Page 41 of Suddenly Desired
He told me he couldn’t do this.
What the hell just happened?
She exhaled sharply, pressing her fingertips to her temples in a futile attempt to calm the chaos. The urge to open the window was overwhelming, and when she finally did, the hot, heavy air from outside hit her like a slap. But at least it was real — she needed real right now.
“You okay back there?” asked Alfie. She nodded at his concerned expression in the rearview mirror. It was a lie, of course. She wasn’t okay at all. She was about as far from okay as it was possible to be. This had to be a world record, even for Ellie Mae: falling for someone and getting her heart broken, all in the space of twenty-four hours.
Pull yourself together, she told herself, staring at the blur of the city as it whizzed past. She couldn’t let herself spiral. Not over this.
Not over him.
Sure, what they’d done in the lift had felt like something out of a movie, all-consuming and impossibly perfect. But it didn’t mean anything — did it? Kisses like that didn’t guarantee a happy ending. They didn’t erase all the obstacles between them. Blake had said as much. He’d made it clear that his life was a mess and that now wasn’t the time for . . . whatever this was.
Maybe what had happened had been a result of emotions boiling over. The secrets, the tension, the adrenaline from Nate’s revelation. Maybe all it had been was a crack in the dam, a release they both needed.
Ellie leaned her head back against the seat, closing her eyes briefly. She couldn’t let herself get carried away. She had never believed in love at first sight. She’d always been methodical and reasonable when it came to feelings. You had to take the time to make sure you were compatible, otherwise there could only be disaster ahead when you realised you had absolutely nothing in common.
No. She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
But Blake wasn’t Josh.
That thought landed like a stone in her chest. It was true. Blake didn’t pretend to be anything he wasn’t. He didn’t talk down to her or try to make her feel small. If anything, he’d done the opposite — he’d listened to her, really listened. He’d made her feel seen in a way that she hadn’t felt in years.
But that didn’t change the facts.
Blake Fielding was on a whole other planet compared to her. They came from such different worlds, it could never, ever work. He was rich, he was famous —infamous, now. He travelled the world in private jets and in cars like these. He lived for his work, gave everything to Heartbook. And as for her? She was perpetually broke, she waited tables in a coffee bar, she was hopeless at relationships, and she was cursed. Her dreams would never be anything more than dreams.
Ellie had not always believed she was cursed, but when disaster kept following her around like a shadow, her friends had teased her about it so much that they’d given it a name. The Ellie Mae Curse. She always seemed to miss the bus by seconds, and when she took a biscuit from a pack, it was always broken. Her queues were always the slowest and her tables always seemedto be wonky. Then came the bigger things: the landlord who sold her flat just as she was getting settled, the dream job as a magazine columnist that she had beenthis closeto landing, only for them to go with someone else at the last minute. And, of course, Josh — the biggest mistake of them all. Every time she let herself believe that something good was finally happening, the rug was yanked from under her feet. And now, just when she had started to believe things could be different, Blake had kissed her . . . and then walked away. The Ellie Mae Curse had struck again. She should have known it was going to. It always did.
She opened her eyes, catching her reflection in the window. Her hair was slightly mussed, and her glasses sat slightly askew on her nose. She looked as frazzled as she felt.
“Get a grip, Ellie,” she muttered under her breath.
“Say something?” Alfie glanced back at her again.
“Nope,” she said quickly, managing a small smile. “Just talking to myself.”
He nodded but didn’t press further, and Ellie was grateful. She sighed. Despite the sunshine that poured into the car, the world seemed a whole lot darker than it had twenty minutes ago.
When Blake had kissed her, it felt like the universe had shattered into a million stars, a supernova of emotion detonating inside her. She’d never experienced anything like it — not even close. With her exes, there had always been hesitation, second-guessing.Should I be kissing him? Am I doing this right? Does he even like me as much as I like him?
But with Blake, there had been no hesitation, no self-doubt. Her mind had gone blissfully quiet, filled only with the sheer intensity of him. The moment their lips met, everything else had evaporated — the chaos of what was unfolding at Heartbook, even the lift itself. There was just him. His lips and roaming hands had made her melt. It had felt so real.
But he’d pulled away. And who could blame him? His entire world was crumbling around him, and she was just . . . Ellie. Ellie Mae Woodward, a woman who had spent the last twenty-four hours falling for a man she had no business falling for.
She shook her head, forcing herself to focus on the present. She needed to get her head out of the clouds and back on solid ground. Daydreaming about Blake wouldn’t solve anything.
The car slowed as they neared her street and Ellie felt a pang of relief. She needed to be home, to decompress, to sort through the mess in her head.
As Alfie pulled up to the kerb, she gathered her bag, pausing for a moment before opening the door. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem,” Alfie replied. “Take care of yourself, yeah?”
She nodded, stepping out of the car and into the warm evening air. The sound of the Maybach pulling away lingered in her ears as she made her way up the steps to her building.
She pushed through the stairwell door and headed into her flat, knowing as soon as she smelled coffee brewing that she wasn’t on her own. Seeing Josh was the last thing she felt like doing, but where else was she supposed to go? At least here she could disappear into her room and cry away the rest of the day. If she was quick, she might even get there before he spotted her.
“Ellie?”
