Caught in the Billionaire’s Embrace(28)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Marcus knew the moment he awoke that Della was gone. Even though it was still dark in the hotel room. Even though her fragrance still lingered on the pillow beside his own. Even though the sheets were still warm where she had lain. Maybe it had been the snick of the hotel room door closing behind her that woke him, he thought with surprising clarity for having just woken. Maybe if he hurried, he could still catch her before she made it to the elevator. Or if she had already disappeared into it, maybe he could hurry faster and catch her in the lobby before she made it out of the building.

But even as the thoughts raced through his head, he knew, too, that none of them were true. Because, somehow, he knew what had woken him wasn’t a sound at all. What had woken him was the simple awareness, on some subconscious level, that Della was irretrievably gone and that he was irrevocably alone.

Alone, he marveled as he jackknifed up in the bed and palmed his eyes. It was a familiar condition, but it had never felt quite like this. It had never bothered Marcus to live alone or eat alone or work alone or do anything else alone. On the contrary, he’d always preferred his own company to that of others. Well, except for Charlotte, but that was because she had been a solitary creature herself. Marcus had never really felt as if he had that much in common with others, anyway. If he wanted companionship, it was easy to find it. There was always someone he could call or someplace he could go where, in a matter of minutes, he would be surrounded. Sometimes by friends, more often by acquaintances he pretended were friends, but the point was, he liked being alone.

He didn’t like it this morning. Della’s absence surrounded him like a rank, fetid carcass.

He rose and shrugged on his robe, knotting it around his waist as he moved to the window. In the sliver of moonlight that spilled through a slit in the curtains, he glimpsed a piece of paper lying on the table between the two chairs where he and Della had sat only hours ago. Something hitched tight in his chest as he reached for it, because he thought it was a note from her. But it was the paper on which he’d written his numbers for her the day before. She’d left it behind. Because she’d wanted to make clear to him that she wouldn’t be contacting him in the future.

She’d said she’d found trouble in New York. He couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble a woman like her could be in. But if Della said she was in trouble, then she was in trouble. And if she’d said he couldn’t help her…

Well, there she could be wrong.

Marcus crumpled the paper in his palm and tossed it onto the table, then pulled back the drape. The sky was black and crystal clear beyond, dotted with stars that winked like gemstones under theater lights. Uncaring of the bitter cold, he unlatched the window and shoved it open as far as it would go—which was barely wide enough for him to stick his head through—then gazed down onto Michigan Avenue. He’d never seen the street deserted before, regardless of the hour, but it was now, even though the snowplows had been through. People had yet to brave their way out into the remnants of the blizzard and probably wouldn’t until after the sun rose.

For some reason, Marcus looked to his right and saw the red lights of a retreating car disappear around a corner some blocks up. Another light atop it indicated it was a taxi. Della’s taxi. He knew that as well as he knew his own name.

As well as he knew her name, too.

Never had he been more grateful for his lack of decorum than he was in that moment. Had he not rifled through her purse, he would have nothing of her now save her first name. Well, that and the memory of the most unforgettable weekend he’d ever spent with anyone. Now there was another reason he wouldn’t forget it. Because he knew where to find Della Hannan. Maybe not in Chicago, but he did in New York. And that alone was worth its weight in gold. Provided one knew the right people.

And Marcus definitely knew the right people.

His cheeks began to burn in the freezing temperature, so he closed the window and retreated into the room. He scooped up his jacket from the back of the chair as he passed it, then sat on the side of the bed and dug his phone out of the inside pocket. He and Della had switched off their phones shortly after entering the room and had promised to keep them off, and he had kept that promise—at least where his own phone was concerned. Now that their brief interlude was over, he switched it back on. A dozen voice mails awaited him. He ignored them all and went right to his contacts, scrolling through to the one he wanted. A private detective he’d used a number of times, but always only with regard to business. Nevertheless the man had an excellent reputation when it came to investigations of a personal nature, too. Just how excellent, Marcus was about to discover.

He punched the talk button, and after three rings, a voice on the other end answered. Answered with a filthy epithet, but then, that wasn’t unexpected considering the source. Or the time of night.

“Damien, it’s Marcus Fallon.” He gave the other man a few seconds for the synapses in his brain to connect the dots.

“Right,” Damien finally said. “Whattaya need?”

“I need your services for something a little different from what I normally hire you for.”

“No problem.”

“I have a name, a physical description and a former address in New York City. Can you find a person who’s now living in Chicago with that?”

“Sure.”

“Can you do it soon?”

“Depends.”

“On what?” Marcus asked.

“On how bad the person wants to be found.”

“How about on how bad I want the person found?”

It took another few seconds for more synapses to find their way to the meaning. “How much?” Damien asked.

Marcus relaxed. This was the thing he did best in the world. Well, other than the thing he and Della had spent the weekend doing. He started to turn on the bedside lamp, then remembered he would only see an empty room and changed his mind. “Tell you what,” he said, “let’s you and I negotiate a deal.”

Della had been forced to part with a lot of things in her life. Her family, her friends and her home—such as they were—when she left the old neighborhood at eighteen. Jobs, offices and acquaintances as she’d climbed the professional ladder, moving from one part of Whitworth and Stone to another. An entire new life she’d built for herself in Manhattan. Soon she’d be parting with everything that had become familiar to her in Chicago.

But she didn’t think any of those things had been as painful to part with as the crimson velvet Carolina Herrera gown and Dolce & Gabbana shoes, not to mention the Bulgari earrings and pendant and the black silk Valentino opera coat. Not because they were so beautiful and rich and expensive. But because they were the only mementos she had of the time she’d spent with Marcus.