How to Trap a Tycoon(26)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

"Fine," he muttered blandly. "No problem." Nodding once, he dropped his hands from around her waist and took a step away, then turned toward the stairs.

"Adam—"

It was the first time he’d heard her say his name aloud, and there was a pleading, plaintive tone to her voice when she said it. As if she was torn between what she wanted to do, and what she felt she should do. Even though it was probably pointless to make the effort, but unwilling to leave things as they were, Adam spun back around and reached for her again, pulling her roughly toward himself until her body was flush against his. He buried his hand beneath her hair, cupping it around the nape of her neck. And then he bent and covered her mouth with his again. This time when he kissed her, it was fiercely, insistently, possessively.

She had just sighed her surrender, was just beginning to melt into him again, when the porch lamp above them flashed on, bathing them both in a slice of garish yellow light. In one swift motion, they separated, Adam leaping backward, Mack jumping toward the front door. Before she even had the knob in her hand, however, it opened inward, to reveal a pert, petite blonde standing on the other side.

The newcomer blinked wide blue eyes, then arched delicate blond brows in not particularly convincing surprise. "Why, Dorsey," she said, turning her attention first to Mack and then to Adam. "I had no idea you were out here. I was just going to run next door to check on Mrs. Hoofdorp’s cats."

She looked at Adam again and smiled. "Mrs. Hoofdorp is traveling," she added parenthetically. "We have no idea where she is—I suspect she’s in Betty Ford again, because that’s where she was the last time she was traveling, if you follow my trail, but I’m much too polite to ask her—and since we have a key to her place, we’re feeding Moochie and Jester while she’s gone…"

"I feel it’s my civic duty to warn you," Mack interjected quietly, nodding her head toward the blonde, "that if you don’t stop her right now, then she’ll just keep on talking."

Adam eyed her quizzically but said nothing. Why would he, when he had absolutely no idea what she meant?

"Not that Moochie and Jester necessarily need feeding," the woman at the front door continued, just as Mack had said she would. "Why Jester is so fat, he could pass for that … that…" She fluttered a hand restlessly in front of her face. "Oh, who’s that fat, pompadour-wearing, checkered-pants boy who holds the hamburger up over his head?"

"Uh … Big Boy?" Adam supplied helpfully.

"That’s the one," she said with a smile. "And as for Moochie, well. He rather reminds me of that actor who played one of the criminals in the old Batman TV show. It wasn’t one of the ones who wore spandex, though—or is it latex?" she asked. "I always get those confused. Anyway, it wasn’t one of those, though I always rather liked that Frank Gorshin outfit. But this other actor I’m thinking about wore something Egyptian, I believe. Yes, in fact I know it was Egyptian because I took a class in Egyptology during that half-semester I spent at Brown. Actually, I spent half-semesters at quite a lot of universities, so it may not have been Brown. Not that I was really paying attention, anyway. I only went to college because I was hoping to meet some cute boys. And it worked! Because not only did I meet some cute boys, I—"

"Carlotta," Mack interjected again. And with surprising delicacy, too, Adam thought.

"What?" the rambling woman asked.

"Um, we were talking about something else?"

"So we were." She smiled at Adam again, but her words were clearly offered to Mack. "You were about to introduce your little friend to me."

Actually, Adam recalled, they’d been talking about cats, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to put them back on that track.

Mack sighed in a martyred, taxed-patience sort of way, and Adam got the feeling that this was a scene the two women had played out before. Too often, if Mack’s pained expression was any indication.

"Carlotta, this is Adam Darien," she introduced him halfheartedly, as if she were unwilling to give Carlotta that information. "Adam, this is … this is my mother. Carlotta MacGuinness."

So Mack lived with her mother, did she? Adam thought. A mother who had a tendency to switch on the porch light just when things were starting to get good. Well, well, well. That had no doubt hampered Mack’s past dating habits a bit. For some reason, the realization reassured him—until he realized it would also hamper her future dating habits a bit, as well.

"How do you do?" Mack’s mother greeted him pertly.

"Mrs. MacGuinness," he returned. "It’s nice to meet you."

"Oh, it’s Miss MacGuinness, dear," she corrected him mildly. "I’ve never been married."

Well, well, well, Adam thought again. There was just no end to the surprise package that Mack presented. "Miss MacGuinness," he amended. "It’s nice to meet you."

"Dorsey, of course, is Ms. MacGuinness," her mother continued. "And I don’t guess I need to tell you how embarrassing that is for a mother to acknowledge."

"Carlotta…" Mack groaned.

Her mother waved another airy hand, this time evidently in surrender. "Are you coming in, dear?" she asked her daughter.

Mack nodded obediently, but she made no real effort to move forward.

"Anytime soon?" her mother asked further.

Mack sighed in that martyred way yet again, then turned to Adam. She still looked a little dazed and confused by the evening’s events and not a little wary. "Thank you for diner," she told him.

"Thank you," he countered.

She offered him a puzzled smile. "For what?"

He leaned forward, lowering his voice as he spoke, shamelessly excluding her mother from the conversation. "For everything else," he murmured softly close to her ear. And then, because he couldn’t quite help himself, he brushed a quick, chaste kiss along her neck.

Okay, so it wasn’t so chaste, he thought. Not when he took into account the way his groin ached as he performed the gesture. It was quick. Just not so quick that Carlotta MacGuinness didn’t see it. He was also reasonably certain that she’d seen him out here on the front stoop trying to consume her daughter in one big bite a few minutes ago and that—not the impending starvation of poor Moochie and Jester next door—was why the porch light had snapped on when it did.

Instead of calling Adam on the fact that she’d just caught him mauling her daughter, however, Carlotta MacGuinness only inspected him for a moment in thoughtful silence. " Darien ," she finally said. "You’re Nate and Amanda’s boy, aren’t you?"