The Engagement Deal. KIM LAWRENCE

curling tendrils to frame her face. She screwed up her nose in approval at the overall effect. Fortunately, the black eye had proved simple to disguise.

      She sniffed at the neck of an interestingly shaped perfume spray before dousing her body in a generous mist of scent. All I need now, she thought, slipping on some underwear and then a pair of high-heeled mules, is the dress.

      There was only pause enough between the light tap on the door and it swinging open for her to clamp her hands over her bare breasts and fix an indignant expression on her face.

      Although she would have happily crawled out of her skin, pride made Holly stand immobile while his startling cerulean eyes travelled over her skimpily clad body from head to toe, pausing noticeably longer over some areas than others.

      ‘You were right.’

      One nicely shaped brow rose in haughty enquiry as she tried to maintain the illusion that she felt perfectly at ease with this nerve-shredding situation. Actually, until that moment she’d have claimed she was quite relaxed about her own body, only suddenly…She shivered, even though her skin felt hot. She felt conscious of every centimetre.

      Calm down, Holly, she told herself. Niall Wesley has seen more beautiful women naked than you’ve had hot dinners, and you’re only passable. Being passable didn’t stop a violent surge of feeling rushing through her, a feeling that was purely sexual.

      ‘You do scrub up well.’ His sardonic mask left his words open to any interpretation she wished to place upon them—no, better by far not to think too much, if at all, about what he might mean! ‘Here.’ He held out the dress—which was draped across one arm—towards her.

      ‘Thanks.’ Automatically, she began to stretch out one hand towards him before realising how exposed, quite literally, this gesture left her. She gave a dismayed gasp and retracted her hand, but not before the erect coral tip of her exposed breast had peeked out. ‘You’d better leave it on the bed,’ Her voice cracked as she made a desperate attempt to regain her composure. ‘Hurry up, will you?’ she snapped as he strolled slowly towards the bed…Had he slept in it with Rowena? ‘We don’t want to keep your wife waiting.’

      He laid the soft garment on the bed and smoothed it with the flat of his hand. The gesture brought a searing image to her head of the same hand stroking bare flesh.

      He straightened up. ‘Ex-wife,’ he reminded her softly. ‘And Tara’s never been on time for anything in her life—even her own wedding, as I recall…So don’t break your neck. There’s no big rush.’

      ‘Now he tells me.’ She had managed to slide on a robe of Rowena’s over her minuscule pants and hold-ups and she was able to sound more like herself.

      That sensation had just been because she felt vulnerable—him being fully dressed and her being almost naked, she told herself comfortingly. Yes, that had a nice comfortingly logical sound to it, she decided, tying the sash of the pale green robe around her waist. If he’d been naked too he wouldn’t have had the upper hand at all; they’d have been on more of an equal footing.

      As images of Niall Wesley’s well-built naked body flashed through her mind, her lovely little theory crumbled. Oh, God, she thought, as he turned to flash her the sort of smile that made her worry he had read her mind. I’ll be glad when this night is over!

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘THERE’S no time to think up a cover story so when we get there leave me to do most of the talking.’ Businesslike, Niall cast her an arrogantly stern look.

      ‘Laryngitis?’ Holly queried meekly. ‘Or am I meant to be struck dumb by my good fortune in landing you?’

      He took her hand and, before she could protest, had slid a large flashy-looking sapphire ring on one finger. ‘It’s smart remarks like that I’m talking about,’ he said, observing the effect of the large sparkling gem on her small slim finger with a critical frown.

      ‘I can’t wear this thing!’ she gasped in tones of revulsion.

      ‘Sorry if it’s not to your taste, but it’s only for one night.’

      Not to my taste? Actually, it was beautiful and probably scarily expensive. ‘It’s too big, I might lose it,’ she babbled, feeling her chest tighten as pure panic gripped her. It would probably have fitted Rowena like a glove—perhaps it had been made for her? This possibility made it even more imperative to rip it off her own finger.

      ‘The setting’s quite old-fashioned; Tara never wanted it. It was my grandmother’s,’ Niall announced casually.

      Under the circumstances, it was perverse to feel as if she was wearing another woman’s cast-offs. It was even more perverse to mind—but she did.

      ‘I don’t think your Tara is going to swallow this, Niall,’ Holly remarked, staring at the heavy ring as if it were going to jump up and bite her.

      ‘So long as you can withstand the odd cryptic dig, she’ll believe it. Tara doesn’t have a suspicious bone in her body. I’ve never lied to her before, so she has no reason to believe I’ve begun now.’

      Holly toyed with the uncomfortable band on her finger. ‘Never?’ she challenged sceptically.

      ‘Never,’ he confirmed firmly. ‘If you discount the odd occasion when I’ve said I’d like nothing better than to spend my afternoon sitting in the front row of a catwalk show.’

      ‘I’m just amazed this perfect, honest marriage ever broke up.’ Holly gave a disgruntled sniff. He was painting a picture of himself as a remarkably devoted husband.

      ‘It probably broke up when it did because it was so honest.’

      For someone who accused her of making cryptic remarks, he produced the odd gem himself. ‘Are you saying marriages stand a better chance of survival with a liberal sprinkling of deceit?’

      ‘I’m saying I didn’t want to stay married to a woman who was in love with someone else.’

      ‘Oh!’ His frankness was extremely unsettling. He didn’t sound like a man whose ego had taken a beating, but perhaps that hard exterior was hiding a shattered heart? ‘She’s not in love with someone else now, though, is she?’

      ‘Your thinking is predictably female.’

      ‘I am female.’

      ‘In that dress there was never any question about it, but then that was the object of the exercise wasn’t it?’

      ‘Pardon…?’ Unfortunately he didn’t seem to find her tone of haughty detachment much of a deterrent—not if his cynical smirk was anything to go by. Looking into those deep blue, knowing eyes made Holly wish she hadn’t let vanity overcome her better judgement and agreed to go along with this silly scheme.

      ‘The only reason you went along with this was because you wanted to prove to me that age had improved you beyond all recognition.’

      Holly went scarlet. How, how could he know? ‘That’s—’

      ‘Perfectly understandable for a person with an outsize chip on her shoulder.’

      Holly gasped. This man got more detestable with each passing second. I must have been totally blind as well as besotted when I was a silly teenager she concluded wrathfully. ‘I have not—’

      ‘Whatever you say.’ He waved aside her choked denial with languid disinterest. ‘And actually, Tara is still in love with another man—the same man. Tara’s carrying around a burden of guilt about leaving me and Thomas. It’s that guilt that’s stopping her from finding happiness. I care a lot about Tara and I want her to be happy.’

      ‘Am I supposed to believe you’re some sort of altruistic saint?’

      ‘Frankly, I don’t give that—’ The pistol-crack of his long fingers indicated the depth of his disinterest ‘—about what you think about me. I’m just asking you to