going to do cleaning. Your father ran off some fliers on that old computer and printer you gave him and I put them in every postbox in the neighbourhood.’
Natalie wanted to cry. It wasn’t right that her mother had to become a cleaner at her age.
‘Mum, I could get a second mortgage on this place,’ Natalie offered. ‘It’s gone up quite a bit in value since I bought it.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ her mother said firmly. ‘We’ll be fine. I don’t want you to worry.’
Then why did you tell me? Natalie groaned silently.
The sound of her doorbell ringing brought Natalie back to her own life. ‘Mum, can I ring you back later? I have a client at the door.’ Her first in a fortnight. Business at Wives Wanted had dropped off a bit this past month. She hadn’t had any new female clients, either. Maybe it was time for another series of magazine ads. It was a rare business that could survive on word of mouth alone.
‘You go, dear. But do ring me back later.’
‘I will. I promise.’
Natalie hung up quickly, buttoning up her suit jacket as she rose and headed for the front door.
A quick glance in the hallway mirror as she passed by assured her she looked every inch the professional businesswoman. Her thick auburn hair was pulled back tightly into a French pleat. Her make-up was minimal and her jewellery discreet. Just a slimline gold wrist-watch and simple gold studs in her ears.
It wasn’t till her hand reached for the knob that Natalie wondered what Mr Mike Stone looked like.
He’d been referred to her by Richard Crawford, a merchant banker who’d been a client of Wives Wanted earlier this year. Natalie suspected, however, that Mr Stone wasn’t in the banking business. He hadn’t sounded like executive material over the phone. He’d sounded less polished than Richard Crawford. Hopefully, that didn’t mean less rich. Most of her male clients were well-off, professional men.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers, especially not right now. If Mr Stone was willing to pay a few thousand for her to find him a wife, then he could be a truck driver for all she cared.
Better, however, if he were a rich truck driver.
Most of her girls weren’t in the market for working-class husbands.
Natalie turned the knob and opened the front door, her eyes widening when she saw the man standing on her doorstep.
Never, during the three years she’d been running Wives Wanted, had she had a client quite like this.
He wouldn’t have looked totally out of place behind the wheel of a truck, she supposed. Not if it was an army truck and he was wearing a military uniform instead of the jeans and black leather jacket he was currently wearing.
Mike Stone was soldier material through and through.
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.
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
