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

by Katie Evergreen

  The smile was on his face before he could stop it, so big and so natural it was as if his body was acting without his permission. He could actually hear his pulse in his ears, racing into overdrive. What was wrong with him?

  “Here you go,” said the barmaid, appearing with a tray. She handed Blake his espresso and placed a huge mocha latte with cream and sprinkles in front of Ellie.

  “Anything else?” she asked, throwing Blake a strange look.

  “Not for me,” he replied, praying that she wouldn’t work out who he was.

  “I’ve got everything I need,” said Ellie. “Thank you.”

  “No worries,” said the barmaid. “Enjoy.”

  She threw another look at Blake, then walked back to the bar. Ellie scooped some cream from her drink with her finger, licking it off. She left a blob on the corner of her mouth.

  “Is this your regular hangout, then?” Blake said in an effort to stop looking at her lips. “It’s nice.”

  “No,” Ellie said. “Sometimes I come out after work with Lissa, my boss, and this place is close and quiet. I’m not one for crowds.”

  “Me neither,” he said. “Why surround yourself with a hundred people when you only really need one?”

  She nodded, taking some more cream.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I need the sugar.”

  “Hey,” he said, holding up his hands. “You never have to apologize to me for eating what you like. You’re talking to a helpless brownie addict here.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said, looking at his chest, his arms. “I can tell.”

  He laughed.

  “I have to work it off,” he said. “But it’s worth it.”

  “My boyfriend,” she said, and his stomach almost twisted into a knot. For a second the room went darker, and the feeling of loss that gripped him took him by surprise. Ellie shook her head, staring at her drink. “Not my boyfriend. My ex. He always told me I drank too much coffee and ate too much sugar. He said I needed to watch my figure more. Apologizing for it is an old habit.”

  What an ass, Blake thought.

  “Chocolate sprinkles are too good to refuse,” he said.

  “Exactly!” she said, licking her lips. “Chocolate sprinkles make everything better. You want some?”

  “Sure,” he said, and she pushed the cup across the table. He dipped a finger in and slid it into his mouth, relishing the taste. Chocolate really was one of his weaknesses.

  “Good, right?” she said.

  “Really good,” he replied. “My espresso seems massively disappointing after that.”

  “Way too serious,” she said. “Do you want one of these?”

  “I’d better not,” he said. “Unless you don’t mind me doing push-ups for half an hour afterwards to burn it off.”

  She opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again.

  Slow down! Blake ordered himself. Better yet, stop! It had been so long since he’d been face to face with a woman like this, just shooting the breeze. Dinners with Michelle had been all business, usually while dining on an $800 meal in one of San Francisco’s upmarket restaurants. Michelle had always demanded 100 per cent perfection everywhere she went, anything less was a failure in her eyes. If Blake had so much as used the wrong fork, or worn the wrong socks to complement his tie, she had berated him about it all night. It had been miserable.

  In contrast, this felt wonderful. It was as if he’d known Ellie for months, years, not half a day. There was something so natural about the way they spoke with each other, something so effortless. Ellie knew who he was, she knew what he was worth, but there was none of that fake flirting he was so used to, the blatant body language, the sickening insincerity. He didn’t get the sense at all that she was chasing his money. It felt almost like the dates he’d had before he was rich, and it made him realize how long it had been since he’d met somebody who seemed to like him for him.

  But this was dangerous, too. His company was sinking, and the board were getting ready to throw him overboard. Being seen out on a date like this might be enough to drag the whole thing down to the bottom of the ocean.

  “Are you okay?” Ellie asked, a genuine expression of concern on her face.

  “No,” he said. “Not even close. This whole thing has rocked me, I don’t know where I am any more. I don’t even know who I am.” He picked up his coffee but didn’t drink it. He just needed the warmth of the cup to take away the chill in his bones. “It’s all happened so quickly. When I woke up this morning the news hadn’t broken. Everything was great—well, you know, as great as it has been for a while. Now suddenly the whole world hates me. It’s… it’s unbearable. I’m almost glad my mom isn’t here to see it.”

  He hated himself for saying it. Nothing in the universe could make him wish his mother wasn’t here. He could feel the stress and sadness and anger building up as a pressure behind his eyes and he grit his teeth until the tears went away.

  “I don’t mean that,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

  “Hey,” Ellie said. She reached over the table and took his hand in both of hers, squeezing gently. The touch took him by surprise, and his first instinct was to pull free. But there was something calming about it, something reassuring. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to let go even if he wanted to.

  And he definitely didn’t want to.

  “I’m sorry you’re in this place,” she said, her eyes locked on his. “I’m sorry you have to go through this. And I’m sorry about your mom.”

  She squeezed his hand again and it was like she’d filled him with warmth.

  “It does get better,” she said. “It will get better. Trust me.”

  9

  What on earth are you doing?

  “Trust me,” Ellie said, trying to ignore her screaming brain.

  You barely know this guy and you’re holding his hand and giving him life advice!

  “It will get better,” she said again, and this time she pulled her hands away. Her skin tingled where it had made contact with his, as if an electric current had run between them. It spread up her arms into the rest of her body, making her want to giggle. She managed not to—it hardly seemed appropriate—but she could feel the heat in her cheeks and she had to look down at the table, away at the bar, up at the ceiling, anywhere that wasn’t Blake’s handsome, serious face.

  For a while he didn’t say anything at all. There was just the sound of the barmaid stacking glasses, and a gentle burst of laughter from the other couple in the bar. Ellie worried that she’d crossed a line. Who was she to tell a man like Blake how to feel? She wasn’t exactly one of life’s success stories. But she had gone through the death of her dad eight years ago. She knew how it felt—that awful, unbearable absence, the disorientation as the little compass point inside you spun and spun and spun, searching hopelessly for North. Back then she’d thought her father’s passing was the end of the world, and for a few weeks it was. Then the days had started to get brighter, then the weeks, the months, until finally she was able to think of him and smile again. That’s all she’d wanted to do, share the knowledge that while the loss might be forever, the grief was only temporary.

  She opened her mouth to apologize, but when she looked at Blake she found she couldn’t speak. He was trying not to cry, she could see that in his tight body language, in the way he kept swallowing. His eyes were red, his jaw bulging as he tried to hold it in. He rubbed his face with his hand, sighing hard. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through, what it would be like to have the whole world turn against you for something you didn’t do—and she was certain that he was innocent. Nobody could feign this kind of reaction.

  All she wanted to do was sit down next to him, take his head, and hold it to her chest. He was a powerful man, worth billions, but what he needed now was comfort, and love. Before she could move, though, he took a deep, shuddering breath and seemed to compose himself. He tried to smile at her, and the effort he put into it made her fe
el for him even more.

  “Thank you,” he said, seeming to shake off the last of the sadness. “That’s twice today you’ve said exactly what I needed to hear.”

  He sipped his coffee, staring into it as if the answers to his troubles lay there.

  “I’m not usually so… emotional,” he said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being emotional,” she replied. “It takes a real man to admit that life is getting too much. I think it takes a real man to let himself cry.”

  “That’s kind,” he said, placing his empty cup on the table. “I guess I’m used to people who see crying as a weakness. My previous girlfriend thought it was disgusting when men cried. Women too, for that matter.”

  “She sounds like a sensitive soul,” Ellie said, raising an eyebrow. “I bet she didn’t like laughter either.”

  Blake shook his head.

  “She once told me off in front of the entire board for laughing at a squirrel that was trying to get through a tenth-floor window.”

  He did an impression of a wide-eyed squirrel clinging on for dear life and Ellie burst out laughing. How could anyone not find that funny?

  “My ex was like that too,” she said. “His name was Josh. Is Josh, I mean. I didn’t kill him or anything.” She managed to stop herself from slapping a hand to her head. “He thought any emotion was pathetic. He was always so… so passive aggressive when I was upset. He’d fold his arms over his chest and sneer at me or just walk out of the room and tell me to call him when I was over it.”

  She could see the anger in Blake’s expression, and it reassured her.

  “But sometimes I’d come home from work early and he’d be in the bedroom crying, I could hear him from the other end of the apartment. If I mentioned it to him he’d get furious with me and deny it. He just wanted me to see him as this super smart, superhuman, perfect guy who was there to look after me.” The laugh escaped with such force it surprised her. “He never looked after me, not once. Every compliment was a secret insult. Every protective gesture was designed to make me feel weak. Everything was so superficial with him. Everything was a lie.” She screeched to a halt. “Sorry, way too much information.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Blake said. He’d pushed his cup to one side and his hands were stretched across the table, almost as if they were waiting for her. She had to sit on her own hands to stop herself from grabbing hold of him. “It’s one thing I’ve learned. So few people are who they say they are.”

  She met his eyes again, and she felt as if she could lose herself in them. There was such depth there, in those ocean-colored hues. There was so much experience, and wisdom, and kindness—things that Josh’s watery eyes hadn’t so much as hinted at. When Josh had looked at her, there had either been disappointment, or contempt, or worse of all disinterest. He had made her feel so small. Blake was a giant, and it was almost as if he pulled her up beside him, like they could be giants together.

  Whoa! Are you insane!

  This time she listened to her brain. This was moving way too fast, and into places she wasn’t sure she wanted to go. She’d only just escaped Josh, and the last thing she needed right now was to hurtle into another relationship, especially with somebody so public and so controversial. And he probably didn’t even have feelings for her. This was Blake Fielding. He was so rich and so well-travelled that she was probably just mistaking his natural charisma for romantic interest.

  Stupid girl, she told herself.

  Blake seemed to sense the change in her, withdrawing his hands like he knew he’d gone too far. He checked his watch, and despite herself Ellie felt a lurch of panic that the evening might be coming to a close.

  “Shall I get you another?” she asked, speaking before her brain had the opportunity to stop her. “I haven’t quite hit my caffeine buzz yet.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’ll have enough difficulty sleeping as it is,” he said. “I’m just glad I was able to get your notebook back to you.”

  They both stared at the little pink notebook that sat on the table. Ellie felt a creeping sense of embarrassment at what he might have seen inside it.

  “It’s just a silly thing,” she mumbled. “I just write stuff there, because I’m so scatterbrained.”

  “I think it’s great,” he said. “When I was first setting up Heartbook I wrote everything in notebooks. There were hundreds of them, overflowing with ideas and inspirations.”

  She smiled. How did he have a way of making her feel so much better about herself? Josh had always kicked her notebooks under the bed, hating the way they cluttered their apartment.

  “My mom was the same,” he went on. “She used to fill a notebook a week. I got the habit from her. I count those notebooks as one of the reasons I am where I am. They’re not silly things at all.”

  “You obviously didn’t read too much of mine,” she said, thinking of all the lists she’d penned inside. She felt her blush burn hotter as she thought about all the boyfriend lists.

  “I just glanced through,” he said. “I’m so sorry. It was the only way of finding out who it belonged to. I didn’t read much, just the odd line here or there.”

  “That’s a relief,” Ellie said.

  “But I did catch the thing on the last page,” he went on. “The interview material.”

  “Oh you didn’t!” she said, mortified. “It was just to help me focus, I…”

  He was holding up a hand.

  “Please, you never have to explain yourself to me. Can I show you something?”

  “Sure,” she said. He dug a hand into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out a small, black book. Flicking through it, and shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to do, he placed it on the table, facing her. His handwriting was small, and a little messy, and she couldn’t help but smile as she read it.

  Board Meeting

  Don’t let Michelle steer the conversation.

  Reassure Mike and Agnes and they will reassure the shareholders.

  DON’T DAYDREAM. PAY ATTENTION.

  There were other notes too, but Blake shut the book and put it back into his pocket.

  “If I let you read any more,” he said. “I will die of embarrassment.”

  He was smiling that big, warm smile again.

  “The only thing it’s missing is the doodles,” he said, and she laughed. She swatted his hand and he laughed too, feigning injury. “Ow! Easy, tiger. But seriously, there was something in the book that caught my eye. You mentioned LifeWrite. What is that?”

  Ellie sat up straight. She’d been so wrapped up in the real-life Blake who sat in front of her that for a moment she’d forgotten who she was speaking to. Wasn’t this why she’d pushed so hard for an interview, and for a job at Heartbook? She’d been hoping that one day she’d be able to pitch her idea to the company and hope that it filtered up the chain to the CEO. Well now here she was face to face with him. Opportunities didn’t come any better than this.

  “It’s something I’ve been working on for a while now,” she said, fighting to keep her tone calm. “For years and years, really. A social network based around books and reading. It’s part friendship, part dating, part business connections, but I want it to focus on stories. It’s really about being able to write the story of your life, using the power of books.”

  He was interested, she could tell that by the way he was watching her intently, nodding with increasing enthusiasm.

  “I’ve always loved to read,” she went on. “Books have saved me so many times—from broken hearts to broken dreams. They’re so powerful. But hardly anyone uses that power to connect people.”

  “That’s so true,” he said when she paused. “Books can save lives. If I’m having a bad day I usually head down to the San Fran Public Library. Just being around all those books makes me feel better.”

  The thought of him there, surrounded by books, made Ellie feel positively giddy. She stumbled, finding her place.

  “Exac
tly. Books unite us, stories connect us. That’s my dream, to bring people together through the power of reading. That’s what LifeWrite is, it’s a safe place for like-minded people.”

  She smiled nervously, waiting to be shot down like she always had been with Josh. That’s been done a million times, he’d said. Or, You’d never be able to do it, it takes a genius to code. He’d always looked at her with pity and sometimes even anger, as if she was a young Victorian girl who had ideas above her station. But Blake was genuinely interested. He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could get a word out the barmaid appeared again.

  “Here’s the drink you ordered,” she said to Blake. She was holding a pitcher of something in one hand, and in the other she held a cell phone. An alarm bell was going off in Ellie’s head.

  “I didn’t order any drink,” said Blake. “Sor—”

  Before he could finish, the barmaid tipped the pitcher over Blake’s head. A disgusting smell of old coffee grounds and waste water filled the booth, ice cubes smashing onto the table. Blake gasped as the cold water soaked him, and he jumped up so hard his legs cracked into the table.

  “You’re not welcome here, you chauvinist pig!” the barmaid yelled. “Take your woman-hating thoughts outside.”

  Ellie was up on her feet, her head full of anger.

  “That’s not fair,” she said, her voice shaking. “You didn’t even give him a chance to defend himself.”

  “You should be ashamed,” the barmaid said, turning her phone to Ellie. “You can do a whole lot better than this trash.”

  She stormed off, and Ellie walked around the table, shaking out a napkin.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “Let me—”

  “I’m fine,” he said, his face carved from stone, his eyes suddenly cold. “I’m sorry, I never should have come. Good bye, Ellie. Thank you for the drink.”

  And without another word, he walked past her and out of the bar.

  10