Billionaire on Her Doorstep by Ally Blake

kind of soft rock music she could imagine Tom listening to while working in the sun, she wondered if she’d been looking at it all wrong. Maybe the whole point was to stop expecting everything to go belly-up. Two moments of sheer spontaneity had led her to move to Portsea. And she was still standing. Maybe the key was to continue how she’d begun.
    Within five minutes Maggie had bought herself a stereo. Then, in the post purchase flush, she realized she needed somewhere to put it, so she picked out a rustic mahogany entertainment unit, which would look pretty silly without a TV, so she picked out one of those as well.
    An hour later, she headed down the hill, feeling a little lightheaded about the amount of money she had spent. But it was a good kind of light-headed. A hopeful kind of light-headed. A raspberry in the face of her past kind of light-headed.
    At the bottom of the hill she found herself standing outside The Sorrento Sea Captain, a rustic pub on the ground floor of a comer hotel, across the road from the beach. It was early evening and she’d eaten little more than her usual coffee-rich diet. The idea of fish and chips actually sounded pretty fine, in spite of the fact that she’d once accused Tom of frequenting the place against his better judgment.
    She walked inside to find the place was full of senior citizens on a bus tour, and some familiar faces from her few and far between outings into town. She even received several waves, a couple of hellos and half a dozen smiles, which made her blush to her roots when she thought of how little she had done to get to know any of them.
    Standing alone in the doorway, she felt as if everyone was looking at her. The hustle and bustle of the place, the sharp scraping of chairs, clinking of billiard balls and screeches of people laughing uproariously in the far bar was somewhat overwhelming considering the peace and quiet she was used to at home.
    Her lightheadedness began to morph into a headache. Maybe this was too much too soon; maybe she’d been kidding herself when she’d thought she could loosen up, fit in, be happy. Maybe she ought to just get back to her painting, the one place where she could be herself and no one could judge her…
    “Table for one?” asked a skinny young girl, all in black, an oft washed apron, and chewing gum in the side of her mouth.
    A table for one? Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten out alone. If ever. Surely that was one old habit it was time to break.
    “Ma’am?”
    “A table for one would be fantastic,” she said, and she wasn’t all that surprised when the teenager looked at her as if she was crazy to be so excited about that fact.
    Tom strolled back towards his car from the old Sorrento Baths cafe where he’d been organizing a future date to re-stain their deck.
    The scent of grease and overcooked steak wafted from the restaurant on the corner. He glanced absent-mindedly inside and his feet came to an abrupt halt when he saw Maggie sitting behind a large rickety table reading a menu. She was alone, and by the deep look of concentration on her face the menu may have been written in Sanskrit.
    Considering the day he’d just had - a day when even fishing off the sand at dawn, rereading a worn old Dick Francis novel in the hammock by his beach hut, jogging ten miles and playing Playstation with Alex’s girls had done not a thing to relax him - he knew he ought to just keep walking.
    Heck, he’d actually gone to the Sorrento Baths asking for work, trying to prepare for life beyond Maggie’s garden - beyond her tempting lips, her earnest eyes, and beyond the fact that, for two decent people, they had come very, very close to cheating on her husband.
    Okay, so he’d go in, be polite, say hello, make like everything was A-okay, and then leave her to her dinner. Then the next week would fly and they’d get on with their lives. Tom almost convinced himself the sudden uncomfortable churning in his stomach was