How to Trap a Tycoon(59)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

He chuckled. "No. Marissa will remember who gets what. That’s her job."

The Dariens had a servant whose job was to remember which coat belonged to whom? she thought. Just where did coat-rememberer belong in the domestic hierarchy? Was it above or below the food taster?

Adam extended a hand forward in a silent indication that Dorsey should precede him. A flutter of nerves mamboed through her midsection again at the prospect of entering such a wild, unknown territory, but she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other until she had successfully entered the fray.

One, two, don’t trip on your shoes , she thought with fierce concentration as she moved forward. Three, four, watch out for that door, she further mused. Five, six, you’re graceful as bricks. Seven, eight, I just can’t relate. Nine, ten, let’s try this again.

Dorsey inhaled deeply, told herself she could do this, and concentrated harder. Adam seemed to sense her anxiety, because as they wove through the crowd toward the cavernous ballroom at the end of the wide hall, he reached over and tucked her arm through his, covered her cold fingers with his much warmer ones, and gave them a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Then he steered her gracefully from one couple or group of people to another to introduce her.

He used only her name when he did that and never attached a label. He identified her as neither his bartender nor his … his … his hunka hunka burnin’ love. Whatever. He only smiled whenever he introduced her as Dorsey MacGuinness, and she only smiled in return at the warm, buttery feelings that pooled in her belly at hearing the affectionate way his voice wrapped itself around her proper name.

And she found herself wishing he would call her Dorsey instead of Mack. Not that there wasn’t a fun, endearing quality to the nickname, especially now that the two of them had become lovers. But she wanted Adam to see her as something other than Mack. She wanted to be more to him than a bartender, a pal, a confidante. And she wanted to be more than a lover, too. She wanted to be a human being with him. She wanted to be a wearer of flannel shirts. A student. An academic. A woman. She wanted to be herself.

Gradually, as the party progressed, she began to grow more confident, began to feel more at ease. And upon meeting Adam’s parents, she started feeling welcome, too. They were genuinely nice people, she realized immediately. Incredibly rich, but nice. Adam resembled his mother physically, resembled his father in everything else. Dorsey felt as comfortable with the elder Dariens as she did with their son, and then it became much too easy to fall into the fantasy of thinking she might actually become a part of this world.

Immediately, she shoved the fantasy away and stood firm in her reality instead. She wasn’t a part of this world, not really, in spite of her genetic potential in that regard. Yes, her mother floated with ease through this sort of environment, and yes, her father had been born and raised to it legitimately. Dorsey hadn’t been. She wasn’t legitimate. In more ways than one. And until she could be honest with Adam about her alternate reality as Lauren Grable-Monroe, this would never, ever be her world.

That fact was hammered home the moment she entered the ballroom and her gaze lit on her father. Just like that, there he was, standing not ten feet away from her, engaged in conversation with another man much like himself—tall, fit, tuxedoed, rich. Dorsey’s step faltered when she saw him, and she simply could not look away— She stared at him quite openly. Adam must have noted her preoccupation, because he halted abruptly beside her. He trained his gaze in the same direction, then looked back at her.

"Mack?" he said. "You okay?"

She nodded slowly but said nothing, only continued to gaze at Reginald Dorsey. Her father must have felt her watching him then, because he turned to look at her. When he did, his eyes widened for a moment, his mouth dropped open in clear surprise, and he—almost—made a motion to move toward her. But he stopped himself before completing it, hesitated a moment more, then, with clear reluctance, returned his attention to the man with whom he had been conversing. The entire episode lasted only a few seconds. But Dorsey felt as if she had just lived a hundred years.

When she turned to look at Adam, he was still gazing at her, his expression faintly puzzled. "Do you know Reginald Dorsey?" he asked, clearly surprised. "He’s a friend of my father’s. A local businessman." He turned to look at the other man, then back at Dorsey. "He’s a very—" He stopped right there, glanced back at the other man again—probably, she thought, he was looking at Reginald’s auburn hair and unusual green eyes—then turned to gaze at Dorsey again. "Dorsey," he said softly. Only this time, it wasn’t with the affectionate inflection the word had carried before. This time, it was with a note of discovery

"Yes?" she replied, her heart humming strangely at hearing him utter it anyway.

"No, I mean … Dorsey," he said. "You and he are both named Dorsey."

"Yes," she agreed. "We are."

"He’s … he’s your father."

It was a statement, not a question, because Adam had clearly put the facts together and drawn the right conclusion. Hey, he was a smart guy, after all. He knew what was what. Except, of course, for that pesky Lauren Grable-Monroe business.

"Yes," Dorsey told him. "He’s my father. My mother’s former lover. My mother’s former benefactor," she hastily corrected herself.

Adam continued to gaze at her in silence for a moment more, as if this newfound knowledge was hard for him to digest. Well, what had he expected? Dorsey thought. He knew the circumstances of her birth. Just because he’d figured out the identity of her father, what did that have to do with anything?

"Do you want to go talk to him?" Adam finally asked her, dropping his voice to an even softer timbre.

"No." The word emerged from her mouth swiftly, adamantly, finally.

He eyed her curiously. "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure." Again the assurance came out quick, insistent, vehement.

He studied her in a maddeningly assessing way, then told her, "His wife died last year, you know."

"I know," Dorsey said.

"His children are all grown and on their own now."

"I know that, too."

"If they found out about you, it probably wouldn’t—"

"They’re not going to find out about me," she interrupted him. "He’d never tell them."

"But if you—"

"I’m not going to tell them, either."

"But—"

"Adam, could we please just go into the party now?"