How to Trap a Tycoon(22)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Plus, she had to admit as she glanced over the top of her menu to inadvertently watch him inspect his, he really was very cute.

More than cute, she admitted grudgingly. It wasn’t only what went on inside his head that appealed to her. As much pride as Dorsey had in her intellectual achievements, she was by no means above succumbing to a primitive physical attraction. And the attraction she felt toward him was certainly primitive. Potent. Relentless. Rawly sexual. Which, now that she thought about it, was probably a very good reason for her to avoid him. It was a long time since she had been sexually attracted to a man, never so powerfully as she was to Adam Darien. She’d just as soon it not be happening now, when her own sexuality was being manipulated by someone else—namely, Lauren Grable-Monroe.

"So what looks good to you?" he asked suddenly, glancing up from his menu before she had a chance to avert her gaze. He smiled—rather smugly, too—when he caught her ogling him.

What looked good to her, Dorsey thought, he would be better off not knowing. Because it would only lead to trouble. "Oh, gosh. I can’t really decide," she hedged.

"Interesting," he countered smoothly, fixing his gaze on hers. "Because I know exactly what I want."

A surge of heat hummed through her at his softly uttered assurance, and she had no idea how to respond. All she could do was damn Lauren anyway for using up all the good repartee hours ago.

Thankfully, their server arrived with the drinks they had ordered—or, rather, that Adam Darien had ordered. God forbid he should consult her first, after all, she thought, as the waiter placed a glass of very expensive Merlot in front of her. "It was cold walking here, and you need warming" had been his reason for ordering red wine instead of the iced cappuccino he had promised her earlier. The way he’d voiced the "you need warming" part, however, had gone a loooong way toward remedying that particular problem. Still, there was no reason he had to know that.

Dorsey mumbled her thanks to the server and, resigned to her fate, lifted the glass to her lips for an idle sip. The wine was dark, smooth, and mellow, and she had to admit that it felt good going down. But it was nowhere near as intoxicating as the dark, smooth, mellow look in his eyes. And she couldn’t help wondering if he’d feel just as good going—

Uh-oh.

Their waiter hastily scribbled down their dinner orders as they gave them—an amazing feat, as far as Dorsey was concerned, seeing as how she herself couldn’t understand a word of what she said in that regard—then conveniently disappeared. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, that might do something, anything, to alleviate the frantic heat arcing between them—or, at the very least, the frantic heat smacking her upside the head—when Adam took matters out of her hands by speaking first.

And, oh, what a speech it was.

"So, Mack, tell me about this husband of yours."

It was the last thing Dorsey had expected to hear from him. Although he had commented once or twice at Drake’s on her phony marital status, it had always been some silly little flirtatious thing that meant nothing. "Mack, if you weren’t a married woman, I’d take you away from all of this" or some such thing. He had never actually asked her about her husband. And why the subject should come up now she couldn’t imagine.

She remembered then that her wedding ring—the one her nonexistent husband had allegedly slipped over her finger on their imaginary wedding day—was currently lying on the top shelf of her locker at Drake’s. Hoping Adam didn’t notice, she slowly withdrew her left hand from the table and tucked it between her leg and the chair.

And just when had she taken the next, Herculean step, toward thinking of him as Adam instead of Mr. Darien? she wondered. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find an adequate answer to her own question. Nor could she find one for his. So she answered him with one of her own.

"Why do you ask?" she replied.

He lifted his shoulders and let them fall in a shrug that was in no way casual. "You mentioned once in conversation that you thought money could solve all of a woman’s problems." He leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table, folding his arms one over the other. It was a harmless action that seemed very intimidating somehow. "If that’s true," he continued, "then why didn’t you marry for money? Why didn’t you go out and trap yourself a tycoon? Seems like that would have made your life a whole lot easier."

"Who says I didn’t marry for money?" she replied evasively.

Adam chuckled low, a wonderfully masculine sound that seemed to meander indolently through her entire body. And oh, boy, did it feel good.

"Well, there’s the fact that you attend Severn ," he said, "a college whose student body is comprised of those less financially endowed than others. And there’s also the small matter of your job at Drake’s," he added. "Call me presumptuous, but I’d think that had you gone to all the trouble to find a rich man, you probably wouldn’t have been admitted to Severn , and you probably wouldn’t be tending bar to supplement your college expenses. A nice girl like you in a place like that, I mean."

She hesitated before responding, not so much because she wasn’t sure what to say this time, but because of the way he had uttered the words "A nice girl like you." Simply put, he had voiced the phrase as if he’d meant it exactly as he’d said it—that he did indeed consider her to be a nice girl. That was completely at odds with what the rest of her patrons at Drake’s seemed to think. A woman bartender was to them, evidently, the equivalent of a prostitute. Except that they could get a bartender for a lot cheaper, and she’d fix a helluva nightcap after they had sex.

"Maybe I work at Drake’s," Dorsey replied dryly, "because I like the social interaction and fascinating conversation."

He eyed her skeptically as he fingered the base of his wine glass in a way that set her heart to racing again. He had nice hands, she noted. Big and square and blunt-fingered, exactly what a man’s hands should look like.

"And maybe," he said, "an asteroid the size of Lithuania will crash into the Earth while we’re sleeping peacefully in our beds tonight."

She shrugged. "Hey, it could happen."

He laughed low in that very masculine way again before cajoling, "Come on, Mack. Tell me about the forthright, upright, do-right guy you’re married to."

She sighed, hedging again. "Um, gee, what’s there to tell?" she finally asked. Aside from the fact that he didn’t exist, of course. Which, now that she thought about it, made him infinitely more appealing than most men of her acquaintance.