How to Trap a Tycoon

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  Oh, where was a good flannel shirt when you needed one?

  "Don't worry. I promise they don't bite."

  Adam's reassurance emerged as a soft utterance right by Dorsey's ear, and a shiver of heat danced down her spine at his nearness. As had become his habit, he'd read her thoughts. And, as always, his simple presence made her feel better. Better than better, she decided when she turned to look at him. Because dressed in his faultless black tuxedo and greatcoat, he sent every erogenous nerve she possessed into a tailspin.

  "Are you sure?" she asked. She dipped her head toward the gaily dressed crowd milling about the entryway and massive hallway beyond. "I'm not positive, but I think I caught a glimpse of my mother in there."

  He smiled as he reached for her coat and withdrew it from her shoulders. "I wouldn't be surprised if she's here," he said. "My parents' open house is always one of the biggest social events of the holiday season. Everybody comes to this thing. But none of them bite," he reiterated with a grin.

  She reserved comment on that score as she relinquished her coat and watched Adam shrug out of his. Then he passed them along to a woman who politely curtsied—actually curtsied, Dorsey marveled—first to him and then to her and carried the garments away.

  Amazing, she thought. She had never been curtsied to in her entire life. And she wasn't entirely sure how to respond. "Oh … thanks," she murmured to the retreating woman, battling the urge to bob up and down herself. To Adam she added, "Do we need to get a number or something for our coats?"

  He chuckled. "No. Marissa will remember who gets what. That's her job."

  The Dariens had a servant whose job was to remember which coat belonged to whom? she thought. Just where did coat-rememberer belong in the domestic hierarchy? Was it above or below the food taster?

  Adam extended a hand forward in a silent indication that Dorsey should precede him. A flutter of nerves mamboed through her midsection again at the prospect of entering such a wild, unknown territory, but she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other until she had successfully entered the fray.

  One, two, don't trip on your shoes , she thought with fierce concentration as she moved forward. Three, four, watch out for that door, she further mused. Five, six, you're graceful as bricks. Seven, eight, I just can't relate. Nine, ten, let's try this again.

  Dorsey inhaled deeply, told herself she could do this, and concentrated harder. Adam seemed to sense her anxiety, because as they wove through the crowd toward the cavernous ballroom at the end of the wide hall, he reached over and tucked her arm through his, covered her cold fingers with his much warmer ones, and gave them a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Then he steered her gracefully from one couple or group of people to another to introduce her.

  He used only her name when he did that and never attached a label. He identified her as neither his bartender nor his … his … his hunka hunka burnin' love. Whatever. He only smiled whenever he introduced her as Dorsey MacGuinness, and she only smiled in return at the warm, buttery feelings that pooled in her belly at hearing the affectionate way his voice wrapped itself around her proper name.

  And she found herself wishing he would call her Dorsey instead of Mack. Not that there wasn't a fun, endearing quality to the nickname, especially now that the two of them had become lovers. But she wanted Adam to see her as something other than Mack. She wanted to be more to him than a bartender, a pal, a confidante. And she wanted to be more than a lover, too. She wanted to be a human being with him. She wanted to be a wearer of flannel shirts. A student. An academic. A woman. She wanted to be herself.

  Gradually, as the party progressed, she began to grow more confident, began to feel more at ease. And upon meeting Adam's parents, she started feeling welcome, too. They were genuinely nice people, she realized immediately. Incredibly rich, but nice. Adam resembled his mother physically, resembled his father in everything else. Dorsey felt as comfortable with the elder Dariens as she did with their son, and then it became much too easy to fall into the fantasy of thinking she might actually become a part of this world.

  Immediately, she shoved the fantasy away and stood firm in her reality instead. She wasn't a part of this world, not really, in spite of her genetic potential in that regard. Yes, her mother floated with ease through this sort of environment, and yes, her father had been born and raised to it legitimately. Dorsey hadn't been. She wasn't legitimate. In more ways than one. And until she could be honest with Adam about her alternate reality as Lauren Grable-Monroe, this would never, ever be her world.

  That fact was hammered home the moment she entered the ballroom and her gaze lit on her father. Just like that, there he was, standing not ten feet away from her, engaged in conversation with another man much like himself—tall, fit, tuxedoed, rich. Dorsey's step faltered when she saw him, and she simply could not look away— She stared at him quite openly. Adam must have noted her preoccupation, because he halted abruptly beside her. He trained his gaze in the same direction, then looked back at her.

  "Mack?" he said. "You okay?"

  She nodded slowly but said nothing, only continued to gaze at Reginald Dorsey. Her father must have felt her watching him then, because he turned to look at her. When he did, his eyes widened for a moment, his mouth dropped open in clear surprise, and he—almost—made a motion to move toward her. But he stopped himself before completing it, hesitated a moment more, then, with clear reluctance, returned his attention to the man with whom he had been conversing. The entire episode lasted only a few seconds. But Dorsey felt as if she had just lived a hundred years.

  When she turned to look at Adam, he was still gazing at her, his expression faintly puzzled. "Do you know Reginald Dorsey?" he asked, clearly surprised. "He's a friend of my father's. A local businessman." He turned to look at the other man, then back at Dorsey. "He's a very—" He stopped right there, glanced back at the other man again—probably, she thought, he was looking at Reginald's auburn hair and unusual green eyes—then turned to gaze at Dorsey again. "Dorsey," he said softly. Only this time, it wasn't with the affectionate inflection the word had carried before. This time, it was with a note of discovery

  "Yes?" she replied, her heart humming strangely at hearing him utter it anyway.

  "No, I mean … Dorsey," he said. "You and he are both named Dorsey."

  "Yes," she agreed. "We are."

  "He's … he's your father."

  It was a statement, not a question, because Adam had clearly put the facts together and drawn the right conclusion. Hey, he was a smart guy, after all. He knew what was what. Except, of course, for that pesky Lauren Grable-Monroe business.

  "Yes," Dorsey told him. "He's my father. My mother's former lover. My mother's former benefactor," she hastily corrected herself.

  Adam continued to gaze at her in silence for a moment more, as if this newfound knowledge was hard for him to digest. Well, what had he expected? Dorsey thought. He knew the circumstances of her birth. Just because he'd figured out the identity of her father, what did that have to do with anything?

  "Do you want to go talk to him?" Adam finally asked her, dropping his voice to an even softer timbre.

  "No." The word emerged from her mouth swiftly, adamantly, finally.

  He eyed her curiously. "Are you sure?"

  "Quite sure." Again the assurance came out quick, insistent, vehement.

  He studied her in a maddeningly assessing way, then told her, "His wife died last year, you know."

  "I know," Dorsey said.

  "His children are all grown and on their own now."

  "I know that, too."

  "If they found out about you, it probably wouldn't—"

  "They're not going to find out about me," she interrupted him. "He'd never tell them."

  "But if you—"

  "I'm not going to tell them, either."

  "But—"

  "Adam, could we please just go into the party now?"

  He hesitated a moment, and she silently urged him not to
press the issue. Finally, he relented. "Yeah, okay. Whatever you want to do."

  Actually, what Dorsey wanted most to do then was go home. She was about to open her mouth to voice that exact intention when her mother, wrapped in a deep-red velvet number with elegant drapes and discreetly plunging neckline, appeared out of nowhere and brushed a quick kiss over her cheek.

  "Dorsey, dear," she greeted her. "You look smashing. I told you the green would be perfect for you."

  That, Dorsey thought, was entirely open to debate. True, the little—and she did mean little—green dress hugged her body as if made for it. She still didn't feel like herself at all. Then again, she was beginning to wonder if she even knew who herself was these days. Could be the dress she had on was just the thing for her. If only she could identify who her really was.

  "Thanks, Carlotta," she said halfheartedly. "How … interesting … to find you here."

  Her mother waved a hand negligently before her. "Oh, not really," she said. "Anybody who's anybody comes to the Dariens' annual holiday party. Hello, Adam, how are you?" she quickly added, pushing herself up on tiptoe to brush a swift kiss—the kind of kiss any mother-in-law might bestow upon her son-in-law … dammit—over his cheek, as well. "Isn't that true?" she added after completing the gesture. "Everyone comes to your parents' party."

  He nodded. "I told Mack that very thing myself when we arrived. Which is why I'm not surprised to find you here at all."

  Carlotta smiled. "Darling boy," she murmured. Then, "Be a love and fetch me a champagne cocktail," she told him. "I seem to have misplaced my companion."

  Adam dipped his head forward in ready and complete obeisance, something that frankly amazed Dorsey. Men just dropped like flies around Carlotta, she thought. She had no idea how her mother managed to so thoroughly and immediately captivate them the way she did, not even after writing a book on the subject, but even Adam wasn't immune. Carlotta just had it. Whatever it was. And Dorsey was surprised by the faint thread of envy that wound through her at realizing she'd never master it herself.

  "One champagne cocktail coming up," he said. "Mack? What can I get for you?"

  "Just a glass of wine would be fine," she told him.

  He nodded again—with much less obeisance this time—and headed off on his quest.

  "Stand up straight, dear," Carlotta whispered to Dorsey the moment he was out of sight. "Men don't like to see a woman slouching."

  Dorsey frowned but obediently squared her shoulders. "Yeah, well, at least for once I am a woman tonight," she told her mother. "Usually, when I come to something like this, I'm a bartender."

  Her mother made a soft tsking sound. "Darling. To a man, you're always a woman. So long as your body has produced estrogen at some point in your life, it doesn't matter if you're dressed as a bartender or a nun or a sheep or a dairy maid or a Marine Corps drill instructor." She paused for a thoughtful moment, then added, "All the better if you're dressed as one of those, actually. You'd be amazed at some of the things I've worn over the years. Why, I remember one time when the president of a local bank asked me to dress up like his fourth-grade teacher, Miss Applebee, and spank his—"

  "Carlotta," Dorsey interrupted, dropping her voice to a nervous whisper. "This is not the kind of conversation you should be having with your daughter. Or any other human being we might claim as a mutual acquaintance," she added further.

  Carlotta ran a few fingers over the sparkling gems that encircled her throat. "Actually, darling, I think it would have simplified things enormously if we'd had more conversations like this a long time ago. You have so many strange hang-ups about sex."

  "Carlotta," Dorsey hissed again. "Keep your voice down."

  "Well, you do."

  "Yeah, well … it is … you know … sex," Dorsey said—very quietly—in her own defense. "It's kind of important, after all. Who doesn't have hang-ups?"

  Her mother exhaled that quiet sound of disappointment again. "Sex is nothing," she told her daughter. "I can't imagine where you get the idea that it's important."

  Dorsey gaped at her. "How can you, of all people, say that? You've made your living with sex."

  Her mother eyed her with much disenchantment. "Sex is not how I've made my living," she denied coolly.

  "Oh, please. Carlotta, I know exactly what goes on in a relationship like that. And you've never bothered to hide it. Don't even try to tell me you didn't have sex with the men who kept you."

  "Well, of course I had sex with them, darling. Don't be an imbecile."

  "Hey!"

  "But sex isn't why I stayed with them."

  "Well, that goes without saying, doesn't it?" Dorsey remarked.

  "And sex wasn't why they stayed with me, either."

  Now Dorsey eyed her mother with much confusion. "Then why did they?"

  Her mother sighed heavily, shaking her head in maternal disapproval at her daughter. "Oh, Dorsey. You just don't get it, do you?"

  "Obviously not."

  Suddenly, Carlotta smiled, a wicked, playful, salacious little smile. "Then again, you have been getting it more than usual lately, haven't you?" she fairly purred. "And from that nice Adam Darien, too."

  "Carlotta."

  As always, her mother ignored the admonition. "You'd do well to rein him in, dear," she said instead. "And I can tell you how to do it. I didn't reveal all of my secrets in How to Trap a Tycoon, you know. I kept the best ones to myself. Not every woman would be able to handle them. I think you would, though. You are, after all, my daughter."

  As if Dorsey needed reminding. "Thanks, Carlotta, but I don't think there will be any reining in going on in my relationship with Adam." Mostly, she added to herself, because that relationship was about to go careening off a cliff, and any reining one way or another would be pretty much pointless after that.

  Carlotta sighed again. "Oh, well. Easy come, easy go," she philosophized.

  "Easy is as easy does," Dorsey countered, unable to help herself.

  But instead of being offended, Carlotta only smiled brightly. "Now you're getting it. Or, at least, you could be. On a much more regular basis than you are now, at any rate. Have you even tried the crème de menthe thing with Adam yet?"

  Dorsey squeezed her eyes shut tight. Why, she wondered, did these society parties always seem to go on forever? As usual, it was going to be a long night.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  « ^ »

  "You are a total disgrace to your gender, you know that?"

  Edie muttered the words with frank disappointment, shook her head dismally at Lucas, and wondered what on earth had possessed her to think she could help him in his quest to trap himself a tycoon.

  Oh, sure, he looked gorgeous and yummy and totally edible in the charcoal, pin-striped Brooks Brothers suit she'd forced him to buy when she'd taken him shopping that afternoon. And his new hundred-dollar haircut had evened up his shaggy locks just soooo nicely, making his razor-straight hair seem even silkier and shinier and blonder than before. And the sapphire-colored necktie knotted expertly at his throat set off his blue eyes in a way that was rather … Edie sighed deeply in spite of herself. Rather breathtaking, actually, if truth be told.

  Unfortunately, with his bad attitude, he'd be lucky if he trapped himself a staph infection tonight. And, dammit, she'd gone to a lot of trouble to finagle a couple of invitations to Mrs. Simon Preston's fundraiser for the Chicago arts that was being held at a small Halsted Street

  art gallery.

  Actually, Edie amended hastily, it wasn't so much that she'd gone to a lot of trouble. Mr. Davenport from Drake's had been more than happy to help her out when she'd asked him if he knew anybody who would be attending the well publicized, though very exclusive, event. Arty occasions like this one were notorious for bringing out society's women without their men, and Edie had figured it might be Lucas's best shot to land himself a tycoon.

  And Mr. Davenport had been delighted to offer his assistance. He'd grinned with much pleasur
e, had confessed that he'd also been invited, and had promptly used his cell phone to call Mrs. Preston herself—Aunt Bitsy, to him, Edie had been surprised to hear—and have Edie Mulholland and escort added to the guest list.

  Now, of course, Edie felt beholden to the man for performing the favor, and she really didn't like feeling beholden to anyone. Especially a man. Even if Mr. Davenport had made absolutely no mention of collecting on the debt anytime soon. Or ever, for that matter. He'd just been happy he could help out, he assured her. Edie did, after all, need someone to take care of her.

  But she was confident that the day would come when Mr. Davenport did indeed ask for repayment in one form or another. She just hoped he didn't make any requests of her that were too sordid or icky. Because she'd left her sordid, icky days long behind her.

  And now, after all her efforts, Lucas didn't even appreciate the opportunity Edie had presented to him. All he'd done since their arrival at the gallery was complain. First about how he felt like a friggin' GQ toy boy in his new friggin' suit. Then about how friggin' much he'd spent for a friggin' haircut. Then about how they weren't even serving friggin' Bud in a friggin' bottle at this friggin' shindig. Then about how the alleged friggin' artwork on the friggin' walls was giving him the friggin' willies.

  Except he hadn't used the word "friggin'"per se, and Edie was friggin' tired of hearing him complain.

  Honestly, she thought, watching him slug back a mouthful of very expensive champagne as if it were, well, friggin' Bud in a friggin' bottle. If it weren't for the fact that she had Lucas shackled to her side, she'd be enjoying herself very much. The Mershon Gallery, though small, was strikingly if unconventionally decorated. Plum-colored walls were offset by a midnight-blue ceiling liberally dotted with white Christmas lights made to twinkle like stars, and the hardwood floor beneath was painted a lovely shade of … well … black.

  The artwork adorning the walls was likewise dramatic, a mix of watercolor slashes in various jewel tones reminiscent of Mark Rothko and some heavier splashes in primary colors à la Jackson Pollock. The effect, on the whole, was very arresting and in no way traditional. Edie liked the paintings and her surroundings very much.