Blake looked like he was about to cry. Ellie held him tight, she held him like she meant to never let him go.
“I see the way she looks at you, and I see the way you look at her. Here, in my house, nothing matters but happiness. So forget about it all. You are family, you belong 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.
Mom let go of him, and he scrubbed at his eyes 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 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 mom, and her mom sighed.
“It’s late,” mom said, standing up. “Why don’t you two go to bed. I made you up separate rooms.” She smiled at Ellie, the twinkle in her eye growing brighter. “But they’re right next door to each other.”
“Mom!” 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 favor.”
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 to bed.”
24
Ellie lay in the same bed she’d had when she was fifteen, staring at the pop band posters on the wall and feeling more at home than she had in a long time. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t make the effort to come back more often. It was so close to San Francisco, and it was simply heaven here. Whatever happened next, she vowed, she would be sure to visit her mom at least once a month from now on.
Whatever happened next.
Ellie had no idea what that would be. It was obvious that she liked Blake—that was the understatement of the century—but things were ridiculously complicated, and if they decided to be together then she would have to accept that she was going to be in the public eye, and that the public would judge her as guilty as Blake. People would argue that she was breaking the female code by dating such a monster, and she could kiss goodbye to her career.
And what if he wasn’t being completely honest with her? He’d admitted that he wasn’t perfect, but what if there were secrets bubbling beneath the surface? What if it turned out he was just another Josh, albeit one with incredible looks and a dazzling personality?
Was it worth it?
Ellie rolled over, scrunching her pillow beneath her head. Her glasses dug into her face so she took them off, placing them on the bedside table. She was wearing a pair of floral pajamas that her mom had kept for her. They were a little tight now, and smelled almost pleasantly musty, but they were still comfortable. She could hear the drum of water from the bathroom across the hall, and she did her best not to think about the fact that Blake was in there, showering. But how could she not think about it? Her head was still full of the kiss that they had shared at the airport, her lips still tingling. Her whole body ached for him in a way that she didn’t ever remember feeling before, and she knew that it was because she craved him mentally as well as physically. She wanted to give herself to him completely and utterly. She wanted to give herself to him forever.
Oh would you just listen to yourself! she thought. She sounded like a lovesick teenager and she sat up, rubbing her eyes. The feelings had to be partly exhaustion. She couldn’t remember having been this tired for a long time. Things would be clearer in the morning, she knew.
Something bleeped inside her handbag and she walked across the room, fishing out her cell. Reception up here was sketchy at best and a voicemail from Josh had just come through, even though her phone was telling her it had been left nearly two hours ago. Her face wrinkled in disgust. What did he want? It would be a desperate plea to win her back, probably by insulting her in some way. That’s what he had always done, tried to make her feel so insecure that she’d fall back into his arms.
But what if he’d messaged to tell her their apartment had burned down or something like that? It was just a message, it wasn’t like she had to speak to him. She dialled her voicemail, straining through the static to hear Josh’s whiny voice. The signal kept coming and going, so she could only make out a handful of words.
“… think you could just leave me… not fair… you’ll wish you hadn’t…”
Typical. He sounded so pathetic. Once upon a time she’d thought he was a strong guy, but he was a weakling in body and soul. He was a child. His words faded out and Ellie paced the room, opening the door to try to find a better signal.
“… didn’t think I knew but now you’ll see,” Josh went on as she walked out into the corridor. “… make something of myself, so you come crawling back…”
He faded out again and she checked the phone as she walked, tapping the screen.
“You stupid—” she started, then she collided with something big and the phone spilled from her hands. “Oh!” she said. “I’m so…”
Blake stood in front of her, completely naked apart from the towel around his waist.
“Oh!” Ellie said again, feeling her eyes wander without permission.
However she had imagined him beneath his shirt and his jacket, this was a hundred times more impressive. He was built like an athlete, his pecs wide and flat, his shoulders rounded, his abdomen a washboard of muscles. His skin was perfectly tanned, and Ellie wanted nothing more than to run her fingers across his chest, to trail them down over his stomach…
“We really should stop meeting like this,” Blake said.
She laughed, too flustered to reply. She managed to compose herself by staring at his face instead of his body, but even then it took her a couple of attempts to get the words out.
“Old habits die hard, I guess,” she said. “I’m sorry, I was just trying to hear a message.”
He must have seen something in her expression because he leant in, touching her arm.
“Is everything okay?” he asked. Ellie nodded.
“Yeah, it’s nothing. Really.”
They stood there for a moment, so close that all she had to do was lift her head and kiss him. He broke away, picking up her phone and handing it back to her.
“Let me get dressed,” he said after a moment, his words little more than a whisper. “Are you tired?”
She shook her head.
“Me neither,” he said.
He kissed her gently on the forehead, then walked into the bedroom next to hers. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to follow him in there, and she practically ran back to her room. She pushed the door to but didn’t close it, throwing her cell back into her handbag and climbing onto the bed. Her heart was revving like an engine, but there was none of the anxiety she had often felt with other men. There was excitement, sure—she didn’t know a straight woman on the planet who wouldn’t have been excited by the sight of a half-naked Blake—but it was more than that. She just wanted to be next to him.
She heard a click as Blake’s door opened, and a couple of seconds later he peeked into her room. He was wearing a pair of silky, navy blue pajamas that somehow managed to make him look even sexier than he had with nothing on but a towel.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Ellie hesitated. She wanted to
say yes more than anything, but the truth was she was scared of things moving too quickly. He seemed to sense her reluctance.
“Look, I know this has been sudden,” he said. “And completely unexpected, and I really don’t know what’s going to happen. But… but it’s wonderful. I don’t have another word for it, it’s just wonderful. I feel like I’ve met the other half of me. I feel like I’ve met my soulmate. When we talk, the world just melts away and there’s only us, only now. I’ve never felt that before, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardise it. Can we keep things slow? Can we just talk?”
Ellie nodded, feeling her heart soar. She scooched to one side, patting the bed, and he sat down next to her. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to rest her head on his chest, and she did so, listening to the rapid beat of his heart. He put a strong arm around her shoulder and pulled her tight, and for what felt like forever they sat there and talked.
Blake was right, she knew, they were soulmates. It was as if they had done this a thousand times before, in lives long past, and she revelled in the odd familiarity of it mixed with the breathtaking excitement of speaking to the man of her dreams. But something still niggled at the back of her mind. She was scared of being hurt again, of the curse coming back to haunt her. Even though she couldn’t imagine a more perfect night, part of her was still terrified that he was another Josh, and that one day he would pull away the mask and she would see what really lay beneath it.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he asked after a moment of silence. “You seem lost somewhere. I can go, if you like?”
“No,” she said, wrapping her arm around the trunk of his torso. “I don’t want you to. I just…”
How could she ask him if he was hiding anything? She didn’t want to offend him.
“You can say anything,” he said, as if he was reading her mind again. “Ask me anything, I don’t mind.”
“It’s just…” she took a deep breath, and told him everything about Josh. It was like pulling out a splinter, impossibly painful, but he held her tight and murmured soft, reassuring words until she spat out the last few sentences. “So, I’m just worried. I don’t want to risk it happening again. I want you to be honest with me. At dinner, you said you weren’t perfect, that there were things people didn’t know and things you were ashamed of. I just want to know what you meant?”
Blake didn’t reply, and Ellie felt her heart wobble. This was it. This was where he told her about some dark and horrible secret in his past. This is where he confessed that everything the world thought about him was true. This is where the Ellie Mae curse reared its ugly head and started laughing.
“There is something,” he said. “I didn’t want to tell you. It’s shameful.”
Ellie pulled back, pressing herself against the headboard. He must have seen how hurt she appeared because he withdrew into himself, staring at the floor. Ellie’s eyes burned with tears, but she refused to let them fall. She’d cried enough in front of Josh.
“It’s to do with what we were talking about on the plane,” he said quietly. “About why I wanted to escape. Heartbook was everything to me, but it also took everything from me.”
She didn’t speak, she just gave him the time he needed to work out what to say.
“I was obsessed with the company,” he said. “I lost friends, I lost relationships. I lost myself. And I lost…”
He wiped away a tear with the back of his hand.
“A while back, I was sitting in my office working on an update code for the entire network. It was huge. I’d been working on it for weeks and I was so close to the end. My mom… she was really ill at this point. She had cancer. She’d been fading for a couple of months and I knew she didn’t have long.”
He took in a huge, gasping breath.
“That night I got a call from her, on my cell. She asked me to come home because she hadn’t seen me in a while. She sounded so weak, so frail. I said I couldn’t, because of work. I said I was too busy. She begged me, but I turned her down. She begged me, and I hung up the phone. She begged me, because she knew. Deep down she knew.”
Ellie knew what he was about to say, and it broke her heart. Blake turned to her, his eyes swimming with tears.
“She knew she was dying. She knew that this was her last chance to see me. And she was right. I got another call a few hours later, this time from the hospital. She’d passed away in the night. Alone.”
“Oh, Blake,” Ellie said, tears filling her own eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
She pulled him close, and this time it was his head resting on her chest. She hugged him as tight as she was able, feeling the gentle tremors of his sobs.
“I never even got the chance to tell her I loved her,” he said.
“She knew,” Ellie replied. “She knew.”
In that moment, she knew too. She knew that she loved him more than she had loved any man, and she knew that he loved her too. Blake’s secret was just another facet of his sensitive and caring personality. It drew her to him even more. She stroked his hair, and kissed the back of his head, and with a rush of affection she whispered the words into his ear—words that she never thought she would say to anyone again.
“I love you, Blake Fielding.”
But his only reply was a gentle, heaving breath as he drifted to sleep in her lap.
25
Blake stirred, stretching out his legs and feeling the cold, hard end of a bed against his feet. He opened his eyes, seeing an unfamiliar room around him—cheesy posters on the walls, and a pink duvet cover on the bed. It took a moment for it all to come back, and when it did he sat bolt upright, the little bed creaking beneath him.
There was no sign of Ellie, and he couldn’t blame her for running away. They’d talked for hours last night, well into the morning. It had been one of the most amazing conversations of his life. He’d never been so open with anyone before. He’d never trusted anyone so deeply and truly as he trusted her.
But maybe he’d said too much. He thought back, the end of the night like a dream half remembered. He’d told her about mom, about how he’d put the company before the most important person in his life, and about how he’d left her to die alone. Then what? Had he cried himself asleep on her? What on earth would she think of him?
He climbed off the bed, walking to the window. The drapes were obviously blackout ones because when he pulled them back a shaft of sunshine punched into the room. He whisked them open, then he made his way out of Ellie’s room and into the one that her mom had made up for him. The bed had been slept in, and he understood that at some point in the night Ellie must have made her way through here. It just got more and more embarrassing. He’d pack up his stuff and make his apologies, she didn’t have to see him again if she didn’t want to.
His cell lay on his neatly folded clothes and he picked it up. There were twenty-seven missed calls, all from various members of the board. Eight voicemail messages waited for him but he couldn’t bring himself to check them. There was also a news alert announcing that he had been fired from Heartbook. Gritting his teeth, he opened it up and scrolled through it. There was a photograph of him from the press conference and he barely recognized himself—he looked like a shadow of the man he had once been. There was also a photograph of Michelle and David standing side by side, smiling smugly. According to the article, they had both been appointed the joint CEOs of the company.
He couldn’t bear to read any more, and he tossed the cell onto the bed. He only picked it up again when he remembered that he hadn’t checked the time, and when he did he couldn’t believe it. It was nearly nine—later than he had slept in years. He had no intention of ever wearing his suit again, so he opened his travel bag and pulled out a pair of Levi’s and a plain gray T-shirt. He’d come back up and pack in a minute, but he owed Ellie an apology first.
After a pit stop to wash his face and brush his teeth, he headed downstairs. He had no idea what he was going to say to her, or how she’d act toward him afte
r his confession. He was prepared for anything, or at least he thought he was, because when he walked into the dining room Ellie greeted him with an unexpectedly beautiful smile.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” she said. She was working on her laptop, a dozen piles of paper stacked around it and several notepads open to the side. A fresh mug of coffee sat in front of her and Blake licked his lips in anticipation. “I would ask you how you slept, but I don’t need to.”
“I didn’t mean to sleep for so long,” he said.
“It’s the fresh country air,” said Isla as she walked out of the kitchen. She was holding a mug of coffee and she put it down on the table. “Sit, my boy, take your time.”
“Thank you,” he said, and she smiled at him before walking back out through the door.
“I hope you don’t mind that I moved rooms,” Ellie said. “That bed was barely big enough for one person when I was fifteen, let alone two people now.”
“It was a little snug,” he said, trying to find the right words to explain himself. “Look, about last night. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how you can ever forgive me.”
Ellie frowned.
“Forgive you?” she said. “For what?”
“For what I told you, about my mom,” he said, studying his coffee so he didn’t have to meet her eye. He heard her chair scrape back, and a moment later she was standing next to him. She placed a gentle hand on his cheek, bending down to look him in the eye.
“Blake, those were the bravest words I’ve ever heard anyone say,” she said. “I didn’t know what you were going to tell me. I didn’t know what you were going to confess to. But you did nothing wrong.”
He started to protest but she stopped him.
“You loved your mom. I can see that in your eyes every time you talk about her. I can hear it in your words. And she would have seen it too, she would have heard it. She may have died by herself that night, but I know she would have gone knowing she was loved. Her last thoughts would have been of the son she raised, the amazing man who loved her more than anything. There was nobody there with her, but she wasn’t alone. Her heart and mind were full of you, and she would have had a smile on her face.”
My Antisocial Billionaire: A Clean Billionaire Romance (My Billionaire A-Z Book 1) Page 14
