it would be pointless to pretend he hadn’t heard her on the phone, he asked, “Who were you talking to?”
She looked at the phone on the floor, then up at Marcus. “How much of that did you hear?”
He thought about telling her he’d heard enough to know she was mixed up with someone she shouldn’t be who was obliging her to do something she obviously didn’t want to do, but that was kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. She shouldn’t be mixed up with Marcus, either. Not being the kind of woman she was.
Namely, the kind whose emotions ran deeper than a sheaf of paper.
“Not very much,” he lied. “I got worried when you didn’t come back, so I came looking for you.”
“Was I gone that long?”
He smiled, unable to help himself. “A few seconds was too long to be away from you.”
When she didn’t smile back, his own fell. “So who were you talking to, Della?”
“No one,” she said. “No one important.”
“He’s the one you were worried about missing you today, isn’t he?”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “But not the way—” She expelled an irritated sound.
“Not the way what?” Marcus asked.
“Nothing.” She pulled away from him, then bent down to scoop up her phone and the still-empty ice bucket. She looked at his face, but her gaze immediately ricocheted to the door. “Look, Marcus, can we go back to the room and forget this happened? ”
When he said nothing, she looked at him again, her eyebrows arrowed downward. “Can we? Please?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, telling himself the gesture was not defensive. Marcus Fallon didn’t get defensive. Marcus Fallon was the most offensive human being on the planet. “I don’t know, Della. Can we?”
She glanced away again. “I can if you can.”
Somehow, he doubted that. Because in addition to being the man who currently claimed Della as his own, Geoffrey seemed like the kind of man who wouldn’t let her forget about anything.
In spite of that, Marcus nodded. Once. “Fine. Let’s just forget it happened.”
Still not looking at him, she replied, “You promise?”
“I do.”
When she looked at him again, all traces of her former sadness were gone. She looked matter-of-fact and a little blank. She sounded that way, too, when she said, “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
It was only then, when she sounded so formal, that Marcus realized she had, for a few moments, been as familiar with him as she had been with the man on the phone. But now the reserve was in her voice again. When he looked at her, he realized it was in her posture, too. They were indeed back to pretending. He should be relieved about that.
Instead, for some reason, now Marcus kind of wanted to cry.
The mood in the room was considerably darker when they returned, Della couldn’t help noticing. As was the room itself. She strode directly to the window and pulled back the curtains to find her worst fears confirmed. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the snow was coming down even thicker and faster now than it had been when she’d first awoken.
She was never going to get out of here.
But then, what did she care? It wasn’t as though she had anything waiting for her out there. Nothing but a nondescript house full of nondescript furnishings in a nondescript Chicago suburb populated by nondescript families. Middle-class, middle-income, middle America. The area had been chosen specifically because it was so unremarkable and unmemorable. Della had been living there for eleven months now, and even she would have been hard-pressed to describe from memory what any of her neighbors or their houses looked like. It was the last place she wanted to be, the last place she should be living, the last place anyone would think to look for her.
That, of course, was the whole point.
What made it worse was that she’d been expressly forbidden to interact with anyone or set foot outside unless absolutely unavoidable, and never without asking Geoffrey for permission first. So far, he hadn’t considered a single one of her reasons to be absolutely unavoidable. Hence the sneaking around on those occasions when staying in the house would have driven her unavoidably insane.
As disconcerting as it was to be stuck here with Marcus until tomorrow—at least—a part of her thrilled at the prospect. She’d never felt as free or unencumbered—or uninhibited—as she did with him. She scarcely recognized herself this morning. Never in her life had she behaved with a man the way she had behaved with him. Not only the part about having sex with someone she’d just met, but also the sheer volume of sex they’d had. And the earthiness of it. The carnality of it. She’d never done things with other men that she’d done with Marcus last night. But with him, she’d felt no reticence or self-consciousness at all. Probably because he hadn’t had any himself. On the contrary—he’d been demanding and exacting when it came to what he wanted. But he’d been every bit as generous when giving himself to her.
Something warm and fizzy bubbled inside, an unfamiliar percolation of both desire and contentment, of want and satisfaction. She’d felt it on and off throughout the night, usually between bouts of lovemaking when their bodies had been damp and entwined. But Marcus was on the other side of the room now, and their exchange in the stairwell had been a less than satisfying one. Even so, she could still feel this way, simply by being in the same room with him, knowing he wasn’t leaving her. Not yet.
So really, why was she so eager to leave?
Maybe, she answered herself, it was because a part of her still knew this couldn’t last forever and saw no point in prolonging it. The longer it went on, the harder it would be when it came time for the two of them to part. And they would have to part. Soon. The fantasy she and Marcus had carved out last night should have been over already. They should have separated before dawn, before the harsh light of day cast shadows over what they had created together.
They both had obligations that didn’t involve the other—Della to Geoffrey and Marcus to the faceless woman for whom he obviously still had deep feelings. Even if he was no longer “with” her, as he claimed, it was clear he still cared very much for her. Too much for the possibility of including someone new in his life. Even if Della was in a position to become that someone new, which she definitely was not. Not here. Not now. Not ever.
How much had he heard of her conversation with Geoffrey? she wondered as she turned from the window and saw Marcus pouring himself another cup of coffee. She tried to remember if she’d said anything that might have offered a hint of what her life had become, but she was confident he would never suspect the truth. Because the truth was like something straight out of fiction.
He glanced up suddenly, and when he saw her looking at him, lifted the coffee carafe and asked, “Would you like some?”
It
