How to Trap a Tycoon (38 page)

Chapter 15

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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.

As if in anticipation of her dark arrival, no lights had been lit inside the townhouse she shared with her mother. Which was odd, Dorsey thought, because when she'd come home to eat lunch and change clothes that afternoon, Carlotta had been hip-deep in cleaning out closets, and it had been clear that she would be shoulder-deep by nightfall. And even cleaning out closets, her mother had, as always, looked elegant and sublime, dressed in Ralph Lauren blue jeans and chambray shirt, her platinum hair tied back with a Laura Ashley scarf.

In spite of her melancholy humor, Dorsey smiled at the memory. How on earth had she turned out so differently from her mother? She supposed that was one of those mysteries of the universe that no one would ever be able to solve.

"Carlotta?" she called out to the house at large.

"I'm up here, Dorsey!" came her mother's reply. "In the attic!"

Well, that would explain the absence of light, she thought. No telling how long Carlotta had been up there.

Contrary to her mood, Dorsey did deign to switch on a Tiffany lamp as she dropped her backpack onto the plum-colored velvet sofa. Then she made her way across the living room—as posh and feminine as Carlotta's bedroom was, with purples replacing the pinks—and up the stairs. She paused beneath the rectangular opening in the hallway ceiling above. The stairs had been unfolded into the corridor, and a faint yellow light spilled down over them.

"Hel-loooo up there," she called.

There was a rustle of sound in response, then her mother's head appeared over the opening. "Come on up. You'll never guess what I found when I was cleaning today."

Without hesitation, Dorsey pulled herself up the collapsible stairs and found her mother sitting on the attic floor with a flurry of dust motes dancing around her. The minute particles caught and refracted the pale light from a single naked bulb overhead, giving Carlotta the appearance of an enchanted maiden encircled by fairies. Baskets and trunks and cartons containing no telling what surrounded her, and familiar pink lacquer boxes sat open on the floor in front of her.

"Oh, wow," Dorsey said with a smile as she crossed to where her mother sat. "You found my old Barbies."

Genuinely delighted by the discovery—and not just because it gave her something to focus on besides Adam and Lauren and Lindy and disaster—she sat down beside her mother and ran a finger through the thin film of dust that coated one of the bright-pink box tops.

"I can't remember the last time I looked at these," she said wistfully. Oh, to be a little girl again, she thought, and have to worry only about which plastic shoes to put on Barbie's rubber feet before she went out adventuring with Skipper and Christie and Ken.

"I remember," Carlotta said. "It was the summer before you started seventh grade. You put them away just before junior high school, because you insisted you were much too old for things like Barbie."

Dorsey nodded, her smile broadening. "That's right. I remember. I was just
so
mature at twelve."

"I, of course, thought you were being silly, because no one is ever too old to play with Barbie."

"These days, I'm inclined to agree with you," Dorsey said, picking up one of the dolls to run a finger over the smooth nylon hair. Carlotta had dressed the doll in an elegant, sapphire-colored evening gown, which Dorsey immediately began to remove.

Her mother gaped softly at her. "You? Ms. Feminist? Playing with Barbie? I thought you'd be one of the ones flaying her for her unbalanced, bulimia-inducing figure."

Dorsey waved a hand negligently before her, then reached for an outfit to clothe the now naked doll. "There are a lot of reasons for women to have eating disorders," she told Carlotta. "But Barbie isn't one of them. I mean, do you ever remember me as a little girl looking at Barbie and saying, 'Gee, I wish I had enormous hooters and a tiny wasp waist and tippy-toe feet like Barbie does'?"

"Not once," Carlotta confessed.

"Exactly," Dorsey concurred with a fierce nod. "It was the
clothes
. Nobody gets that. The clothes and all the adventures we used to send Barbie on. Remember?"

Carlotta laughed. "Oh, yes, I remember. I was always sending
my
Barbie off to
Rio de Janeiro
and
Monaco
and
St. Moritz
to meet movie stars and princes. Or," she added, holding up a GI Joe dressed in commando black, "to meet GI Joe, who was off on leave. You, on the other hand," she continued, "were always sending
your
Barbie off to logging camps and rain forests to fight deforestation or to Amnesty International conventions."

Dorsey laughed, too. "My Barbie had a social conscience."

"Whereas my Barbie had a good time."

Dorsey glanced up at her mother, who had put down GI Joe to dress her own blond Barbie in a peach-colored peignoir set. "Carlotta?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure I wasn't switched at birth with some other, princessy, baby that should have been yours?"

Her mother looked up at her and smiled. "I'm absolutely positive. Once you emerged from inside me and they put you in my arms, I never once let you out of my sight."

Dorsey smiled back. "Truly?"

"Truly."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome, dear."

They said nothing more for a moment, only sat in comfortable silence dressing, undressing, and redressing their dolls. Then, out of nowhere, Dorsey announced, "I lost my job today."

Carlotta's hands hesitated on her doll, and she glanced up at Dorsey. "At Drake's?" she asked.

Dorsey nodded but couldn't bring herself to meet her mother's gaze. "Though the one at
Severn
, I'm sure, isn't far behind." Quickly, so she wouldn't have to think about it for very long, she added, "I lost Adam Darien, too."

Her mother said nothing for a moment, then asked, "What happened? Did you two get separated at the El?"

Dorsey shook her head sadly. "No. I think the two of us got separated before we ever even found each other."

She heard Carlotta sigh softly. "Do you want to start at the beginning? Or should I just keep asking questions until the whole messy story comes pouring out?"

Dorsey did meet her mother's gaze then, and before she could stop herself, the whole messy story did indeed come pouring out. She told Carlotta about what had happened in Lindy's office, about Lindy's findings and Adam's reaction—or lack thereof—about her employer's threat to press charges and sue, about how Lauren Grable-Monroe—and Dorsey—were going to be crucified for the public's entertainment.

The only thing she didn't tell her mother was how very terrified she was of the impending fallout, nor did she describe the depths of her despair where losing Adam was concerned. Those, she figured, were pretty much a given. Mostly because by the time she finished telling her story, even she thought she sounded terrified and despairing.

Carlotta's first response was adamant. "Lindy Aubrey can't have you arrested, Dorsey, nor can she sue you for anything."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. You've done nothing illegal. Unless you've published your notes and called Lindy and her business all kinds of terrible, ugly names, she can't do anything. And even if you published your notes and called Lindy and her business all kinds of terrible, ugly names, she'd have to prove that she and her business weren't all those terrible, ugly things. And if you ask me, the moment that terrible, ugly woman took the stand, both judge and jury would find in your favor."

"I don't know…"

"Lindy was reacting out of anger and frustration and fear, Dorsey. When she speaks to her attorneys, they'll tell her she doesn't have a leg to stand on. You just wait."

"Then she'll probably take out a hit on me," Dorsey said. "I wouldn't be surprised if she has friends in that line of work. She might even pull the trigger herself."

"Oh, stop," Carlotta scolded. "Your work at Drake's and your dissertation are the least of your worries. What about Adam?"

Dorsey had rather hoped to avoid that topic. She should have known better. "What about him?" she stalled.

"What are you going to tell him?"

She scrunched up her shoulders and let them drop. "I'm not going to tell him anything."

"What?"

"He won't listen to me, Carlotta. I tried to explain at Drake's, but he's already drawn his own conclusions and sided with Lindy. He won't believe me."

Carlotta studied her in silence for some moments, then asked, "Why did you keep your notebooks at Drake's in the first place?"

It took Dorsey a minute to backpedal that far, but she finally told her mother, "In the beginning, I didn't keep them there, for fear of being discovered. But it was hard to keep my observations in my head until I got home at night to record them. I just thought it would be easier if I could jot them down when I took a break. And gradually, as I got to know Lindy…" She shrugged again. "I don't know. I just pegged her as the kind of person who wouldn't violate another person's privacy. She guarded her own so closely. It was more convenient to keep the notebooks at Drake's, and I just never thought she'd do something like search my locker. I trusted her."

"The same way Adam trusted you," Carlotta said.

"Yes," Dorsey replied softly.

"And now he feels that trust has been violated."

"I know. That's the problem. And he's not the kind of man who'll forgive something like that."

"Oh?" Carlotta asked. "What kind of man is he?"

Dorsey fidgeted, then laid her Barbie on the floor beside Ken. Folding her legs up before her, she hugged them to her chest and settled her chin atop one knee. And she tried not to think about how she'd just curled herself up into a fetal position. What was next? she wondered. Would she be trying to crawl back into the womb, too? Somehow, she didn't think Carlotta would stand for that. Literally or figuratively.

"Adam," she finally said, "is the kind of man who protects what's his. He'll see this as an opportunity to throw Lauren Grable-Monroe—to throw
me
—to the wolves."

"Will he?"

"Oh, Carlotta. You know how much he hates that book. He'll jump at the chance to see me squirm."

"He might have jumped at the chance to see Lauren Grable-Monroe squirm, Dorsey, but not you. You yourself just said he protects what's his."

"I'm not his," Dorsey countered.

"Aren't you?"

She shook her head slowly. "I'm not anybody's." She had meant for the proclamation to sound fierce and proud. Instead, it only sounded sad and lonely.

"Regardless of what you may think," Carlotta told her, "Adam won't throw you to the wolves."

"I can't be sure of that."

"I can."

"Why?"

"Because he's just like you, Dorsey. And you would never do that to him."

"He's not like me," Dorsey denied.

"He's
exactly
like you," her mother retorted. "That's why you're so attracted to him. That's why you respond to him so strongly. You recognize yourself in him."

"No, he's… I'm… We're…" She sighed restlessly and gave up trying to explain something she didn't even understand herself. "He's not like any man I've ever been attracted to," she told her mother. "So why does it hurt so much to lose him?"

Carlotta laughed. "Oh, Dorsey, don't you see? That's always been your problem. You've always opted for Ken when you should have gone for GI Joe."

She narrowed her eyes at her mother curiously. "What are you talking about?"

Carlotta pointed at the Ken doll that Dorsey had dressed after completing Barbie's wardrobe. "Ken is so … so passive. He's so agreeable. So bland. He's the kind of man that
I
have always tried to attract. One who's manageable. One who's not much work. One who will behave predictably. Docilely."