Page 32 of Suddenly Desired (APEX Billionaires’ Club #2)

ELLIE

“Wow!”

Her mum had only just opened the door, and that was the first word out of her mouth. She looked Blake up and down with her twinkling eyes, then flashed Ellie a smile.

“Really, wow !”

“Mum!” Ellie exclaimed, feeling the heat creep into her cheeks. “Could you be any more embarrassing?”

Blake chuckled, and Ellie slapped him lightly on the arm, trying to stifle her own laugh. He feigned injury, clutching his side dramatically, which only made her laugh harder.

“Mum, this is Blake,” Ellie said, leaving out his last name for now. “Blake, Mum.”

“Call me Isla, dear,” she said, taking his hand. “You can call me Mum if you like, but that might be weird.”

“It’s a pleasure,” said Blake. “I can see where Ellie gets her smile from.”

“Oh, shush,” Isla said, blushing. “You two had better come in before you swoon all over my porch. I’ve only just hosed it down. Come on.”

Ellie tutted, following her mum into the house.

It was past ten, and the farm was drenched in darkness.

Her mum didn’t have a lot of livestock, and the goats and chickens and horses she did own were quiet.

A few birds still hurled their calls into the night, but the peace of the countryside was almost absolute.

Ellie closed her eyes for a moment and listened to it, remembering how much she had loved that absence of noise when she was little.

The city never stopped shouting, and right now she would be happy to never go back.

The door closed behind them and Ellie opened her eyes.

The farmhouse wasn’t huge — it was probably tiny compared to wherever Blake lived — but it was cosy, and it was loved.

Bookcases sat against almost every wall, stuffed with old novels and coffee-table art books and various trinkets her mum had collected over the years.

There were also dozens of framed photographs, and Blake made his way towards one on the other side of the room.

“Oh, God, no!” Ellie exclaimed as she recognised which one it was. She ran after him, but she was too slow. He had picked up the frame, already laughing. “That isn’t me!” she said. “That definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent isn’t me.”

“Well whoever she is, she’s adorable,” Blake said, admiring the picture of a thirteen-year-old Ellie standing with a group of people outside the school gates, wearing a pair of huge red glasses and a pink shell suit. She was holding a book, grinning with happiness and showing off her braces.

“Reading club,” she said, blushing. “Man, I was so uncool.”

“I think you were the coolest.” He replaced the photograph. “I think you still are.”

“She hasn’t changed a bit.” Isla was watching them both from the other side of the room, her eyes crinkled with kindness.

“I have!” Ellie said. “I’m completely different. Don’t you dare gang up on me.”

“Come through to the kitchen,” her mum replied, leading the way. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry, so I made French toast.”

Ellie was so excited she almost started jumping up and down. Managing to contain herself, she took Blake’s arm and walked him through to the kitchen. The smell of fresh bread and cinnamon filled the air, making her feel truly at home.

“It’s amazing,” she said to Blake. “You have to try it.”

“And if you don’t like that, I whipped up a batch of brownies earlier,” Isla said. “And there’s banoffee pie too, Ellie’s favourite.”

Blake grinned. “Why do I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven?”

He pulled out a seat for Ellie and she took it. Then he unbuttoned his jacket and sat next to her.

“A true gentleman as well,” said Isla. “How refreshing.”

“Completely and utterly.” Ellie grinned at Blake, the sparkle in his eyes telling her he was also thinking about the journey here.

“Are you okay?” Blake took her hand and rubbed the inside of her wrist with his thumb. The touch sent a bolt of longing to the soft, warm places Ellie had been trying to ignore.

“I’m more than okay,” she said.

How had she got so lucky? Even the thought of it, that this might just be luck, made her panic.

Slow down , she told herself. You’re still cursed, Ellie Mae. Don’t let this fool you .

What if she was reading it wrong? What if Blake was just here because he felt sorry for her, or because he knew it was a good place to hide from the world?

What if he didn’t care at all? A million doubts circled her mind like a cloud of squawking crows and she pulled her hand away, pretending to fiddle with her cutlery.

Isla served up French toast with crème br?lée and lashings of freshly whipped cream.

She warmed the brownies in the oven before putting down a plate of them along with a cake stand replete with banoffee pie.

Ellie realised that she was right — that Blake didn’t just have eyes for her, because he looked at the food like he was in love with it.

He devoured two brownies, a slice of French toast, and a piece of pie in almost as many minutes before crashing back in his chair and putting a hand over his stomach.

“That was amazing,” he said. “But I think I might have overdone it.”

Isla laughed, fixing up coffee for her and Blake, and tea for Ellie.

They chatted while they drank, Isla asking Blake a hundred and one questions, all of which he answered with candour and humour.

He spoke about his own upbringing, about his father and mother running the restaurant.

He spoke about how he hadn’t seen them in a while and Ellie could see the sadness wash over him.

Isla laughed and nodded and gave her sad face in all the right places.

Ellie could tell instantly how much her mum liked him.

It made her relax a little, because her mum had always been a great judge of character.

It was only when Blake reached the end of his teenage years that Ellie started to worry.

“And what do you do now?” Isla asked, the question that Ellie had been dreading. But there was no escaping it. If she and Blake were going to be . . . whatever they were — friends? A couple? Ellie didn’t know, but either way her mum would find out the stories about him.

Ellie took her glasses off and cleaned them on her dress, replacing them with a sigh. She shared a look with Blake.

“I work in IT,” he said. “A company called Heartbook.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Isla said, nodding. “The social whatsit thing. Ellie tried to get me to create an account once, so we could Hearttime or whatever, but I could never get the hang of it. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned telephone?”

“Absolutely nothing,” said Blake.

“What do you do for them?” Isla asked. “IT? Wasn’t there some kind of scandal yesterday? Some inappropriate comments or something? I saw it on the news. What was the guy’s name . . . uh . . . Burt, or Bryant, or . . .”

Ellie saw the moment it clicked. Her mum’s eyes widened and she looked at Blake, then at Ellie, then back at Blake.

“Or Blake,” Blake said, and the air seemed to deflate out of him. “Look, I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s not true.” Ellie grabbed his hand and pulled it on to her lap. “It’s all a lie. Blake didn’t say the things they accused him of.”

To her surprise, her mum reached over and took Blake’s other hand, holding it tight between her own. He looked at her, and for all his handsomeness and strength he looked nervous, as if her mum’s opinion really mattered.

“Blake, my Ellie Mae is one of the most decent and most wonderful human beings on this entire planet.”

“I know,” he said, but she hushed him.

“What I’m saying is that she sees people — she sees them for exactly who they are. Even with Josh, at heart she knew what kind of person he was. She just didn’t admit it to herself.”

Tears stung her eyes at her mum’s words.

For so long, she’d carried the quiet fear that her mum had judged her for her disastrous choice in Josh.

But hearing those words of pride now was like a balm to her soul, washing away the lingering doubts.

Deep down, she’d known her mum believed in her — she just hadn’t been ready to trust it.

And somehow, her mum had always understood that too.

“Ellie can look into a person’s eyes and read their soul, and if she has looked into your eyes, and if she has read your soul and understood what kind of man you are, then I trust her completely.

If she tells me you are kind and you are decent, then I believe it.

I can almost see it myself. Here, in my house, nothing matters but happiness.

So forget about it all while you’re here. ”

“Thank you,” Blake said. “I can’t tell you what that means to me. I hope I live up to what she sees, what you both see. There are things I’ve done that I feel ashamed of. I’m not perfect. I’m a long way from that.”

Ellie wasn’t sure if that last part was true, but his words made her pause. She had known Blake for less than two days — who knew what kind of secrets lay behind that smile?

Isla let go of him, and he scrubbed at his face with his free hand.

He looked at Ellie, and she could see the war waging inside his thoughts.

He wanted to do the right thing, she knew.

And for him, the right thing was leaving her so that she wouldn’t be associated with his alleged crimes.

But he felt something for her, she was sure of it, something powerful and something right.

“Thank you,” he said again. “But now I’ve got you here safely, maybe I should go. I can—”

“I want you to stay,” Ellie said. “I want to escape, and I want you to escape with me. It’s just a weekend. Whatever happens on Monday, I just want the next two days to be about us. I want us to be free.”

Blake nodded, but the sadness was still there. Ellie looked at her mum, and her mum sighed.

“It’s late,” Isla said, standing up. “Why don’t you two go to bed. I made you up separate rooms in the main house.” She smiled at Ellie, the twinkle in her eye growing brighter. “But they’re right next door to each other.”

“Mum!” Ellie said, and they both laughed.

Blake relaxed a little. “That’s really kind of you,” he said. “But I’m going to have to ask you for one huge favour.”

He sounded deadly serious, but then he smiled and reached for the plate of brownies. “I’m going to have to insist that you let me take these up with me.”