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.
The only physical mementos, at any rate, since she’d left behind the paper on which he’d recorded all of his phone numbers—something for which she was kicking herself now, even if she had memorized all of them. It would have been nice to have something he’d touched, something personal in his own handwriting.
And when had she turned into such a raging sentimentalist? Never in her life had she wanted a personal memento from anyone. Not even Egan Collingwood. That was probably significant, but she refused to think about how.
Besides, it wasn’t as though she didn’t have plenty of other reminders of Marcus, she thought as she watched Ava Brenner, the proprietress of Talk of the Town, write out a receipt for the return of the rentals. Della had her memories. Memories that would haunt her for the rest of her life. The way Marcus had traced his fingertips so seductively over the rim of his champagne glass when they were in the club. How his brown eyes had seemed to flash gold when he laughed. The way his jacket had felt and smelled as he draped it over her shoulders. How the snow had sparkled as it had fluttered around him on the terrace and came to rest against his dark hair. The way his voice had rumbled against her ear when he murmured such erotic promises during their lovemaking
But mostly, she would remember the way he looked lying asleep in their bed before she left him.
He’d been lying on his side facing the place where she had been sleeping, his arm thrown across the mattress where she had lain—she’d awoken to find it draped over her. He’d been bathed in a slash of moonlight that tumbled through the window from the clear sky outside. His hair had been tousled from their final coupling, and his expression, for the first time since she met him, had been utterly, absolutely clear. He’d looked … happy. Content. Fulfilled. As if he’d learned the answer to some ancient question that no one else understood.
She’d tried to write him a note, had tried to capture in writing what she so desperately wanted to say to him. But when she’d realized what it was she wanted to say, she’d torn the paper into tiny pieces and let them fall like snowflakes into the tiny handbag that now lay on the counter between her and Ava. They had been silly, anyway, the feelings she’d begun to think she had for him. Impossible, too. Not only because she’d known him less than forty-eight hours. And not only because he was still carrying a torch for someone else. But also because Della wasn’t the sort of woman to fall in love. Love was for dreamers and the deluded. And God knew she’d never been either of those.
“There,” Ava said as she finished tallying everything. “If you’ll sign here that we agree to agree that you returned everything safe and sound, I’ll return the full amount of your damage deposit.”
“But I’m late getting everything back,” Della said. “I was supposed to be here at opening on Sunday. Not Monday.”
Ava made a careless gesture with her hand. “I was supposed to be here Sunday, too. But Mother Nature had other ideas for all of us, didn’t she?”
Boy, did she ever.
“So Monday morning is the next best thing,” Ava continued. “I appreciate you being here so promptly.”
Yeah, that was Della. Always perfect timing. Especially when it came to anything that would thoroughly disrupt her life. Had she been five minutes later meeting Egan on New Year’s Eve, she would have missed seeing him with the woman she would learn was his wife. Had she been ten minutes later to the office on New Year’s Day, she would have missed the memo to her boss that had set everything into motion. She would still be living her life blissfully unaware in New York. Even if she’d ultimately realized Egan was married, and even if she’d quit her job because of him, she would have found another position elsewhere on Wall Street in no time. She would still be picking up her morning coffee at Vijay’s kiosk, would still be enjoying Saturdays in Central Park, would still have the occasional night at the Met when she could afford it.
And she never, ever, would have met Marcus.
She couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. Traditional thinking said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but Della wondered. Maybe it was better to never know what you were missing. Not that she loved Marcus. But still …
“Did you enjoy La Bohème, Miss Hannan?”
