Billionaire on Her Doorstep by Ally Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

her hand back into its safety zone in the back pocket of her cargo pants. “You need the practice.”
    He nodded. “Thanks.”
    When he stepped off her drop cloth Maggie felt a huge weight rise off her chest. She realized then that she hadn’t taken a proper breath since the moment he’d walked in the room.
    “I’ll be off, then,” he said. “And don’t argue, but tomorrow lunch is my treat.”
    “Who’s arguing?” Maggie said.
    He saluted her with the paintbrush she had given him, then jogged out the front door and was gone.
    And, with a ragged sigh, Maggie knew that neither his empty coffee cup resting on her paint table, nor the paintbrush now missing from her jar would be the reasons she thought of him often before she went to sleep much much later that night.
    CHAPTER FOUR
    Tom twirled his keys around his finger as he walked up to the front door of his bungalow. He spun around on the spot in a move that would have made John Travolta proud, before sliding the key into the front door.
    Once inside he tossed his car keys into a small wooden bowl on his antique Queen Anne hall table and immediately thought of the dilapidated garden bench that served as Maggie’s hall table.
    That was one interesting woman. Smart. Sharp. Deep as a well. And funny. The last thing he would have expected Maggie to be was funny. In his book, sharp and funny was a killer cocktail.
    He listened to his answering machine messages with half an ear as a few job offers came in. But he would happily pass them off to someone else, as for the next two weeks he was a contentedly kept man.
    He flicked a wall switch that lit up the several large lamps in his great room in one go. His dark leather sofas, mahogany side tables, shiny wooden floors and collection of fine art warmed under the golden glow.
    It sure was different from Maggie’s great room. He no longer lived in the exclusive North Shore of Sydney, and he now worked as a handyman rather than as the head of a multi-billion dollar restoration company, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t surround himself with the finer things he’d been able to amass while making his fortune. So what was stopping her from filling her big old house with any furniture at all?
    He’d have a shower and a beer before making himself a pasta dinner, and he could think on all that for a few hours in front of the footy channel…
    “Evening, Tom.” The outline of a man lit by the blue glow of the laptop screen in Tom’s office made him jump fair out of his skin.
    “Alex!” he cried out. “Make yourself known a little earlier next time, why don’t you?”
    “Sorry, Cuz” Alex said. “You know how it is. Head down, bum on seat, working hard. Internet is down at the office and I needed to place a couple of last-minute orders. Hope you don’t mind.”
    “Of course I don’t mind. Do you want a beer?”
    “I’m good.” Without looking away from the laptop, Alex reached out and grabbed the half empty bottle at his side.
    “So what’s on the agenda at your place tonight?” Tom asked as he moved into the raised kitchen to get his own cold drink.
    “Music lessons. Dora’s taken up the trumpet,” Alex admitted. Tom laughed. He was pretty certain the last-minute orders for the hardware store were not all that urgent.
    “So how did it go with Lady Bryce today?” Alex asked. “What’s she like? A recluse? Or just snobby, as the Barclays seem to think? Did you need the chainsaw for the job or was that just an insurance policy?”
    “None of the above, actually. Maggie is perfectly amiable.” Well, not perfectly, but he’d discovered that she at least knew how to be.
    “Hang on a cotton pickin” minute. Tommy Boy,”Alex said, spinning on Tom’s office chair to face him with a grin spread across his round friendly face, all urgent orders forgotten. “Did I hear a note of appreciation in your voice?”
    Tommy Boy was about to deny it, but there was no getting around Alex. The poor guy lived in a