Just like something out of a fairy tale, she cast her spell and it was love at first sight as she enchanted him, giggling obligingly at the racy jokes he liked to text.
Then she charmed the Queen and an adoring Prince Philip, quickly dazzling Buckingham Palace and Balmoral with her statuesque “6ft in heels”.
Prince Andrew was so besotted with blonde bombshell Amanda Staveley , he gave her the nod to get the decorators in at his Windsor Park royal pad. It was 2003, Randy Andy was settling down and the stage was set for his second Royal Wedding.
And then, the nice girl from a nice aristocratic family who had snagged her prince did the unthinkable. When he proposed, she turned him down.
That was 14 years ago and since then she has been named Businesswoman of the Year and made a £144million fortune thanks to a string of mega-deals, most profitably as financial fixer to the world’s richest sheiks.
So Staveley would probably prefer us all to stop repeating the tale of her royal romance. But the most infamous anecdote about the Park Lane financier seems to sum her up best as she hits the headlines this week.
Staveley could soon be eclipsing West Ham’s Karren Brady as the First Lady of Football after her firm PCP Capital Partners reportedly signed a confidentiality agreement ahead of a rumoured £300million bid for Newcastle United, amid reports that she saw a £1.5billion bid for Liverpool turned down.
After all, the question being whispered around the football terraces is: who is Amanda Staveley?
As her reported dealings with Newcastle owner Mike Ashley this week confirm, the “Queen of football” who chose boardrooms over a palace, doesn’t do the predictable.
“I had a chip on my shoulder about being a girl in a family where the boy inherits. My mother and father always told me my job was to marry well,” she explained of her shock snub.
“Andrew’s a lovely man and I still care for him a great deal. But if I’d married him, my independence would have disappeared.”
From wealthy roots and boarding school, Staveley has cashed in on none of it.
It is business first for the woman whose own PA dubbed her the “runaway bride”. At the time, she said: “Having my name connected with a royal has made me a target for people to take pot shots at. It has not done my company any good.”
This is a woman the expression “never judge a book by its cover” was written for.
Posh she may be, with residences in London’s Park Lane and Dubai, and pals including Sir Philip Green and Simon Cowell – yet she retains the accent of her family’s Yorkshire pile.
Now 44, Staveley grew up in North Stainley, North Yorks, the daughter of landowner Robert and former champion horsewoman Lynne. Her family’s wealth dates to the sixteenth century – their land was given to them by Henry VIII’s courtier Cardinal Wolsey.
Yet some ancestors may have passed down her rebel genes. Her maternal gran once worked on the buses and her hubby reportedly set up the North’s biggest illegal betting shop, buying Doncaster’s dog track with his winnings. Business acumen may be hereditary.
Staveley was never one to lounge around. She excelled at sport and at 14 ran 100m in 12.6 seconds. Clever too, she won a place at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, to read modern languages but dropped out when her grandfather died.
Launching herself straight into business, at 23 she got a £180,000 loan to open a restaurant called Stocks near Newmarket. Working till 4am, she also studied, taking exams to be a financial adviser. She made her first million in the first year.
After closing Stocks, she founded Q.ton at the height of the dotcom boom, offering outsourcing services. It went bust but Stocks had opened doors.
In the Newmarket racing circle, her customers included senior figures from the Godolphin stables owned by Dubai’s rulers, the Maktoums, as well as Arab princes and tycoons from Cambridgeshire’s “Silicon Fen”.
Her contacts loved her and she was invited to Abu Dhabi, where she won the respect of this new clientele.
A source said: “Amanda is known and trusted by her contacts in the Gulf like almost no other non-Arab.”
It was this world that led her to Prince Andrew. In 2001, as UK trade ambassador, he was on tour with King Abdullah of Jordan when he met Staveley. Six months later, he asked her to dinner.
“I was delighted but flabbergasted,” she recalled. Everyone approved of the match but, as Staveley later admitted, “romance and business didn’t mix”. She said it took her mum three years to get over it when she turned him down in 2003.
Meanwhile, Staveley proved she had made the right decision. In 2005, she set up Dubai-based PCP Capital Partners, securing international deals for clients in Qatar and the UAE.
The most high-profile included the £210million sale of Manchester City FC, which she “matchmade” for Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan. She reportedly pocketed £10million. Her title of “Queen of Football” isn’t new...
Then there was the Barclays deal. In the 2008 crash, it got a bailout from wealthy Gulf backers – while other banks needed Government lifelines.
Later, Staveley introduced Sheik Mansour to a further capital-raising deal by the bank worth £7billion. Her firm was said to have pocketed around £30million.
And she has dabbled in politics too – Theresa May is a pal. Although Staveley is a Remainer, she made her Park Lane office available to Mrs May for her Tory leadership bid and still backs the PM.
But it hasn’t been all business since that infamous royal “No”. Despite once saying, “Whoever marries me would have to be a hell of a hero to put up with me and my life”, she eventually found a love that married up with business too – wedding Iranian Mehrdad Ghodoussi, who she had worked with at her company, in 2011. They had son Alexander in 2014 – she did go into labour in the boardroom.
Their wedding was lavish with 530 guests and a dress by Sarah Burton , who designed Kate Middleton ’s.
There will be another big celebration if she seals the Newcastle deal. Ashley bought the club for £134million in 2007 and reportedly wants £400million... and a deal before Christmas.
One thing is for sure, money is not her driving force. She said: “It wouldn’t matter if I was making £8million or £200million. I just want to go to bed at night and say I’ve done a good job.”
If she does take the reins at St James’ Park, the Geordie faithful will be praying she still wants to do “more and more”... all the way to the Premier League title.