How to Trap a Tycoon(71)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

It was just a cheap bit of gold that symbolized nothing, she reasoned as she left. Not to mention a reminder of a time in her life that she’d just as soon not be reminded of. It was meaningless. Worthless. Pointless.

And hey, it wasn’t like she’d ever have use for a wedding ring in the future.

* * *

Adam stood in silence as he watched Mack leave, wondering what the hell had just hit him. A truck, he finally decided. A great, whopping-big Mack truck. Traveling at about a hundred miles an hour. With no brakes. And studded tires.

He spared a moment to assess the situation, to try and figure out what exactly he was feeling. And he was surprised to discover that what he felt was … nothing. Nothing at all. Or maybe he just felt so many things that he couldn’t make sense of any of them, so his brain refused to acknowledge even one. In fact, it was as if his body and his brain both had shut down completely, as if he were just a shadow now of what he had been only moments ago. Even when he turned to look at Lindy, for whom he figured he should feel anger or outrage or resentment or something, there was nothing but a void. He’d never felt so empty in his entire life. And he wondered if he would have to stay this way forever.

Lindy, too, stood silently for some moments, pinned to the spot on the other side of her desk, gazing at Adam with much expectation. He chose his words and his tone carefully before saying anything, genuinely uncertain about what to say or how to say it. How could he know what to say when he didn’t even know what to think? How could he know what to think when he didn’t even know what to feel?

What he finally opted for was, "You wanted me to be here for this because you thought it would make me angry, didn’t you, Lindy? Angry enough to alert all my media friends and expose her. You want me to use my connections—maybe even my own magazine—to hang her out to dry, right?"

"The thought had crossed my mind, yes," she told him coolly. "You’re not the kind of man to let a woman take advantage of you, Adam—not for very long anyway. You protect yourself and what’s yours, too. You and I are a lot alike in that respect."

Adam mulled that over for a moment. In a way, Lindy was right. He wasn’t one to roll over and play dead when someone had betrayed or maligned him. But had Mack truly betrayed him? Had she maligned him? Had that been her intention all along? Or had she been telling the truth? She didn’t have much in her favor at the moment, he had to admit. Lindy had some powerful proof sitting there, and Mack hadn’t done much along the lines of denying any of it. She certainly hadn’t denied being Lauren Grable-Monroe. And from the looks of it, there was a good reason for that.

Namely, because she was Lauren Grable-Monroe.

It all started coming together for him then. Hadn’t he himself concluded that afternoon at Northwestern that the author must be an academic? Hadn’t he noted a number of common denominators in the author’s analysis and thesis and his own conversations with Mack? Hadn’t Lauren Grable-Monroe reminded him of someone? And hadn’t he experienced an attraction to her that he hadn’t been able to understand?

If she and Mack were one and the same, all of that would make perfect sense now. And judging by the photographs on Lindy’s desk, that was entirely the case.

"I’ll want to study all this documentation thoroughly," he told Lindy, reserving, for now, any decision about what to do in the way of exposure.

"That goes without saying," she replied.

"And I’ll want to see those copies of her notebooks, as well."

"Of course. You do figure prominently in some of them, after all."

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he supposed he’d find out before the night was through. He planned to read every last word of what Mack had written, study every photograph and document Lindy had in her possession. For some reason, though, in spite of everything that had happened, he felt oddly compelled to protect Mack. He had no idea why. She hadn’t done much in the way of protecting herself. And regardless of whatever else she had done, she certainly hadn’t been honest with him.

Before he could stop himself, he said, "You know, Lindy, there was probably a better way to go about this."

She lifted her chin defensively, something that gave him the impression that she was looking down her nose at him. "I suppose there was," she conceded. "But where would be the fun in that?"

A couple of months ago, Adam would have probably responded to such a question in exactly the same way. A couple of months ago, he would have drawn his conclusions to Lindy’s allegations with a terrible, swift sword. A couple of months ago, he wouldn’t have thought twice about hanging Mack out to dry for what she appeared to have done. A couple of months ago, he would have gotten right on the phone to tell all his media colleagues that Lauren Grable-Monroe was actually a young sociology professor at Severn College named Dorsey MacGuinness—pass it on. Of course, a couple of months ago, he’d been a ruthless, heartless sonofabitch. Now…

Well.

Now he didn’t feel quite so ruthless. Now he didn’t feel quite so heartless. In fact, whereas a few months ago he’d been certain his heart was gone for good, over the last few months he’d somehow managed to recover a good portion of it. It hadn’t been easy, of course. He’d had to have some help, some guidance. And the search was by no means over. Right when he’d started gathering up the remaining bits and pieces, his guide had jumped off the beaten path and disappeared into the underbrush. And, he wasn’t sure now if he would ever see her again.

So that kind of sucked.

He supposed now that there was only one thing for him to do. He’d have to figure out exactly where his guide had gone, exactly what her intentions were, exactly where her origins lay. He’d have to decide for himself whether she had been in it only for herself, or if she’d truly found the same thing he had along the way. And then…

Well. He’d cross that bridge—or machete down that jungle—when he came to it.

He gestured toward the pile of papers and photos fanned across Lindy’s desk. "Mind if I take all this and a pot of coffee out to the salon?" he asked her. "I have a lot of reading to do tonight."

"Not at all," she replied. "But I think you should know, Adam, that if you don’t expose Dorsey for the conniving little fraud that she is, I plan to do it myself. In spades."

Adam sighed wearily. That, he thought, was exactly what he had been afraid of.

Chapter 15

I t was after dark by the time Dorsey arrived home. Not that she noticed. Not that she cared. Not that the sun would ever rise in her personal reality again. She might as well get used to the total absence of light, she told herself. Because the only plans she had for the immediate future—or the long-range future, for that matter—involved going to bed and pulling the covers up over her head.