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

why he was so interested. He sneaked a look upwards, but all he could see was hazy darkness.
    Tom moved to wait for her by The Big Blue, even though each day it had been darker by the time he made it home. He was constantly playing catch up on the job as the chats by Maggie’s painting every morning and their shared lunches got longer each day.
    Even so, he couldn’t seem to find the opportunity to ask her out, even with his brilliant Nolan in the bedroom line raring to go. He wasn’t blind to the idea that maybe it was that very challenge that had him so gung-ho. Either way, so far all he’d managed was “I like your painting.” Nice one, Romeo.
    Tom whistled under his breath as he sauntered over to her corner and stepped over the curled edge of the paint-splattered cloth. Up close, the scent of paint was overwhelming, especially without Maggie’s signature perfume to negate it.
    He stared hard at The Big Blue, looking to find a similarity to the ocean view out the window, when suddenly, clear as day, he saw a face looking back at him from the canvas.
    It gave him such a fright he backed up, startled. But the moment he blinked the image was gone. The painting was once again nothing more mysterious than blue smears. He stepped off the drop cloth, rubbing at his eyes. It had been a long week.
    The sound of bare feet shuffling against wood announced Maggie’s arrival through the front door. She flicked through a small stack of unopened mail, then threw the lot on to the bench at the front door.
    “Maggie, are you sure this painting of ours is a landscape?” he asked when she joined him on her drop cloth.
    “Nah,” she said. “It’s a still life of blue apples.”
    “Smart arse,” he said under his breath. “The thing is, I was sure I just saw a face in there.”
    “A face,” she repeated, her surprised gaze skittering to the painting.
    “Yeah.” He waved his hand over the canvas, but even he couldn’t see it any more. “Or maybe I’m going silently mad out there in your crazy old garden.”
    “Why do you think I hired someone else to clear it?” she said, deadpan, as she rubbed at her neck, long thin fingers massaging deep into the tendons along the tops of her shoulders.
    “Are you okay?” he asked, his attention diverted.
    “Hmm,” she groaned. In the gloomy evening light her pupils filled her large eyes and sent his imagination on a trip and a half. “Sorry, what?”
    “Your neck,” he said, reaching out to her and then letting his hand drop away when her faraway gaze flickered and focused, pinning him to the spot, daring him to even think about walking one more step closer.
    “What about it?” she asked, her hand still kneading her shoulder.
    And Tom laughed. Out loud. No wonder he’d never worked up the nerve to ask her out; he had simply never met anyone who was as much hard work. “You haven’t stopped fussing with it since you came in.”
    “I’m fine.” Maggie’s hand dropped, but she couldn’t hide her wince as she stopped giving it the attention that it needed.
    “Of course you are.” Tom wondered what her skin would feel like beneath his hands. Would it be cool like her eyes? Or fiery like her impertinent mouth? From those few moments he’d come close enough to guess, he had the distinct feeling her skin would naturally be as warm as if she had spent half an hour basking in the sun.
    In a huff Maggie turned away to stare at her painting some more, unwittingly giving Tom a perfect view of the back of her neck. Her vertebrae stuck out in a neat vertical row and fine blonde hairs whirled in tufts at the base of her chaotic ponytail. Her skin was the color of diluted honey. Delicate. Too frail for his workman’s hands.
    Tom rubbed his hands together, easing away the prickling as flashes of memory of times he’d been praised on his use of those very hands skidded and tripped behind his eyes. But they soon gurgled away down a sinkhole of past reminiscences, as though he