When a white bikini-sporting Britney Spears was photographed playfully dancing and taking a dip in a pool with a shirtless mystery man during her recent Mexican vacation, it was only a matter of time before romance whispers surfaced.

And first out of the gate is the London Sun, which claims the custody-settling and "reluctantly" still conservator-controlled popster has taken a shine to the topless guy in question, who's believed to be a bodyguard named Lee.

(See pics of them dancing here.)

A source says the minder has "put a smile" on Brit's lately expressionless face, which is believable enough given that the two were captured laughing together during the south-of-the-border getaway.

That said, we urge you to take the rest of the mole's account with a Volkswagen-sized grain of salt.

"Britney and Lee hit it off immediately," the snitch alleges to the tab. "He is her perfect type. She loves guys who work out and he is in great shape from his days serving in the Israeli Army. He also has a few tattoos, which she loves."

And even though Spears, 26, can hardly sneeze without getting the go-ahead from her string-pulling dad Jamie (although she did take a positive step forward this week by freezing out former shady enabler sidekick Sam Lutfi), the spy maintains, "They've spent so much time together that one thing led to another and their relationship became physical."

Not so, insists her manager, Larry Rudolph, who tells "Access Hollywood," "There is no truth to this at all."

Britney, he says, is "100 percent single," and the ink-stained gent in question isn't a bodyguard but a "staff photographer."

This isn't the first time Brit has been accused of playing Whitney Houston to her bodyguard's Kevin Costner (and our apologies if you now have "I-eee-ayyyyye, will always love youuuuuuuu" stuck in your head, but, hey, we didn't want to suffer alone).

This time last year, she was linked to a security staffer named Daimon Shippen, who in May 2006 caught Spears when she stumbled while carrying Sean Preston in one hand and a glass in the other.

Anyhoo, in other dubious news provided by a British tabloid, Closer magazine (via the London Daily Mail) theorizes that the fabulously toned figure Spears showed off in Mexico was achieved through a $22,000-a-month diet-and-exercise regimen.

The purported bill is broken down thusly: $10,000 a month for a nutritionist and diet supplements; $8,000 a month for a trainer; and $4,000 a month for a private dance instructor.

"It's all about portion control and fresh food now," says a spy. "And lots of water in place of Red Bull ... She's feeling better than she has in ages."

Brit puffs with son Sean on July 20.

No word on whether she's spending any cash on nicotine patches to help kick her smoking habit, which recently got her into lukewarm water when she was snapped puffing in front of son Sean Preston.

Meanwhile, in the surest sign yet that Spears' life is returning to some semblance of normalcy, the Los Angeles Times reports that the paparazzi mob that once followed her on every gas station stop and fast-food bathroom break has thinned out considerably -- and suffered a financial hit in the process.

"At the height of the story, we had maybe six or eight guys on it round the clock," INF photo agency owner Chris Doherty explains to the paper. "Now we would have at most two. There's no real point to being there all the time."

Unless, of course, she starts seeing someone new.

"If Britney were to walk out tonight with a new boyfriend," says Doherty, "we could still command high prices for those photos."

Her months without a public meltdown have also had an unexpected effect on new efforts to restrict paparazzi in Los Angeles.

"If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris is out of town not bothering anybody anymore, thank God, and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue," L.A. police chief William Bratton pointed out to KNBC-TV as he called a proposed shutterbug crackdown a "farce." "If the ones that attract the paparazzi behave in the first place, like we expect of anybody, that solves about 90 percent of the problem. The rest we can deal with."