Caught in the Billionaire's Embrace (8 page)

It wasn't so much that he wanted to confirm his suspicions that Della was attached to another man in some way—a thought that made the breakfast he'd consumed rebel on him. It was because if someone
was
mistreating her, whether emotionally or mentally or physically, Marcus wanted to know about it. Then he wanted to know the guy's full name. And address. So he could hop in his car the minute the roads were clear, and beat the holy hell out of the guy.

When the shower cut off, Marcus hastily closed the phone and returned it to Della's purse with her other belongings. Then he placed it on the dresser in exactly the same position it had been before. Quickly, he grabbed the newspaper that had been brought up with breakfast and returned to the bed, picked up his coffee and pretended to read.

By the time Della emerged from the shower wrapped in her blue robe again and scrubbing her damp hair with a towel, he'd managed to stow the rage he'd begun to feel for that son of a bitch Geoffrey—at least for the time being.

“The shower is all yours,” she said as she drew nearer to the bed.

“Thanks,” Marcus replied without looking up from the paper.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her glance at the clock. Mere minutes away from nine. He kept his gaze fixed blindly on the newspaper.

Della's agitation at his tepid response was an almost palpable thing. “You, ah, you might want to hurry. You wouldn't want them to run out of hot water.” He looked up long enough to see her shift her weight nervously from one foot to the other. “Since it looks like no one will be checking out today. There are probably quite a few people using the shower.”

He turned his attention back to the paper. “I don't think a hotel like the Ambassador got to be a hotel like the Ambassador by running out of hot water on its guests. It'll be fine.”

“But still…”

“First I want to finish this article about—” Just what was he pretending to read, anyway? Damn. He'd picked up the Style section. “This article about the return of the, uh, the chunky metallic necklace,” he said, somehow without losing a drop of testosterone. “Wow, did those ever go out of style in the first place? And then,” he continued, “there were a couple of pieces in the Business section that looked even more interesting.” He looked at Della again and saw that panicked look from last night creeping into her expression. “It's not like I have anywhere to go,” he said. “And it's been a while since I've been able to take my time with the Sunday
Tribune.
”

“But…” Her voice trailed off without her finishing. “Okay. Then I'll, ah, I'll dry my hair.” She pointed halfheartedly over her shoulder. “I have a hairbrush in my purse.”

Marcus nodded, pretending to be absorbed by the fashion icon that was the chunky metallic necklace.

The moment her back was turned, though, he looked up in time to see her withdraw both her brush and phone from the purse, then stash the cell in her robe pocket. When she started to spin around again, he quickly moved his gaze to the paper.

“You know what?” she said suddenly. “I love ice in my orange juice, so I'm going to run down the hall and see if there's an ice machine on this floor.”

And then, Marcus thought, she would duck into a stairwell to check in with the man who was trying to control her life.

“Call room service to bring some up,” he told her, still looking at the paper.

“I don't want to trouble them with something like that. They must be busy getting everyone's breakfast to them.”

Now Marcus put down the paper. “Then I'll get some ice for you.”

“No,”
she said, a little too quickly and a little too adamantly. She seemed to realize she'd overreacted, because she forced a smile and said, “I'm, ah, I'm starting to feel a bit of cabin fever. A little walk down the hall will be nice.”

“In your robe and bare feet?” he asked, dipping his head toward her attire—or lack thereof.

“No one will see,” she said as she began to sidestep toward the door. “Everyone else is probably sleeping in.”

“Not if they're keeping room service hopping and using up all the hot water the way you say.”

“You know what I mean.”

“We're not sleeping in,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but we—” She stopped abruptly, obviously not wanting to bring up the reason they'd woken early. Or maybe it was just that she wasn't any more certain about what the two of them were doing than Marcus was. “I mean…even if someone does see me,” she said, trying a different tack, “what difference does it make? It's a hotel. It's Sunday morning. There must be plenty of people still in their robes and bare feet.”

Not when there was a blizzard raging outside, Marcus wanted to say. The only reason he and Della weren't dressed was because they didn't have anything to change into. But he didn't point out any of those things. If he kept trying to prevent her from leaving the room, she would come up with more reasons why she needed to get out. And if he pressed her, she was only going to get suspicious of him.

“Fine,” he said, looking at the paper again…and seeing nothing but red. “Don't forget to take the key.”

“Of course,” she said as she collected that from the dresser, too. “I won't be but a minute.”

If she was able to make that promise, Marcus thought, then her conversations with Geoffrey must not involve much. Just enough for the guy to make sure she did what she was told.

He waited only until the door clicked shut behind her, then hurried over to silently open it, enough that he could see her making her way down the hall. She'd already withdrawn the phone from her pocket and was dialing one-handed, meaning she'd still be in sight when her conversation began, so Marcus was bound to miss some of it. Impatiently, he waited until she rounded a corner at the end of the hall, then he slipped the metal rod of the chain lock between it and the jamb and stole after her at twice her pace.

When he peered around the corner, he saw her duck through another door that led to the stairwell and heard her speaking into the phone. But she was speaking softly enough that he couldn't distinguish a word. So he raced after her and halted by the door through which she'd exited and cocked his head close. Unfortunately, he could still only hear incomprehensible murmuring. So, as quietly as he could, he turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack, to see that she had seated herself on the top step with her back to him. So he opened it a little bit more.

“Really, Geoffrey, I'm fine,” he heard her say. “There's no reason for you to come over. You'd get stuck in the snow if you tried.”

He tried to discern something in her voice that sounded fearful or cowering, but, really, she did sound fine.

“I mean, yeah, the snow is kind of a drag,” she continued, “but it's not like you ever let me go anywhere anyway.”

So she wasn't supposed to be out and about, Marcus thought. His suspicions were confirmed.

“I had groceries delivered this week,” she said, “and I downloaded a couple of books. Thanks for the Kindle and the Netflix subscription, by the way. It's helped a lot.”

It was the least the son of a bitch could do, since he wouldn't let her go anywhere.

“What?” he heard Della ask. Then she laughed lightly. “No, nothing like that. That's the last thing I need. Mostly romantic comedies. I need something light and escapist, all things considered.”

She paused, though whether it was because Geoffrey was talking or because she was looking for something
else to say, Marcus didn't know. Finally, though, she began to speak again. “Okay, if you must know,
Bridget Jones's Diary, Love, Actually
and
Pride and Prejudice.
” There was another pause, then she laughed again. “Yes. I love Colin Firth. So does your wife, if you'll recall.”

It really wasn't the kind of conversation Marcus had expected to hear her having with a married man who was keeping her a virtual prisoner. But neither did it quite dispel his suspicions that Della was being controlled. What really bothered him, though, was that there was something different in her voice when she spoke to Geoffrey that wasn't there when she was talking to him. A casualness and easiness, a lack of formality, that she hadn't exhibited with Marcus. As if she were actually more comfortable with the other man than she was with him. As if she and Geoffrey shared a relationship that was based less on control and more on trust.

Just what the hell was this guy to her?

Then Marcus heard her say something that chilled him.

“Look, Geoffrey, how much longer am I going to have to live this way? You told me I'd only have to do this for six months. That was eleven months ago. You promised me that if I did everything you guys told me to—”

Guys?
So Geoffrey wasn't the only one? She was being passed around among a group? Had he really heard that right?

“—that then I'd be free,” she continued. “But I'm still—”

The other man must have cut her off before she could finish, because Della stopped talking and listened obediently without saying a word for several minutes.
He saw her lift a hand to her head and push back her hair with a jerky motion that suggested she was anxious. She murmured a few uh-huhs, then slumped forward with her free hand braced on her knee and her forehead pressed to her palm.

Finally, with clear dejection—and maybe a little fear?—she replied, “Two weeks? That's all the time I have left?”

Until what? Marcus wanted to yell. What the hell was she talking about? What the hell did the man expect her to do that made her sound so unwilling to do it?

“Then it's really going to happen,” she said with clear resignation, sounding more reserved than ever. “I'm really going to have to do it.”

Do what,
for God's sake?

“No, I understand,” she said. “I'll go through with it. I mean, it's not like I have much choice, do I?” There was another pause, then she continued, “I know I promised. And I'll hold up my end of the bargain. I just…I didn't think it would be like this, Geoffrey. I didn't think I'd feel like this about everything.” More softly, she added, “I didn't think I'd feel like this about myself.” Then, because Geoffrey must not have heard that last, she said with unmistakable melancholy. “It was nothing important. Never mind.”

Nothing important.
Marcus felt a little sick to his stomach. The way she felt about herself wasn't important. This guy had her so wound around his finger that Della didn't even realize how unbalanced and unhealthy the relationship was.

Relationship, hell. What she had with this guy was a bargain. She'd said so herself. And it was obviously a bad one. A least on her end.

“So two weeks then,” she said again. “I have two
weeks to get myself ready and in the right frame of mind.”

Marcus hated to think what that getting ready would involve. He hated more to think about what the
right frame of mind
for such a thing would be.

He heard her answer a few more yes-and-no questions—with little more than a yes or no, sounding more and more like a child with each one—then heard her promise she would call tomorrow morning at the usual time. Then he heard the sound of her phone flipping closed.

He was about to pull the door to and hurry to the room before she caught him eavesdropping, but he heard something else that stopped him short—the very soft sound of muffled crying.

Something twisted inside him. He wasn't accustomed to hearing a woman cry. Mostly because he made sure he got involved with women who were as shallow as he was. At least where things like emotional involvement were concerned. Obviously, Della wasn't shallow. Obviously, she cared a lot about things like involvement. Even if she was currently involved with the wrong man.

Putting aside, for now, the fact that that word probably applied to himself as much as it did Geoffrey, Marcus pushed open the door and silently moved through it. He didn't know why. It would have been best for him and Della both if he went back to the room and pretended he knew nothing of her conversation. It would have been best if they spent the rest of the weekend pretending there was nothing beyond that room until the two of them had to leave it.

But when he saw her sitting on the stair landing with her feet propped on the carpeted step below her, her
arms crossed over her knees, her head rested on her arms, her shoulders shaking lightly, he knew he could never go back to pretending anything. She still had the cell phone clasped in one hand, but it fell, landing with a dull thud when she began to cry harder, and she didn't bother to retrieve it. Instead, she surrendered to her sobs, muffling them by pressing her mouth to the sleeve of her robe. She was so lost in her despair that she had no idea Marcus stood behind her.

He didn't know what to do or say, could only stand there feeling helpless. It was an alien concept, this helplessness, and he didn't like it at all. His instincts told him to flee before she saw him, but his conscience—and he was surprised to discover he actually had one—dictated he do something to make her feel better. He let the two war with each other, to see who would win, but when instinct and conscience kept bickering, he stepped in and made the decision himself. He took a tentative step forward, then another.

As he was reaching down to curl his fingers over her shoulder, she whirled her head quickly around. When she saw him there, her eyes went wide with panic, and she stood so quickly, she almost pitched backward down the stairs. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist as she managed to right herself, but neither seemed to know what to say or do after that. For a long moment, they only stood silently looking at each other. Then, finally, Della stepped onto the landing with Marcus. He released her wrist, but brushed away a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb.