Page 47 of Billionaire Corruption

I slowed down as I reached the edge of town, which overlooked a bay and some rocks. We’d gone on a short cruise at around lunch time, the boat braving choppy waves to show us some spectacular views of the rocky cliffs, little islands, and the houses on the edge of the town. I loved hearing the history of the town, going back hundreds of years to ships coming from Europe with tradesmen and settlers. Then later, the rich people building fancy holiday homes and holding splashy garden parties. But they always left at the end of the season. There was a nature reserve, trees and woodland and parts of the ocean were protected too.

I had grown up in the city, thought myself a New Yorker through and through, but this town had captured my heart.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” I heard a voice say beside me. It was Margaret, the owner of the coffee shop. She must have seen me standing outside, waiting for Paul, and had come out to meet me. She was not a tall woman, with curly blonde hair and friendly blue eyes. There was something homelyabout her, the wide hips and the kind smile and I had taken to her right away.

“It really is,” I agreed.

“Come in, I’ll get you some coffee,” she said.

Inside the shop, I took a second look around and still liked what I saw. The place was no-nonsense but charming, with wooden furniture, local art against the walls, some photographs from the town in its heyday.

“I came here twenty years ago, with my husband. He was from the area originally and wanted to show it to me. I liked the change of pace. We bought the coffee shop, and I ran it since then. It’s time to slow down now,” she said, her voice changing.

“You don’t want to keep it, have someone else run it?”

She shook her head firmly. “No, then you’re still involved, you know? You always worry whether the milk came in or the pastries were delivered or if it rained in during the storm.”

She closed her eyes. “I need treatment in the city. Cancer. I’m going to stay with my daughter for a while.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, giving her an awkward hug.

She gave me a brief smile. “It’s all right. I’ve had time to prepare for this. I’d actually thought I’d have to close the business down when you two came along! This is good news for me!”

“We’re not actually married,” I confessed.

“Oh, I knew that,” she winked at me. “Nobody is that loved up after two years! But, still, you look good together, so who knows? You’ll probably be there soon enough.”

Her words seemed prophetic to me, and I didn’t know what to say.

“So, you think your fella is serious about this place? Or was all that talk this morning just hot air?”

Paul was serious all right. He’d spent all day talking about the coffee shop and how much money it could make. How we could run it together, or get a manager, whatever we wanted. He wanted a change of pace, he said, to get out of the rat race. He had made his money, proven himself and he could see himself living here, at least part of the year. I knew he had the money; it wasn’t even about that. When I came up with question after question, he’d shrugged and said, he could always sell it again later if I didn’t want it.

But I did. I loved the feel of the place, I could see my grandmother sitting at a table, eating pie, and doing her crossword. It was her kind of place, my kind of place, where people came together and had a chance to sit down, relax.

“I don’t have any experience running a place like this,” I confessed. “The closest I came, was working in a hair salon in college. I answered the phones, swept the floor, washed the hair.”

“It’s very similar, let me tell you,” Margaret says. “I imagine a city hair salon can get busy?”

“It could get crazy,” I said. “Especially over weekends and in the summer season when there were parties going on. The girls coming in to have something done special and there was always a double booking and a crisis, highlights gone wrong or a cut that was too short.”

I laughed and shook my head.

“I liked the buzz,” I admitted. “Listening to all the boy trouble, the family drama. What’s going on in people’s lives and seeing how a bit of a scalp massage, some trimming of the roots and a blowout could soothe the soul.”

Margaret nodded. “The coffee shop business is very similar. You are selling the same kind of magic potion. People come in for more than food and drink, they’re looking for comfort, for something to satisfy them, to lift their spirits sometimes.”

She looked around her. “You’ll always have customers here, so you have that already. When I took over the shop, it was called Annie’s Place after the original owner. I kept the name and the locals liked that, they thought I’d want to change everything, but I kept it the way it was. Just brought in the pancakes.”

“They are fabulous,” I said, remembering the stack of fluffy pancakes I had devoured in the morning.

The door opened and Paul came in with a big smile.

“Apologies about that, had a call I had to take.”

He came over to kiss my cheek and shake Margaret’s hand. I was struck by how relaxed he looked, so handsome even when not wearing his big city suit. With his hair slightly longer, a bit messy, so that he ran his hand through it every now and then, he was absolutely irresistible.

I could see that Margaret too, was not immune to his charms. She turned to him, giving him her full attention, fetching him some coffee, and fluttering about, showing him her selection of muffins, and talking about suppliers.

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