The Billionaire's Conquest. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ New York. Not when Geoffrey had told her she had to leave with him. Not during the eleven months since, when she’d had to turn her entire life over to someone else. Why now? Why here? Why in front of the last person on earth she wanted to see her cry?

      She lifted a hand to shield her face and jumped up from the bed. “Excuse me,” she said hastily as she headed for the bathroom. “I think I have an eyelash in my eye.” As she was closing the door, she said over her shoulder, “If you don’t mind, I’ll take the first shower.” Without awaiting a reply, she pushed the door closed and locked it, then turned on the shower full blast. Then she grabbed a towel and dropped to the floor, shoving it hard against her mouth.

       I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

      Her eyes grew damp, so she squeezed them shut.

       I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

      And somehow, by some miracle, Della kept the tears at bay.

      The moment Marcus heard the rattle of the shower curtain closing in the bathroom, he crossed to the dresser where Della had laid her purse the night before. Okay, so maybe this one couldn’t hold as much as a computer’s hard drive, since it was one of those tiny purses women carried to formal events that was roughly the size of a negative ion. But it was large enough to hold a driver’s license, cash and a cell phone, all of which he found inside, along with a tube of lipstick, a collapsible hairbrush, a plain metal keychain from which dangled a single key—house key, not car key—and, curiously, a computer USB drive. But no credit card, he noted, thinking it odd. Meaning she’d paid for her dinner and whatever else last night—a not inconsiderable sum—with cash. Interesting. He just wasn’t sure exactly how.

      He looked at the driver’s license first and saw that it was from New York State. So she had been honest with him about being from the East Coast, but hadn’t dissuaded him of his assumption that she came from a hot climate. Also interesting. But again, he wasn’t sure how. Looking closer at the license, he saw that her full name was Della Louise Hannan and that she was thirty years old. In fact, she’d turned thirty yesterday. So last night was her celebration of reaching that milestone. The fact that she’d celebrated it alone heartened him—more than it really should have.

      He glanced at her address, but it was on one of the higher numbered streets, outside the part of Manhattan with which he was familiar. He knew the better parts of New York like the back of his hand and had expected he would be able to pinpoint Della’s address with little effort—doubtless somewhere near or on Fifth Avenue or Central Park. But this was nowhere close to either of those. He memorized it for future investigation, stuck the license in her purse and withdrew her cell phone, flipping it open.

      Unfortunately, it was one of those not-particularly-smart phones, a bare-bones model that didn’t contain an easy-access menu. So he had to poke around a bit to find what he was looking for, namely her calls received and sent. After a moment, he found both and discovered that every single one had been to and from one person. A person identified simply as Geoffrey.

      Any optimism Marcus had begun to feel dissolved at that. Geoffrey could be a first or last name, but somehow he knew that it was definitely a man’s name. He fumbled through more screens until he found her contact list and began to scroll to G. It took a while to get there. She had dozens of contacts, most listed by last name, but a handful—mostly women—were identified by their first names and, when the names were duplicates, by a last initial. Finally, he came to Geoffrey and clicked on it. There were two numbers listed for him, one designated a work number, the other a cell. The work number was a three one two area code—the man worked in Chicago. The cell number, however, was eight four seven, that was in the suburbs. It was a revelation that revealed nothing to Marcus. A lot of people lived in the ‘burbs and worked in the city. And eight four seven covered a lot of ‘burbs.

      He reminded himself that Geoffrey could be a brother or a cousin or some guy she knew from high school. There was no reason to think he was necessarily a love interest or the man who kept her. Except for the fact that he was clearly the only person she was in touch with, in spite of her knowing a lot more.

      But that was what men like that did, didn’t they? They isolated the woman they wanted to own from her friends and family until she had no one but the guy to rely on. Whoever this Geoffrey was, Marcus was liking him less and less. That was saying something, because Marcus had begun to really loathe the faceless, nameless man in Della’s life without even knowing for sure one existed.

      He scrolled through more screens until he found the one that contained her photographs and clicked on those. There weren’t a lot, but there were enough to tell him more about her. Several of the photos were pictures of Della with a trio of other women, all about her age. But it took him a few moments to realize one of the women in the pictures was Della, since she looked different than she did now—her hair was short and black, not the shoulder-length deep gold it was now. But why would she cover up a color like that? Or wear it so short?

      Women.

      Judging by the length of her hair now, the photos on her phone must be at least a year old. In a few of them, Della and the other women were dressed in business attire and seated at a table with girly-looking drinks sitting in front of them, appearing as if they were blowing off steam at the end of a workday. Okay, so Della had a job and wasn’t necessarily the idle socialite he’d thought her to be. It didn’t mean she hadn’t come from money. She might have even been a client of some kind of one or more of the other women.

      Scrolling further down through the pictures, Marcus finally found what he was looking for. Photos of Della, still with short, dark hair, seated with a man on a beach somewhere. A man who looked old enough to be her father, but who was good-looking and fit. Obviously very rich. Obviously very powerful. Obviously very married.

      Marcus knew those things about the guy because he knew the guy’s type. Too well. He worked and dealt with men like him every day. A lot of them were his friends. This had to be Geoffrey. Who else would it be? No one else in Della’s contact list was identified informally by first name except for her girlfriends.

      He navigated to her call list and saw that the last time Geoffrey had called Della was three nights ago. The last time Della had called him was yesterday morning. And the morning before that. And the morning before that. He kept scrolling. She’d called Geoffrey every single morning, weekday or weekend, always either at nine o’clock or within minutes before or after that hour.

      Whoever Geoffrey was, he was keeping tabs on her. And he was making sure she was the one who called him, not the other way around. Another way to exert his control over her. Della hadn’t made or received phone calls from anyone else for more than three months, at least, that was how far back her call log went. Whoever this guy was, he’d had her disconnected from her friends and family for a long time.

      Was that why she had come to Chicago? To escape an abusive lover? But she’d told Marcus last night that one night was all she could give him, and she’d phoned Geoffrey yesterday, so obviously this guy wasn’t out of her life yet.

      He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was approaching 8:45 a.m. In fifteen minutes, Della would have to make her obligatory daily call. But it was a safe bet she wouldn’t do it unless Marcus was out of the room—not if she didn’t want him to overhear her. He’d been planning to take a shower after she was finished, but now he was thinking maybe he’d wait a bit. ‘Til, say, well after nine o’clock. It would be interesting to see how Geoffrey—whoever the hell he was—would react to Della’s lack of cooperation. Maybe he’d call her instead. And that, Marcus thought, was something he definitely wanted to be around for.

      It СКАЧАТЬ