Caught in the Billionaire's Embrace (13 page)

The fact that she hadn't given it a thought while she was with Marcus was another indication of how
much of her trust she had placed in him. Or perhaps misplaced, as the case may be.

“So I had more than your first name to give to…my contact,” Marcus confessed.

“The address on my license isn't my address anymore,” she told him. “I haven't lived in New York for almost a year.”

“I know. But having even your most recent known address along with your full name gave my guy all the information he needed to track you down.”

Della let that sink in for a minute. It had been that easy for someone to find her. But no one had. Geoffrey had told Della, too, that all of the defendants had been made aware during questioning and as charges were filed that there was a federal witness in custody who was willing to testify against all of them. And that there were documents this witness had smuggled out that corroborated every charge.

She hadn't slept or eaten much after hearing that, so anxious had she been about whether someone from Whitworth and Stone was trying to track down who the witness was and what information they had, putting together her disappearance with the timing of the investigation.

But no one had. Or, if they did, none had tried to locate her. Or, at least succeeded. Not until Marcus. Who, one would think, didn't have nearly as much at stake. Then she remembered that Marcus was a part of the world she had just punched a big hole in. Who said he wasn't here for the very reason she feared?

No, she immediately told herself. No way. In spite of everything, she still trusted him. In spite of everything, she still…cared for him.

When she trusted her voice again, she asked, “You hired someone to find me?”

“Yes,” he acknowledged without hesitation.

“Why?”

This time, his response came less quickly. Finally, he told her, “Because I couldn't stand the thought of never seeing you again.”

Something that had been knotted tight inside Della began to loosen and flow free at his words. Until she remembered how impossible it would be for them to be together.

He started to say something else, but she held up a hand to stop him. “How much do you know about my situation? I mean, if the person you hired to find me found me, he must have uncovered a lot of other information about me, too.”

Marcus looked disappointed that she had changed the subject, but he replied, “I know you're in the custody of the U.S. Marshals. I know you're slated to be a material witness for a federal case. Beyond that, I didn't ask for details, except about where you were living now.”

She shook her head. “I still can't believe you found me as easily as you did,” she said, stalling. “Just what kind of system are the feds running, anyway?”

“It wasn't easy to find you,” Marcus countered. “The P.I. I always use to get the information I need can usually get it for me within forty-eight hours.”

“Even when it's federally protected?”

“Nothing is foolproof, Della. My guy used to be a highly placed operative on the government payroll before he went into business for himself. He can find things out others can't because he still has a lot of contacts in high places. In federal, state and city governments.”

“He must cost a fortune,” she muttered.

“He does.”

She spared a moment to find enormous pleasure in the fact that Marcus would spend an exorbitant amount of money to find her, then sobered again when the impact of his discovery settled over her again.

“But even he couldn't work as fast as he usually does,” he continued. “And I still didn't get everything I wanted.”

She wasn't sure if Marcus was talking only about information in that statement, so she diverted to their original subject. But she did her best to be as vague as possible. She didn't want to say anything that might compromise the hearing next week. She couldn't stand the thought that everything she'd gone through over the last eleven months might end up being for nothing.

But then, without the last eleven months, she never would have had her weekend with Marcus, would she? So regardless of what did or didn't happen in the future, those tedious, anxious, interminable months could never have been for nothing.

“Look, Marcus, I can't give you any particulars about the case I'm involved in,” she said. “I'm not even sure if your mere presence here right now is going to mess everything up or not. Suffice it to say that one day, I was doing my job and living my life and everything was as normal as it could be. The next day, I discovered something my employer was doing that was illegal, and I turned all the information I had over to the proper authorities. The next thing I knew, I was being told I couldn't go back to work, and that I was going to be placed into protective custody while the government took over the investigation. I was told it would only be for a couple of months. That was eleven months ago.”

“And to explain your disappearance,” Marcus said, “they concocted a story about you having an affair with a married man in another department.”

Now it was Della's turn to blush and look away. “That wasn't concocted,” she said softly. “And if you know that, then you
do
know something about my situation.”

His expression changed then, turning contemplative, and he said nothing for a moment. Then his expression changed once more, this time to one of understanding. “Whitworth and Stone,” he said. “That was your employer.”

“Yes.”

His lips parted fractionally, as if he were going to say something else, then closed again. For another moment, he studied her in silence, then he opened his mouth again. But, again, it took a moment before he spoke. “I read in the trades and the
Wall Street Journal
about the arrests. It was because of you, wasn't it?”

Her stomach knotted again, and she shook her head vehemently. “I can't say anything about it.”

“You don't have to,” he told her. “It didn't occur to me until now to put it all together. There just hasn't been that much in the news about what's really going on there. There was so little fanfare, in fact, that most of us figured the charges were bogus, just the government flexing its muscle to keep Wall Street in its place, or that it would turn out with one or two guys getting a slap on the wrist for some minor infractions. It never occurred to me that they'd actually make a federal case out of it.”

Della said nothing, but couldn't pull her gaze away from his. The wheels were clearly spinning in his brain now, and he was obviously able to put way more
than two and two together. A man like him, as highly placed as he was in the financial community, could fully appreciate how much was at stake here, and how much trouble a company like Whitworth and Stone could be in. A man like him would know exactly how important Della's role was in what was happening, and he would understand completely how devastating her impact would be.

He nodded slowly. “But the reason there hasn't been much media coverage is precisely because of how massive a case this is going to be. Executives that high up, with that much money and that many resources at their disposal—not to mention that much to lose—can afford the kind of lawyers who can keep things quiet, at least for a while.”

Still, Della said nothing. Still, she couldn't look away.

“It never occurred to me to put those arrests together with your disappearance,” Marcus said. “The married lover story made a lot more sense.”

“I didn't know he was married,” she said, finally relieved to be able to talk about something that wouldn't compromise the case. “I was supposed to meet him on New Year's Eve. Though after midnight because he said he had a professional dinner to attend. I arrived a little early and saw him kissing another woman good night before putting her into a cab. When I asked who she was, he informed me she was his wife, who he had no intention of leaving because, by the way, he also had three kids and his wife's family was so well-connected socially and financially, and he couldn't afford to lose those connections.”

Marcus's expression then indicated the wheels were still turning in his head, though they might be
going in a different direction now. “You disappeared in mid-January, meaning you must have uncovered the wrongdoing at Whitworth and Stone right before that.”

“On New Year's Day,” she said without thinking. But that wasn't compromising information, was it? Surely not.

Marcus nodded slowly, as if making more connections. “So you found out on New Year's Eve that the man you were seeing was married, and then, hours later, discovered that your employer was involved in matters that threatened national security.”

“That's it in a nutshell, yeah.”

“Sucky way to start the new year.”

She wished she could laugh, then wondered if she would ever be able to find humor in anything again. “Yeah.”

“You know, anyone else would have been devastated by either one of those things, but even after suffering both, you still had the presence of mind, and the courage, to do the right thing.”

Della had never really looked at it like that. “I just did what anyone else in that position would do.”

“No, you didn't,” he said. “A lot of people would have walked away from both and wallowed in self-pity. Or they would have kept their mouths shut and not risked losing their job or their benefits or anything else that might mess up their life.”

“Maybe…”

“Instead, you risked everything to make sure the people who were putting other people—strangers you didn't even know—in danger didn't get away with what they were doing.”

“Yes.”

He lifted a hand and started to reach for her, then hesitated, as if fearing how she would react. Reluctantly, without touching her, he dropped his hand to the table. “And you have to ask why I came looking for you.”

Whatever was left of the knot inside her unraveled. In spite of that, she told him, “You shouldn't have come, Marcus.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm leaving Chicago in three days, and I'm not coming back.”

“I know that was your plan before, but now—”

“Now, it's still the plan,” she told him. “I can't stay here, Marcus.”

“Why not?”

How did she say this without having it sound melodramatic and paranoid? Probably, she should simply spell it out. “Because after I give my testimony to the grand jury, I'm going to be one of the most hated people on Wall Street. No one's going to give me a job. The people I'm going to help put away have contacts everywhere. Not only in other brokerage houses, but in banks and all kinds of businesses. They have corporate America eating out of their hands. No one will hire me. Whistle-blowers might make for great movies and documentaries, but in the real world, their lives are shattered. They can't find work. They can't support their families. They lose everything.”

He was still looking at her in a way that made clear he didn't understand what she was saying. So Della spelled it out further. “After this thing is over, the government is giving me a new ID. New name, new social security number, new history, new everything. They're going to move me someplace where I have a chance to start over again where no one will know me,
and where there's no chance I'll be recognized. I'll be able to find a job doing something I love, something I'm good at. I won't be Della Hannan anymore.”

Marcus sat back in his chair and inspected her openly now. “Then who will you be? Where will you go?”

“I don't know yet,” she said. “But it won't be here.”

“Why not here? It's as easy to start over in Chicago as anywhere else. Better. There's a vital financial community here. Where else are you going to go and find that? Go ahead and change your name and history. You'll still be Della. You'll still be the woman I met at Palumbo's. You'll still be the woman I spent the most amazing weekend of my life with. You'll still be the woman I—”

He halted before finishing, probably because Della had started shaking her head as soon as he finished his first sentence. “If I stay here, Marcus, I'll want to be with you.”

He gaped at her. “And that's a problem?”

“Yes!” she cried. “Because you're so…” She recalled the adjective he'd used himself. “Notorious. You're all over the society pages and a regular fixture on a lot of celebrity websites. You said so yourself.”

Now he closed his mouth. She was pretty sure he was starting to understand. But since she was still in spell-it-out mode, Della continued, “You live a big life, Marcus. It's what makes you happy. It's who you are. You like your notoriety. And I don't blame you,” she hastened to add. “Big life suits you. You were born for the spotlight. But me…” She shrugged lightly. “I wasn't born for a big life. And now, more than ever, I need to be invisible. It's the only way I'll be able to rebuild my life. It's the only way I'll be able to get back everything I've lost.”

“In other words, you don't want to be seen with me.”

“I
can't
be seen with you,” she corrected him. “What if someone recognizes me? What if, as I'm starting to get my groove back, someone in your world realizes who I really am? They could destroy everything I have.” She swallowed hard against the anguish she felt threatening. “And they could hurt you, too. Doing what you do for a living, if you were seen consorting with the woman who brought down Whitworth and Stone, no one would ever trust you again. Then your life would be shattered, too. I can't let that happen to you. I can't be responsible for it.”

“I'd never worry about something like that,” he told her.

“I would always worry about it,” she said. “It would never work out for us, Marcus,” she said. “It would be a mistake for me to stay. That is just as well, because after Monday, I'll be gone.”