How to Trap a Tycoon(32)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

"Oh, all right," he finally relented. "Call me a cab, if you must. God knows I’ve been called worse things in my life."

So Edie did. She did call Lucas a cab. Twice, as a matter of fact. But by the time Lindy closed the bar, no taxi had shown up to take him home. In the meantime, she fed him a steady diet of black coffee, and he seemed to be coming around a bit. He still wasn’t fit to drive anywhere, but he had at least eased up on his dubious flirtation. And he’d finally stopped asking her who she was looking for.

"Edie, you’re a flower, you are."

Okay, so he hadn’t stopped his flirtation completely, she amended. At least he was calling her a flower now instead of minx or vixen or spitfire. Honestly. She hadn’t been any of those since she was seventeen.

Still, she had rather liked the way he’d said "minx" and "vixen" and "spitfire." She couldn’t recall any man ever using those specific words to describe her. Others, certainly, none of them worth repeating, but never in such an affectionate tone of voice. And never with a smile that had curled her toes and warmed her all over in a way that she’d never felt warm before.

She noticed that Lindy was watching them and was clearly going to ask Lucas to leave—or rather, demand that he leave … or else; Lindy Aubrey never asked anyone to do anything. So before her employer had the chance to put Lucas out on the street—literally—Edie leaned forward, ostensibly to take his coffee cup from the bar, and said very softly so that Lindy couldn’t hear, "Meet me downstairs in the lobby in fifteen minutes, and I’ll drive you home myself."

He snapped his head up at that, his lips parted in obvious surprise.

"To your place?" he asked hopefully.

"To your place," she corrected him.

He smiled lasciviously.

"But only as far as the front door," she hastened to add. "Don’t be getting any bright ideas, Romeo."

"Oh, trust me, Edie," he said, "the ideas I’m having right now are anything but bright."

* * *

Lucas’s apartment, when they arrived there a half-hour later, wasn’t at all what Edie had expected it to be. Lucas, on the other hand, behaved pretty much as she would have expected him to. As she pushed the front door open, he shoved past her without warning—it was only at the last minute that she leapt aside and avoided touching him—and without an acknowledgment or thanks. And he didn’t stop moving until he’d crossed the room to his couch and promptly collapsed onto it.

She frowned as she watched him go, then wrestled the key from the lock so that she could pitch it to him and be on her way. Momentarily intrigued, however, she couldn’t quite bring herself to leave. Lucas seemed like the kind of man who would go for minimal, functional, no-frills living, and not warm and cozy. Yet the place looked like something out of Martha Stewart Living. Certainly it was a masculine domain, but the colors were softer than she would have expected, the furnishings less boxy, the accessories less obnoxious.

The walls were the pale-yellow color of butter, countered by an overstuffed sofa of Wedgwood blue. Two fat club chairs were printed with a wide plaid that mingled the two colors, and a plush area rug of the same hues and geometric design spanned much of the hardwood floor. On the walls were Art Deco prints of what appeared to be famous Caribbean hotels, mixed with brightly painted posters of Spanish bullfights. The mantelpiece boasted a few odds and ends from his travels abroad, and two largish bookcases were crammed with books.

Not surprisingly, however, there were few personal touches. Actually, she realized, there were no personal touches. No framed photographs, no comfy throws crocheted by Grandma Conaway, no athletic trophies or educational citations, no tumbling plants—nothing that needed nurturing or tending or noticing. And nothing that offered any insight into the man. Really, the place was almost too tidy. Lucas Conaway obviously took great care to maintain his home.

"Bienvenue à chez Lucas," he mumbled from where he had sprawled himself comfortably on the couch.

He threw one arm upward against the sofa’s back and rested it in an arrogant arc above his head. The action caused his dark-blue sweater to ride up above his khaki trousers, and Edie couldn’t stop herself from fixing her gaze on the brief ripple of naked, rock-hard abs beneath. Evidently his apartment wasn’t the only thing that Lucas took great care to maintain, she thought, her mouth going dry at the sight of his lean torso. Hastily, she glanced away.

"Mi casa es su casa," he added further. "Bet you didn’t know I was trilingual, did you?"

When she forced her gaze back to his face, she found him grinning in a way that seemed self-mocking somehow. She arched her brows and crossed her arms over her midsection, pretending she was completely immune to him.

"Do tell," she said as blandly as she could.

He nodded. "Actually, I’m quadrilingual. In addition to French and Spanish—and English, natch—I also speak German fluently." To illustrate his accomplishment, he inhaled a deep breath and announced, "Ich bin ein Berliner." He waited for her reaction, and when she offered none, he sighed. "Not that I want you to think I’m bragging or anything."

"Traveled overseas a lot, have you?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Never."

"How come?" she asked, honestly curious. "You’re unattached, you have a good job, you can afford it. Fear of flying?"

He shook his head again. "Fear of life."

She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but before she could voice the question, he pushed himself up from the couch and strode toward the kitchen. "Coffee?" he asked her as he went. "Clearly, I’m not quite sober yet. I think I could use another pot or two. I’m much too chatty tonight." He voiced that last as if he were confessing to the most vile of crimes.

This time Edie was the one to shake her head. "No, thanks," she told him. "I have to get home."

He spun around quickly, the expression on his face alarmed for some reason. "Don’t," he said, his voice clipped, cautious. He must have detected her surprise—or perhaps her own alarm—because he immediately softened the command by adding, "Please." He took a few steps toward her, and for one brief, insane moment, she thought he might actually reach out to her. But he only stopped where he was, dropped his hands to his hips, and said, "Just stay for a little while, Edie. Talk to me. I’m way too het up to sleep."

All the more reason for her to go, she thought. No way did she trust the wee hours of the morning, and right now, they were about as wee as they came. Just because she never managed to sleep through them herself didn’t mean she had to spend them with someone else. On the contrary, those were the hours of the night when she absolutely had to be alone.