Billionaire On Her Doorstep

Billionaire On Her Doorstep

Ally Blake

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To my gorgeous husband, Mark,

and our fabulous first ten years together.

Love you always….

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

TOM CAMPBELL slammed the door of his trusty rusty Ute, not bothering to lock it. Not because he wouldn’t have cared if it was pinched. Or because the area had an unparalleled neighbourhood watch programme. But because it didn’t need to.

The good people of Portsea were more likely to make a steal as doctors or lawyers or footballers than to steal a dilapidated tradesman’s car. For Portsea was the land of high brushwood fences and vast homes with purely ornamental tennis courts and architecturally designed swimming pools posturing magnificently on the tip of the Mornington Peninsula.

Tom hitched his tool belt higher on his hips, threw a pink pillowcase full of old rags over his shoulder and strode through one such brushwood gate graced with the word ‘Belvedere’ burnt into a lump of moss-covered wood.

From the top of the dipping dirt driveway he caught glimpses of white wood and a slate-grey tiled roof, which was not an unusual combination for a house by the beach. What was unusual was that, unlike other properties in Portsea, Belvedere wasn’t manicured to within an inch of its life. In fact it wasn’t manicured at all.

As the foliage cleared, he saw a house that looked as if it had been built over fifty years by half a dozen architects with incompatible visions. At least five levels ambled down the sloping hill towards the cliff’s edge. Most of the original pale green shutters were closed to the morning light and by the deep orange rust on their hinges he guessed many hadn’t been opened in months. The rest was hidden behind what looked to be years of neglected foliage. If the local council had any idea that this place was in such disrepair they’d be up here in a Sorrento second waving their ordinances on beautification and escalating land value.

Many of the homes in Portsea were empty most of the year and needed nothing more than basic upkeep by overpaid full-time gardeners. As a hire-a-handyman he only did odd jobs. But this place…Already he could see it could do with a lick of paint. And the garden could do with some tender love and care, or a backhoe. It was a renovator’s dream. And Tom would be sure to tell Lady Bryce all of that once he had a damn clue what he was doing there in the first place.

Tom smiled to himself. Lady Bryce. That was what the Barclay sisters, the doyennes of Portsea who ran the local haberdashery, had labelled her because she hadn’t yet deigned to frequent their fine establishment.

He’d never met her either, though he had spied her driving down the Sorrento main street in her big black Jeep, large sunglasses and ponytail, eyes ahead, mouth in a determined straight line and fingers clamped to the steering wheel as though for dear life. And when weighing up working for a woman who at first glance seemed pretty highly strung against the time it would take away from his fishing he had considered declining politely. But, as usual, when it came to the crunch, he hadn’t had it in him to say no.

He could picture his cousin Alex laughing at him even considering turning down a damsel in distress, for Alex seemed to think Tom had some sort of knight in shining armour complex. Tom thought Alex ought to mind his own business.

He ducked out of the way of a low-hanging vine, watched his step for fear of turning an ankle and slowed as a magnificent ten-foot-high wood-carved double front door loomed amidst a shower of hanging ferns. The right door was ajar, but guarded by a sizeable old red-brown hound with a great big smiley-face charm with the word ‘Smiley’ written upon it hanging off his thick collar.

‘Smiley, hey?’ Tom said.

The dog lifted its weary head and blinked at him, its floppy ears and sad expression not changing a lick to show that he felt any pleasure at the unexpected company.

Tom reached down and gave the poor old soul a rub on the head. ‘Is the lady of the house about?’

A sudden crashing noise followed by a seriously unlady like spray of words told Tom that the lady of the house certainly was about.

‘Hello,’ he called out, but he was met with silence as sudden as the previous verbal spray had been. Not finding any evidence of a doorbell, he stepped over the melancholic guard dog and walked further inside the entrance to find himself face to face with a square stain on the wall, evidence that once upon a time a picture had hung there, a garden bench that had a mildewed look about it as though it had been relegated from outside, covered in a pile of unopened mail, and yet another fern living its sad, bedraggled life in a bright new ceramic pot.

Another curse word, this one softer than the last, caught his hearing and he followed it like a beacon to find himself in a huge main room with sweeping wooden floors in need of a good polish, lit bright by a series of uncurtained ceiling-to-floor French windows through which he had a thicket-shrouded view of the sun glinting off glorious Port Phillip Bay.

Images piled up in his mind of what he could do with this place if given half a chance. And the whole summer, and an open cheque book, and his old team at his side, and a time machine to take him back ten years…He shook his head to clear away the wool-gathering within.

The room he was in was empty. No furniture. No pictures on the walls. Nothing. Well, nothing bar a twisting cream telephone cord snaking across the middle of the room to the far wall, where a large grey drop cloth, buckets of paint, several flat, square structures draped in fabric, a rickety old table, which held numerous jars of coloured water and different sized paintbrushes, and an easel with a three-by-four-foot canvas slathered in various shades of blue.

And, in front of it all, wearing no shoes, paint-spattered jeans, a T-shirt that might at one time have been white and a navy bandanna covering most of her biscuit-blonde hair was the lady in question.

Tom cleared his throat and called out, ‘Ms Bryce?’

She spun on her heel with such speed that paint from her brush splattered across the all-blue canvas.

Tom winced. It was red paint.

‘Holy heck!’ she blurted in a toned down version of the language from earlier. Her voice was husky, her high cheekbones pink and her pale grey eyes aglow.

Well, what do you know? Tom thought. My lucky day. For Lady Bryce was a knockout. He wished his cousin Alex was there with him now so he could poke him hard in the side and tell him—this is why you never say no to a damsel in distress.

‘Who the hell are you?’ the lady asked, seemingly not nearly as impressed with him. But the day was young. ‘And what are you doing in my house?’

Tom actually thought it pretty obvious who he was considering the family of tools swinging low on his hips. But the lady looked as if she knew how to wield that paintbrush of hers as a lethal weapon so he answered her query.

‘I’m Tom Campbell, your friendly neighbourhood handyman,’ he said, deciding to pull out all the stops in the hopes she wouldn’t use that thing as a javelin. He smiled the smile that had got him out of trouble on any number of occasions and opened his arms wide to show he was not a threat in any way, shape or form. ‘You called a few days ago, asking if I could come around today to fix…something.’

The lady blinked. Several times in quick succession. Long eyelashes swooping against her flushed cheeks. Unfairly long eyelashes, he thought, especially for a woman who continued to send off such fierce keep-away vibes. Then her eyes scooted down to rest on his tools.

Tom clenched his toes in his boots to stop himself from shuffling under her acute gaze.

‘Right,’ she said suddenly, punctuating the sharp word by pointing her skinny paintbrush his way.

And dammit if he didn’t actually flinch!

Tom took a slow, deep breath. He’d let those crazy old Barclay sisters get inside his head so much that he’d actually begun to believe this poor woman could be some kind of nut job, simply because she hadn’t found the need for haberdashery, whatever haberdashery might be.

So far nothing worse had happened than red splatters on her picture. So far she seemed merely antisocial at worst. And at best? Unimpressed by him in particular. Lucky him.

‘Tom Campbell. The handyman,’ she repeated. ‘Okay.’ She unconsciously twirled the offensive paintbrush in her fingers like a cheerleader’s baton before turning back to her work-table, choosing a water pot at random and swooshing the brush in the dirty liquid.

She glanced briefly at her big blue painting, saw the red splatters and swore again. It seemed she wasn’t the type to pull her punches because she had company.

Tom felt his cheeks tugging into a smile. If the Barclay sisters knew her penchant for French he was quite sure they would drop the ‘Lady’ moniker quick smart.

With a shake of her head, she tiptoed off the drop cloth, scrunching her toes as she wiped her bare feet at the edge, and moved to join him.

She walked with a sort of natural elegance, like a ballet dancer, heel to toe, long legs fluid. Her skin had an almost translucent appearance and her clothes hung off her as if she had lost weight quickly and had not found the time or inclination to put it back on.

She was pretty tall too. She must have been near five-ten. Tom drew himself up to his full six feet and one half inch to compensate. And though her eyes were grey, when she wasn’t glaring at him they held hints of the same pale blue found in the clear spring sky behind her.

She pulled the navy bandanna from her hair and used it to wipe her hands, then tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans. Next she yanked a hair-band from her ponytail and shook the straight length loose until it hung long and dishevelled halfway down her back, before gathering it all and folding it into a messy low bun.

This little act was merely a habit, he was sure. Her movements were fast, spare and not meant to impress. But they impressed him. In fact he found the whole hair shaking move pretty darned satisfying.

Or maybe that was the point after all. Maybe that was how she got her kicks—conning local workmen into her web for a quickie before tumbling them off the cliff on to the jagged rocks behind her secluded home. Perhaps her infrequent trips into town at the wheel of her suburban tank were to buy quicklime and shovels.

She strode past him and into the massive kitchen and, despite his lively imaginings, Tom followed. There were no scrawled pictures on the fridge. No post-its or shopping lists. No flowers on the window ledge. No jars full of mismatched utensils as were to be found in most of the homes he worked in. According to the Barclay sisters, she’d lived here for months, but the place looked as if she’d just moved in and hadn’t unpacked all her boxes.

Still, though he had as much fun seeing inside other people’s homes as the next guy, if she didn’t have a job for him in the next ten seconds he was going to walk. It really was a glorious day outside and the fish would no doubt be biting…

‘What would you like me to do for you, Ms Bryce?’

She switched on the kettle, then turned and leaned her backside against the sink and stared him down, her grey eyes shrewd, distant and enormous.

‘Maggie,’ she said. ‘Firstly I would like you to call me Maggie.’

He nodded. ‘Only if you call me Tom.’ Having been brought up to believe that a proper introduction required it, Tom reached out to shake hands.

Maggie reached forward herself and gave his hand a brisk pump. Her palm was neither soft nor smooth. Her lean hand rasped against his, her calloused palm creating a strange sensation against his own work-roughened mitt.

Nevertheless, he kept a hold a moment longer than he really ought. As he soon found himself caught in a wave of her perfume.

For, of all the scents to choose from in the big wide world, she wore dark and delicious Sonia Rykiel. He was sure of it. One Christmas a cute blonde at the perfume counter of a department store in Sydney had convinced him to buy it for his sister. But, considering Tess had been bright and vivacious, with not a lick of the dark and delicious about her personality, it had been a running joke between them that she’d never worn the stuff. But on Maggie Bryce he could have sworn the balmy scent wasn’t worn so much as radiating from her pores.

Despite the thorns, and the colourful vocabulary, and the bohemian lack of furniture, she was seriously lovely. And he was definitely loveable. As far as he saw it, they were a summer romance just waiting to happen. All he had to do was convince her.

‘So you’re living all the way out here alone?’ he asked, gradually letting her go.

‘I have Smiley,’ she said, reclaiming her hand and crossing her arms. ‘You no doubt met him at the front door.’

‘He’s an interesting variety of male companionship,’ he said. ‘I’ll give him that.’

She snorted elegantly, though Tom’d never known it possible to do so. Then, looking him dead in the eye, she said, ‘I’ll take Smiley over the rest any day.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Who wouldn’t?’

Okay, so there must have been any number of women who thought him not their type; during his past life in Sydney when he’d at one time been seen as the catch of the town, and again since moving to Sorrento where he was now regarded as contentedly uncatchable. But at least he’d never had one look him the eye and as much as said, Don’t even think about it. Until now.

‘Smiley obviously can’t wield a set of tools with any sort of finesse or I am beginning to believe you would never have called me for help,’ he said.

‘And Smiley has already had a good talking to about that, I assure you.’

Now that he knew how, Tom snorted elegantly himself, despite his bruised pride. For beneath the cool demeanour this one was spunky. And Tom liked nothing if not a spunky woman.

The kettle boiled and she blithely ignored him while she set to making coffee for them both.

Perhaps it wasn’t him per se; perhaps she wasn’t into blue-collar men. Women living on their own in Portsea clearly fell into two categories: those who looked straight through men dressed like him and those who saw him as the perfect antidote to whatever white-collar dullard had made them rich and single in the first place.

If that was her problem, he could always accidentally drop an ATM statement on her floor so that she could see he wasn’t quite the unfortunate he seemed to be. Maybe that would perk her up a bit. Clear that furrowed brow. Create a cheeky sparkle in those impassive grey eyes.

Unless of course she wasn’t his type either. Now that he thought about it, she was pretty tall, and he liked putting his arm around a woman’s shoulders without pulling a muscle. Too blunt, where he’d rather have charming subtlety. Too cool, where he preferred everything in his life to be warm—his days, his nights, the woman in his arms during his days and nights. Yep, it was probably for the best if he just left the lady well enough alone.

‘Are you available for longer jobs?’ she asked.

She passed him a hot black coffee and pressed the sugar shaker an inch his way, then looked at him beneath her long lashes as she pursed her lips and blew across the top of her own mug.

‘I’m on call for a number of businesses around. Okay, on call might be putting it a little too formally. In the phone book is more factual. Though the Barclay sisters will brook no excuses if they need a light bulb changed.’

Maggie swished a hand across her face as though flapping away a particularly unimportant fly. ‘It’s not that big a job, I’m sure,’ she said.

Tom begged to differ. Belvedere was a colossal job waiting to happen. The ceiling of the kitchen could do with being lifted another two feet at least. Add a skylight and it would feel twice as big. Tear away the thick, dusty concave mouldings and he’d put money on the fact that the original cornices would be revealed beneath. ‘What sort of job?’ he asked.

‘I can’t get down to the beach,’ Maggie said, cutting his flight of fancy off at the knees.

‘The beach?’

‘The backyard is utterly overgrown,’ she continued. ‘Brambles, vines and brush so thick and so tall and so broad you can’t see beyond.’

‘Brambles,’ he repeated. Thick, intertwined, thorny, scratchy brambles. Excellent.

‘Right. Brambles. Remember that really hot day last week, so still there was not a sea breeze to speak of?’

Tom nodded. He remembered feeling as if spring was near its end. Soon the tourists would swarm the place, his phone would ring off the hook and he and his little boat wouldn’t have any time alone for a good three months.

‘I had it in mind that day to find out what sort of private beach this place might have,’ Maggie said, ‘and I discovered there was no way through without a chainsaw or a pole vault. You may have noticed that I am living here with the bare basics, thus I had neither instrument handy.’

Attractive, spunky and a self-deprecating sense of humour to boot? Tom leant his hip against the bench and cocked his left foot against the cupboard door, wondering if he had been too hasty in deciding she was too tall for him. Besides which, Portsea and next door Sorrento in which he lived were small and mostly transient communities, so it would be sensible to get to know her better. In case he one day needed to borrow a cup of sugar.

‘Right. A beach, you say. So how long have you lived here now?’ he asked.

‘I moved here from Melbourne about six months ago. Give or take,’ she said.

Well, now, that wasn’t so hard for her, was it? That was decidedly social. Tom made a move to ask a follow-up question but she got there first.

‘Shall we?’ she asked, pushing away from the bench.

Right. Now she was in a hurry.

Maggie led him out the back door, which was held open by a massive red earthenware pot, on to the shady veranda which ran the length of the back of the house and down a set of rickety wooden steps that opened up to a small paved courtyard as heavy with weeds as the front walk.

And beyond that? A thirty metre wide wall of thick, sharp, decade-old scrub, as tall as two men. Tom couldn’t even tell how deep he might have to dig before he hit the cliff face, or where any path or steps down to the beach might even begin. If there in fact was a beach there at all.

‘Nice ferns,’ he said to stop himself from saying the rest, as he had to duck under another row of bedraggled plants in hanging pots.

‘They came with the house,’ she said. ‘You may have noticed I’m not much of a gardener.’

Noticed? He’d become pretty darned intimate with a whole range of plants on his way in. He was certain he would be finding leaves and twigs in numerous nooks and crannies when he stripped for his shower later that night.

‘I noticed,’ was all he said, especially since Maggie had now decided to be friendly. He had to think of the future possibility of sugar after all.

‘I’m resigned to the fact that I have a black thumb,’ she said. She held her right thumb up between them and it told a different story, covered as it was in blue paint. ‘Okay, so it’s in fact a blue thumb. What does that mean?’

‘Perhaps you are doomed to breed depressed plants rather than dead ones.’

And at that, for the first time since he’d laid eyes on her, Maggie smiled. Her eyes gleamed, her cheeks bloomed into rosy mounds and she even showed a hint of neat white teeth with the tiniest of overbites. The fact that Tom had always had a thing for overbites was not lost on him.

‘I think you might be right,’ she said, the overbite sadly disappearing as she brought her features back under strict control. She flicked another glance at his tool belt. ‘You can do gardens, I hope?’

‘I can. And I have. I am a verified genius at mowing and pulling weeds. I’ve even fixed my fair share of cracked pool pavers.’ He took another step towards the seemingly impenetrable wall of green and fingered a sharp-edged leaf. ‘But now’s my chance to fulfil the lifelong dream to use a scythe.’

He glanced sideways in time to see Maggie’s gaze flicker to his. A small muscle moved in her cheek and he thought himself about to be on the receiving end of another smile. Another vision of her two front teeth tucking over her terribly attractive full bottom lip. But he was mistaken.

‘I’m glad to oblige,’ she said with a small shrug of her slight shoulders. ‘It’s not often a person gets to be involved in the culmination of another’s lifelong dream.’

Tom grinned and Maggie frowned.

‘So, how long do you think it will take?’ she asked.

‘I’ll have more of an idea by the end of the day,’ he said.

‘Right. Then I shall leave you to it,’ she said. ‘There’s some sort of shed around the side of the house. Feel free to see if there is anything in there you can use. No scythe, though, I’m afraid.’

‘No scythe and no pole vault? How do you survive out here?’ Tom asked, smiling himself, showing her how it was done, seeing if he could again encourage hers out to play, but all he got for his trouble was a cool grey stare.

‘Tremendous amounts of coffee seem to do the trick,’ she said, deadpan. She blinked at him once more, those long curling lashes making themselves known deep down in his gut.

He was absolutely certain she was deciding whether she really wanted the likes of him hanging around her place.

Her frown lines diminished and he determined she had made the decision that she did. Want him. Around the place.

Then, without a further word, Maggie Bryce took her long legs, cool eyes and adorable overlapping teeth back upstairs, leaving Tom, his tools and his overactive imagination to their own devices.

CHAPTER TWO

A FEW hours later, Maggie glanced down at the mug of Jamaican Roast perched in between her water jars to find it had become paint dust swimming in cold dregs.

She moved to the edge of her drop cloth, wiped her feet—which was more a decade-old habit than any intention to keep the floor paint-free—refixed her hair and then shuffled into the kitchen to make another coffee.

As she waited for the kettle to boil, she leant her backside against the kitchen bench and stretched the crick in her neck. The tendon along the top of her right shoulder was aching. Back in Melbourne she would have taken a quick trip to Maurice for a life-affirming massage. But back in Melbourne she had been able to afford Maurice. Here, with her single bank account dwindling to near drastic levels while she paid the colossal mortgage on the big house around her, she had to make do with a heat pack at the end of the day.

She started at the anomalous sound of thrashing foliage breaching the unvarying Portsea peace and quiet. At first she thought it was Smiley out adventuring. Then she remembered the stranger in her midst. She turned and, standing on tiptoe, looked through the kitchen window. But he must have moved somewhere under the house.