How to Trap a Tycoon(45)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

But with one look at Dorsey and another at Adam, Edie had been reluctant to say another word. The tension in that room had been thick enough to hack with a meat cleaver. No way did she want to get caught in the downswing of whatever was coming next.

She never would have guessed anything was going on with those two. Not only because they didn’t seem to have anything in common, but because Edie had always figured Dorsey was way too smart to get caught up in something like that.

Man, you never could tell with some people.

Still, it was none of Edie’s business. Dorsey and Adam were adults, and they both knew what was what in this world. Besides, Edie had infinitely more pressing matters to attend to right now. Not the least of which was the source of the footsteps that were gradually beginning to catch up on her.

This part of Chicago , during the day, would be bustling with people, but at nearly one A.M. , it was pretty much deserted. Well lit, certainly, something for which Edie was grateful, but deserted. Still, there were a number of restaurants serving a few final customers, and she’d seen a lone police cruiser pass by shortly after leaving Adam’s building. If she screamed horribly at the top of her lungs, she was sure someone would come running. Probably, anyway. Nevertheless, she wished she hadn’t had to park so far away.

Why couldn’t life be like TV? she wondered, not for the first time. On TV, people always got a parking spot right by the door. Of course, on TV, people found true love and profound happiness, too. Most of them had dream jobs and chic apartments and fabulous clothes and adoring families. TV was a fantasy, she reminded herself. Nobody in reality ever got what they wanted. Certainly not true love or adoring families. And not parking spots by the door, either.

Experimentally, she stopped walking, ostensibly to study a menu in the window of one of the restaurants she was passing. The footsteps shadowing hers stopped, too, not surprisingly. This was ridiculous, Edie thought. There was no way she was going to lead this person right to her car and invite him to commit whatever heinous acts he was intent on committing. And besides, she was feeling a little hungry.

The café she entered was charming, a little slice of the Mediterranean brought to the Midwest . Crisp, white linen tablecloths covered the crowded tables, and frescoes of olive groves and Greek villages splashed the walls. She smiled when she heard the voice of Pavarotti serenading her with a mellow, operatic rendition of La Vie en Rose.

The last thing she needed was to stay up late tonight, she thought. She’d already gone nearly twenty-four hours without sleep, and what sleep she’d had then had been anything but restful. Then again, her sleep was rarely good, even at the best of times. But she was still feeling anxious about being followed, and something about the little café called to her, cocooned her, made her feel safe.

"Are you still serving dinner?" she asked a bartender who was wiping down the bar. He was big and round and smiling, with arms the size of rain barrels, and Edie sensed in him immediately a brave and noble spirit.

"Only appetizers," he told her. "And only for another half-hour at that. We close at two."

"That’d be okay."

He waved a hand expansively at the otherwise empty room. "Have a seat anywhere. I’ll get Margie to take your order."

"Thanks."

Edie chose a small table midway between the bar and the door—well, perhaps it was a bit closer to the bar than it was to the door—one that was well lit and set for two. Then she plucked the menu from between the salt and pepper shakers and gave it a quick perusal. A woman as big and round and smiling as the bartender came out to take her order, and since Edie already had her café au lait from the coffee shop, she ordered a baked Brie to go with it.

Hey, she had no romance in her life, she thought, and there would certainly be none forthcoming. Who cared if she ate an entire Brie and swelled up to the size of France ? At least she’d be happy.

Content with her decision, she unzipped the backpack that she carried with her everywhere and withdrew a battered textbook. If she was going to stay up too late and eat foods rich enough to keep her awake for hours, then she might as well get a little studying done.

She had just turned to the assigned reading on the Peloponnesian War when she felt someone watching her again. She glanced up just as the café’s front door opened, and her mouth fell open in surprise when she saw who strode through.

Lucas Conaway was still dressed in the blue jeans, white oxford shirt, and black blazer he had been wearing at Adam Darien’s party, but his necktie was loosened now, and he’d unfastened the top two or three buttons of his shirt. His icy blue gaze was fixed intently on hers, and Edie felt certain then that he was the one who had been following her.

How dare he? she wondered, outraged by the realization. How dare he scare the life out of her the way he had? What was the matter with him?

Without greeting her or awaiting an invitation, he walked purposefully to her table, pulled out the opposite chair with an ominous scrape, then dropped into it, landing in a careless sprawl. But he remained silent, only stared at her as if it were she and not he who had just committed some grievous sin.

"Well, gosh, just sit yourself down," she told him wryly. "Don’t do something so crass as wait for me to invite you."

"Do you mind?" he said blandly.

"What if I do?"

His only response was a shrug, but there was nothing at all casual about the gesture.

"Fine," she conceded shortly. "Join me." Then, as rudely as he, she dropped her gaze back down to her textbook and pretended to read, pretended to dismiss him without another thought.

"Thanks," he said. "I think I will."

Before Edie could point out that her comment had been sarcastic—something she was certain he would be able to appreciate, seeing as how he was the reigning king of that particular realm—her server came back to take his order, too. Before she could stop him, Lucas asked for a cup of coffee but nothing more. And evidently realizing that the table was fully laden with tension and ill will, their server didn’t suggest anything else and beat a hasty retreat.

Edie spared a glance back up at Lucas then, but she said nothing, silently indicating that it was up to him to go first and explain what he was doing here. For a moment, he only continued to stare at her in that plainly disgruntled way, then, very slowly, very intently, he bent his body forward, folded his arms one over the other on the table, and frowned.

"Just what the hell were you thinking to leave Adam’s place all by yourself this time of night?" he demanded.