At the time, she put it down as rather charming eccentricity.

It was on her second date with Chris Eubank – he of the jodhpurs, bowler hats and monocles – that the flamboyant ex-boxer abruptly stood up from a cosy dinner-a-deux with his then-girlfriend Claire Geary and, in her words, started ‘strutting’ around a Mayfair restaurant like a demented peacock.

‘He was literally preening as he went from table to table for about 15 minutes, greeting people he didn’t even know,’ she recalls wearily.

It was also the first indication that her flamboyant suitor had a pathological craving for attention.

Chris and Claire Eubank, pictured, in Dubai last year. They were married in September 2014 in Las Vegas with Eubank’s eldest son Chris Jr – himself a world champion boxer – best man. Neither stopped to consider where or how they would live as husband and wife

‘Chris needs to be recognised and adored or it sends him into an emotional turmoil, rather like a drug addict needs a fix,’ she says.

Today, four years later, and with a failed marriage to Eubank behind her, Claire is clear-eyed and sharp as a scalpel in her dissection of a man who once, clearly, had her in his thrall.

She has been left emotionally bruised, considerably out of pocket and utterly baffled as to how she ended up marrying the self-styled Lord of the Manor of Brighton in an impromptu Last Vegas ceremony in 2014.

Chris and Claire Eubank, pictured, on The One Show in 2015. Claire had thought herself in love but, four years later, she lifts the lid on an ego and a lifestyle so overblown that they could have been copied from the pages of P. G. Wodehouse or Evelyn Waugh

Clearly she thought herself in love.

The wedding photograph shows her effervescent with happiness beside the oddly attired groom, during what she describes as his ‘sleeveless phase’, when he delighted in displaying the impressive biceps that made him so feared in the ring, and helped make him the middleweight champion of the world.

Chris and Claire Eubank, pictured, were married in September 2014 in Las Vegas with Eubank’s eldest son Chris Jr – himself a world champion boxer – best man

Chris and Claire Eubank, pictured, were married in September 2014 in Las Vegas with Eubank’s eldest son Chris Jr – himself a world champion boxer – best man

Yet she now rues the day she ever let him into her life.

In this, her first-ever interview, the elegant 50-year-old, a communications manager with a leading Middle East-based airline, lifts the lid on an ego and a lifestyle so overblown that they could have been copied from the pages of P. G. Wodehouse or Evelyn Waugh.

We meet over tea, sitting on plush sofas in one of Dubai’s most exclusive hotels.

Clearly no stranger to a bit of pampering, she is known to the staff, who greet her effusively.

‘I come here often,’ she says slipping off her 6in nude Louboutin heels and tucking her pedicured feet under an embroidered cushion.

‘People warned me Chris was eccentric and peculiar, but I didn’t pick up on it for a long while. And even then I initially found it endearing,’ she accepts. ‘But two days ago I told my mother that I wish I had never fallen for him and that I feel a little foolish for ever thinking it would have worked out.

‘He had the nerve to say on ITV’s Loose Women show a couple of weeks ago that our split was amicable, that he still loved me and we were friends.

‘Well, we are not. It’s rubbish. As is his claim that our marriage failed because of the distance between us.’ (She had continued to live in Dubai, while he lived in London.)

‘It failed because he is a cheat, a fake and a liar. I suspect he cheated on me. He told me I was stupid and naive to think a man could stay faithful in a monogamous relationship. He is a prancing, poetry-spouting moron. I want people to know, so they are not taken in by him as I was.’

It is clear she is still hurting after a tumultuous few years.

Chris and Claire Eubank, pictured, at a friend's birthday party in 2015. Claire had thought herself in love but, four years later, she lifts the lid on an ego and a lifestyle so overblown that they could have been copied from the pages of P. G. Wodehouse or Evelyn Waugh

‘He gave me nothing,’ she continues. ‘Not even a birthday card. All he did was take. When I pointed out that he gave nothing back, he said, “I gave you my name and that is the biggest gift I could give you.” The cheek of the man!’

Eubank has been dogged by allegations of infidelity in the past but here, it should be said, he vehemently denies betraying Claire.

So what could have persuaded an attractive, intelligent woman with an enviable career to fall for someone once described as the vainest man in Britain? A man who was declared bankrupt by the Inland Revenue after frittering away his £15 million fortune, and whose bizarre lifestyle and buffoonish actions had already driven away his first wife?

Eubank, 50, is certainly an enigma – a boxer of grace and enormous talent who, despite his undoubted prowess, was never really embraced by the British public.

Chris Eubank, pictured, has been labelled Britain's most vain man, despite his enormous talent and grace in the ring

There was always a sense that people were laughing at Eubank’s preposterous excesses rather than with him. Was his need for attention too obvious?

His first wife, Karron, with whom he has four children, left him in 2005 amid claims of adultery – which he denies – and odd behaviour.

This included the time that Eubank invited a tramp to live in their Brighton home. The hapless vagrant soon left, explaining that he preferred life on the streets to having Eubank in his ear.

And yet, he can be charming, intelligent and attentive company. Certainly Claire fell under his spell, despite not knowing who he was when they first met in a corporate hospitality box during an Arsenal match at the Emirates Stadium in 2013.

There was, she says, no immediate physical attraction on her part, but she was struck by his ability as a good conversationalist.

‘He was charming and so easy to talk to that I instantly felt we could be very good friends,’ she says in retrospect.

‘Of course I now know that he has a way of ingratiating himself in a way that is not always true.’

They exchanged business cards and Eubank called her the following evening.

Chris and Claire Eubank, pictured, in Dubai on New Year 2015. They were married in September 2014 in Las Vegas with Eubank’s eldest son Chris Jr – himself a world champion boxer – best man. Neither stopped to consider where or how they would live as husband and wife

‘We spoke every night for about two hours at a time for about a month and I found myself fascinated,’ she continues. ‘Then I was in London for a week and he arrogantly told me, “Your free time is mine.’’ He picked me up in a chauffeur-driven black Rolls-Royce and we went to dinner in Mayfair. He ordered for me.’

Did she rather like this charismatic, commanding behaviour? ‘I didn’t mind,’ is all she says.

They completed the evening at the Playboy club, where he is a member. At 3am, he dropped her at her hotel with a chaste kiss on the cheek. Then, the following evening, came his peacock antics around the tables at the brash Novikov restaurant in Mayfair. It only added to Claire’s fascination.

‘I didn’t fancy him – I wanted a friendship,’ she insists.

What she didn’t know then was that the Rolls-Royce was borrowed or that Eubank had blown his fortune on extravagant living and ill-advised business deals.

Only later did she establish that everything he ‘owned’ belonged to someone else, including the room where he was staying in London.

‘Not that it mattered,’ insists Claire. ‘I married him knowing that there was no pot of gold. It turned out he didn’t have a pot to p*** in.

‘He is not stupid but he is not a good businessman,’ she explains. ‘During our time together I advised him on several deals, but invariably he would ruin it by making unrealistic demands. I ended up lending him £10,000 to pay one Manchester company when they threatened legal action after a deal fell through.’

Chris and Claire Eubank, pictured, in Dubai in 2015 for Chris' birthday. They were married in September 2014 in Las Vegas with Eubank’s eldest son Chris Jr – himself a world champion boxer – best man. Neither stopped to consider where or how they would live as husband and wife

For a year, Claire says, they were just good friends who spoke almost daily on the phone. Then, in March 2014, the friendship became a romance. ‘I don’t know how it happened,’ she says frankly. ‘I think he just grew on me. I could not imagine my life without him in it. And despite his madcap business ideas, I thought I could also be good for him.’

They were married in September 2014 in Las Vegas with Eubank’s eldest son Chris Jr – himself a world champion boxer – best man.

Claire says: ‘They were out there training and Chris invited me to visit. He proposed the day I was supposed to leave.

‘I told him I was not a puppy he could have for Christmas and then lose interest in. I had seen how his attention could suddenly shift. He always has to have a shiny new toy. He said he couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye and that he feared I would not come back.

‘Marriage was the last thing on my mind, but I wanted it to work. I had fallen in love, but I also thought I could help to get him out of the financial hole he had got himself into.’

Neither stopped to consider where or how they would live as husband and wife.

Eubank was managing Chris Jr’s boxing career from the UK and Claire had a job as a senior manager at Emirates Airline. But she convinced herself that they would somehow manage to make things work.

She says: ‘We saw each other often. Either he flew to Dubai or I went to Britain. And, of course, we spoke every day.’

Claire says she gave her new husband career advice. ‘I persuaded him to do I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, which he had turned down several times because he thought it was beneath him. I told him many people still had the impression he was a jerk, but this was a chance to show he was not.

‘It also appealed to a new, younger generation. I negotiated his fee of £360,000, which made him the highest-paid participant, but he still complained he was worth more.’

If anything, she says, he was even more absurdly demanding after leaving the jungle. ‘He wanted me to find someone – a company – to sponsor his ridiculous lifestyle,’ she laughs. ‘He honestly thought people would pay for the privilege of using his name.’

‘I would go so far as to say that he suffers from a delusional disorder. Nothing will make him change his mind, once it is set on something.’

Claire now fears that his bizarre behaviour might stem from blows sustained in the ring: ‘I’m no medical expert, but I really believe that when you’ve been hit on the head so many times it must damage the brain.’

How, then, does she explain Eubank’s boast of an IQ of 190? The answer is depressingly simple. ‘Someone told him that a while back, probably as a joke. He was never tested, but it would make him smarter than Stephen Hawking.

Chris and Claire Eubank, pictured, at a friend's birthday party. Claire had thought herself in love but, four years later, she lifts the lid on an ego and a lifestyle so overblown that they could have been copied from the pages of P. G. Wodehouse or Evelyn Waugh

‘He wants people to see him as an urbane gentleman. It’s fake. He can recite poems and quote from movies but can’t remember what I said 12 seconds ago.’

The truth about those literary quotes, she reveals, is that he studiously memorises his aphorisms and poems for days at a time until he feels confident enough to launch them publicly.

And then there is the question of money. Mostly him, she says, spending hers.

Claire insists he owes her nearly £100,000, an extraordinary sum, and is demanding that he sets up a payment plan.

Eubank, of course, has a long and well-established history of bad debts going back to a year after his retirement in 1998. But last night he denied owing Claire money.

At the height of his fame, he blew millions on flash cars, including a Stretch ‘Hummer’ he bought on his credit card for £50,000.

He paid £45,000 for the vanity title Lord of the Manor of Brighton before the Inland Revenue made him bankrupt over an unpaid £1.3 million tax bill in 2005.

Claire says: ‘He would stay in luxury hotels and walk out without paying, telling them to send the bill to me. I got bills from the Dorchester, the Landmark and the Carlton Tower – all five-star hotels in London.

‘One day he texted me to send him £5,000. He used my credit card in Selfridges to the tune of about £10,000. He even used it to pay for dinner when he met my parents for the first time.’

He also ran up huge phone bills and flew around the world at her expense. She says she even paid for him to see a knee specialist in Germany.

‘I don’t want to come across as bitter, because we did have some good times, and I went into the relationship with my eyes wide open,’ she says.

Claire says the relationship had started to go sour towards the end of last year. The alpha male confidence that had once seemed so attractive had begun to wear.

She claims he suggested they remain married but draw up an agreement saying they had an ‘open marriage’. She refused and he demanded they issue a joint statement saying the marriage was ending amicably.

Again she said no so was horrified to see a newspaper story saying they had split, swiftly followed by his TV announcement that it was amicable and they remain friends.

‘That’s why I’m speaking out,’ she says. ‘He clearly doesn’t care about hurting my feelings to get publicity, so I’ve decided to let people know that he was a complete nightmare to be married to.’

Claire adds: ‘He will always do what he wants.

‘Looking back now, I wish I had fled in the other direction rather than become entangled in his delusional world.’