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

by Katie Evergreen

  He climbed into a pair of jeans, complementing them with a plain gray T-shirt that clung to his athletic frame. For the first time all day he felt like he could breathe. Recovering the bright pink notebook from his jacket, he walked through to the living area and sat on the battered sofa, his mom’s perfume still rising from it and wrapping him in a hug. With it came her sweet voice, lodged in his memory.

  This place is too big for you, Blake. I don’t want you here alone. Find a woman, a sweet and fierce and intelligent and kind woman, beautiful on the inside and the out. Find your equal, somebody as wonderful as you, somebody who makes you realize that there is more to life than work and money.

  He’d just started dating Michelle when mom’s illness had reached its final stage, and he’d known from the moment he first introduced them that she hadn’t approved of her. Michelle had been his equal in many ways, she’d made her own money, she was a powerful and independent businesswoman, but even though her smiles had been wide, they had never quite reached her eyes. And his mom had always told him to watch out for people with warm smiles and cold eyes. He just wished she’d lived long enough to know that he’d ended it.

  He just wished she’d lived long enough to see him find the right woman.

  Maybe you have, he told himself, his thoughts turning to the mysterious woman he’d collided with by the river. It was ridiculous. He’d only just met her, and they had spoken for less than a couple of minutes. But there was something about her that made it impossible to get her out of his mind. It was her eyes, he knew. When she had smiled, her eyes had lit up—a warm smile, warm eyes, warm everything. He’d been drawn to her in a way that he’d never felt with anyone, certainly not since he’d become a billionaire and all that women seemed concerned with was his wallet.

  He pulled the bright pink notepad from his breast pocket, opening it up on the first page. Her handwriting was small but full of loops, straying from the line. If mom was here she’d have taken a look at it and given Blake an instant report on her personality, but even though she was gone he felt he could guess. The small letters indicated that she was shy, introverted maybe. But the loops showed that she was creative and expressive, not afraid to do her own thing. The fact that she’d missed out the first two fields for name and address, then added a cute message into the space for the reward, gave the impression that she didn’t always follow the rules. And the three exclamation marks matched her smile perfectly, her energy contagious.

  His heart seemed to do a somersault in his chest as he thought about how it would feel to discover her personality for real—over quiet drinks in a bar, walks down the beach, maybe even right here, in his apartment. He thought about how it would feel to have her sit next to him, smiling as she talked about her life. Even though the penthouse was air conditioned, he still felt like he was melting.

  Then his stomach clenched and he snapped the book closed.

  “Focus!” he ordered himself. There were more important things he needed to do.

  He placed the notepad onto the coffee table and walked through the open plan kitchen and dining area into the small extra bedroom he used as a home office. He opened up one of the three laptops he kept there, logging into the Heartbook mainframe. On another he opened Google, searching for his name. He instantly regretted it, the landing page lighting up with articles about the things that had been posted on his account.

  He scrolled through the first few entries, his anger and frustration growing with each one. The posts weren’t just controversial, they were hateful. Whoever had posted them had a serious problem with women. Nobody sane would say the things that they were saying, even if they were just doing it to frame him. It made him feel physically sick.

  The comments were worse. It seemed as if the world had already judged him guilty. On all the social media networks, including his own, people were calling on him to resign, to leave the country, to leave the planet, and a whole lot worse as well. He wanted to respond to them all, to protest his innocence, but he knew that would be a mistake. He needed evidence first, then he could clear his name.

  He snapped the second laptop shut and focused on the first, using his Heartbook passwords to access the site databases. Pressing enter, he was greeted by a pop-up message denying him access.

  Weird, he thought. He tried again, but it wasn’t letting him in.

  He pulled his cell from his pocket, calling David.

  “Hey, Blake,” his friend said, answering after a single ring. “Hope you’re staying away from the news, buddy, they’re not taking any prisoners.”

  “I’m trying to log in,” he replied, getting straight to the point. “What’s going on?”

  He heard David sigh, and instantly knew the answer.

  “They’ve locked me out,” Blake said. “Who gave the order?”

  “Blake,” said David. “It’s protocol, the whole network is in lockdown. We’ve lost a quarter of a million users already, it’s for—”

  “Who, David?” he interrupted, getting out of his seat so that the full authority of his voice made it across the airwaves. “Tell me, now.”

  “Michelle,” David said, telling Blake what he already knew. “She ordered it the moment the meeting ended. I only just found out myself.”

  “She doesn’t have the power to do that,” said Blake, his whole body shaking with rage. “It’s my company.”

  “Not since it floated,” David said. “She had Maurice’s backing, Agnes too.”

  Blake bit his tongue. He knew David was right. Even though he and David had built Heartbook together, they didn’t control it any more. If the board had a majority, then any decision they passed was law.

  “I’m doing what I can,” said David, his voice crackling over the line. “But the posts are still appearing, going back further. They’re getting worse, too. There’s nothing you can do from there. Let me handle it.”

  Blake nodded.

  “Handle it,” he said. “Please.”

  The line went dead. Blake laid the cell gently on the desk, wondering when he was going to wake up, wondering when all of this would just turn out to be a dream.

  And despite everything, he felt a rush of disappointment at the thought, because if today had been a dream, then the woman by the river didn’t exist.

  “You really are losing your mind,” he said to himself.

  Then do something to make yourself better, said a voice in his memory, his mom’s face smiling warmly from the shadows of the room. Go and find somebody to remind you that life isn’t just about how much money you have in your pocket.

  She was right. She was always right.

  He made his way back to the living area, grabbing a gray sports hoodie from his wardrobe and zipping it up. He put up his hood, donning a pair of aviator sunglasses from the table by the door. Glancing in the mirror, he could be anyone, just an average guy out for a walk. He picked up the pink book again, reading the note:

  No money to give you, but come down to The Bookworm Cafe and I’ll make you a coffee!!!

  It might all end in nothing. She might not even be there. But it felt like the right thing to do. And heaven knew he needed a coffee.

  He was smiling as he entered the elevator.

  Heaven knew he needed to see the mystery woman, too.

  7

  “Honestly, Ellie, take the hint and go home.”

  Lissa was taking cups out of the dishwasher, wiping them with a cloth before stacking them carefully on the shelf. The last customer was long gone, and even Josh had given up an hour or so ago, heading home to mope. Ellie had wiped the tables and mopped the floor—twice—and even cleaned the small toilet that serviced the café. She’d run out of things to keep her here.

  “Go!” Lissa said again. “You’re twenty-seven. Don’t waste your life in this place, go do something fun.”

  That was the problem, though. She had nowhere to go, and nothing fun to do. Her greatest pleasure in life was reading, but she didn’t even feel like doing that. S
he was too distracted by the fact that the day had been a complete and utter failure, and that her life was going absolutely nowhere.

  “I’ll finish the cups,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose.

  “Go!” Lissa said again, flapping the dishrag at her. “Or I’ll fire you on the spot.”

  “Fine, fine,” Ellie surrendered. “I can tell when I’m not wanted. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Sure,” said Lissa. “But only until you get another interview and get the CEO job at Heartbook. It will probably be vacant soon.”

  Ellie tried to smile, settling instead for a wave. She grabbed her bag from the back room, deciding to keep her uniform on. It was early evening, and even though the temperature was mild it didn’t seem like dress weather any more. Slinging her bag on her shoulder, she marched out of the café, calling out goodbye to Lissa. She dug her phone out, trying not to notice the depressing lack of text messages—apart from another two from her mom demanding to know how the interview had gone.

  Sorry mom, she said, shouldering her way out of the door whilst trying to scroll to her contact details. She was just hitting dial when she thumped into something solid, the shock of it making her drop her phone.

  “Oh, gosh, sorry!” she said, hearing the person she’d collided with ‘oof’ with pain. She reached down, snatching up her phone. “I’ve really got to—oh!”

  She looked up at the person she’d walked in to, and she couldn’t believe her eyes. He was dressed differently, in jeans and a sweatshirt rather than a suit, his face half-concealed beneath his hood and aviator shades, but there was no denying who it was. Even if her eyes hadn’t recognized him, her heart instantly did, kicking against her ribs so hard it was almost painful. He rubbed his stomach, wincing.

  “We really should stop meeting like this,” he said, the corner of his mouth rising in a shy smile.

  “What are you…” she stammered. “I mean, why… How…?”

  She swallowed, shaking her head in disbelief. She’d been thinking about Blake all afternoon, and now here he was, as if she had conjured him from thin air. And she had literally no idea what to say to him. It was like she’d forgotten how to form the simplest sentence. What next? Was she going to start drooling? There was a good chance of that anyway, of course, because somehow he’d managed to look even hotter in his casual clothes than he had in his suit. Even past the loose-fitting hoodie she could see the lines of his muscle, and his jeans were so snug they might have been painted on.

  “Uh…” she said, trying not to stare. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, wondering if he’d somehow used his Heartbook billions to track her down. “How did you know where I…”

  He pulled her notebook from the back pocket of his jeans, offering it to her. She almost slapped a hand to her head again, only just managing to stop herself—she’d already made a complete fool of herself in front of him, twice!

  “Thank you so much,” she said. “You don’t know what it means to have this back.”

  “It’s really not a problem,” he said. “It’s the least I could do. I’m just glad I found you.”

  Ellie felt her cheeks start to burn, and it was only partly to do with the tall, gorgeous man who stood in front of her.

  “You didn’t, um, read it, did you?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, and she almost had time to be relieved before he added, “I mean, I tried not to, I didn’t read it, not like a book or anything, but I wasn’t sure who it belonged to, so I glanced at it. Not all of it, just enough. Just a couple of pages.”

  He was blushing too, she saw, and it made him adorable. He was as nervous as she was, which didn’t seem possible given that he was a world-renowned billionaire and she was… well, she was Ellie Mae Woodward, queen of nobodies.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Please forgive me.”

  “I forgive you,” she said. “You made up for it by bringing it back.”

  They stood in silence for a moment. Or almost silence, anyway, because Ellie could hear a small, tinny voice coming from nearby. She suddenly realized who it was, lifting her phone to her ear to hear her mom hollering down it.

  “Oh, mom, hey, I’m sorry,” she said. “Give me a minute, I’ll call you back.”

  “Don’t you dare—” her mom said, but she ended the call and stuffed the cell back into her bag. She half wished she’d kept the call going because she had no idea what to say, and neither did Blake. But it wasn’t an awkward silence, it felt too comfortable for that.

  “I owe you a reward,” she said. “It’s not much, I’m afraid. But let me get you a coffee.”

  “I was really hoping you were going to say that,” he said. “I mean, about having coffee, not you taking me for one. Not that I’d mind you taking me for one.”

  He witters more than I do, Ellie thought, unable to contain her smile. It must have been contagious because he smiled back, taking off his sunglasses so that he could look at her. Even in the shade of his hood his eyes were impossibly bright, full of summer.

  “I really wouldn’t mind you taking me for one,” he said again, his eyes never leaving hers. She felt like she could melt into the sidewalk, and she distracted herself by sliding the notebook into her bag and fussing with things that really didn’t need fussing with. She turned around to open the door to the café, seeing Lissa wide-eyed behind the counter, the dishrag frozen in her hands. Even behind the glass Ellie could see her mouthing “Wow!”

  “Uh, I know the reward said Bookworm’s,” she said. “But can we go somewhere else?”

  “Anywhere,” he replied. “You name it.” He popped his lips, looking down the street. “Just nowhere too public?”

  She remembered why he was out here in disguise, the pleasant glow she felt over her whole body fading a fraction. Right now, everyone in the city thought that Blake Fielding was a sexist pig, and for all she knew he really might be. She was amazed he’d dared to even leave his office.

  But he’d told her he was innocent, and she’d already decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, this might be the perfect opportunity to find out for certain.

  “I know the perfect place,” she said, resisting the sudden urge to slide her arm through his. “Just let me call my mom back first.”

  8

  It really was the perfect place, a dingy basement restaurant lit by soft wall lights and flickering candles. The only other customers were an old guy propping up the bar and a couple talking quietly at a corner table, their hands clasped tight and their eyes full of love. Blake watched them. He couldn’t remember the last time he had looked at a woman like that, and he wasn’t sure if he could remember a time at all that a woman had looked at him with such affection. It broke his heart to think it.

  “So, what’s your poison?” asked the mystery woman, taking her purse from her bag. The print matched the dress she’d been wearing earlier, little hearts with glasses.

  “I can’t let you buy me a drink,” he replied, taking off his sunglasses and pulling down his hood. It would make him instantly recognizable, he knew, but there were so few people in here he hoped it wouldn’t matter. “Please, let me.”

  “No way,” she said, pushing her glasses into place again. Every time she did it her nose wrinkled, something he found indescribably cute. “A deal’s a deal. You returned my notebook, I buy you a coffee.”

  “In that case I’ll take a double shot espresso, no milk, no sugar.”

  She whistled, impressed.

  “That’s a serious coffee,” she said. “One serious coffee coming up.”

  She turned to the bar, speaking to the young woman behind it. Blake didn’t know what to do with himself. He was always the guy who made the orders, and who paid. He could buy this whole bar with a cheque right now. He could buy the whole street without making a dent in his bank accounts. Yet here was his mystery woman, counting out battered dollar bills onto the bar to buy him
a coffee.

  “Keep the change,” she said.

  “Cheers,” said the barmaid. “I’ll bring them over.”

  “Thanks!” the mystery woman said. “How about over there?”

  She started walking without waiting for an answer, leading him to a small booth along the back wall. She slid into one side and he sat facing her, feeling the heat of the candle on his skin. The soft light lit her perfectly, casting shapes of color on her flawless face, catching in her glasses. It took his breath away, and for a moment he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Luckily, she was a little more composed than he was.

  “Is your day going any better?”

  He laughed, reality flooding back into his head. Somehow, sitting here with her had made him forget about everything.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I mean, no, not at all. Worse, if anything. But better for being here with you.”

  He caught himself before he said too much.

  “I mean, with someone who doesn’t hate me,” he said. “Or who hides it very well, at least. You might hate me. I don’t know. I don’t even know your name.”

  She laughed, covering her mouth with a slender hand.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “It’s Ellie. Ellie Mae Woodward.”

  She stretched the same hand over the table and he took it, holding it for a fraction longer than he should have. It almost felt like she didn’t want to let go either.

  “I’m Blake,” he said quietly, and she laughed again. He felt like slapping a hand to his forehead. “But of course you knew that already.”

  “You’re quite a celebrity,” she said. “More so today, obviously. I’m surprised you’re walking the streets.”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” he said. “I’m pretty antisocial when it comes down to it. I felt I had a civic duty to return your notebook, though.”

  “It would have waited,” she said, and he felt his heart wobble until she added, “But I’m glad you showed up.”