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.