Ozempic and Mounjaro didn't work for me. Instead, I lost a stone and dropped a dress size in one MONTH with a meal plan that's not even a diet. It's packed with carbs and so simple - anyone can do it in time for summer

Last summer, I met a handsome single dad on a Greek island. In the past, I’d have fallen head over heels in love, acted like a pick-me teenager and thought it was fate. By now, I’d have entered, and possibly finished, yet another epic Wuthering Heights-type relationship. But this time I didn’t. Instead, I was an ice queen, aloof and irresistible.

And I think I might have the most peculiar explanation for it.

It happened by accident, as all the best meet-cutes do. Lying on the sun lounger – aged 48, and newly thin in my skimpy yellow Melissa Odabash bikini, having lost nearly 3st on Ozempic in the previous 18 months – I wasn’t thinking about romance at all.

I was drowsy from the heat and listening to the gentle waves splashing against the diving platform. Then my children, Lola, now ten, and Liberty, eight, came back from the resort’s kids’ club, where they had been making tie-dye T-shirts, and excitedly told me about meeting two new friends, who were also sisters of similar ages.

Whereupon, as I lay there, the girls’ father waltzed over – and asked my girls if they would like to celebrate his elder daughter’s birthday with a slice of cake at the club’s restaurant.

I noticed he was good-looking; in fact, on paper he was just my type: tall, dark-haired, well-spoken.

I waved my daughters off with him – and then he turned around and asked if I’d like to join too.

‘OK, why not?’ I thought nonchalantly, grabbing my shades and putting on my Levi 501 cut-off shorts, which I could now get into after years of covering up with kaftans.

And that was it. We spent the rest of the week together, eating breakfast, lunch and supper, synchronising our every movement, hanging out on beaches, paddle-boarding, swimming out to the floating platform and exploring local beaches.

Basically, we morphed into a blended family for the rest of the holiday. It felt natural – and fun – to be together as a unit, and when our children went off to the kids’ club, we sunbathed together on the sundeck.

More intriguing still, Charlotte's muted response seemed only to make him more interested in her. This newfound aloofness was apparently making Charlotte more magnetic

It was intense with the four children, all then under the age of nine, but Charlotte started to warm to the idea that maybe, just maybe, she liked him

We opened up about our lives, talking about our jobs – he was 40 and worked in finance – and how neither of us had had a serious relationship for years.

I knew I was attracted to him and the connection seemed deep. And yet I didn’t do two things that usually I very much would have done. I didn’t leap on him. And I didn’t think about him all the time. Or even very much at all.

Oh, the chemistry was there, but for the first time in my life, it felt as though I could take it or leave it. I didn’t sneakily look at his social media or start fantasising about a relationship. I didn’t worry endlessly about the impression I was making or how much he liked me. I didn’t chase him, or even imagine chasing him.

What I felt about him, I realise now, was how I felt about chocolate on Ozempic. I could see it was tasty and I’d be more than happy to have a little nibble, but I didn’t crave it. Sometimes I just didn’t fancy it at all.

I was still microdosing 1mg on that holiday to avoid overdoing it at the dinnertime buffet. Could it be that Ozempic wasn’t just killing the food noise but the ‘romantic noise’ too?

More intriguing still, my muted response seemed only to make him more interested in me. This newfound aloofness was apparently making me more magnetic.

For the rest of that holiday, he acted like the perfect man. He organised a seafood dinner for us all on a remote beach and a trip on a boat, just the six of us.

When the girls wanted to do arts and crafts, he drove them to a Hobbycraft-like megastore in the island’s main town, returning with bags of glitter, stickers and pens. He was nothing short of a ‘superdad’ – and that was very attractive.

Yet even when he was emerging from the swimming pool with water glistening off his fit body, I was as cool as a cucumber.

At the end of the holiday, they were heading back to Paris where his children lived, though he did talk about meeting up in London where he had a base. Was he asking me for a hook-up? I felt a ripple of excitement but I wasn’t bowled over.

But later that day, as we were boarding our plane, depressed at returning to normality, my WhatsApp pinged. ‘Hi, we miss you all. Would you and the girls come to Corsica with us in two weeks. We’ve got a villa.’

I’d barely got home before I found myself packing again. My best friend told me: ‘Marry him.’ I said: ‘Don’t be silly, he’s only inviting us because the kids get on.’

But none of the texts he sent me over the next two weeks were about the children. Instead, he told me more about his life, or talked about books, and politics. It was as close to ‘dating’ as it’s possible to get.

In Corsica, if I tried to pay even for the sparkling water,…