How to Trap a Tycoon by Elizabeth Bevarly (thriller books to read txt) 📕

abs beneath. Evidently his apartment wasn't the only thing that Lucas took great care to maintain, she thought, her mouth going dry at the sight of his lean torso. Hastily, she glanced away.

"Mi casa es su casa," he added further. "Bet you didn't know I was trilingual, did you?"

When she forced her gaze back to his face, she found him grinning in a way that seemed self-mocking somehow. She arched her brows and crossed her arms over her midsection, pretending she was completely immune to him.

"Do tell," she said as blandly as she could.

He nodded. "Actually, I'm quadrilingual. In addition to French and Spanish—and English, natch—I also speak German fluently." To illustrate his accomplishment, he inhaled a deep breath and announced, "Ich bin ein Berliner." He waited for her reaction, and when she offered none, he sighed. "Not that I want you to think I'm bragging or anything."

"Traveled overseas a lot, have you?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Never."

"How come?" she asked, honestly curious. "You're unattached, you have a good job, you can afford it. Fear of flying?"

He shook his head again. "Fear of life."

She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but before she could voice the question, he pushed himself up from the couch and strode toward the kitchen. "Coffee?" he asked her as he went. "Clearly, I'm not quite sober yet. I think I could use another pot or two. I'm much too chatty tonight." He voiced that last as if he were confessing to the most vile of crimes.

This time Edie was the one to shake her head. "No, thanks," she told him. "I have to get home."

He spun around quickly, the expression on his face alarmed for some reason. "Don't," he said, his voice clipped, cautious. He must have detected her surprise—or perhaps her own alarm—because he immediately softened the command by adding, "Please." He took a few steps toward her, and for one brief, insane moment, she thought he might actually reach out to her. But he only stopped where he was, dropped his hands to his hips, and said, "Just stay for a little while, Edie. Talk to me. I'm way too het up to sleep."

All the more reason for her to go, she thought. No way did she trust the wee hours of the morning, and right now, they were about as wee as they came. Just because she never managed to sleep through them herself didn't mean she had to spend them with someone else. On the contrary, those were the hours of the night when she absolutely had to be alone.

She jutted a thumb halfheartedly over her shoulder, hoping the gesture looked casual. "I, um … I really do have to go," she told him, taking a step back. "I have an eight o'clock class in the morning."

He nodded, though somehow she could see that it was less in understanding than it was in resignation. As if he'd expected this reaction from her and was for the most part content to let it go.

Strange, she thought. She suddenly felt guilty for cutting out on him. It wasn't like the two of them were friends, she reassured herself. And it certainly wasn't like she owed him something. Until tonight, they'd barely spoken a civil word to each other. Just because he'd had a few too many drinks and had revealed a side of himself she'd never seen before… Just because it was a side of him she found oddly endearing somehow… Just because it was a side of him that, under other circumstances—like maybe if she'd lived an entirely different life from the one she had—she might honestly want to explore…

Well, just because of all that, it didn't mean she had to do as he asked. It would be lunacy—idiocy—for her to stay here and share a cup of coffee with Lucas Conaway. Not just because there could be no future in it, but because her past was in it. And her past being what it was, the evening would only end badly. Of that, she had no doubt.

"I, um … I'll see you at Drake's," she told him, taking another step back until she found herself framed in the open doorway.

Only then did she recall that she still held his keys and, with a quick shake to warn him, she tossed them the length of the room. He caught them capably in one hand, no easy feat seeing as how his eyes never left hers as she performed the action. So handsome, she thought. He was so handsome. Intelligent. Funny. Interesting. Really, it was just too bad that—

She cut off the thought with a deep sigh and lifted a hand in halfhearted farewell.

"Edie," he called out as she turned away.

Reluctantly, she spun back around.

"Thanks," he said softly. "For everything."

"No problem," she replied.

He emitted a single humorless chuckle. "No problem," he echoed unhappily. "Yeah, right. That's what you think, sweetheart. That's what you think."

Chapter 8

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A week after telling Adam she couldn't see him, Dorsey sat in the locker room at Drake's and marveled at how very accurate her prediction had been. Because during that week, she had seen neither hide nor hair—nor suit nor tie—of him anywhere. When she'd told him that night on her front porch that she wouldn't be able to see him, she'd meant socially. Romantically. Personally. She hadn't meant she wouldn't see him at all.

But it was actually kind of a relief, because she had no idea how she was supposed to act around him now, anyway. She felt so odd about things. Before last week, their roles had been clearly defined, and they'd both been reasonably comfortable playing those roles. Now, however, the line between them was blurred. Whereas before, she'd had no trouble toeing that line, now Dorsey had stumbled off of it completely. And she couldn't rightly say on which side of it she had fallen. But what was most troubling of all was that no matter