How to Trap a Tycoon

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  Carlotta laughed. "Oh, yes, I remember. I was always sending my Barbie off to Rio de Janeiro and Monaco and St. Moritz to meet movie stars and princes. Or," she added, holding up a GI Joe dressed in commando black, "to meet GI Joe, who was off on leave. You, on the other hand," she continued, "were always sending your Barbie off to logging camps and rain forests to fight deforestation or to Amnesty International conventions."

  Dorsey laughed, too. "My Barbie had a social conscience."

  "Whereas my Barbie had a good time."

  Dorsey glanced up at her mother, who had put down GI Joe to dress her own blond Barbie in a peach-colored peignoir set. "Carlotta?" she asked.

  "Yes?"

  "Are you sure I wasn't switched at birth with some other, princessy, baby that should have been yours?"

  Her mother looked up at her and smiled. "I'm absolutely positive. Once you emerged from inside me and they put you in my arms, I never once let you out of my sight."

  Dorsey smiled back. "Truly?"

  "Truly."

  "Thanks."

  "You're welcome, dear."

  They said nothing more for a moment, only sat in comfortable silence dressing, undressing, and redressing their dolls. Then, out of nowhere, Dorsey announced, "I lost my job today."

  Carlotta's hands hesitated on her doll, and she glanced up at Dorsey. "At Drake's?" she asked.

  Dorsey nodded but couldn't bring herself to meet her mother's gaze. "Though the one at Severn , I'm sure, isn't far behind." Quickly, so she wouldn't have to think about it for very long, she added, "I lost Adam Darien, too."

  Her mother said nothing for a moment, then asked, "What happened? Did you two get separated at the El?"

  Dorsey shook her head sadly. "No. I think the two of us got separated before we ever even found each other."

  She heard Carlotta sigh softly. "Do you want to start at the beginning? Or should I just keep asking questions until the whole messy story comes pouring out?"

  Dorsey did meet her mother's gaze then, and before she could stop herself, the whole messy story did indeed come pouring out. She told Carlotta about what had happened in Lindy's office, about Lindy's findings and Adam's reaction—or lack thereof—about her employer's threat to press charges and sue, about how Lauren Grable-Monroe—and Dorsey—were going to be crucified for the public's entertainment.

  The only thing she didn't tell her mother was how very terrified she was of the impending fallout, nor did she describe the depths of her despair where losing Adam was concerned. Those, she figured, were pretty much a given. Mostly because by the time she finished telling her story, even she thought she sounded terrified and despairing.

  Carlotta's first response was adamant. "Lindy Aubrey can't have you arrested, Dorsey, nor can she sue you for anything."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Absolutely. You've done nothing illegal. Unless you've published your notes and called Lindy and her business all kinds of terrible, ugly names, she can't do anything. And even if you published your notes and called Lindy and her business all kinds of terrible, ugly names, she'd have to prove that she and her business weren't all those terrible, ugly things. And if you ask me, the moment that terrible, ugly woman took the stand, both judge and jury would find in your favor."

  "I don't know…"

  "Lindy was reacting out of anger and frustration and fear, Dorsey. When she speaks to her attorneys, they'll tell her she doesn't have a leg to stand on. You just wait."

  "Then she'll probably take out a hit on me," Dorsey said. "I wouldn't be surprised if she has friends in that line of work. She might even pull the trigger herself."

  "Oh, stop," Carlotta scolded. "Your work at Drake's and your dissertation are the least of your worries. What about Adam?"

  Dorsey had rather hoped to avoid that topic. She should have known better. "What about him?" she stalled.

  "What are you going to tell him?"

  She scrunched up her shoulders and let them drop. "I'm not going to tell him anything."

  "What?"

  "He won't listen to me, Carlotta. I tried to explain at Drake's, but he's already drawn his own conclusions and sided with Lindy. He won't believe me."

  Carlotta studied her in silence for some moments, then asked, "Why did you keep your notebooks at Drake's in the first place?"

  It took Dorsey a minute to backpedal that far, but she finally told her mother, "In the beginning, I didn't keep them there, for fear of being discovered. But it was hard to keep my observations in my head until I got home at night to record them. I just thought it would be easier if I could jot them down when I took a break. And gradually, as I got to know Lindy…" She shrugged again. "I don't know. I just pegged her as the kind of person who wouldn't violate another person's privacy. She guarded her own so closely. It was more convenient to keep the notebooks at Drake's, and I just never thought she'd do something like search my locker. I trusted her."

  "The same way Adam trusted you," Carlotta said.

  "Yes," Dorsey replied softly.

  "And now he feels that trust has been violated."

  "I know. That's the problem. And he's not the kind of man who'll forgive something like that."

  "Oh?" Carlotta asked. "What kind of man is he?"

  Dorsey fidgeted, then laid her Barbie on the floor beside Ken. Folding her legs up before her, she hugged them to her chest and settled her chin atop one knee. And she tried not to think about how she'd just curled herself up into a fetal position. What was next? she wondered. Would she be trying to crawl back into the womb, too? Somehow, she didn't think Carlotta would stand for that. Literally or figuratively.

  "Adam," she finally said, "is the kind of man who protects what's his. He'll see this as an opportunity to throw Lauren Grable-Monroe—to throw me—to the wolves."

  "Will he?"

  "Oh, Carlotta. You know how much he hates that book. He'll jump at the chance to see me squirm."

  "He might have jumped at the chance to see Lauren Grable-Monroe squirm, Dorsey, but not you. You yourself just said he protects what's his."

  "I'm not his," Dorsey countered.

  "Aren't you?"

  She shook her head slowly. "I'm not anybody's." She had meant for the proclamation to sound fierce and proud. Instead, it only sounded sad and lonely.

  "Regardless of what you may think," Carlotta told her, "Adam won't throw you to the wolves."

  "I can't be sure of that."

  "I can."

  "Why?"

  "Because he's just like you, Dorsey. And you would never do that to him."

  "He's not like me," Dorsey denied.

  "He's exactly like you," her mother retorted. "That's why you're so attracted to him. That's why you respond to him so strongly. You recognize yourself in him."

  "No, he's… I'm… We're…" She sighed restlessly and gave up trying to explain something she didn't even understand herself. "He's not like any man I've ever been attracted to," she told her mother. "So why does it hurt so much to lose him?"

  Carlotta laughed. "Oh, Dorsey, don't you see? That's always been your problem. You've always opted for Ken when you should have gone for GI Joe."

  She narrowed her eyes at her mother curiously. "What are you talking about?"

  Carlotta pointed at the Ken doll that Dorsey had dressed after completing Barbie's wardrobe. "Ken is so … so passive. He's so agreeable. So bland. He's the kind of man that I have always tried to attract. One who's manageable. One who's not much work. One who will behave predictably. Docilely."

  "And what, may I ask, is so terrible about that?" Dorsey asked.

  Carlotta rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. For me, that kind of man is fine. But he's not for you. You're a strong woman. You need a strong man. You need someone who will be both a worthy adversary and an equal partner. You're not going to find that in Ken. Yet Kens were all you ever dated. Until Adam."

  "Ken is not that bad," Dorsey defended.

  Carlotta sighed. "Dorsey, you always dressed Barbi
e in career coordinates, yet you always dressed Ken in tennis togs. And you still do. Do you realize that?"

  Dorsey looked down at the two dolls she had just dressed, and sure enough, Barbie looked ready to take on the stock market, while Ken was prepared for game, set, match.

  "Yeah. So?" she asked her mother. "Ken looks good in shorts."

  "So you've never taken Ken seriously, that's what," Carlotta told her. "He's always just been a plaything to your Barbie. GI Joe, on the other hand—" Her mother held up the other doll. "Now he's a force to be reckoned with."

  She snatched grinning, tawny-haired, totally harmless Ken away and settled intense, stoic, facially wounded GI Joe in his place. "Now look at that," Carlotta said with a smile. "That's what I call a power couple. Barbie has to take GI Joe seriously. He'd never stand for being dismissed the way that lame Ken just was. Ken belongs with my Barbie," she added, setting him down beside her peignoir-wearing doll. Dorsey had to admit that the pairing seemed much more appropriate. "My Barbie will be gentle with him," Carlotta concluded. "She'll take good care of him.

  "You, Dorsey, you wouldn't be gentle with Ken. And you shouldn't have to take care of anyone, if it's not in your nature. You're a strong woman," she reiterated. "You have power. You have focus. You have drive and ambition. You have complete self-knowledge and self-confidence. You deserve to find someone like that, too."

  Dorsey smiled halfheartedly. "I deserve GI Joe, huh?"

  Instead of answering, Carlotta studied each of the male dolls for a thoughtful moment. "Then again," she finally said, "Ken and GI Joe are both eunuchs, aren't they? Hmm…" She snatched GI Joe away from Dorsey's Barbie, too. "Oh, dear. Look at that. Now Barbie's all alone. She's still smiling, but you can tell she's not really happy. I suppose she couldn't be happy with some boring, emasculated piece of plastic." She paused until Dorsey glanced up to look at her again. "She deserves a man. You deserve a man," she said pointedly. "A real man. One's who's like you."

  "Adam Darien," she guessed.

  Carlotta nodded. "He's a worthy rival for you, Dorsey, and a worthy companion. Strong women, I think, need both." She sighed heavily. "You aren't like me, darling. You never have been. And I'm glad of that. The one lesson I wanted you to learn, growing up, was that you are your own person. We are entirely different beings, you and I. We want entirely different things. But that's not a bad thing, Dorsey. It doesn't mean we don't care about each other. It only means that we are different."

  "I think we want a lot of the same things," Dorsey objected.

  "Name one," Carlotta charged.

  "Security," Dorsey said immediately. "That was the whole point to writing How to Trap a Tycoon."

  Carlotta shook her head. "That wasn't for security. That was for a financial nest egg."

  "What's the difference?"

  Carlotta smiled a cryptic little smile. "You'd never understand," she said without a bit of malice. "And just for the record, I don't want security. I want a steady income to get me through my golden years. If security was what I wanted, I would have accepted one of the marriage proposals I received along the way. But I didn't want—"

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dorsey interrupted. "Marriage proposals? Marriage proposals? As in plural? As in more than one? As if one wouldn't have been enough to set you up the way you wanted to be set up? For life?"

  Carlotta gaped at her in clear disbelief. "Marriage would not have set me up," she stated indignantly. "A husband is the last thing I want."

  "Carlotta!" Dorsey exclaimed. "What are you talking about? How could you have received marriage proposals over the years and never accepted one? And how could you have never told me about them?"

  There was a moment of silence, then, "Well, no offense, Dorsey," Carlotta said, "but the reason I never told you about them was because, quite frankly, they were none of your business."

  "What?"

  "They were none of your business," her mother repeated softly.

  "But…"

  Dorsey told herself to let it go, to just be satisfied with Carlotta's explanation, even if she didn't understand it for a moment, and move on. But one question kept circling around and around in her head. And she simply had to know the answer. There was no way she'd be able to leave it behind until she found out for sure.

  "Was one of those marriage proposals," she began carefully, "from my father?"

  For a moment, her mother didn't reply, only arranged and rearranged her Barbie's lace-trimmed robe until she had it draping dramatically over one shoulder. Just when Dorsey thought she would have to ask the question again—because she intended to keep asking it until she received an honest answer—Carlotta glanced back up again and met her gaze levelly.

  "Yes," she finally said. "One of those proposals came from your father."

  Dorsey swallowed hard but said nothing, waiting to hear the rest.

  "The first time he asked me was when he found out I was pregnant with you," Carlotta said. "I adamantly refused."

  "Why?"

  "Dorsey, the man was married to a woman who was completely reliant on him, a woman who had no idea how to take care of herself, a woman who would have been left with three young children to raise alone. His primary obligation was rightfully to his family. Not to me."

  "What about me?" The question popped out of Dorsey's mouth before she could stop it. She knew it sounded selfish and cold, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to know.

  "You," Carlotta said, "were my responsibility. And I made that clear to Reggie."

  "But—"

  "No buts," her mother interjected. "The world was a different place then, Dorsey. Your father wasn't a strong man, and although his intentions were good, he wouldn't have been able to withstand the consequences of leaving his wife and children to marry his pregnant mistress. It would have ended between us eventually, and it would have ended badly. For all of us."

  "But he stayed with you for years after I was born. I remember him."

  "Yes, he wanted to be a part of both our lives, and I didn't object to that. But he kept asking me to marry him, kept saying he would leave his wife and children for me and you. I told him no every time. He kept asking, anyway. Finally, I told him that if he asked me again, I'd stop seeing him. He asked again. So I stopped seeing him."

  "Oh, Carlotta…"

  "I didn't love him. I didn't want him forever. I never wanted anybody forever. I know you can't possibly comprehend that, but for my sake, please try. I like men, Dorsey. All men. I like the way they talk and the way they move and the way they smell and the way they feel curled up next to me in bed. I like chatting with them, dining with them, flirting with them, being with them, in every way imaginable. But I don't want to keep one forever. I don't want to give up that much of myself to a man."

  In a way, Dorsey did understand and she respected her mother's conviction. Her mother was right—they were two totally different creatures. And she would never, ever be like her mother. Because she did want to keep a man forever. She did want to give up that much of herself to one. Provided that man was Adam Darien, and he would give as much of himself to her in return.

  Then she realized that he already had given as much of himself to her in return, maybe more, because he'd never held any part of himself back from her. He hadn't kept any secrets. He hadn't pretended to be something he wasn't. And he hadn't lied to her about anything.

  Dorsey gazed down at her solitary Barbie lying alone in her career coordinates. Carlotta was right. Despite the little plastic smile, she didn't look very happy. And a great career and a social conscience weren't going to be enough keep her warm at night.

  "Oh, Carlotta," Dorsey murmured. "What am I going to do?"

  * * *

  By the time Adam had finished examining Lindy's collection of information relating to Mack and Lauren Grable-Monroe, Drake's had been closed for three hours. Lindy sat at the table across from him—where she had been for the last ninety minutes of those three hours—smoking a cigar and nursing her second s
nifter of Armagnac , lost in a paperback copy of Dr. Zhivago. He'd heard her sniffling and figured she'd gotten to the part where Lara tells the good doctor to take a hike. It had been reassuring to realize that Lindy was capable of feeling something for somebody.

  Her investigator had definitely been thorough. He'd all but recorded Mack's underwear size. Then again, Adam already knew she was size six in panties, size 36B in bras. Happily, he had some information that the investigator didn't.

  Contrary to what he'd told Lindy, Adam didn't actually read every word of Mack's notes. He wanted to, and he'd intended to, but the majority of those words were so erudite and academic, so theoretical and analytical, that he had trouble following much of what was written. And he might as well admit it—he'd found the material to be pretty damned boring, too. Leave it to a sociology student to take a nice place like Drake's and reduce it to a scholarly dissertation.

  Then again, that was exactly what Mack had said she planned to do, wasn't it?

  And contrary to what Lindy had said, Adam didn't see himself figuring all that prominently in the notes. At least, he didn't think he did. No one had been identified by name, only with labels like Gray Eminence, Apologist, Wannabe, and Sacred Cow. Then there was the one referred to as Pack Leader, which, he had to admit, he liked to think was him. It must be, he decided, because there wasn't anyone she had termed Hot Stuff.

  But if Lindy saw Adam as a major part of this study, then she understood it with far greater insight than he. Because not only could he not see himself threatened by anything that was written there, he sure couldn't see a sensationalistic, potboiling best-seller emerging out of it, either. A sleep aid, certainly, but not much else.

  What had actually piqued his interest most were the documents from Rockcastle Books. Sure enough, it was Dorsey MacGuinness's signature that appeared on each of them. First on the book contract, whose advance had been impressive but by no means astronomical. Then on the confidentiality agreement, stating that her identity would be closely guarded by the publisher. And most interesting of all, on the payment agreement stating that all funds generated by the sale of the book would be paid not to Dorsey MacGuinness but to her mother.