his eyes.
‘I can’t thank you enough for taking care of it for me,’ Sam said. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘I didn’t find it,’ she said limpidly. ‘You gave it to me.’
Startled, he queried her. ‘Gave it to you?’
‘Last night.’ She nodded. ‘At the party.’
‘Did I? I must have been very drunk; I don’t remember a thing about it.’ His hand was still extended, but Natalie made no move to give the ring to him, and Sam’s eyes grew wary. ‘Can I have it, please? It’s a family heirloom, you know, and very valuable.’
Surely to heaven she wasn’t intending to keep it? No, of course she wouldn’t—Natalie wasn’t the type to do something like that. That would be tantamount to stealing. Okay, he might have given it to her, on some crazy impulse last night, but she must have realised he hadn’t known what he was doing.
‘You can have it when you give me the other one,’ she said. ‘Drink your coffee while it’s hot; it will help you wake up.’
‘What other one?’ He was bewildered; what was she talking about? He must be slow on the uptake this morning. He picked up the cup of coffee and took a sip too fast. The hot liquid burnt his tongue.
‘You said it would be a sapphire, to match my eyes,’ Natalie said, with a gleam of happy reminiscence in the big blue eyes watching him.
‘Sapphire...’ repeated Sam, his stomach sinking as it dawned on him that she was wearing his signet ring on her left hand. On her engagement finger.
‘You remember, last night?’ Natalie said in a honeyed tone. ‘At the party? When you proposed to me? In front of everyone?’
‘Proposed...’ Sam hoarsely repeated, going pale.
She gave him a dewy look. ‘Yes. You went down on your knees, in front of them all...’
‘On my...’ he breathed, with incredulity and horror.
‘Knees.’ She nodded. ‘And asked me to marry you. You put your signet ring on my finger and said it would do until we could get to a jeweller’s to choose a real engagement ring, a sapphire to match my eyes. You remember, don’t you, Sam?’
CHAPTER TWO
‘IS THIS your idea of a joke?’ Sam grimly asked, staring at her as if she had grown another head. ‘Because if it is I’m not amused.’
‘Like Queen Victoria,’ she murmured.
‘What?’ he snarled.
He was really furious, she realised, surprised. She had seen Sam angry before, but it had never been with her. He was far too possessed by his job, an energy-driven man, restless and obsessed. But all that fire went into his work, not his private life. With his women he was far more casual, very laid-back, making no commitments. He never seemed to take them seriously, and she knew none of his relationships lasted very long.
She had always been irritated by the way he treated his women, as if love was just a game. She suspected he thought of women as toys to pick up, play with and put down when you got bored. Natalie could never understand why women let him treat them that way. She wouldn’t; that was for sure. Sam had once or twice asked her out, but she had always refused coolly. She only dated men who took her very seriously.
‘She wasn’t amused, either,’ Natalie reminded him.
‘Who wasn’t?’
He seemed to be mentally challenged this morning, but that wasn’t surprising after last night.
Patiently she repeated, ‘Queen Victoria. Wasn’t amused, remember?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ he muttered.
Sam normally had a good sense of humour, but she let it pass, shrugging.
‘Give me my ring and stop trying to be funny!’ Sam stuck his hand out and she gazed at it without moving, opening her eyes as wide as she could.
‘But, Sam, we’re engaged to be married...’
He exploded, his voice going up several octaves. ‘We are nothing of the kind and you know it! Okay, maybe I was so drunk last night that I somehow or other said something or other about—’
He broke off, having lost whatever he had been going to say, or perhaps not wishing to admit he had ever proposed to her. So Natalie ended the sentence for him.
‘About marrying you? Yes, you did, Sam—in front of dozens of people. You proposed to me, on your...’
He loomed over her, smouldering. ‘Yes, okay, I don’t want to hear all that again. I was drunk. You know that! You know it wasn’t serious!’
Of course she knew, but she wasn’t ready to give up her game yet.
‘But you asked me to marry you!’ Her eyes opened wider than ever and he stared into the blueness of them for a few seconds, drawing a long, angry breath which he held as if he was counting to ten.
Then, in a very careful voice, he said, ‘For heaven’s sake, Natalie, we’ve never even had a date. Why should I suddenly propose out of the blue?’
‘You said I was the perfect woman,’ Natalie said in limpid tones. ‘Your dream woman, you said.’ She smiled mistily at him. ‘It was very romantic—especially when you went on your knees and begged me to marry you.’
Sam stared at her, dark red creeping up his face. Running a hand through his already dishevelled hair, he muttered, ‘You’re kidding! I’ve never been that drunk before.’
Oh, thanks! she thought. That’s really flattering.
Sam’s brow corrugated. He’s thinking at last! Natalie recognised. She hoped it hurt.
After a few seconds he groaned. ‘It just dawned on me—was Helen there when I...?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Natalie. In fact, she would never forget Helen West’s face at that moment—it still made a glow in her memory. She had never liked the woman; not many people at the radio station did. The only people the singer was friendly to were youngish and good-looking men in good jobs. If you were poorer or older than her, or female, or plain, Helen West used you as a doormat or was coldly arrogant when she spoke to you—which was how she had always treated Natalie, who obviously came into most categories of people she despised.
‘So that’s why I got the slap in the face?’ Sam fingered his jaw, grimacing. ‘It still hurts.’
‘Oh, poor Sam,’ Natalie sweetly said, hoping it hurt a lot, and he looked down at her, his eyes now stiletto-sharp.
‘You don’t mean that, do you? If you did you’d want to kiss it better. As we’re engaged!’
She blinked, startled. Why hadn’t it dawned on her that he might do something like that? It should have done. She knew very well what an opportunist
