Page 5 of Suddenly Desired (APEX Billionaires’ Club #2)
BLAKE
Blake stood by the river, hands shoved into his trouser pockets, feeling like his pulse was humming.
He’d been dead set on leaving the campus immediately, planning to head back to his penthouse apartment and start going over the code behind his hacked account.
But he couldn’t quite bring himself to start walking again. His mind was sparking. Who was she?
A complete stranger was one answer. He met dozens of people every day, mostly with surface-level charm and hidden agendas.
He usually felt drained by the effort of meeting new people, their smiles loaded with expectations: money, influence, validation .
. . anything. But for some reason this woman had been something else entirely.
She was open, uncomplicated, like she had no idea how much light she was throwing around.
And she had lit something in Blake all right.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to figure it out.
He’d forgotten what it was like to talk to someone without all the noise getting in the way.
And for a few, sweet moments the scandal and hacked account had just fallen away.
It had just been Blake and the cute woman with pencil-stabbed hair and a body that made his own stir in ways he hadn’t felt for a long while, completely flummoxing him in the process.
He’d left the conversation totally and utterly tongue-tied, yet somehow more alive than he had felt in months.
It made no sense, but weirdly that made it matter more.
Two men were walking in his direction, and he ducked his head and turned to the water to avoid their stares.
Blake could overhear them laughing about the comments being on the money, how people were just too afraid of the ‘woke’ to say it anymore, and his stomach churned with the idea that if he reacted, he’d be adding fuel to a fire he would rather douse.
He wanted to shout at them for being neanderthals but knew it would cause trouble.
Instead, he focused on what the woman had said to him as he watched the water trickle over itself, the hot sun reflecting on the surface.
Whatever this is, it will be okay. There was no way she could possibly know that, of course, but she’d believed it — she’d believed him.
How much kindness did it take for her to say that to him?
Fifteen minutes ago he’d convinced himself that he’d lost everything, that the world would turn against him and force him into hiding, but this one show of trust from a young woman who’d accidentally barged into him by the river had given him hope.
It helped, too, that she was so attractive.
Are you insane? Blake laughed to himself.
That was the last thing he should be thinking about.
He was in enough hot water as it was. If the press even caught wind of him talking about women in that way then they’d hang him out to dry, quite rightly.
He’d have to put the way that strands of her hair had tickled her face in places he wanted to out of his mind.
And he definitely couldn’t start thinking about the way the hearts on her dress looked as she’d walked away from him.
And if he even dared to remember the way she’d bitten her bottom lip as she’d gazed up at him with eyes he could lose himself in, then he had no hope of retaining control over his own body.
Blake cleared his throat and shook his head, turning to see if he was alone again. The men had walked on, seemingly oblivious to who they’d passed. Luckily, because Blake could feel the heat in his cheeks and needed to cool off before he bumped into anyone else.
Ungentlemanly thoughts aside, he was kicking himself that he hadn’t even asked for her name.
He shook his head, heading for the secure car park beneath the security gate.
He’d only taken a few steps before he caught a glimpse of something pink lying in a clump of long grass.
Curious, he bent down and picked up a small, hardback notepad.
Brushing the dirt from the cover, he opened it up and flicked through the pages.
There were shopping lists, appointment times, at least three notes saying, Call Mum!
There were lists of resolutions, lists about how to improve posture and gain stamina and increase confidence, lists about how to attract the perfect man.
It was like an issue of Cosmo condensed into a notebook, complete with cute little illustrations and doodles.
There were what looked like diary entries too, but he didn’t read them because it felt like an intrusion.
He skipped to the last page and couldn’t help but smile as he read through what was written there.
Notes on Interview!!!!
1. DON’T MESS IT UP.
2. Talk about Heartbook. Duh, I mean, it’s an interview at Heartbook, so you’re obviously going to do that.
3. Talk about LifeWrite, because you invented it and it deserves to be discovered. EMPHASISE IT’S YOUR IDEA BECAUSE IT IS YOUR IDEA.
4. Remember Blake Fielding started with nothing, and so did you. You can be as awesome as he is. Just believe in yourself, and don’t forget the most important rule:
5. DON’T MESS IT UP!!!!
There was a cartoonish doodle underneath of a young woman in glasses fighting a monstrous, bug-eyed creature with the word CURSE written on it.
She was armed with a pencil, another one tucked in her hair, which all but confirmed that the owner of the notebook was the young woman he’d just been speaking to.
He almost laughed at the words, and at the picture, but the mention of his name there was like a punch to the gut.
You can be as awesome as he is . People had once admired and respected him.
But after today, would anybody want to be like him?
He opened the first page of the notebook, seeing a Please Return Me form. The field for the name had been left blank, as had the address, but where it said Reward there was a scribbled note.
No money to give you, but come down to The Bookworm Café and I’ll make you a coffee!!!
It wasn’t much, but it was something. Blake held on to the notebook, making his way up the river.
A bank of acacias meant that he couldn’t see the plaza from here, but he could hear the buzz of the crowd that had formed.
He wished he could walk among them unseen, if only to find out what more of them were saying.
He hoped that some of his employees were supporting him, but even within the company he’d never really let himself get close to anyone.
While he knew that most people liked him, there was nobody — outside of the boardroom, anyway — who could vouch with complete confidence that he wasn’t a sexist, woman-hating monster.
He followed the bend in the river and saw the security booth up ahead.
His Mercedes was there, and he wondered whether he should take it straight to the café mentioned in the notebook.
The woman might be heading there now, and surely she couldn’t hate him for bringing her book back.
That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?
It’s not like he was being spurred on solely by the idea of seeing her again.
He’d hand it back, wish her a bright and happy future, and tell her she was welcome back for an interview any time.
He was so caught up in the plan that he didn’t notice the cluster of people hovering around the security booth until it was too late.
He heard somebody call his name, and suddenly a dozen men and women were running down the path towards him, microphones and cameras held out like the weapons of a charging army.
His first instinct was to bolt, but he stood his ground, gritting his teeth and trying to smile at the reporters.
It was more of a grimace, he knew, made worse by the fact that his fist was balled by his side.
He forced himself to relax and to make his smile as genuine as possible.
“Mr Fielding!” said the fastest of the group, a middle-aged guy who was dressed for the sports desk. By his side was another man, a video camera mounted on his shoulder. “You’re accused of being a misogynist. Would you care to tell us why you posted those comments about women?”
He’d only just opened his mouth to deny the accusation when a woman butted in front of the guy, shaking her perm from her eyes and thrusting her phone in his face.
“‘Corrupt’, ‘indecent’, ‘selfish’, ‘cruel’, ‘pathetic’, ‘asinine’. Just some of the words you used to describe the women in your life. Just how did somebody end up with such a strong and hateful attitude towards the opposite sex. What happened to you, Blake?”
“Look,” Blake said, but the questions came too fast and too hard for him to answer. He tried to shout over them, waving them away with the little pink notebook. “I’m innocent. I categorically deny that it was me who posted those comments.”
“It was you?” asked another reporter, jamming a padded microphone at him. “Are you admitting it?”
“No, I said it wasn’t me!” he fired back, trying to control his temper. “I’ll make an official statement later today. Please, excuse me.”
He pushed past the woman with the perm, a little more forcefully than he’d intended. She dropped her phone, gasping, but he didn’t dare stop to help her. He put his head down, striding to the gate that led to the car park. The reporters followed like hyenas, still yelling questions at him.
Old Mike, the security guard who was supposed to be manning the gate, was puffing and panting down the path from the booth, his hat in his hands. “I’m sorry, Mr Fielding,” he said, his red face drenched in sweat. “I asked them not to come in, but they didn’t listen.”
“Just make sure they leave,” Blake said, using his keycard to open the gate and running into the shade and safety of the building.
He heard Mike barking orders at the crowd, ushering them out of the campus with threats of police action.
Blake waited until the world had fallen silent, massaging his head to try to ease the ache in his skull.
“That probably wasn’t as bad as it seemed,” he told himself, replaying the last five minutes. But something told him it was way worse.
He walked down the ramp to his Mercedes, opening the door and climbing inside.
He stared at the notepad for a moment, then tossed it on to the passenger seat.
There was no way he could return it now.
The press would be everywhere, and they’d be watching his every move like a hawk. The mystery woman would have to wait.
Sighing, and doing his best to shake the image of her smile from his head, he started the engine, and set off for home.