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.
Finally, with clear dejection—and maybe a little fear?—she replied, “Two weeks? That’s all the time I have left?”
Until what? Marcus wanted to yell. What the hell was she talking about? What the hell did the man expect her to do that made her sound so unwilling to do it?
“Then it’s really going to happen,” she said with clear resignation, sounding more reserved than ever. “I’m really going to have to do it.”
Do what, for God’s sake?
“No, I understand,” she said. “I’ll go through with it. I mean, it’s not like I have much choice, do I?” There was another pause, then she continued, “I know I promised. And I’ll hold up my end of the bargain. I just … I didn’t think it would be like this, Geoffrey. I didn’t think I’d feel like this about everything.” More softly, she added, “I didn’t think I’d feel like this about myself.” Then, because Geoffrey must not have heard that last, she said with unmistakable melancholy. “It was nothing important. Never mind.”
Nothing important. Marcus felt a little sick to his stomach. The way she felt about herself wasn’t important. This guy had her so wound around his finger that Della didn’t even realize how unbalanced and unhealthy the relationship was.
Relationship, hell. What she had with this guy was a bargain. She’d said so herself. And it was obviously a bad one. A least on her end.
“So two weeks then,” she said again. “I have two weeks to get myself ready and in the right frame of mind.”
Marcus hated to think what that getting ready would involve. He hated more to think about what the right frame of mind for such a thing would be.
He heard her answer a few more yes-and-no questions—with little more than a yes or no, sounding more and more like a child with each one—then heard her promise she would call tomorrow morning at the usual time. Then he heard the sound of her phone flipping closed.
He was about to pull the door to and hurry to the room before she caught him eavesdropping, but he heard something else that stopped him short—the very soft sound of muffled crying.
Something twisted inside him. He wasn’t accustomed to hearing a woman cry. Mostly because he made sure he got involved with women who were as shallow as he was. At least where things like emotional involvement were concerned. Obviously, Della wasn’t shallow. Obviously, she cared a lot about things like involvement. Even if she was currently involved with the wrong man.
Putting aside, for now, the fact that that word probably applied to himself as much as it did Geoffrey, Marcus pushed open the door and silently moved through it. He didn’t know why. It would have been best for him and Della both if he went back to the room and pretended he knew nothing of her conversation. It would have been best if they spent the rest of the weekend pretending there was nothing beyond that room until the two of them had to leave it.
But when he saw her sitting on the stair landing with her feet propped on the carpeted step below her, her arms crossed over her knees, her head rested on her arms, her shoulders shaking lightly, he knew he could never go back to pretending anything. She still had the cell phone clasped in one hand, but it fell, landing with a dull thud when she began to cry harder, and she didn’t bother to retrieve it. Instead, she surrendered to her sobs, muffling them by pressing her mouth to the sleeve of her robe. She was so lost in her despair that she had no idea Marcus stood behind her.
He didn’t know what to do or say, could only stand there feeling helpless. It was an alien concept, this helplessness, and he didn’t like it at all. His instincts told him to flee before she saw him, but his conscience—and he was surprised to discover he actually had one—dictated he do something to make her feel better. He let the two war with each other, to see who would win, but when instinct and conscience kept bickering, he stepped in and made the decision himself. He took a tentative step forward, then another.
As he was reaching down to curl his fingers over her shoulder, she whirled her head quickly around. When she saw him there, her eyes went wide with panic, and she stood so quickly, she almost pitched backward down the stairs. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist as she managed to right herself, but neither seemed to know what to say or do after that. For a long moment, they only stood silently looking at each other. Then, finally, Della stepped onto the landing with Marcus. He released her wrist, but brushed away a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb.
He had no idea what to say. He, Marcus Fallon, who had never been at a loss for words in his life. The man who could find a quip—whether appropriate or not—to alleviate any tense situation, who could make light of even the most difficult circumstances, couldn’t scrape up one word that would ease the tension in this one. Some knight in shining armor he was turning out to be. But then, he’d never wanted to be a knight in shining armor.
Not until now.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly, threading his fingers into her damp hair.
Her eyes were huge, seeming larger thanks to the presence of her tears, making her look vulnerable and fragile. He knew she was neither of those things, and realizing that one conversation with Geoffrey could make her feel that way made him despise the man even more.
She nodded, but said nothing, only swiped at her wet eyes with both hands before shoving them into the pockets of her robe.
“You don’t look okay,” Marcus said. He lifted his other hand and wove those fingers through her hair, too, until he found the nape of her neck and cradled it in his palm.
