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revealing.
    Hastily, Ryan averted his eyes.
    “Did you manage to find the Mahlers?” Nicole asked, distracting him from the direction of his current thoughts.
    “Yes, we’re meeting them for cocktails at six in the main bar,” he confirmed. She had such a sensual, womanly figure, flaring in all the right places, but slim at the waist and thighs – and she looked amazing in that barely there bikini.
    Nicole nodded, oblivious to his less-than-chivalrous thoughts. “So, while we’re here are there any ground rules?” she enquired, innocently.
    She had a point. After all, she was pretending to be his girlfriend. They should probably put some ground rules in place so they both knew where they stood.
    “Good idea,” Ryan agreed, making small circles with his hands in the water. “Obviously I want to show them that I’m not the philanderer they think I am, so we must make an effort to look like a couple.”
    “Aren’t you?” Nicole asked, pushing herself into a standing position and exiting the water. She took a seat on the nearest lounger and looked at him, one neat eyebrow raised.
    “A philanderer? No, that’s not a name I’d call myself.”
    The eyebrow stretched higher. “Really?”
    Damn. He didn’t want to get into this now. And the way she was sitting with her legs slightly apart, with water dripping from every part of her body was making him feel like a hypocrite. He blinked hard.
    “Yes, it’s a long story but I’m really not the womanising type. I’ve just had bad luck with girls lately.” That was close enough to the truth.
    “Ah-huh.” It was clear she didn’t believe him.
    “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The point is I need to create a good impression so we need to pretend we’re in love. Do you think you can do that?”
    “I think so.” She flashed a cheeky grin. “It’s been a while, but I’m fairly convinced I remember what to do.”
    Ryan didn’t immediately reply. Nicole had been in love before... well, of course she had. She’d already been married and had a child, things he knew nothing of. For some reason that disturbed him, but he shrugged it off. If she had to draw on her past experience to pretend to be in love with him, then so be it. So long as it was authentic.
    “Vincent won’t be easily fooled,” Ryan pointed out.
    “We’ll have to make sure we’re convincing then,” Nicole reassured him, lying back on the lounger.
    “How are we going to do that?” Ryan asked in a rare moment of self-doubt. The last thing he wanted was for Vincent to see through his whole charade and refuse to finance his project.
    Nicole turned her head to the side so she could look at him. “We’ll hold hands, laugh at private jokes, finish each other’s sentences... you know, the normal cheesy love stuff.”
    Ryan looked blank.
    Nicole clocked his look. “Let me guess,” she said slowly. “You’ve never been in love before?”
    “Well, love is a very subjective word.” Ryan shrugged. Could his relationship with Gabriella count as love, or Inge? Probably not, that was more infatuation or lust, or even mutual appreciation, but not love.
    “But being in love has the same universal symptoms,” pressed Nicole. “We have to look like we’re crazy about each other, like we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
    “Sounds like a lot of touching,” commented Ryan, who didn’t consider himself a touchy-feely kinda guy. Sure, sex was one thing, but walking around holding hands with a gooey expression on his face... mm.... He wasn’t so sure.
    “There usually is.” Nicole raised her arms above her head and stretched luxuriously, languishing in the late-morning sunshine.
    Ryan feasted his eyes on her body’s perfect profile and swallowed. Luckily he was still submerged in the cool water else he may be fighting a hard-on right about now. His stomach fizzled with anticipation. It was more like the feeling he got when he was on the brink of completing a new engineering project, not