How to Trap a Tycoon(39)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Adam threw her a funny look. "What are you talking about?"

"Just … you know … Lucas Conaway," she repeated, as if that were explanation enough. At Adam’s still befuddled expression, she added, "How can you trust him to behave himself with a woman in her condition?"

"What, are you nuts?" Adam asked this time. "Lucas is the only man here I can trust to behave himself with a woman in this condition."

This was obviously news to Edie, Dorsey noted, and she couldn’t help but wonder why the other bartender was taking such an interest in the matter, anyway.

"Why? Is he g*y?" Edie asked pointedly.

Adam shook his head and laughed. Hard. "Lucas Conaway g*y? Ah, no. But taking advantage of intoxicated women isn’t his style at all."

This, too, was clearly news to Edie. And to Dorsey, too, for that matter. After all, Lucas Conaway had been the one who wanted to put carnivorous ants all over Lauren Grable-Monroe’s naked, staked-down, honey-covered backside. If that wasn’t taking advantage, Dorsey didn’t know what was.

The clock behind her chimed again, once this time, announcing the quarter hour, and Desiree evidently took it as her cue to lose consciousness. Because it was right about then that her delicate eyelids began to flutter, and her tiny body went slack. It was only at the last possible moment that Adam caught her, before she would have fallen face first into her untouched cosmopolitan—bonking her head on the bar in the process, no doubt—something Dorsey realized belatedly that she would rather have liked to see.

Adam sighed heavily and glanced down at his watch. "Damn," he muttered under his breath. "Will this night never end?"

Chapter 9

I t was after one A.M. when Mack finally finished breaking down the bar, and Adam didn’t think he’d ever seen her looking more exhausted. She seemed to be stretching herself pretty thin these days, what with working on her Ph.D. studies, working on a dissertation, working at Drake’s, working at Severn… Hell, all Mack seemed to do in life was work on something, he thought now. Funny, he’d never noticed before that the two of them had that in common.

But where Adam thrived on his work, Mack’s was obviously beginning to wear her down. And for what? he wondered. He himself had a lot to show for all the time he put in for the magazine. He’d gone out of his way to take advantage of the financial rewards inherent in a position like his. And he felt not a twinge of guilt for buying himself all the expensive toys he had purchased over the years. He’d worked his ass off to earn every last one of them, even if his work wasn’t the primary source of his wealth; that had been in his family for generations.

Mack, on the other hand…

God knew she worked hard enough to earn more for herself than what she had to show for it. She lived with her mother and didn’t own a car. She didn’t seem to go out or travel—as if she had the time. He knew her tuition was paid at Severn by the work she performed there as a teaching assistant, and he also knew she made a decent wage at Drake’s. So just what the hell did she do with the money that she did make? he wondered. And why did she work so hard? Especially since she had a mother who lived in a posh neighborhood and who dressed like a spread out of Vogue. Why did Mack work herself to exhaustion?

"Have a drink with me, Mack," he heard himself say suddenly. "You look like you could use one."

She had just folded down the flaps on the last of the liquor boxes, and when she straightened, she tossed her head a bit to dislodge a couple of unruly curls from her forehead. The rest of her hair was still bound in the elaborate braid she always wore, and Adam had been itching all night to loose it. Soon, he told himself. Very soon.

She had loosened her necktie, at least, some time ago, and now it hung from her collar. Somewhere along the line, she had also freed the top two buttons on her white shirt and rolled back the cuffs, and the casualness of her uniform, usually so starched and pressed at Drake’s, made him smile.

So she could relax when the occasion for such a thing arose, he thought. That was good. Because right now, he felt like relaxing himself.

"All right," she conceded with a tired smile. She retrieved a cocktail glass from beneath the bar and filled it with ice, poured in a conservative amount of Johnnie Walker Black, then splashed a little water on top.

Adam sighed with much disappointment, tipping his head at her choice of beverage. "You drink like a girl," he told her.

She lifted the glass to her lips, sipped it daintily, then softly retorted, "Do not."

He chuckled. "You’re right. At least you drink Scotch, like a man. A man who’s a total wuss, granted, drinking blended—and with water, no less—but still… At least you don’t drink anything that’s"—he shuddered for effect—"pink. Call me a traditionalist, but I don’t think liquor was ever meant to come in pastel colors."

She eyed him indulgently. "Gee, next you’ll be complaining about the feminization of pro basketball."

"Actually," he told her, "I’ve already complained about that. A lot."

"What? You don’t think women have as much right to wear silly-looking shorts, get all sweaty, and chase a ball pointlessly through a gymnasium, as guys do?" She smiled mildly. "Gosh, this’ll just ruin the enlightened, sensitive, beta-male image of you that I carry tucked secretly in my heart."

Adam smiled and enjoyed a very alpha-male swallow of his own unblended and unwatered Scotch. "You women are taking everything away from us men," he complained.

She expelled an incredulous sound. "Oh, hang on a minute. Let me go get a bucket to catch the flow from my bleeding heart."

He chuckled. "Well, you are. Don’t you read my monthly rants in Man’s Life?"

"I don’t read Man’s Life," she replied readily, unflinchingly.

"Liar," he said with a smile. "You’ve offered enough commentary on my views over the last few months to assure me that you read my magazine with some regularity."

Her expression remained impassive as she said, "I suppose you feel violated by that, don’t you? A woman invading your man’s world."

"Not really," he told her honestly. "Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a chauvinist, a sexist, or a lout."

Her eyes widened in mock astonishment. "I’ll alert the media."

He laughed. "I’m not," he insisted. "Never once have I intimated that one gender is superior to the other."

She eyed him intently now, running the pad of her middle finger slowly, methodically, around the rim of her glass. For some reason, as he watched that finger make its slow revolution, Adam’s mouth went dry. Hastily, he lifted his own glass for another sip, but the mellow liquor that cooled his throat did nothing to quell his thirst. Instead, as it splashed in his belly, it only warmed him in ways that he really didn’t need to feel warm right now.