Page 4 of Suddenly Desired (APEX Billionaires’ Club #2)

ELLIE

What was she doing? Did she think Blake Fielding was going to notice her hips, chase her down and declare his undying love? Or even offer her a job at Heartbook, which was the more unrealistic of the two right now. She almost laughed out loud at the idea.

Blake Fielding in the flesh.

She knew all about him, of course, because she’d wanted to work for Heartbook for so long.

She knew about his childhood, his breakthrough invention at a school science fair, his enrolment then abrupt exit from Cambridge.

She’d followed his career from startups to the moment Heartbook became a household name.

Ellie even remembered his quirky, obscure interviews from the early days, the ones where he had talked about his family and the way their lovingly competitive sides came out over a game of charades.

He had stopped talking about his family when he became a household name, and Ellie didn’t blame him.

The press were intrusive enough with Blake.

What Ellie hadn’t imagined, though, was that he’d be so handsome.

She’d seen a few photos of Blake, mainly from his Heartbook page, but none came anywhere close to doing him justice.

He was an exquisite, imposing presence — sky-tall, biceps not even pretending to be contained by his suit jacket, eyes like a galaxy of bright blue planets that had sucked her into their orbit and—

Ellie, enough. Jeez. Focus.

She had to focus on where she was going because her legs felt like she’d just run a marathon, and her brain wasn’t much better. She was so caught up in her thoughts that she bumped into a Ford SUV and apologised to it.

What was it about Blake that was causing Ellie’s brain fog? Sure, he was gorgeous, but he had something else going for him that made it seem as though he was the nucleus of his own galaxy. Of course he did, though. People didn’t become billionaires by being ordinary, did they?

But he was being really, really weird — even by Ellie’s standards. She thought she was bad for wittering on, but he had taken it to a whole new level. That rambling explanation about not saying those things.

It should have come off as suspicious, but it hadn’t. There had been something so earnest in his expression, something so desperate. He was a nervous speaker, but there was a confidence there too, and she wondered if that confidence came from the fact he was telling the truth.

And wasn’t that the million-pound question? Was he telling the truth?

Ellie spotted the car, an ancient Toyota that she’d borrowed from her boss Lissa, and wound her way around a few bonnets to get to it.

Oh. My. Gosh , she thought as she climbed in. What was that?

She sat there for a moment, hands gripping the steering wheel, playing the scene over and over in her head.

Her heart raced. That was Blake Fielding, one of the richest men on the planet, one of the cleverest tech entrepreneurs in the business.

And there she was wittering on about things being easy.

She slapped a hand to her forehead, imagining him laughing at her stupidity.

If the headlines were anything to go by, he’d be doing just that — mocking her for being an incompetent female — but she couldn’t match those rumours with the honest and open man she’d just met.

He’d seemed sincere, hadn’t he? Like he genuinely cared about what she thought. But men like Blake Fielding didn’t care about people like her. They didn’t stop in the middle of a crisis to explain themselves to nobodies.

“It doesn’t matter,” she told herself, firmly.

It wasn’t like she’d ever meet him again, or get her dream job at Heartbook.

She’d chalk this whole day up as a disaster, as another example of the Ellie Mae Curse, and then go back to work with a smile on her face and a hole in her soul. She hadn’t even told him her name.

Ellie started the engine, feeling like she was about to cry. The rumble of the vehicle cut through the car park as she wound down the window to get some fresh air. She was about to put the car in gear when her phone buzzed. She groaned, fumbling through her bag.

The screen lit up with her mum’s name. Ellie hesitated, her thumb hovering over the green answer button, but she didn’t have the energy to explain what had happened. Not now.

“Sorry, Mum,” she muttered, letting the call go to voicemail.

She threw her phone back in her bag and something caught her eye. Or, rather, the absence of something. Her notebook — the one she carried everywhere, full of the most intimate details of her life — was missing.

Her breath hitched.

“Oh no, no, no, no,” she whispered, frantically rifling through the bag again as if her notebook would appear by magic.

But it wasn’t there.

And Ellie knew exactly where it was.