The Billionaire's Conquest: Caught in the Billionaire's Embrace / Billionaire, M.D. / Her Tycoon to Tame

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 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.