Page 16 of Suddenly Desired (APEX Billionaires’ Club #2)

BLAKE

Blake opened a door into the empty reading room and closed it softly behind them.

The faint scent of old books and polished wood hung in the air, the soft glow of the desk lamps casting long shadows across the room.

It was quiet, the kind of silence that heightened every sound — the rustle of clothing, the subtle hitch of Ellie’s breath.

She stood just a few feet away, her gaze drifting around the room before landing back on him. The way the light caught in her hair made it shimmer, and the slight flush on her cheeks only added to her allure. She looked . . . irresistible.

Blake leaned back against the closed door, trying to keep his composure, but every part of him was hyperaware of her. The delicate curve of her neck, the way her fingers fidgeted with the strap of her bag, even the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. It was maddening.

The tension between them felt thick enough to touch, and as she took a step closer, his pulse hammered in his ears. He could smell her faint perfume, something soft and sweet, but underneath it was the warmth of her — enticing, distracting.

He cleared his throat, his voice coming out lower than he intended. “It’s quieter in here.”

“Yeah,” she said softly, her lips curving into a small, almost shy smile. “It’s . . . peaceful.”

Peaceful wasn’t the word he’d use. Every nerve in his body was on edge, the quiet amplifying the rush of blood in his veins.

Her presence filled the room and, for the life of him, he couldn’t look away.

Her yellow dress hung midway down her creamy thighs, hair the colour of hay pulled back into a messy ponytail.

Behind her glasses her eyes glittered like a sun-soaked river.

She moved to one of the chairs by the window, the light brushing against her as she sat down. The way her dress shifted, revealing a hint more of her leg, made his throat go dry.

“You okay?” she asked, her eyes soft but searching.

Blake forced himself to nod, though he wasn’t sure how truthful it was. “Yeah. Just . . . thinking.”

About how much he wanted to cross the room. About how much he wanted to sink his hands into her hair, tilt her head back, and kiss her until he forgot everything — Heartbook, the board, the whole damn world.

But this wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the place.

Not that his body seemed to care.

He ran a hand through his hair, trying to ground himself. “I’m just glad you’re here,” he said finally.

Ellie gave him a small smile that almost undid him. “I’m glad, too,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

She glanced at the chair beside her, as if inviting him to sit, but his legs wouldn’t seem to work. If he got too close, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep himself in check. Instead, he stayed where he was, his hands gripping the edge of the doorframe, his heart a riot in his chest.

She said that she believed him about the posts not being his words, but there must still have been a part of her that wasn’t sure.

He didn’t want to do anything that she might take the wrong way — like telling her how she made him feel while they were alone together in a room on the third floor of the public library.

Her gaze lingered on him, her teeth catching her bottom lip for the briefest moment.

His eyes followed the movement, and he swallowed hard, imagining what it would feel like to taste her, to press his lips to hers in this quiet, hidden corner.

The thought alone sent a pulse of heat through him, and he forced himself to take a slow, steadying breath.

“Blake?” she said, her voice drawing him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“You seem . . . distracted.” Her lips quirked slightly.

He let out a low chuckle, shaking his head. “You could say that.”

She laughed, the sound wrapping around him like a warm embrace. God, how was she doing this to him?

The silence stretched between them again, charged and heavy, and for a brief, reckless second, he imagined closing the distance, and capturing her mouth with his. The thought made his fingers tighten on the doorframe.

But he couldn’t.

Not here. Not now.

“Ellie?” His voice sounded low and rough.

“Yeah?” she said, her cheeks flushing deeper as if she’d been thinking the same thing.

“Do you want to tell me more about LifeWrite?” he said, knowing it was a great excuse to keep her close to him for a little longer. “Seeing as we’ve got time and space and it’s why you’re here anyway.”

Her eyes widened as she nodded briskly, her ponytail shaking irresistibly.

“Uh, great.” He was fighting to organise his thoughts. He slid his glasses into his pocket, happy to be rid of them. “You want a coffee or anything?”

“No, not yet,” she replied. “Are you sure you’ve got time? I mean, I know you must be really busy.”

“Right now, I have nothing to do.” He pulled out a chair that was at the opposite end of the table. “Literally nothing. I’m completely frozen out of everything.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ellie said.

He waved the apology away. “I’m not. It gives me a chance to be here with you. I mean, because of LifeWrite. Because it’s such a great idea.”

“I don’t know,” she said bashfully, pulling out her laptop and her notebook and throwing the bag to the floor. He scooted his chair a little closer so he could see as she switched on the ancient machine. “It was just a silly idea really, just some scatterbrained plan.”

“You don’t ever have to do that,” Blake said. “You don’t ever have to put yourself down. What you’ve got here is amazing, and what’s even more special is that you did it in the first place. You found a passion, you fought to make it real. It’s incredible. It’s exactly what I did.”

“Not quite,” she said. “My idea isn’t worth billions on the stock market.”

“Neither’s mine.” He laughed. “Not today, anyway. And it wasn’t when it started, either. You know, when I first had the idea for Heartbook I was working in Mum’s restaurant as a dishwasher.”

“I’d like to pretend I didn’t know that,” Ellie said, laughing too. It was contagious. “But I did a lot of research for my interview!”

“You’ll know, then, that there was no place for me to work,” he said, grinning. “So when I had a break I’d take my laptop into the toilet and lock myself in a cubicle.”

“Didn’t know that bit. That’s disgusting.”

“I know, right?” he replied. “But I’d sit there and write code whenever I could. I was in there so often the other staff started calling me Flusher.”

A laugh escaped Ellie, and she clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Flusher! You do realise I’m going to have to call you that from now on.”

“I deserve it,” he said. “You know, after a while, because I was in there so often, Mum started charging me rent. Fiver a week.”

“Harsh,” said Ellie.

“Exactly,” said Blake. “She was a ruthless landlord. I was young, not even twenty, and I didn’t have any money at all.

In fact, I couldn’t even pay her that, I was so broke.

I had pennies to my name at one point. But what I lacked in finances I made up for in passion.

I never gave up, I never stopped believing.

You shouldn’t either. Let’s see what you’ve got. ”

“Okay, Flusher,” she said, and he laughed. “But I’m warning you, it’s not much.”

She opened up a folder on her laptop.

“I can’t code. At least not very well. Not well enough for this. But the architecture is all here.”

“LifeWrite,” said Blake, reading from the screen. “ Write your own story. That’s good.”

“Thanks.” Ellie pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Like I said to you last night, stories are so powerful, they can unite us in so many ways.”

Like our story , he thought.

He pushed that thought straight out of his head because this moment was about Ellie and what she was passionate about, not about him and his lustful dreams. Besides, her plan for LifeWrite seemed like a really good one.

“Show me more.”

She did — she showed him everything. She gushed about her project, demonstrating how the accounts were called Pages, the groups called Chapters.

It was laid out like a high street with nothing but book shops and cafés, libraries and parks, and as she flicked through designs and illustrations it felt almost as if she was showing him around her own private paradise.

“This part is based on my favourite book from childhood,” she said, looking at him with huge pupils and pink cheeks. “ The Swiss Family Robinson . Have you read it?”

Blake nodded. He’d taken a copy from his mum’s shelves when he was a kid, intrigued by the premise of being stranded on a desert island. He must have read it a dozen times over the years, partly because of the story, but partly because the novel always reminded him of his mum.

“I had a copy,” she said. “It wasn’t a first edition, but it was old, like one of the first copies in English. I found it in a charity shop, back home, and I couldn’t believe my luck.”

“That’s amazing,” he said. “I’d love to see it.”

“So would I,” she replied with a sigh. “But it’s long gone. Josh borrowed it. Left it on a plane. Didn’t even read it. He bought me a cheap paperback to replace it and couldn’t understand why I was so upset.”

“I understand,” Blake said, feeling as furious now as she must have then.

She smiled at him with gratitude, holding his eye for a beat. “Um, so, anyway, check this out.”

She went on with the tour, showing him around a digitised island.

He commented where she let him, telling her how much he loved this design, or that idea.

Every time she moved to a different theme — each one based on a famous work of literature — he told her how much he loved the books she’d picked.

He’d read almost all of them, and when there was one he hadn’t, she detoured from the presentation to tell him all about it.

She showed him how eventually LifeWrite would be able to use your computer camera to assess what kind of mood you were in, helping you out if you felt sad or lonely, reading poems and stories to you to cheer you up.

She was so animated, and so full of passion for her project.

Her enthusiasm was contagious, and he found himself thinking about how easy it would be to make this a reality, and how popular it could be.

The internet was full of negativity, social media drowning under the force of criticism and bile — Heartbook included.

LifeWrite was refreshing, and such a good idea that he wondered why nobody had taken it seriously yet.

She reminded him most of all of his own excitement in the early days of Heartbook.

Back then he had given everything to the company, but he hadn’t minded because it had been his project.

Ever since the company had gone public, and he’d had to answer to a board of directors and an army of shareholders, he’d enjoyed his role less and less.

Nothing about Heartbook felt personal to him anymore.

“And that’s kind of it,” she said, sitting back. “That’s my baby.”

Blake nodded, emerging from the conversation the same way he emerged from dreams. He blinked, the room gradually reforming around him, noticing the muted sounds from the rest of the library, the sunlight filtering through the window.

“God, sorry, I really went on,” Ellie said.

“No, not at all,” Blake replied, feeling as if they had been talking for a matter of minutes. When he checked his watch his jaw almost hit the floor. Over two hours had passed since they’d entered the room. “Wait, is that right? Were we really talking all that time?”

“ You weren’t,” she said. “I was. I don’t know when to stop.”

Never , thought Blake. You never have to stop .

“That was amazing,” he said. “I mean, really. This is all your work?”

“Yeah. I’ve been working on it for ages. For years , really. It’s where my heart has been.”

“I can tell. It’s so you, so naturally brilliant. It’s like all those wonderful thoughts have just spilled out of your beautiful head and—”

Blake choked on his words. Shut up, you idiot! his brain yelled, and he gasped for a way to cover his tracks.

“I mean . . .” was as far as he got before Ellie started laughing.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “But thanks for being nice.”

For what felt like a small eternity they looked at each other, their unspoken thoughts hanging between them like the little specks of dust floating in the sunlight.

Then his phone buzzed in his pocket, breaking the moment.

He pulled it out, and a text from Nate lit up the screen:

Landed. Office in an hour. See you there.

Blake felt the familiar pulse of adrenaline surge through him. This was it — his chance to get answers, to figure out who was behind the sabotage and how to clear his name. But as he glanced back at Ellie, the thought of leaving her here felt wrong.

She noticed the shift in his expression, her brow furrowing slightly. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “I’ve got a friend helping me with access to Heartbook. His plane’s just landed. I need to meet him.”

Her eyes widened slightly, and for a second, he thought he saw something like disappointment flicker across her face.

“Oh,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then you should definitely go.”

And it was true, which is why he was so surprised to hear himself say, “Will you come with me?”