How to Trap a Tycoon

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  "Why did you come here?" she asked.

  "Because your mother told me I'd find you here."

  "You spoke to Carlotta?"

  He nodded. "I went to your house first, and she told me you were here"—he nodded toward the half-full box—"cleaning out your stuff. Ghandi?" he asked before she could comment, noting the framed photograph.

  She nodded. "I'm a big fan of passive resistance."

  "Is that why you haven't tried to see me?"

  She gaped at him. "I tried to call you. You were never in. I just assumed you didn't want to see me."

  "I wanted to see you," he assured her immediately. "But I figured with all the stuff going on in your life in the aftermath of Lauren Grable-Monroe, the last thing you needed was to have me there complicating things. I wanted to give you—both of us—a little time to let things blow over."

  She gazed at him with hungry melancholy, wishing she could put words to how very much she had needed him over the last few weeks. Instead, she only told him, "You wouldn't have complicated anything, Adam. I could have used you."

  He gazed back at her in silence for a long time, and she wished she could tell what he was thinking. "And did you?" he finally asked. "Use me, I mean?"

  She shook her head. "No. Never. Lindy was totally wrong about that. About all of it."

  He sighed heavily. "It really pissed her off that she couldn't have you arrested or sue you for anything."

  Dorsey wasn't sure she would ever stop looking over her shoulder where Lindy was concerned. Feigning. nonchalance, she said, "Did Lindy, uh … did she ever say anything about, oh … hiring some guys named Vito and Sal to come, gee, I don't know … break my legs?"

  He chuckled. "Actually, I did hear her on the phone talking to someone name Vinnie who owed her a favor, but…"

  "What?" Dorsey asked, alarmed.

  "Turned out she was just lining him up to do a little landscaping for her."

  "Oh."

  There was another long, taut moment of silence, then, "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked again. "I mean … I thought we were friends, Mack," he added softly. "Hell, we were a lot more than friends. Why didn't you just tell me the truth?"

  "I tried to," she said. "I really did. But every time I started to say something, I just…"

  "What?"

  Dorsey sighed. "A picture would pop into my head that was so clear and so scary that it kept me from saying a word."

  "A picture of what?"

  This time she was the one to study his face, the face she had missed so much over the last several weeks. "I kept seeing you," she told him. "Looking at me the way you're looking at me right now. And I just couldn't bring myself to tell you the truth, because I couldn't stand the thought of you looking at me that way. And now it's not a thought, it's a reality, and you're looking at me that way anyhow, and I … I can't stand it, Adam." She curled her fingers into impotent fists at her side. "I hate it that you hate me, and I don't know what to say or do that would put things back to rights."

  "Oh, Mack…" He reached for her then, pulling her close, folding his arms over her shoulders. "I don't hate you," he assured her. "I could never…"

  With a soft growl of frustration, he cupped one hand over the nape of her neck, skimmed the other up and down along the soft fabric of her sleeve. He tucked her head beneath his chin and just held her, and Dorsey couldn't believe she had actually forgotten how good it felt to be this close to him. As miserable as she'd been during the last month, she hadn't honestly realized until now all that she had been missing. Because finding herself back in Adam's arms was like living out every fantasy she'd ever had. The scent of him surrounded her, his heat mingled with her own, and his nearness set her heart to racing like a thoroughbred. Never in her life had she imagined anyplace could feel as perfect—as right—as this.

  "I've spent the last month trying to figure out what I'm feeling," Adam told her, "and the only feeling I've managed to identify is confusion. You're not who I thought you were. You're not the Mack I came to know and lo—" He halted abruptly, then hastily continued, "And you're certainly not Lauren Grable-Monroe. I thought I knew you so well. And it turns out I don't know who you are at all."

  She looped one arm loosely around his waist, then opened her other hand over his chest. And she found some small measure of encouragement in the way his heart was hammering hard beneath her fingertips. "I'm Dorsey," she said softly. "That's who I've been all along. It's all I've ever wanted to be. To anybody."

  "Dorsey," he echoed. But he said nothing more, only pulled his head back to look down at her, arching an eyebrow in idle speculation as he studied her face.

  "I don't expect you to understand," she told him. "I'm not sure I completely understand myself. But … I'm not just Mack. Mack is in there, certainly, and so, I guess, is Lauren Grable-Monroe. But they're both only a part of who I really am. Nobody seems to realize that except me. I'm not sure I even realized it myself until just recently."

  Adam gazed at her in thoughtful silence for another long moment, taking in her hair, her eyes, her mouth … and then some. Finally, with a very wicked smile, he said, "Then maybe I need to get to know you—all of you—better."

  And before Dorsey—or anybody—could say another word, he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.

  It was such a pleasant kiss. Nothing ravenous, nothing demanding, nothing intense, just … pleasantness. Tenderness. Entreaty. He plied her lips slowly, softly, gently with his again and again and again. And Dorsey succumbed gladly, entirely, melting against him as if it was where she was meant to be. It was where she was meant to be. And it was where she wanted to stay. Forever.

  She pushed herself up on tiptoe and roped her arms around his neck, threading the fingers of one hand through his hair, curling the others around his nape. And as she kissed him back, she tasted faint hints of coffee and mint toothpaste and something else … something less tangible … something less distinct…

  A promise. She tasted a promise in him. Or perhaps it was in her. In either case, she knew then that everything would work out between them. What they had created together, what they had grown and nurtured during the weeks they'd been together, what they were stirring to life once again… It was going to be all right, she told herself. All of it. All of her. All of them.

  Adam pulled his head back from hers then, but only far enough so that he could gaze down into her eyes. "I've missed you … Dorsey," he said, smiling as he tripped over her name. "That's going to take some getting used to," he added with a chuckle, a flash of merriment brightening his eyes. "But I have missed you. All of you. And I'll do whatever I have to do to get every last one of you back."

  He'd do whatever he had to do? Dorsey marveled. Good heavens. All he had to do was … well … say something along the lines of what he'd just said. That and—

  "Forgive me," she told him. "If you can do that, then—"

  "Done," he replied readily. "Just promise me we will be nothing but honest with each other in the future."

  "I promise," she vowed.

  "Me, too," he told her. "I should start off by telling you very honestly that I love you. In all your incarnations."

  She uttered a nervous chuckle. "Even Lauren?" she asked.

  He nodded. "She's a witty dame, and she looks great in a short skirt."

  Dorsey laughed. "Better than Mack in a necktie?"

  He narrowed his eyes in thought. "Hmm… That depends."

  "On what?"

  "On whether Mack is wearing just a necktie."

  Dorsey feigned shock. "You wicked, wicked man."

  He grinned, wickedly if she did say so herself. "Hey, baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet," he murmured as he pulled her close again.

  It shouldn't be this easy , she thought. After the month she'd spent struggling to keep her life together, finding her way back to Adam should be like hacking a path through the Amazon rain forest at the height of the wet season. With a butter knife. Blindfolded and barefoot. Wi
th piranhas nipping at her heels. And a side of bloody beef tied around her neck.

  But this…

  "Actually," he said as he nuzzled the very sensitive spot just below her ear, "there is one more thing I require of you."

  Naturally , she thought. "You want me to get on my knees and beg for you," she guessed.

  He pulled back again, arching a dark brow in thoughtful speculation. "Gee, I hadn't thought about that, but now that you mention it…"

  "Adam…"

  "Well, maybe later," he relented. "For now, I just require that you tell me how you feel. About me. Honestly, I mean."

  His uncertainty was evident in the way he was looking at her, and Dorsey couldn't believe that he would still harbor some doubt about her feelings for him. Oh, well. She would just have to spend the rest of her life showing him exactly how she felt. In as many ways as possible. In each and every one of her incarnations. Mack would love him like a cherished friend and confidante. Lauren would love him like a passionate and eager mistress. And Dorsey would love him … well, she would love him totally. Irrevocably. Eternally.

  And she summed it all up in three little words. "I love you," she told him simply. "There. That was honest."

  "It was also," he told her, "very arousing."

  Actually, Dorsey had already guessed that, because his arousal was palpable—mostly against her thigh.

  "So," he piped up brightly when he realized that she had recognized his … palpableness. "Where do we go from here?"

  "Well, since Carlotta's home today. I guess there's always your place," she suggested.

  He smiled. "We'll get to that soon enough," he promised. "What I actually meant was, where do you go from here?"

  "Oh." She sighed, hoping her disappointment wasn't too terribly obvious. For now, she contented herself—pretty much—with snuggling more resolutely against him. "Well, Severn has made it clear that there won't be a job for me here. Not in the sociology department, at any rate. They might have something opening up in janitorial soon, but…" She tried to chuckle, didn't quite manage it, and so shut up.

  "You don't think you might find something with one of the other colleges or universities?" he asked. "There are an awful lot in the area"

  "Actually," she told him, "I've already received quite a few offers of employment to teach, both here and out of state."

  He pulled back to look at her again, his expression sober. Very sober. "Out of state?" he asked. "You mean, like … Indiana ?"

  She shook her head. "I mean like New England ."

  " New England ?"

  She nodded. "Some of the positions even come with tenure."

  " New England ?"

  "And good pay."

  " New England ?"

  "But they're all positions teaching popular culture or media studies," she finally revealed with a grin of her own, putting him out of his misery. His answering smile was tinged with more than a little relief. "And I don't want to teach those things," she added unnecessarily. She snuggled close to him again. "Frankly, I've had it with popular culture. Not to mention the media. I want to teach, yes, but I want to teach sociology. Nobody seems to think I'll be able to do that with any sort of academic effectiveness. They really can't seem to separate me from Lauren. I don't know what I'm going to do for a job."

  "Why don't you write?" he asked.

  She groaned. "Oh, please, Adam, that's what got me into trouble in the first place."

  "Yeah, but that's because you were trying to keep Lauren separate from Dorsey and you had to use deceptive practices to do it. Now that everybody knows Lauren Grable-Monroe is really Dorsey MacGuinness, you could write as yourself."

  "But write what?"

  He pulled back again, and she tipped her head back to meet his gaze. "How about publishing your dissertation?" he said.

  She laughed. "Yeah, right. Nobody wants to read a scholarly, sociological treatise on stuffy old-boy men's clubs as microcosms for a male-dominated society."

  "They would if you rewrote it and threw in some pot-boiling sensationalism and gave it a catchy title like Bottoms Up: My Secret Life as a High Society Serving Wench."

  "Oh, no you don't," she said. "I don't want Lindy Aubrey hiring those guys from the South Side, no way."

  "As long as you don't identify anybody by name…"

  "No," she said adamantly.

  "You can still write about sociology," Adam said. "Just dress it up as popular nonfiction the way you did with How to Trap a Tycoon."

  "But—"

  "And you could still teach, too," he added enthusiastically, "in a manner of speaking. You could make public appearances the same way Lauren did."

  "That wasn't teaching," she pointed out.

  "The hell it wasn't," Adam countered. "I saw you in action as Lauren, remember. If she wasn't up there on that stage at Northwestern giving a sociology lecture, then I don't know what she was doing."

  "Yeah, but, Adam—"

  "And you'll never convince me that a part of you didn't like being Lauren," he barreled on. "Because you were too good at it, too convincing. And that could only be because you tapped into something inside you that had been there all along."

  "Maybe," she conceded. "But still—"

  "And there was something of Mack in all this Lauren business, too," he added further. "There was more than a little bartender advice and wisdom in that book and those talks."

  She eyed him suspiciously. "How do you know it was in the book?'

  He grinned crookedly. "I read it," he confessed with a shrug. "I thought it was really good, too. You have an interesting way of looking at the world, Dorsey, not to mention a very sharp wit. Oh, and I intend for us to get around to that crème de menthe thing very soon."

  Dorsey had never thought of Lauren the way Adam had just presented her, but a lot of what he had just said made a strange sort of sense. As often as she had complained about Lauren, there had been times when she had genuinely enjoyed herself in that guise. Lauren was saucy and sassy in a way that Dorsey had never felt she should be for fear of not being taken seriously. And Mack, too, had been different from Dorsey—more social, more outgoing, more comfortable with strangers. She'd never allowed that side of herself to emerge fully, because it hadn't seemed scholarly. But mix it all up and stir it together, and what resulted was, well … Dorsey, she supposed.

  Her head was starting to hurt with all the self-analysis and self-discovery, and she really didn't want to think about all this right now. Not when she had Adam back in her arms. Not when she could make plans—real plans—for the first time where he was concerned. Not when something seemed to be going right after so much had gone wrong.

  "Over the last several weeks," Adam continued, oblivious to her focus on them instead of her, "you've only seen the media as some vicious, hungry beast. But I think maybe what you need to do, career-wise, is approach the media from a different angle. Or maybe," he said further, with a cryptic little smile, "the media needs to approach you."

  She eyed him curiously. "What do you mean?"

  He studied her with much interest for a moment, as if he was mulling over something of grave importance. Then, very thoughtfully, he said, "Dorsey MacGuinness, I'm going to make you—all of you—an offer that none of you can refuse."

  She arched an eyebrow. "Oh?"

  He nodded. "Later. Right now, I have a much more important question to ask."

  "What's that?"

  He grinned very suggestively. "Is it true that these study carrels are soundproof?"

  She grinned back. "No, I'm afraid not."

  "Mm," he replied, clearly unhappy with her response.

  "Why do you ask?" she said, already knowing the answer.

  "Well, I couldn't help but notice that you're not wearing any shoes."

  Okay, so maybe she didn't know the answer, after all. "My, uh … my boots were soaked by the time I got here. I set them over by the radiator to dry out." Then, because she couldn't stand it, she asked further, "Why d
o you ask?"

  Instead of answering, though, Adam continued to look thoughtful and posed another question of his own. "Well, if the study carrels aren't soundproof, do they at least have locks on the doors?"

  "Noooo," she told him, still not quite certain where he was going with this line of questioning.

  "Will that counter hold both our weight?"

  Oooh . Okay. Now she knew where he was going. Boy, 'bout time, too. But she replied, with much regret, "Probably not."

  Clearly undeterred, Adam asked, point-blank, "Ever made love in one of these things?"

  "Um … not yet."

  "Feel like conducting an experiment?"

  "Only if it's for the furthering of my education."

  He chuckled. "Oh, Dorsey, the things we can teach each other."

  Her laughter joined his. "So what are you waiting for?"

  Nothing, as became evident immediately. Because before Dorsey had even completed the question, Adam was tucking her right back into his embrace and lowering his head to hers. This time his kisses were less leisurely than before. This time there was hunger, demand and intensity. This time, there would be no retreat for conversation. This time, they would brand each other for life.

  Life , Dorsey echoed faintly to herself as she got more and more lost in his kiss. She could hardly wait for that life to begin. Then Adam deepened his kiss even more, tasted her to the very depths of her soul, and she thought, Um, yeah, okay, I guess I can wait just a little while…

  Then that thought, too, faded easily away, because, quite frankly, her brain was the last body part she wanted to be using at the moment. Lifting her hands to his hair, she threaded her fingers through the silky tresses, recalling quickly how much she loved doing this, how good it felt to pull him closer, how very possessive she could be where he was concerned. Adam seemed to sense her thoughts, because he looped his arms around her waist and splayed his hands open over her back to push her body flush with his own. It was an exquisite feeling, touching every inch of his body with every inch of hers, and she reveled in the realization that she would be able to do this forever.