Ten years ago, she would have gone openly gaga over this guy. Today, the inner twanging of her female antennae irritated the life out of her.
‘Ms Fairlane?’ he enquired, his rough, gravelly voice matching his appearance.
‘Yes,’ she returned, annoyed with the way her heart was racing. And with the way he was looking her up and down, his expression somewhat surprised. What on earth had Richard Crawford told him about her?
‘Mike Stone,’ he said at last, and held out his hand.
She hesitated before she placed her own hand in his, steeling herself not to react to his touch in any way.
But when his large male fingers closed firmly around her much smaller, softer hand, there it was.
That spark. That automatic zap of sexual chemistry, running up her arm, leaving goose-bumps in the wake of its highly charged current.
Thank God her jacket had long sleeves, and that she had anticipated something like this.
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Stone,’ she said, her outer coolness belying her inner heat. If she’d met Mike Stone anywhere else, she would have walked away. No, she would have run. But she could hardly do so at this moment. He was a potential paying client. A potential five grand in her pocket. Money she was in desperate need of today.
‘Mike,’ he said. ‘Call me Mike.’
‘Mike,’ she repeated, her mouth pulling back into a plastic smile. ‘Well, come on in, Mike,’ she said, waving him past her into the hallway. ‘The first room on the left. Go right in and find a place to sit.’
Natalie pressed herself hard against the wall as he stepped inside. No way did she want his broad-shouldered body accidentally brushing against her chest as he walked along the narrow hallway. But once he did move safely past her, she watched his back view far too avidly and for far too long before she pulled herself together and flung the front door shut, rolling her eyes at herself as she followed him into the living room.
By this time he was settling himself in the middle of her sofa, his long legs stretching out in front of him whilst he leant back and glanced around.
Natalie knew it was an oddly furnished room, filled with pieces that didn’t match but that she personally liked. There were three large squashy armchairs covered in an assortment of prints, plus a seductively long brown velvet sofa, which stretched across under the front window and on which her client had just made himself very comfortable.
On the wall opposite the sofa was a state-of-the-art home theatre system, which she was still paying for. The wall to the right of her visitor had built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, in front of which sat an ancient mahogany desk, with the latest laptop sitting on one end and an old-fashioned green desk lamp on the other. The floor was polished boxwood, a colourful circular rug providing warmth and a touch of the orient.
There was no coffee-table to bump into, just an assortment of side tables in all shapes and sizes on which sat ornaments and curios bought from flea markets and garage sales. Two standing lamps with gold-fringed lampshades flanked the sofa, providing subtle light at night when she was watching TV.
A friend had once commented to Natalie that the décor of her living room was very much as she was. Hard to pin down.
‘You’re very punctual,’ she said brusquely, glancing at her watch as she headed for the upright chair behind her desk. It was right on five, the time they’d agreed upon for his interview.
‘I’m always punctual when I’m not working,’ he replied.
Natalie ground to an instant halt. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said sharply. ‘But I don’t take on male clients who are unemployed.’
Again, he looked her up and down, his expression this time annoyingly unreadable.
‘I didn’t say I was unemployed. I said I wasn’t working at the moment. I am self-employed. I own a computer software company.’
Natalie could not have been more surprised. He didn’t look at all like a man who spent most of his life sitting at a computer. He was far too fit-looking. Far too tanned.
As Brandon had been.
His reminding her of Brandon sent her irritation meter up even higher.
‘I see,’ she bit out. ‘Sorry,’ she added before proceeding over to her desk, where she sat down and turned on the laptop.
Natalie took her time pulling up the page into which she would enter his personal details and requirements, not looking up till she was good and ready.
‘So what happens where you are working?’ she finally asked.
‘I sometimes don’t show up at all,’ he returned.
Charming, she thought.
It seemed men who looked like this were true to type.
Brandon had never been on time for anything. There again, Brandon had had lots of reasons for running late for his dates with her. Or for not showing up at all.
His job as an anti-terrorist agent for one. Plus the wife and two children that she’d never known he had, came the added caustic thought.
She wondered what Mike Stone’s excuse was.
‘Sounds like you’re a workaholic.’
‘It’s not the first time I’ve been called that,’ he replied with an indifferent shrug.
Natalie liked him less with each passing second. ‘Is that why you haven’t had much luck finding a wife so far?’ she asked rather waspishly.
‘No. I could have married any number of women.’
‘Really.’ Natalie added outrageously arrogant to his rapidly increasing list of flaws.
Finding Mike Stone a wife was going to prove difficult, despite his impressively masculine physique. Her girls all wanted amenable husbands, not up-themselves egotists. Most of them had had unhappy relationships in the past, with difficult and selfish men who hadn’t delivered. By the time they came to her, they usually knew exactly what they wanted, and had no intention of settling for anything less.
Natalie suspected that the likes of Mike Stone would not find favour with any of them.
But it wasn’t her problem if none of her girls wanted to marry him. She charged her male clients five thousand dollars up front, whether they found a wife at Wives Wanted, or not.
For his money, Mr Stone would be matched and introduced to five very attractive and intelligent women who fitted his criteria the best, and vice versa. After that, it was up to him.
But he’d have to show a bit more charm on a date than he was currently showing if he wanted a wife. Just being sexy was not enough for her once-bitten, twice-shy girls.
Still, that wasn’t her problem.
‘Since you own a computer software company, Mike,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘you’ll be familiar with the type of program I use to match up my clients. It’s quite basic, really. Mine, however, does have a security check built in, which validates that my clients are exactly who they say they are. I presume you have no objection to that?’
‘Nope.’
‘Good. Let’s get started, then. Your full name.’
‘Mike Stone.’
‘No, your full name,’ she said, a touch of exasperation creeping into her voice. ‘The name that’s on your birth certificate and driving licence.’
‘Mike Stone.’
Natalie gritted her teeth. ‘Not Michael?’
‘Just Mike.’
‘Fine.