My Antisocial Billionaire: A Clean Billionaire Romance (My Billionaire A-Z Book 1)

by Katie Evergreen

  A Billionaire Books Ltd Ebook.

  Copyright © 2018 by Katie Evergreen

  All rights reserved.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  For Mom and Dad

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Continue Reading…

  1

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  1

  Blake Fielding gently closed his laptop. The blood had drained from his face, turning his usually olive skin ashen. Five people stared at him from the other side of the wide boardroom table, their eyes cold, their mouths thin, hard lines.

  “I don’t know how this happened,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. His hands were shaking so much he had to rest them on the shiny walnut veneer. It was the truth, he didn’t know how this had happened. It was impossible. Every single Heartbook account was secure. But as the founder of the multi-billion-dollar social media network, his account had been triple-locked. Nobody on the planet should have been able to breach it, yet that very morning somebody had—and in doing so they had set about destroying his life.

  “The evidence suggests that you posted these yourself,” said Agnes Mason, adjusting her thin glasses and brushing a strand of grey hair from her forehead. There was a sheaf of printouts in front of her and she picked up the top sheet, reading from it. “‘A woman’s place is in the kitchen.’ This was posted four weeks ago, and the evidence suggests it was sent from the computer in your office. I’m seventy-two years old, Blake, and this kind of attitude was tiresome enough back when I was young.”

  “Agnes,” Blake said. He tugged at his tie, the expensive suit making him uncomfortable. He didn’t feel at home in anything other than jeans and a T-shirt, but David Wyvern, his right-hand man, had told him to dress smart, dress powerful. The board were out for blood, and he needed every bit of help available. “You know me. You’ve known me for almost ten years. I would never say something like that.”

  “What about this one?” boomed Mike O’Connell, jabbing a finger onto the document that sat in front of him. “You say, ‘In my experience, women lack the intelligence necessary to run a business, any business.’ I mean, come on Blake, half our shareholders are women.”

  “And apparently you think we should all be at your beck and call,” said Michelle Carlson, her glossy red lip curling into a smirk. Blake glanced at her, trying not to let the hatred show on his face. Michelle sat directly opposite him, looking like a cut-out from a fashion magazine. Her blonde hair was perfectly styled, her Yves Saint Lauren dress so new and exclusive it wasn’t even in the stores yet. She was the picture-perfect California beauty, and it was this that had drawn him to her a year ago when she’d joined the board. Six months into their courtship, though, and he’d come to understand that beneath her flawless exterior lay a devious and dangerous mind. Even now, all these weeks after he’d politely excused himself from their relationship, she still bore a grudge. “Were you always such a brute? I can’t remember.”

  “I didn’t post it,” Blake protested, pushing back his chair and standing up. He walked to the window, looking at the bustling plaza ten storeys below. It was his kingdom, he’d built the entire campus from scratch when Heartbook had floated on the stock market six years ago. Over a thousand people worked here, and right now he’d have traded places with any one of them, even if it meant giving up his fortune. He turned back into the room, blinking the California sunshine from his eyes. “I didn’t post any of it,” he said, looking at each of the board members in turn, holding Michelle’s gaze for as long as he could bear it. “You all know me. You all knew my mother, too, god rest her soul. You all know how she brought me up. These posts are an attack on me, and an attack on the company.”

  “He’s right,” said David, running a hand through his prematurely silvering hair. “This doesn’t seem like Blake at all. Let’s at least look at other explanations before we start a full-blown witch hunt.”

  “The explanations don’t matter,” said Maurice Becker, checking the time on the fob watch he kept in the pocket of his crimson waistcoat. “What matters is that these posts became public at 6:03 am. They went viral at 11:40 am. And shares in Heartbook had tumbled nearly twenty-five percent by noon.” He shook his head, fixing his old, watery eyes on Blake. “My boy, public condemnation is a powerful thing. It can topple even the mightiest empire. You have to make a choice. Save yourself, or save this company. Take the hit, Blake. Announce your resignation.”

  “No,” he said. He may have been thirty-one years old, his body sculpted from his daily gym routine, but right now he felt like a weak, frightened child. “I won’t give up. I won’t let this happen.”

  “At the end of the day, it’s not up to you,” said Agnes sadly, straightening her papers. “It’s a decision for the board. I say we vote on it.”

  “I agree,” said Michelle, the grin practically splitting her face in two. “I vote we take out the trash.”

  “Wait,” said David, holding up his hand to Michelle. “I agree, we should vote. But we can’t do anything hasty. Blake founded this company. Without him, none of us would be sitting here. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, give him a chance to explain himself.”

  Maurice sighed, then nodded.

  “Twenty-four hours,” he said, standing up. “We meet back here tomorrow.”

  “But if the shares keep tumbling, then we act immediately,” said Agnes, folding her glasses and sliding them into the pocket of her shirt. “We have to extinguish the fire before it consumes us all. So think hard about how you want to play this, Blake.”

  One by one the board members left, all except for Michelle. She walked to the glass door, flicking her hair back.


  “It’s game over, Blake,” she said. “You’ve only got yourself to blame.”

  Then she was gone too, plunging the room into silence. Only David stayed where he was. Blake rested his fists on the table, hanging his head.

  “How did this happen?” he asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense,” said David. “Who wouldn’t want to take you down? You’re worth six billion dollars, you’re one of the richest people in the country, Heartbook is one of the most popular platforms on the planet. And you’re you, Blake, you’re like some Greek god who’s stepped right off an island into the world of mortals. Between crazy, jealous hackers, love rivals, ex-girlfriends, and our social media competitors, you must have more enemies than most.”

  Blake almost laughed. He’d been blessed with his father’s athletic physique and his mother’s bright blue eyes, sure, and he’d looked after himself his whole life, the way his mother had taught him to. But he was no Greek god—not in his own eyes, anyway. You had to be strong to be a god, you had to be decisive, you had to be fearless. Right now he was none of those things.

  “You believe me though, right?” Blake said, looking at his friend. They’d met at Harvard, over ten years ago now, and even though Blake had dropped out, and David had gone on to complete his degree, they trusted each other like brothers. He didn’t know what he would do without David’s level head and fierce intelligence. “You know I’d never write those things?”

  David got up, walking around the table and opening his arms. They hugged, clapping each other on the back. When they parted, David kept his hands on Blake’s wide shoulders, not breaking eye contact.

  “Blake, I know your mother would have tanned your hide if you’d even thought stuff like that,” he said. “I know you’re not a bad guy. You’re one of the most decent people I’ve ever met.”

  “Thank you,” said Blake, turning away so David wouldn’t see the sparkle of tears in his eyes. Once again he stared out of the window, losing himself in the warm, yellow glow.

  “But the trouble is nobody really knows you,” David went on. “You’ve always been antisocial. You’ve always eschewed the public eye. You never do interviews, and even your profile on Heartbook is just the surface stuff, there’s no depth there, no you.”

  He was right. Blake had always hated attention, and had done everything to avoid it, even throughout his meteoric rise. He figured people might think him aloof, or arrogant, but that had never really concerned him. Now, thanks to these mystery posts on his page—over a hundred of them, dated from eight months ago to as recently as today, all suddenly public—people had started to hate him. And it was so much harder to defend yourself when nobody knew the real you.

  “Look, we’ve got a day to fix this,” said David. “It’s not long, but we can do it. Take some time, get away from the office for a while. Let me look into it, I’ll marshal the tech team and we’ll figure this out, I promise.”

  “Okay,” said Blake. “Do what you can. But I’m going to get to the bottom of this myself.”

  “I know you will,” said David. “Go on, I’ll hold the board at bay.”

  Blake wasn’t sure if even David could do that. Maurice and Agnes had been looking for an excuse to fire him for years now, so that they could divide the Heartbook spoils between themselves. Blake had always wanted Heartbook to be something good, a social network that was a positive force in the world, but as soon as the money had started to roll in the vultures had arrived. The honest truth was that Blake didn’t even enjoy his job now. All these years he’d thought of Heartbook as his way to escape from the real world, but now he was a prisoner in his own social network. As for Michelle, she just hated him. This might be just the excuse the board needed to send him to the gallows—figuratively speaking, of course. He offered his hand to David, who shook it, then he made his way to the door.

  “Oh, and Blake,” said David. “You might want to keep a low profile. There are a lot of haters out there.”

  2

  Something weird was happening.

  Ellie Mae Woodward looked up from her notepad and adjusted her glasses, seeing a line of people walking swiftly through reception. They all looked panicked, and for a moment she wondered if the fire alarm had gone off. But it would have to be the world’s worst fire alarm, because there was no noise other than the hushed, frantic whispers of the crowd—that and the constantly ringing phones from the wide, curved reception desk on the other side of the lobby. A man and a woman sat there, red-faced and flustered as they fielded call after call.

  Maybe it wasn’t weird, she thought. Maybe this was just how it was here every day. This was the world headquarters for Heartbook, after all. It would be unusual if it wasn’t a hive of activity. Wasn’t that one of the reasons she’d always wanted to work here?

  But she was Ellie Mae Woodward. Things had a habit of turning weird as soon as she got involved.

  “Ah nuts!” said the man who was sitting two seats away from her in the large, sun-drenched lobby. He was staring at his phone with an expression of angry disappointment, and with another grumbled curse he stood up and walked out. There were seven other people here and they all started looking at their phones too. Three of them packed up their things and walked out silently, joining the throng of people who were exiting the building.

  Ellie dropped her pink Moleskine notebook into her handbag. It was full of neatly written notes for her job interview today, as well as just about every other thought that had entered her head recently. It took her a while to find her phone in the clutter, and when she did the ancient Samsung didn’t have a signal—even though they were smack bang in the heart of Silicon Valley. Another young woman, with a face like an A-list actress and clothes to match, was trotting out of the lobby and Ellie called out to her as she passed.

  “Excuse me, do you know what’s going on?”

  Either her quiet voice didn’t register, or the woman was too rude to answer. She pushed through the doors and disappeared into the crowd that was forming on the plaza outside.

  This is really weird, Ellie thought, wondering if the curse of Ellie Mae really had struck again. She swallowed her nerves and picked up her bag, clutching it to her chest as she walked to the reception desk. Both receptionists were speaking into their headsets and she listened to them, pretending to study a Heartbook welcome pack in the rack by the desk.

  “… I’m very sorry, all tours are cancelled today. Uh-huh, Uh-huh, if you send us an email we’ll be able to refund the cost. I’m very sorry…”

  “… not in today, all meetings have been rescheduled. No, you’ll have to talk to Mr Fielding and I’m afraid he’s not in right now, and if you print that without comment then you’ll have to answer to our legal team.”

  The man pressed the button on his headset and looked wearily at Ellie.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, the phone already ringing again.

  “Um, yes,” Ellie said, tucking a strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ear. She gave him her best smile, the only thing she ever seemed to be complimented on. “I was here for the interview, for the design team post. We were told to wait in reception.”

  The man laughed, but there was no humour there.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, the word instantly causing her hackles to rise. “Look around you. And maybe check your phone. Do you honestly think we’re recruiting right now?” He pressed the button on his headset and waved her away like she was a fly. “Heartbook HQ, how may I direct your call?”

  Ellie hesitated, stunned by his rudeness. After taking a steadying breath she turned and walked across the lobby, wanting nothing more than to get away. There was a cluster of people by the doors, all of them speaking furiously into their cellphones. She squeezed between them, apologising, then stepped out of the crisp, air-conditioned building into a blast of California summer.

  This was typical. She’d worked so hard to get the interview with her dream company. She’d spent week
s preparing her application, writing at least seven drafts of the cover letter that she had attached to her CV. Hundreds of people would be going for the job, she knew, and with her complete lack of experience and failed academic career she really only had one thing going for her: her enthusiasm and energy. Well, that and the fact that she had spent the last few years designing her own social network, called LifeWrite, which was based around her love of books.

  This interview was her one opportunity to show Heartbook just how perfect she was for the job, and just how valuable she would be to the company, and maybe even give her the chance to pitch LifeWrite to the boss. And now it didn’t even look like she was going to get past reception.

  “You really are cursed,” she told herself as she pushed and mumbled her way through the crowd. Several times she tried to catch people’s eyes as she went, hoping that somebody would explain the situation to her. But everyone was too busy, and she was far too shy to make herself heard. By the time she’d reached the path that led back to the parking lot she was convinced that there was no way she could have done the job anyway, because surely you needed a backbone to work for a company like this.

  Never mind. Her current job wasn’t exactly awful, was it? There wasn’t a great deal of stress in waiting tables in a bookstore café, and she’d just been promoted to assistant manager with twice the responsibility and an extra dollar on the hour. And her intensely irritating ex-boyfriend Josh only turned up once a day—sometimes twice—to beg for her to come back to him. It could be so much worse.