Author(s): Kathy Lette

Fiction.

Why do men like intelligent women? Because opposites attract.

This is what Shelaine Green thinks when she meets Kit Kinkade. Raised by a single mum, Shelly is convinced that if vibrators could 'kill spiders in the bathtub, light the barbie, kiss our upper eyelids and tell us we don't look fat in stretch lycra', then women wouldn't need men at all.

Okay, Kit's broken nose may give him the look of a streetwise Greek God - the way Hercules would look if he played in a heavy metal rock band - but he also believes a woman is little more than a life support system to an ovary.

They meet the day they are married.

A reality T.V. show runs a 'Desperate and Dateless' competition. A computer has matched Kit and Shelly, predicting them to be the perfect pair... with huge financial rewards if they can survive their honeymoon on a paradise island.

So, can Shelly and Kit fall in love at second sight? Or is a truce in the sex war as likely as seeing Bin Laden on a pub crawl? And why is Kit so mysterious? The Sphinx is less of a riddle than this man. What exactly is he hiding? Does it have anything to do with the gun she's just found in her knicker drawer? Not only does Shelly not have a licence to kill, she doesn't even have a learner's permit.

Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye opener...