Caught in the Billionaire’s Embrace(30)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Della pushed the thought away. Women like Ava could pick and choose whomever they wanted for a mate. She was beautiful, smart, successful and chic. Once she set her sights on a man, he wouldn’t stand a chance. He would love her forever and make her the center of his universe. No way would she settle for a one-night stand with a guy she’d never see again.

“Well,” Ava said now as she counted out the last of Della’s refund, “I hope you’ll keep Talk of the Town in mind the next time you need to look your best.”

Right. The next time Della would need to look her best would be when she appeared before the grand jury in two weeks. Somehow, though, she was pretty sure one of her suits from her old life would work just fine for that. But maybe in her new life…

She pushed that thought away, too. Her new life would be miles away from Chicago. And there was little chance she’d need to don haute couture for anything in it. It would be nothing but business attire, since she’d be doing little other than establishing herself in a new job, starting all over again from square one. It was going to be a long time before she was earning enough to recapture the sort of life she’d had in New York.

It would be even longer before she trusted any man enough to let him get close to her again.

That hadn’t been the case with Marcus, a little voice inside her head piped up. You got close to him pretty fast. And you trusted him enough to have sex with him.

But Marcus was different, Della assured the little voice. Marcus had been a one-night stand. It was easy to trust someone you knew you were never going to see again.

Seriously? the voice asked. Is that the reason you want to go with?

Um, yeah, Della told the voice.

Fine. But you’re only kidding yourself, you know.

Shut up, voice.

“Be careful out there,” Ava said, bringing Della’s attention back around. “The snow may have stopped, but there are still some slick spots on the sidewalk and slush in the gutters and all kinds of things that could harm you.”

Oh, Ava didn’t need to tell Della that.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

And she could, Della knew. She’d been doing it her entire life. That wasn’t going to change simply because she had a new life to get under way. Especially since there wouldn’t be any Marcuses in her future. Men like him only came along once in a lifetime—if even that often. No way would a man like that show up twice.

In two weeks, Della would be embarking on a second life. A life in which she’d be alone again. Alone still, really, since Egan had never actually been with her the way he could have—should have—been.

Only once in her life had Della really felt as if she was sharing that life—sharing herself—with someone else. And it was someone she would never—could never—see again.

Eight

Nine days after returning the red dress to Talk of the Town, Della was still struggling to go back to her usual routine. It felt like anything but routine now that she had memories of Marcus shouldering their way into her thoughts all the time. The safe house where the feds had placed her was what one would expect to find in middle-class, middle-income, Middle America: sturdy early American furnishings in neutral colors and synthetic fabrics, with white walls and artwork that might have been purchased at any yard sale in suburbia. The lack of personality on the house’s part had only contributed to Della’s feelings of entrapment during her time here, but that feeling was compounded in the wake of her separation from Marcus. The handful of days she had left here stretched before her like an oceanful of centuries.

And she was even more fearful now than she’d been before about the uncertainty of her future. Before, she’d been prepared to face life on her own and had felt reasonably certain she would be able to manage. But now she knew what might have been under other, better circumstances. Wonderful. Life with Marcus would have been wonderful. Because he was wonderful. No other man would ever be able to hold a candle to him.

She sighed fitfully. There he was again, at the front of her thoughts. She told herself the only reason she thought him so wonderful was because she knew so little about him. Anyone could be wonderful for thirty-six hours in a small room with no one watching. The time she’d spent with him had been a fantasy. He’d been a fantasy. They’d both been playing the role of the phantom, perfect lover. Once free of the hotel room, he might be the same kind of man Egan had turned out to be.

How could she be so certain that Marcus hadn’t lied about everything that weekend anyway? He’d said the woman he was waiting for was out of his life, but what if he’d only said that to further his seduction of Della? How could she expect him to have been completely open and honest about himself when she hadn’t been open and honest about herself? Once she learned more about him, once she’d discovered what kind of person he really was…

But then, how could she do that when she would never see him again? When she didn’t even know his last name? At this rate, he would always be a fantasy to her, and as time went on, he’d grow into an even more legendary lover and all-around great guy, and then she’d really never have a chance to fall in lo—ah, she meant—never have a chance to appreciate someone else she might be compatible with.

A way to counter that possibility came to her immediately, and it wasn’t the first time the idea had crept into her brain. This time, it wasn’t creeping, though. This time, it was stampeding like a herd of wild, trumpeting wildebeest. And those wildebeest were running right to the laptop in the bedroom.

Maybe she didn’t know Marcus’s last name. But she knew where he worked. Fallon Brothers. The company must employ thousands of people nationwide, but Marcus wasn’t the most common name in the world, and she could narrow the search to Chicago. He’d said himself he was a fixture on a number of websites, so by doing an internet search of his first name and Fallon Brothers and the city of Chicago, she’d probably get a lot of hits. A lot of notorious hits. Maybe if she could see him on notorious sites, surrounded by notoriously beautiful women in notoriously compromising situations, she’d realize he wasn’t the kind of man she needed in her life anyway. Maybe if she could see him in his natural state of debauchery, it would be easier to forget him.

What could it hurt? She would never see him again. He would never be able to find her, if he was even trying. In a matter of days, she would be swallowed up even deeper into the system with a new name, address and social security number. And then there would really be no way for him to find her.