Free Caught in the Billionaire's Embrace by Elizabeth Bevarly Page B

champagne. He knew she was enchanted by a snowfall. He knew she laughed easily. He knew she was comfortable in red, red, red. All of those things spoke volumes about a person.
    And he knew she came from a moneyed background, even if she was currently making her way by having someone else pay for it. It hadn’t taken an inspection of her jewelry or a look at the labels in her clothing—even though he had as he’d picked up their things from the floor while she slept—to know that. She was smart, confident and articulate, and had clearly been educated at excellent schools. She carried herself with sophistication and elegance, obviously having been raised by parents for whom such things were important. She’d been perfectly at ease last night in every venue he’d encountered her. If she wasn’t the product of wealth and refinement, Marcus was a bloated yak.
    Not that wealth and refinement necessarily manufactured a product that was all the things Della was. He need only point to himself to prove that. He’d been kicked out of every tony private school his parents had enrolled him in, until his father finally bought off the director of the last one with a massive contribution for the construction of a new multimedia center. The same contribution had bought Marcus’s diploma, sincehis grades hadn’t come close to winning him that. Not because he hadn’t been smart, but because he hadn’t given a damn. As for sophistication and elegance, he had gone out of his way as a teenager to be neither and had embarrassed his family at every society function he’d attended. He’d raided liquor cabinets, ransacked cars and ruined debutantes—often in the same evening—and he’d earned an arrest record before he even turned sixteen. If it hadn’t had been for Charlotte…
    He pushed the memories away and instead focused on Della. If it hadn’t had been for Charlotte, Marcus wouldn’t be sitting here with her right now. And not only because Charlotte’s absence last night had allowed him to strike up a conversation with Della, not once, but three times. But because if it hadn’t had been for Charlotte, Marcus would now either be in a minimum security prison for wreaking havoc and general mischief past the age of eighteen, or he’d be lolling about on skid row, having been finally disowned by his family.
    â€œWhat are you thinking about?”
    Della’s question brought him completely to the present. But it wasn’t a question he wanted to answer. Hey, why should he, when she wouldn’t answer any of his?
    At his silence, she added, “You looked so far away there for a minute.”
    â€œI was far away.”
    â€œWhere?”
    He sipped his coffee and met her gaze levelly. “I’m not telling.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œYou won’t tell me anything about you, so I’m not telling you anything about me.”
    For a minute, he thought maybe she’d backpedal andoffer up some answers to his questions in order to get answers to some of her own. Instead, she nodded and said, “It’s for the best that way.”
    Damn. So much for reverse psychology.
    â€œFor you or for me?” he asked.
    â€œFor both of us.”
    The more she said, the more puzzled and curious Marcus grew. Just who the hell was she? Where had she come from? Where was she going? Why wouldn’t she tell him anything about herself? And why, dammit, did he want so desperately to know everything there was to know about her?
    â€œAll right, if you really want to know, I was thinking about something at work,” he lied.
    She said nothing in response, only picked up one of the pastries and enjoyed a healthy bite.
    â€œDon’t you want to at least know what I do for a living?”
    â€œNo.”
    There was that word again. He was really beginning to hate it.
    â€œI work for a brokerage house,” he told her, deliberately