How to Trap a Tycoon (5 page)

"Why not?"

She waited until he turned his attention fully to her face, then pinned her gaze on his yet again. "Because we would enslave you, that's why."

For a moment, he was so stunned by her response that he simply could not form a reply. But he regained his composure again eventually and smiled. At least, he hoped he was smiling. His face—not to mention other body parts—still felt a little stiff at hearing the whole enslaving thing suggested. My, but the prospects were just too intriguing to bear.

"Gee, there's nothing I'd love more than to continue this conversation," he said, "but something tells me it's not one I should be having with a married woman."

She colored a bit at that, as if she, too, had forgotten all about that husband of hers. Well, well, well. Wasn't this just the most interesting conversation that he and Mack had never had?

Thankfully, their nonexistent discussion was interrupted then by the arrival of Adam's most recently acquired and very existent—sometimes too existent, in Adam's opinion—staff writer. As he watched Mack answer the summons of another club member halfway up the bar, Adam told himself she was
not
fleeing, and turned to greet his associate.

Lucas Conaway, age twenty-four, was fifteen years and a lifetime younger than Adam. In his Dockers, white button-down shirt and Animaniacs necktie, he was the sartorial antithesis of Adam, who had opted today for a three-piece, pin-striped Hugo Boss number—which, admittedly, was currently in something of a state of disarray. Likewise, the kid's blond, blue-eyed, gee-whiz good looks were at odds with what Adam cheerfully claimed as his own dark and brooding demeanor.

Normally, he would readily concede that their differences ended there. Despite the physical and temporal disparities, employer and employee were virtually two of a kind. Both were equally ambitious and driven when it came to the magazine they worked for—and, in Adam's case, owned—and both were equally irreverent and cynical when it came to life in general. Neither accepted any guff from any swine. And neither backed down an inch from what he wanted.

Adam could already sense that it was that last shared quality that was about to cause some trouble. He could tell by the look of intent on Lucas's face. Oh, well, he thought, it wouldn't be the first time they'd gone head to head on something. Nor, he was confident, would it be the last. And that, he told himself, was what made for good journalism. Even if that journalism found its way into a publication that was targeted less at hard news and more at—he might as well admit it—frivolous masculine pursuits.

Nevertheless,
Man's Life
magazine was Adam's pride and joy, his friends and family, his offspring, his better half, his reason for being. He had launched the glossy monthly a mere six years ago, and already its circulation was higher than any other magazine of its kind. Devoted to covering the finer things in a man's life—fast cars and fine wines, great books and good cigars, beautiful, intelligent women … and other such masculine acquisitions—
Man's Life
had become everything he had envisioned. And in his role of publisher as well as editor-in-chief, Adam was exactly where he wanted to be.

"I have a great idea for a story," Lucas said as he folded himself onto a neighboring bar stool. Without giving Adam a chance to reply, he hastily continued, "Three times yesterday, I encountered the same thing. Three times. To me, that means it's newsworthy." He lifted his hand toward Mack, who nodded an acknowledgment that she would be right there.

"Three times, huh?" Adam asked, his curiosity reluctantly piqued. "I suppose that counts for something."

"It's a sign," Lucas assured him. "On three separate occasions yesterday, in three separate places, I saw women reading that new book
How to Trap a Tycoon
."

"Oh, no," Adam said, rolling his eyes. "Not again. Not that."

"So what could I do but go out and buy myself a copy, too?" Lucas asked.

Adam eyed him with much disgust. "How could you? You've betrayed your entire gender."

Lucas shrugged off the charge. "Hey, the book is topical. It's a current event. I'm a journalist. Sue me."

"Don't tell me you actually read the thing."

"Of course I read it. And it really fired me up, too."

"To do what? Go out and trap yourself a tycoon?"

Lucas grinned in a very wicked way that Adam found more than a little intriguing. "Nope," he said simply. "It made me want to go out and trap Lauren Grable-Monroe."

Well, that sounded promising. "And do what with her?" Adam spurred.

Lucas's grin turned positively malicious. Adam was liking this more and more. "My intention is to go out and trap myself Lauren Grable-Monroe and then completely expose her for the fraud I'm certain she is."

His announcement was punctuated by the sound of shattering glass, something that gave it a rather ominous implication. When Adam glanced up, it was to find Mack gazing at Lucas with wide eyes, her mouth slightly open, her face drained of all color—except for her cheeks, which were faintly stained with the hint of a blush. Strangely, she was holding her hand out before her, but her fingers, though curved, held nothing. Pushing himself up from his stool, Adam glanced over the top of the bar to find that, yep, just as he'd suspected, Mack was the one who had broken the glass. It lay in about a million pieces on the tile floor behind the bar.

As he sat back down, he tried to imagine what would have caused such a reaction in her. Not only did Mack never lose her composure over anything, but she never broke anything, either. She was amazing when it came to tending bar. Ultimately, all he could figure—and it was a lame deduction at best—was that maybe she had been overcome by Lucas's boyish good looks. In which case Adam would have no choice but to transfer the kid to the Spongemop,
South Dakota
, beat, thereby reducing the competition. Bad enough Adam had to sit around waiting for Mack's husband to go to his final reward.
Man
.

Then Adam remembered that he couldn't transfer Lucas to
Spongemop
,
South Dakota
. Because Lucas had single-handedly upped
Man's Life
subscriptions by six percent with that Wall Street exposé he'd written for the June issue. So if the kid wanted to turn his journalistic attentions—and intentions—to Lauren Grable-Monroe now, Adam sure as hell wasn't going to stop him. Then again, a story on Ms. Grable-Monroe meant
Man's Life
would be giving that damned book of hers free publicity. Did he really want to do that?

And why was Mack still staring at Lucas that way, her green eyes lambent—he could safely say he now knew what that word meant—her mouth full and ripe and luscious-looking, her face glowing with a mixture of caution and something he was hard-pressed to identify, and … and … and…

And, man, it was getting hot in here. What did Lindy have the thermostat set on?
Jeez
.

He reached up to loosen his already loosened necktie, then told Lucas, "I'm not sure I want Lauren Grable-Monroe in my magazine."

Lucas smiled but turned to Mack. "Gimme a Tanqueray and tonic."

Mack, of course, was way ahead of Lucas on that score. It was remarkable how she kept a catalogue of the drinking preferences of Drake's entire membership and began pouring the preferred beverage the moment she noted, the member's presence at the bar. She set Lucas's prepared drink before him, then dropped the Tanqueray bottle back into the well. But she didn't scurry off afterward, as Adam had assumed she would. Instead, she continued to study Lucas. With much interest.

Dammit
.

"This is a story," Lucas finally continued, oblivious to Mack's interest, "that the readers of
Man's Life
would find very interesting."

"And that would be because…" Adam spurred him.

Lucas's smile turned predatory. "Because I intend to locate Ms. Lauren Grable-Monroe and find out just what her credentials—so to speak—are that would make her the self-appointed social guru of today's women."

Adam sighed heavily but said nothing. He was torn between the dread of giving space to Lauren Grable-Monroe in any form and the ecstasy of filling that space with what might be a really satisfying diatribe against her. If anyone could write a flaming exposé of Lauren Grable-Monroe, it would be Lucas Conaway. The kid was a truly gifted writer.

There were times when Adam frankly wondered what had made the kid accept a position at
Man's Life
when he could have gone pretty much anywhere he wanted. Certainly his salary was competitive with any number of similar publications. But Lucas was a writer who should be covering human rights violations and sneaky, underhanded governments. Not which Cuban cigars best complemented
California
cognacs.

"Why would you want to expose Lauren Grable-Monroe?"

The question came not from Adam but from Mack, who seemed to be genuinely curious about the answer.

Lucas sipped his drink and sighed with much contentment, then turned his attention to Mack. "Because she's fast becoming the latest icon of popular American culture," he pointed out. "She's a good sound bite. Like I said, she's topical. She's controversial." He hesitated for only a moment before adding. "And something tells me she is really
hot
, too. Have you read the book?"

Mack nodded, but once again her cheeks were stained faintly with pink. Adam thought it made her look rather adorable. Then he immediately berated himself for allowing the word "adorable" into his masculine verbal repertoire. What Mack looked, he corrected himself, was rather… Oh, dammit. Adorable. That was what she looked.

"So that means you read chapter seven, right?" Lucas asked. "The one called Keeping the Tycoon in the Bedroom. Man, that chapter alone's worth the price of the book." He turned to Adam. "You would not believe some of the stuff she writes in that chapter. And so matter-of-fact she is about it, too. There's this thing with crème de menthe…" He threw another look toward Mack, then halted himself. "Well, let's just say that that Lauren has got some mouth on her. And I'd like to have it on me, too. Very arousing reading material." He smiled wickedly.

"Arousing," Adam echoed blandly. He decided not to look and see how Mack had taken Lucas's mouth references. He was afraid she might have gone way beyond adorable by now. And that way lay madness. "I think 'annoying' would probably be a better word for Ms. Grable-Monroe," he concluded.

"Yeah, well, I guess I can't expect a man your age to respond to a sexy woman the way a man my age does. But, hey, you'll always have Viagra."

The last thing Adam wanted was to be part of a discussion about Viagra in front of Mack. "Please spare me. It probably hasn't been that long since you took your Pamela Anderson Lee poster down off your bedroom wall."

Lucas's smile grew broader. "Who says I took it down?"

"I think Mr. Darien is right," Mack piped up. "You owe it to your readership to avoid this kind of sensationalism. It's just popular, mass-market-driven propaganda. And in case you haven't noticed," she added parenthetically—if a little sarcastically—"the typical
Man's Life
reader is an elitist, sexist snob."

"Oh, I've noticed that," Lucas assured her.

Adam nodded. "Me, too."

Mack narrowed her eyes at both of them, but only continued, "Your typical reader has worked hard and sacrificed a lot to preserve his elitist, sexist, snobby way of life. You might want to be careful to not offend him. Elitist, sexist snobs have a way of not minding how much money they spend to read about elitist, sexist snobbery. Lauren Grable-Monroe doesn't pander to that."

This time Adam was the one to narrow his eyes. "You know, Mack, I think I speak for both Lucas and myself when I say,
'Huh?'"

She frowned at him but said nothing, which was just as well, because Lucas started up again.

"I want to do this story, because I think Ms. Grable-Monroe has acted irresponsibly."

"In what way?" Adam asked.

Lucas thought for a moment before responding. "Well, she could cause a lot of unhappiness in the world," he finally said. "Women will be crushed when they don't land the man of their financial dreams even after following the instructions in the book."

In response to his assertion, Adam covered his mouth and yawned.

"She could cause a lot of disappointment," Lucas added.

Adam, in turn, glanced down at his watch.

"A lot of heartache."

Adam tugged gently at a hangnail.

"You know, the least you could do is listen to what I have to say."

Adam crossed his legs and rubbed at a spot on his shoe. "I will, once you start saying something that doesn't make me want to throw up. Hey, I had sushi for lunch. It could get ugly."

Lucas gazed down at his drink, then ran his thumb slowly, thoughtfully, along the rim of the glass. "I want to do a story on her, Adam."

"Why?"

"I have my own reasons."

"Care to tell me what they are?"

Lucas glanced up and met his gaze levelly. "No."

Adam studied the other man with much interest but didn't pursue the matter. Not because he wasn't curious about whatever was going on in the wily head of the hotshot writer, but because, suddenly, he began to get a pretty good idea of his own for a story. Before he could stop it, the idea had taken root, and even more quickly, it began to blossom.