How to Trap a Tycoon(74)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

"You, Dorsey, you wouldn’t be gentle with Ken. And you shouldn’t have to take care of anyone, if it’s not in your nature. You’re a strong woman," she reiterated. "You have power. You have focus. You have drive and ambition. You have complete self-knowledge and self-confidence. You deserve to find someone like that, too."

Dorsey smiled halfheartedly. "I deserve GI Joe, huh?"

Instead of answering, Carlotta studied each of the male dolls for a thoughtful moment. "Then again," she finally said, "Ken and GI Joe are both eunuchs, aren’t they? Hmm…" She snatched GI Joe away from Dorsey’s Barbie, too. "Oh, dear. Look at that. Now Barbie’s all alone. She’s still smiling, but you can tell she’s not really happy. I suppose she couldn’t be happy with some boring, emasculated piece of plastic." She paused until Dorsey glanced up to look at her again. "She deserves a man. You deserve a man," she said pointedly. "A real man. One’s who’s like you."

"Adam Darien," she guessed.

Carlotta nodded. "He’s a worthy rival for you, Dorsey, and a worthy companion. Strong women, I think, need both." She sighed heavily. "You aren’t like me, darling. You never have been. And I’m glad of that. The one lesson I wanted you to learn, growing up, was that you are your own person. We are entirely different beings, you and I. We want entirely different things. But that’s not a bad thing, Dorsey. It doesn’t mean we don’t care about each other. It only means that we are different."

"I think we want a lot of the same things," Dorsey objected.

"Name one," Carlotta charged.

"Security," Dorsey said immediately. "That was the whole point to writing How to Trap a Tycoon."

Carlotta shook her head. "That wasn’t for security. That was for a financial nest egg."

"What’s the difference?"

Carlotta smiled a cryptic little smile. "You’d never understand," she said without a bit of malice. "And just for the record, I don’t want security. I want a steady income to get me through my golden years. If security was what I wanted, I would have accepted one of the marriage proposals I received along the way. But I didn’t want—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dorsey interrupted. "Marriage proposals? Marriage proposals? As in plural? As in more than one? As if one wouldn’t have been enough to set you up the way you wanted to be set up? For life?"

Carlotta gaped at her in clear disbelief. "Marriage would not have set me up," she stated indignantly. "A husband is the last thing I want."

"Carlotta!" Dorsey exclaimed. "What are you talking about? How could you have received marriage proposals over the years and never accepted one? And how could you have never told me about them?"

There was a moment of silence, then, "Well, no offense, Dorsey," Carlotta said, "but the reason I never told you about them was because, quite frankly, they were none of your business."

"What?"

"They were none of your business," her mother repeated softly.

"But…"

Dorsey told herself to let it go, to just be satisfied with Carlotta’s explanation, even if she didn’t understand it for a moment, and move on. But one question kept circling around and around in her head. And she simply had to know the answer. There was no way she’d be able to leave it behind until she found out for sure.

"Was one of those marriage proposals," she began carefully, "from my father?"

For a moment, her mother didn’t reply, only arranged and rearranged her Barbie’s lace-trimmed robe until she had it draping dramatically over one shoulder. Just when Dorsey thought she would have to ask the question again—because she intended to keep asking it until she received an honest answer—Carlotta glanced back up again and met her gaze levelly.

"Yes," she finally said. "One of those proposals came from your father."

Dorsey swallowed hard but said nothing, waiting to hear the rest.

"The first time he asked me was when he found out I was pregnant with you," Carlotta said. "I adamantly refused."

"Why?"

"Dorsey, the man was married to a woman who was completely reliant on him, a woman who had no idea how to take care of herself, a woman who would have been left with three young children to raise alone. His primary obligation was rightfully to his family. Not to me."

"What about me?" The question popped out of Dorsey’s mouth before she could stop it. She knew it sounded selfish and cold, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to know.

"You," Carlotta said, "were my responsibility. And I made that clear to Reggie."

"But—"

"No buts," her mother interjected. "The world was a different place then, Dorsey. Your father wasn’t a strong man, and although his intentions were good, he wouldn’t have been able to withstand the consequences of leaving his wife and children to marry his pregnant mistress. It would have ended between us eventually, and it would have ended badly. For all of us."

"But he stayed with you for years after I was born. I remember him."

"Yes, he wanted to be a part of both our lives, and I didn’t object to that. But he kept asking me to marry him, kept saying he would leave his wife and children for me and you. I told him no every time. He kept asking, anyway. Finally, I told him that if he asked me again, I’d stop seeing him. He asked again. So I stopped seeing him."

"Oh, Carlotta…"

"I didn’t love him. I didn’t want him forever. I never wanted anybody forever. I know you can’t possibly comprehend that, but for my sake, please try. I like men, Dorsey. All men. I like the way they talk and the way they move and the way they smell and the way they feel curled up next to me in bed. I like chatting with them, dining with them, flirting with them, being with them, in every way imaginable. But I don’t want to keep one forever. I don’t want to give up that much of myself to a man."

In a way, Dorsey did understand and she respected her mother’s conviction. Her mother was right—they were two totally different creatures. And she would never, ever be like her mother. Because she did want to keep a man forever. She did want to give up that much of herself to one. Provided that man was Adam Darien, and he would give as much of himself to her in return.

Then she realized that he already had given as much of himself to her in return, maybe more, because he’d never held any part of himself back from her. He hadn’t kept any secrets. He hadn’t pretended to be something he wasn’t. And he hadn’t lied to her about anything.