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

what sleep she'd had then had been anything but restful. Then again, her sleep was rarely good, even at the best of times. But she was still feeling anxious about being followed, and something about the little café called to her, cocooned her, made her feel safe.

"Are you still serving dinner?" she asked a bartender who was wiping down the bar. He was big and round and smiling, with arms the size of rain barrels, and Edie sensed in him immediately a brave and noble spirit.

"Only appetizers," he told her. "And only for another half-hour at that. We close at two."

"That'd be okay."

He waved a hand expansively at the otherwise empty room. "Have a seat anywhere. I'll get Margie to take your order."

"Thanks."

Edie chose a small table midway between the bar and the door—well, perhaps it was a bit closer to the bar than it was to the door—one that was well lit and set for two. Then she plucked the menu from between the salt and pepper shakers and gave it a quick perusal. A woman as big and round and smiling as the bartender came out to take her order, and since Edie already had her café au lait from the coffee shop, she ordered a baked Brie to go with it.

Hey, she had no romance in her life, she thought, and there would certainly be none forthcoming. Who cared if she ate an entire Brie and swelled up to the size of France ? At least she'd be happy.

Content with her decision, she unzipped the backpack that she carried with her everywhere and withdrew a battered textbook. If she was going to stay up too late and eat foods rich enough to keep her awake for hours, then she might as well get a little studying done.

She had just turned to the assigned reading on the Peloponnesian War when she felt someone watching her again. She glanced up just as the café's front door opened, and her mouth fell open in surprise when she saw who strode through.

Lucas Conaway was still dressed in the blue jeans, white oxford shirt, and black blazer he had been wearing at Adam Darien's party, but his necktie was loosened now, and he'd unfastened the top two or three buttons of his shirt. His icy blue gaze was fixed intently on hers, and Edie felt certain then that he was the one who had been following her.

How dare he? she wondered, outraged by the realization. How dare he scare the life out of her the way he had? What was the matter with him?

Without greeting her or awaiting an invitation, he walked purposefully to her table, pulled out the opposite chair with an ominous scrape, then dropped into it, landing in a careless sprawl. But he remained silent, only stared at her as if it were she and not he who had just committed some grievous sin.

"Well, gosh, just sit yourself down," she told him wryly. "Don't do something so crass as wait for me to invite you."

"Do you mind?" he said blandly.

"What if I do?"

His only response was a shrug, but there was nothing at all casual about the gesture.

"Fine," she conceded shortly. "Join me." Then, as rudely as he, she dropped her gaze back down to her textbook and pretended to read, pretended to dismiss him without another thought.

"Thanks," he said. "I think I will."

Before Edie could point out that her comment had been sarcastic—something she was certain he would be able to appreciate, seeing as how he was the reigning king of that particular realm—her server came back to take his order, too. Before she could stop him, Lucas asked for a cup of coffee but nothing more. And evidently realizing that the table was fully laden with tension and ill will, their server didn't suggest anything else and beat a hasty retreat.

Edie spared a glance back up at Lucas then, but she said nothing, silently indicating that it was up to him to go first and explain what he was doing here. For a moment, he only continued to stare at her in that plainly disgruntled way, then, very slowly, very intently, he bent his body forward, folded his arms one over the other on the table, and frowned.

"Just what the hell were you thinking to leave Adam's place all by yourself this time of night?" he demanded.

She arched her eyebrows in disbelief. "Excuse me?" she demanded right back. "What were you thinking to follow me and scare me half to death?"

"You should be scared to death," he countered. "A woman walking alone in a deserted city in the middle of the night. Anything could have happened to you out there."

"Hey, I can take care of myself," she told him.

His cool smile indicated just how seriously he took that assurance. "Yeah, right," he muttered.

"I can."

He looked nowhere near convinced. "Uh-huh. Sure. Okay. Whatever you say."

"And even if you don't believe that, it didn't give you any right to follow me," she told him.

He hesitated only a moment—a moment he used to glare at her even more—then said, "I wasn't the one who was following you. I was following the guy who was following you."

Okay, now she was really confused. "What are you talking about?"

He sighed heavily, then threw her another one of those looks that suggested she was responsible for ruining his whole evening. Hey, his whole life. "I was sitting in my car across the street from Adam's place, about to pull away, and—"

"You got a parking space that close?" she interrupted, unable to help herself. Figures a guy like him would get a break like that. Lucas Conaway was the kind of person who got every break life had to offer. Good looks, massive intelligence, expensive education, fabulous job right out of the gate. Of course, there was that small matter of him completely lacking a soul, she thought further. But then, nobody was perfect, right?

He eyed her in a way that made her feel like