It was humiliating, she thought as she jerked the zipper up. A thirty-year-old woman being fixed up by her big brother. Worse, now Michael knew that she was the pathetic divorcée who couldn’t get her own date. As if she wanted one in the first place, or the last place, or any place at all, for that matter.

“Which I don’t,” she told the dog, who had come into her room to watch her every move with adoring eyes. “I don’t even want to go to the damn country club tonight. I’m tired.”

Sympathetically he wiggled his butt as she stormed over to the closet for shoes and a beaded jacket. She didn’t need to hang on to a man’s arm to feel complete. She didn’t need to hang on to anything, anyone. Why couldn’t she just crawl into bed and read a book, she wondered. Eat popcorn and watch an old movie on TV until she fell asleep with the set still on.

Why did she have to dress up, go out in public, and be Laura Templeton? She stopped, sighed. Because she was Laura Templeton. That was something she couldn’t forget. Laura Templeton had responsibilities, she had an image to maintain.

So, she told herself as she picked up her lipstick and applied it skillfully, she would maintain it. She would get through the evening, say the right things to the right people. She would be as polite and friendly to Michael as necessary. And when the whole blasted thing was over, she would fall facedown on her bed and forget it. Until the next time.

She checked her hair. God, she needed a trim. And when was she going to fit that in? She turned for her bag and watched in mild horror as the pup wet on her Aubusson.

“Oh, Bongo!”

He grinned up at her and sat in his own pee.

It was only a small rebellion, but Michael didn’t wear a tie. He figured that with Laura Templeton at his side they wouldn’t boot him out for wearing a black turtleneck under his jacket.

He parked between the island of spring bulbs and the grand front entrance. And if he’d been wearing a tie, he would have tugged at it.

Nerves. They amazed him, disgusted him. But no matter how much he wanted to deny it, he felt like some pimply-faced teenager on a first date.

Ignoring the sky dusted with icy stars, the sheen of silvering moonlight, the scent of sea and flowers, he walked to the door like a man taking his last mile in shackles.

How the hell had he let himself get talked into this?