How to Trap a Tycoon

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  The crowd enveloping her, on the other hand, was very traditional—and not all of them likable, she had to confess—the elite of Chicago society decked out in the finest evening wear that money could buy. Edie tried not to think about how she herself had made do with a consignment shop purchase, a simple black, strapless cocktail dress that she'd accessorized with an inexpensive choker and drop earrings made of jet beads. And she told herself it didn't matter that everyone else glittered with far greater light than she.

  "A disgrace to my gender, am I?" Lucas muttered beside her, tugging uncomfortably at his necktie. "Just how do you figure that? No self-respecting member of my gender would submit to attending this kind of event, I guarantee you that." He glanced around surreptitiously. "No self-respecting heterosexual member, anyway."

  "Oh, please," she countered. "Attending this kind of event would work wonders for the heterosexual members of your gender. Most of you are hungering for aesthetic nourishment to feed that vast artistic wasteland in your souls."

  "Wow," he replied blandly. "You're a real poet, you know that? Maybe you could feed me sometime. 'Cause, sweetheart, I have an appetite that's just—"

  "And here I've gone to all this trouble," she interjected quickly, "to help you plant your mercenary hooks in some decent, unsuspecting rich woman, and you can't even rise to the occasion."

  At her closing comment, he threw her a look that was rife with all manner of bad taste. But he offered no verbal response. Not that any was necessary, Edie realized belatedly. Any simpleton could see exactly what he was thinking. And seeing as how she was presently serving as the mayor of Simpleton, she understood much too well.

  "You know what I mean," she said, feeling heat seep into her cheeks. Honestly. With a single look, Lucas Conaway could make her feel hot and cold at the same time. How was that possible? And how could she find such a sensation enjoyable?

  "I still can't believe I let you talk me into this," he said distastefully. "The last time I wore a suit was to my uncle Fenwick's funeral. I was twelve, if memory serves."

  "Oh, will you stop complaining?" Edie muttered right back. "If you want to trap a tycoon, you have to look like you're already a success yourself. Women don't take to gold diggers the way men do. Men don't care why a woman is attracted to them, so long as the woman is attracted. Women care about the whys."

  "Yeah, go figure."

  "Women want to be wanted not because they're wealthy," she continued, ignoring him, "but because they're desirable as women. And anyway, how can you say you're using How to Trap a Tycoon in your quest? It's in chapter one, for heaven's sake, that Lauren Grable-Monroe discusses the importance of looking good. And you look much more handsome—not to mention successful—in that suit than you do wearing those silly cartoon neckties you usually wear."

  He turned to gaze at her with clear surprise. "You don't like my neckties? How can you not like my neckties? I have excellent taste in neckties."

  Edie rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. You have no taste in neckties. You have one with the Scooby Gang on it."

  He gaped at her. "Hey, the Scooby Gang is hot right now, I'll have you know. An old Scooby Doo lunch box just like the one I used to carry to school went for more than two hundred bucks on eBay not too long ago."

  Strangely, Edie didn't find this information particularly impressive. Go figure. "You carried a Scooby Doo lunch box to school?" she asked, battling a smile, but not very hard.

  This time Lucas was the one to blush. "Yeah. Well. It was a hand-me-down from my older sister, okay?" he defended himself. Then he quickly turned the tables. "What kind of lunch box did you carry? I'm guessing Barbie. Pink and purple plastic, am I right?"

  "Actually," she said, "I attended a school where the lunch was covered by the tuition, so I never carried a lunch box at all."

  "You went to a private school?" Lucas asked, his interest obviously piqued—and quite a bit more than she would have suspected, too.

  Damn . She really hadn't meant to give him any details about her past, but the words were out of her mouth before she'd realized she meant to say them. Resigned to the fact that he wouldn't let up until he had the answers he wanted—she'd seen for herself that he could be tenacious when his curiosity was roused—she reluctantly nodded. "Yeah, I went to private school," she told him.

  "Catholic school?" he asked. "'Cause you know, I have a real fondness for those uniforms, with their little plaid skirts and those shirts with the little round collars and those knee socks and—"

  She held up a hand to cut him off before he started to drool. "Not Catholic school," she told him. "But we did wear a uniform."

  He wiggled his eyebrows playfully. "Plaid?" he asked hopefully.

  She shook her head. "Navy blue."

  "Little round collars?"

  She sighed with much resignation. "Yes."

  "Knee socks?"

  "Yes."

  "I bet you were on the field hockey team, weren't you?"

  "Well, if you must know—"

  "Oh, I must."

  "Yes. I was on the field hockey team. We were undefeated my sophomore year."

  He said nothing for a moment, but a look came over his face that was positively sublime. Finally, "Oh, I would have liked to see that," he said softly. "You running around a field in one of those short skirts, all sweaty and intense. I bet every boy in school was after you."

  "There were no boys at my school," she told him. "Just girls."

  He squeezed his eyes shut tight in what she could only liken to sheer ecstasy. "Oh, stop," he murmured. "You're killin' me. I'm not gonna get a wink of sleep tonight."

  "But then, we were talking about you," she said suddenly, turning the tables again. Something about the ecstatic look on Lucas's face wreaked havoc on her system, made her heart trip-hammer erratically behind her ribs, made her entire body hum with something she figured it really shouldn't be humming with. Not in mixed and polite company, at any rate.

  Lucas eyed her with much interest for a moment more, then replied, "Yeah, we were talking about how I've always been way ahead of my time when it comes to fashion."

  She rolled her eyes again. "Oh, please," she said. "You're a walking, talking Fashion Don't. I can't imagine how you've made it through life this long with your taste. Or lack thereof. Then again," she added, not a little maliciously, "you haven't made it, have you? Not lately, anyway. And certainly not with a tycoon."

  He gazed at her mildly. "There's no need to be crass, Edie."

  She ignored that comment, too, and continued blithely, "That's why you've had to enlist my help tonight."

  He smiled lasciviously. "You're going to make it with me? Why, Edie, I wish I'd known. I would have worn clean underwear."

  She frowned at him. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

  "What I know is that there's something in your voice when you talk about my making it with a tycoon…" He arched his pale-blond eyebrows with much speculation. "Could it be jealousy?" he asked smoothly.

  A funny little shimmer of heat went dancing down her spine at the glint of frank appraisal that lit his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous," she told him. But her voice came out sounding thin and uncertain, even to her own ears. "Why on earth would I be jealous of you?"

  "Not jealous of me," he said. "Jealous over me."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  His smile turned knowing, and that funny little shimmer of heat slipped deeper inside her, simmering in her belly. "Don't you?" he asked. "Your lips say no, but your eyes…"

  "My eyes say, 'Stuff it,'" she told him. "Why would I ever feel jealous over you?"

  "Just a shot in the dark here, Edie, but maybe because … you like me?"

  His question didn't even bear commenting on, so she turned her back on him and sipped her champagne and pretended to be taken with the painting closest to where they stood, a spatter of purple and gray against a background of dark blue that was actually… Wow. Really, really cool. Beautiful, even. Jus
t for the heck of it, she bent forward to check the price of the piece. Oh. Only twenty-two hundred dollars. Well, gee. What a bargain.

  "You actually like that?" Lucas asked when he noted her interest.

  She nodded and continued to gaze at it, not quite able to pull her attention away from it. "Yes, I do. I like it very much. It reminds me of a patch of violets after a summer rain. It's very soothing."

  When she finally turned to look at Lucas, he had tilted his head to the side in a way that would have been comical had he not been genuinely trying to figure out the painting. Finally, he straightened again and shook his head. "I don't see it," he said. "It makes me think of a boxer whose face has just been beaten to a pulp."

  She expelled a soft sound of derision and turned her attention back to the painting, feeling instantly soothed. "Naturally," she said softly. "Men always see something violent where they could find beauty instead."

  This time when Lucas tipped his head sideways to ponder the nature of something, it was Edie whose nature he was pondering. She turned back to find him studying her with much interest, his eyes narrowed, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Strangely, she found herself wanting to nibble that lip herself, and it was with no small shock—and no small fear—that she acknowledged the reaction. Why on earth would she want to nibble anything on Lucas Conaway? As if she could ever get close enough to him without bolting in the first place.

  "Why do you naturally assume a man will find something violent?" he asked.

  She shrugged. "Because men are violent creatures, that's why."

  "Not all men."

  "Yes, all men."

  He gaped. "Well, that's a sweeping sexist statement if ever there was one."

  "It may be sweeping, but it's not sexist," she countered. "It's a statement of fact."

  "You think I'm violent?" he asked frankly.

  The question surprised her. Edie told herself it shouldn't. Naturally, being a man and therefore the object of her charge, he would challenge it. But it surprised her even more to find herself wanting to reply to the question in the negative. Lucas, for all his sarcasm and the hint of bitterness that surrounded him, didn't seem inherently violent. Yet he was clearly male. Too male. And therefore, he must, by nature, be violent. Right?

  "Yes," she replied, even though she didn't quite believe herself. "I think you have the capacity to be violent."

  "That's not what I asked you, Edie."

  "Isn't it?"

  He shook his head. "Everyone has the capacity to be violent, male or female. What I asked you is if you think I am violent."

  "Well, not at the moment, no," she hedged.

  "Have you ever seen me violent?"

  This time she answered quite readily. "No."

  "Yet you think me violent, just because I'm a man."

  She hesitated, but ultimately replied, "Yes."

  His expression remained impassive at her assertion, and Edie suddenly wanted to take back what she'd said, wanted to tell him that no, she was sure he was an exception, that she didn't for a moment think he had the potential to commit a violent act. But she couldn't quite convince herself of that.

  She'd known a number of men in the past whom she had been confident would never raise a hand to her, and she'd been left bruised and bloodied as a result. Lucas, for all his polish and control, was essentially no different from any other man. He was as capable of violence—he was as violent, she amended reluctantly—as any of them.

  "I see," he finally said. But he didn't elaborate. Nor did he press the subject further. And for that Edie was grateful.

  He discarded his empty champagne flute on the tray of a passing waiter, then wrapped his fingers around the knot of his necktie and began to tug it free of his collar.

  "Lucas, don't," Edie said, instinctively extending a hand to stop him. She caught herself just before her fingers would have closed over his, genuinely shocked that she had reacted in such a way. She never reached out to a man. And she certainly never touched one voluntarily. She couldn't imagine what had come over her to attempt it with Lucas. Hastily, she dropped her hand back to her side. "Don't loosen your tie," she told him. "You need to look perfect if you're going to attract a woman's eye here tonight."

  He sighed irritably, but reluctantly fixed his tie. "Edie, we've been here for almost an hour," he pointed out as he completed the gesture, "and I don't think I've seen a woman's eye—or any other body part, for that matter—that I'd like to attract." But he threw her a considering look, as if his statement wasn't quite true and that there was, in fact, one woman whose body parts he would very much like to attract, but she found him violent, so there was little chance of that ever happening now, was there?

  "You don't have to like it," she told him, assuring herself she did not sound—or feel—breathless. "As you said, it's just for a story. But you know, at the rate you're going with this tycoon trapping business, I think it might be time to break out one of those diaphanous gowns."

  "Very funny."

  His necktie—and the rest of him—once again looking dapper and sophisticated and dreamy and handsome and gorgeous and luscious and mouth-watering and… Oh, damn, Edie mused. She'd lost her train of thought.

  "Just how did you manage to get us into this thing tonight, anyway?" Lucas asked then, diverting her attention once again.

  She shrugged off the question. "A friend did me a favor, that's all."

  He eyed her suspiciously. "Which friend?"

  "Mr. Davenport from Drake's."

  "What?"

  Now it was Edie's turn to eye him suspiciously. He sounded absolutely furious about her admission. "Is there a problem with that?" she asked.

  He gaped at her for a moment before hissing, "You're damned right there's a problem with that."

  She gaped back at him. "Well, I'd like to know what it is."

  He frowned. "The problem is that I don't trust that guy around you, and now you're telling me he did you a favor, something that puts you in a position of … of…"

  "Of what?" she demanded.

  "Of having to … you know…"

  "No, what?"

  He gritted his teeth at her. Hard. "Of having to … reciprocate. To return the favor. To do something … nice … for him. If you catch my drift."

  "No, I don't catch your drift, Mr. Suspicious Mind," Edie snapped. "Mr. Davenport is a nice man. He was happy to get the invitations for me."

  "Oh, yeah, I'll just bet he was."

  She expelled a soft sound of surprise when she finally understood what Lucas was implying. And she forgot all about the fact that what he was implying was exactly what she had been thinking herself where repayment of Mr. Davenport's favor was concerned. "You make it sound like what he's going to want from me in return is something…"

  "Something…?" Lucas prodded.

  "Something … sordid … or…"

  "Or…?"

  "Or … icky," she finished lamely. "Like he's going to ask me to do something I don't want to do."

  Lucas nodded vigorously. "Yeah. Except he probably won't ask. He'll probably insist."

  She shook her head slowly in disbelief at what she heard in his voice. "Now who sounds jealous?" she asked softly.

  He laughed darkly. "I'm not speaking out of jealousy," he assured her. "I'm speaking out of fear for your safety."

  "Number one," she said coolly, "I can take care of myself, all right?"

  "Yeah, right."

  "And number two," she pushed on relentlessly, "boy, you don't trust anybody, do you?"

  His reply was quick and to the point. "No."

  "Not even me?"

  He inhaled deeply and released the breath in a slow, thoughtful sigh. "Not since you made me dress up like a corpse and spend more for a haircut than I'd normally spend to get my tires rotated, no."

  "It's for your own good, Lucas. You'll see."

  In fact, Edie was already beginning to see. A woman standing just behind and to the right of Lucas was inspecting his �
�� oh, dear, Edie thought … his, uh, his backside with much interest. The woman looked to be in her mid-forties, had an incredible figure and perfectly coifed red hair, was wearing the most amazing sea-green dress cut down to there, and was obviously looking to make Lucas's acquaintance—if not his night—very soon.

  "Tycoon at ten o'clock ," Edie whispered, bending her head toward his.

  Lucas's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What?"

  Edie bent in a little further. "There's a woman back there who's been giving you the once-over for the last couple of minutes. And she has some decent body parts you might want to attract. I think she saw us arguing, and she figures you're fair game. I'm going to pop off to the ladies' room," she added when she saw Lucas begin to object. "And when I get back, I hope to find you springing your tycoon trap. Do not disappoint me, Grasshopper. Oh, and no offense, but…"

  She stepped backward and feigned total and severe outrage, then lifted her hand and slapped him hard across the cheek. "How dare you!" she cried. "Lucas Conaway, I never want to speak to you again for the rest of my life!"

  Without awaiting a reply, and trying not to laugh at his utterly shocked and offended expression, Edie spun on her heel and left him to spring his tycoon trap on his unsuspecting prey. Strange, though, how the look on his face had made him seem so much more the hunted than the hunter. She bit back a smile and hurried along, wanting to get back in time to see the end of the show. It ought to be good. She did so enjoy romantic comedy.

  * * *

  Lucas lifted a hand to his burning cheek and gaped at the hastily departing and extremely attractive back of Edie Mulholland, too stunned to do anything other than … well … ogle her. She was, after all, more than a little oglable this evening, in her little—very little—black dress and smoky—very smoky—black stockings and high—very high—heels. And that black beaded choker around her neck was simply too arousing for words, because all Lucas could do was imagine what she'd look like wearing nothing but that choker. Boy, could he imagine. And had been for most of the evening. But once he got past all that and recalled what Edie had just done to him, he could not believe what Edie had just done to him.