How to Trap a Tycoon (21 page)

"Desi," Adam interrupted. He intercepted the drink that Dorsey had eagerly extended toward her and set it back down on the bar. "I think you've had enough. God knows I have. I'm going to find Lucas Conaway and ask him to drive you home."

It was at that point that Edie Mulholland, who had been working alongside Dorsey much of the night, returned to the bar to refill a serving tray with flutes of champagne. "What are you, nuts?" she interjected when she heard Adam's statement, drowning out Desiree's halfhearted protests. "You get Lucas Conaway to take her home, she'll never get there."

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 gay?" Edie asked pointedly.

Adam shook his head and laughed. Hard. "Lucas Conaway gay? 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.

"You think men and women are the same, then?" she asked him.

"No," he told her. "I think they're totally different from each other."

"And you don't think that's a sexist opinion?"

"Of course not. I don't think either gender is better or smarter or more capable than the other. They're just different, that's all. Each has its own inherent weaknesses and strengths. Actually," he added, "when you get right down to it, the two genders complement each other ideally."

Now she gazed at him with much interest. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Men might have greater physical strength, but women have greater emotional strength. Where men analyze a situation in terms of black and white, women can distinguish the necessary shades of gray. Where men see the quickest, most direct path between point A and point B, women see side trips that can make the journey more interesting and more profitable."

She eyed him with frank astonishment. "Amazing," she said. "We actually agree on something for a change."

"You think men and women are inherently different?" he asked, unable to mask his surprise. "I'd think you were one of those people who considered them to be exactly alike. You seem like such a rabid feminist to me."

"I am a rabid feminist," she said readily. "But just because I think both genders are equally important to the global village, that doesn't mean I think they're the same. I agree with you that men and women are built differently," she told him. "They see things differently, they say things differently, and they operate differently. And only in acknowledging their differences can they put them to good use."

"And that's the whole point to
Man's Life
," he said with a nod of approval. "It's a publication that celebrates what makes a man a man. It's vital information for my gender to use in furthering the cause."

She digested that for a moment, then smiled. "Just like
How to Trap a Tycoon
is vital information for my gender to use in furthering the cause," she said.

He arched his eyebrows in surprise. First that she would bring that damned book up again, when she knew how he felt about it, and second that she would actually equate it with
Man's Life
. "Oh, I don't think so," he said.

"Sure it is," she retorted. "
Man's Life
is a magazine that celebrates all the nice things that men have.
How to Trap a Tycoon
is a book that tells women how to go about getting those nice things, things they don't already have because they've been denied them by men."

Adam rolled his eyes and pushed himself away from the bar. "Oh, great. Here we go again. Men have everything and women have nothing."

He made his way to a leather sofa near the fireplace, where a few orange and yellow flames still danced and flickered. Then he set his drink on a side table and sat down, folding his hands over his midsection. Mack wasn't the only one who had forsaken sartorial splendor for comfort. Adam had shed his jacket and shoes some time ago and had freed his own tie from its mooring, along with the top couple of buttons on his shirt.

"Believe it or not, Mack," he continued, "I got that the first time you said it months ago. And the second time you said it. And the third. And the fourth. And the—"

"Until the problem is rectified," she interrupted him, "it bears repeating. For thousands of years, men have deliberately denied us our rightful economic rewards. And there's no end to that tradition in sight."

She, too, moved from behind the bar and strode across the room, taking her seat at the opposite end of the sofa without awaiting invitation. Then she kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her, leaning back into the corner of the couch as if she owned the place. Adam smiled at the picture she presented and considered her lack of inhibition to be a very good thing.

"Hey, men don't deny women anything," he told her. Although his tone was vehement, his pose remained quite casual, and he could only deduce that it was because this was the most comfortable he'd felt for quite some time. A week at least. Man, he'd missed his little chats with Mack. Hell, he might as well admit it—he'd missed Mack.

He'd missed her a lot.

"Women like being dependent on men," he added. "That's their reward for their hard work. They get protection. They get affection. They get us."

She laughed. "You have got to be kidding. Like that's some prize."

He shook his head. "Of course I'm not kidding. Men
are
a prize. That's why
How to Trap a Tycoon
is such a phenomenal best-seller. That's why Lauren Grable-Monroe has become such a guru to the modern woman. As annoying as I find her, at least she has the balls to come right out and say what women actually want."

Mack smiled indulgently. "And what, pray tell, is it that women actually want?"