Not an ordinary soldier, Natalie decided as her assessing gaze travelled all the way up his impressive body to his hard, dark eyes and close-cropped brown hair. A commando, one of those highly trained soldiers who went on covert missions and killed people without making a sound or turning a hair’s breadth.

He wasn’t classically good-looking. His features lacked symmetry. His nose had obviously been broken at one stage and his mouth was way too cruel.

But, for all that, Natalie found him extremely attractive.

Natalie smothered an inner sigh of frustration, at the same time making sure that not a single hint of interest showed on her face.

Ever since she could remember, Natalie had been attracted to men like this. Men who didn’t fit the conventional mould. Men who exuded an air of danger. Men who both intrigued and aroused her.

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.