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

her? he wondered. Okay, some misguided sense of chivalry, maybe. He could live with that. He could accept that somewhere deep down inside himself, there still flickered some small gasp of decency, however remote. But once the guy following Edie had sensed Lucas's presence and kept walking past the café, why had Lucas gone inside? Why had he sat down—uninvited, no less—with Edie? And what had possessed him to tell her he was looking for a tycoon?

He supposed he'd just wanted to say something—anything—that would banish that haunted, hungry look from her eyes. Man, for a minute there, perky, cheerful, genial, blond Edie Mulholland had actually looked unhappy. Morose. Bitter. And it was because of something he'd said. As many times as Lucas had been nauseated by her blind sweetness, he hadn't necessarily wanted to see her lose it. Not really. Yeah, putting up with her being chipper and happy and blond all the time was certainly depressing, but now he realized it was worse to see her sad.

You are such a sap, Conaway, he chastised himself. And hell, he hadn't even been drinking this time.

He remembered again how much he had revealed that night he'd gotten drunk at Drake's when she'd had to take him home. He remembered telling her that he wanted her, remembered asking her—no, begging her, he reminded himself ruthlessly—not to leave him alone in his apartment. Worse, he remembered how much he had wanted her to stay. He remembered how much he had needed her. And he remembered how much it had hurt to hear his front door click shut softly behind her when she left.

And Lucas didn't like it that he had felt hurt. He liked it less that he had felt need. He didn't need anybody, he told himself now. And he sure as hell wasn't going to let anybody hurt him ever again.

"A tycoon," Edie repeated, bringing him back to the present. "Um, aren't you surrounded by them every day at Drake's?"

"Not the kind I need."

Their server returned then with a massive wheel of baked Brie surrounded by slices of apple and pear and a small bunch of grapes and accompanied by a big basket of baguettes and brioches. And Lucas decided right then and there that there was no way he could allow Edie to consume all that by herself.

"This is an appetizer?" she asked their server, her thoughts clearly mirroring his.

She nodded as she told them, "Bon appetit."

"Let me help you with this," Lucas offered magnanimously as he plucked a grape from its stem. "It's the least I can do."

"Yeah, the very least," Edie murmured—dryly, if he wasn't mistaken.

"Hey, you can't eat baked Brie alone," he told her. "It's a fact of life."

She eyed him dubiously. "You learned this fact of life on your fictional trip to Paris , I assume."

"Touché," he said.

She smiled. "I forgot you speak the language fluently."

"Mais, oui," he told her.

"Can you say anything that's not a cliché?" she challenged him.

"There, see?" he countered. "You speak French, too. You said cliché like a native."

"But then, we were talking about some tycoon you're looking to trap," Edie said, spoiling what had promised to be some pretty righteous chitchat.

Lucas sighed his resignation. "Yeah," he said, reaching for a slice of apple to dip in the soft, fragrant cheese. "Adam wants me to find a rich woman to take care of me."

Edie had just swallowed a bite of Brie-laden brioche when Lucas tossed off his careless announcement, and it must have gotten lodged somewhere on the way down. Because suddenly, she went still. Then she made a very unladylike sound, and then she began to hack. A lot. Lucas stood quickly and moved around the table, ready to administer the Heimlich on her if he had to. At least, he would have administered the Heimlich on her … if he'd ever bothered to learn how to perform it. Since he hadn't, he opened his hand over the center of her back instead and began to pat her with some vigor.

Or, at least, he tried to pat her. But the second his hand made contact with her back, Edie jerked up out of her chair at the speed of light and spun around fast enough to send that chair clattering to the ground.

Lucas told himself that the reason she looked so terrified was because she was in the process of choking to death. But she inhaled a deep breath, and he realized that whatever had been blocking her windpipe was now free. Nevertheless, she sputtered uncomfortably a few more times. And nevertheless, she still looked terrified.

He remembered then how she had reacted at Drake's that night when he had tried to place his keys in the palm of her hand. He remembered how she had reacted when Davenport had reached across the bar to skim his thumb lightly over her cheek. Innocent gestures, both, but Edie had reacted as if rabid hyenas were launching themselves at her jugular. Both times she had lurched her entire body backward, as if she feared for her very life. She seemed to feel exactly the same way right now.

"Edie?" he asked quietly, taking an experimental step toward her.

She in turn took a very deliberate step backward.

"Are you all right?" he asked further. He righted the chair that had toppled over when she'd rocketed out of it and silently bade her to sit down. Amazingly, she did so without comment.

"I'm fine," she said a bit hoarsely once she was seated. Lucas inhaled a slow, deep breath and returned to his own seat. "I probably shouldn't ask what that was all about, but then, I've never much been one to do what I know is right, so… Just what was that all about?"

She looked at him with wide, innocent eyes, eyes that appeared even larger and bluer than usual, thanks to the dampness that lingered there after her coughing fit. At least, Lucas assumed the tears were a result of her coughing. What the hell else