helsinger wasn’t the only problem in his head today. She was. This beautiful and intriguing woman who’d got under his skin right from the start, and who was fast becoming an obsession. A dangerous obsession.

Dangerous to his peace of mind, not to mention the peace of his body. He was different with her from how he’d been with other women. The more he had Natalie, the more he wanted her. His desire had become a compulsion. He was beginning to need her, with the same desperation that a man dying in the desert needed water.

Mike had once vowed never to need a woman. Not like that. Never like that.

‘Mike?’ Natalie prompted, her lovely forehead wrinkled into a frown.

‘You’re right,’ he said sharply. ‘We have to see it through.’ Even if it drives me insane. ‘But I’m not going to put up with any bulldust.’

‘At least we don’t have to pretend to be lovers,’ she said, and smiled a softly seductive smile.

The effect on him was stunning, as if he were suddenly wrapped in a warm blanket on a freezing cold night. Hot blood charged along his veins, stirring his flesh.

Thank God they had to get going right away, otherwise he might have pounced on her.

‘No more titivating,’ he ordered her abruptly. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘I have to get my handbag first,’ she said. ‘And the wedding photos.’

‘No. Not the photos.’

‘But you paid extra for a brag book to be delivered this morning so that you could show the Helsingers!’

‘I’ve decided I do not wish to show them to the Helsingers. They’re not close friends. They wouldn’t expect it.’ In truth, he’d hated the way the photographer had captured the way he’d looked at Natalie before and during the ceremony. Like some infatuated, fatuous fool.

‘I’ll meet you at the front door,’ he said brusquely as he walked off.