How to Trap a Tycoon

Contents:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

Epilogue

Chapter 1

^
»

T
he fourth time it happened, it really got Dorsey's attention.

The first time, she put it down to coincidence, because, after all, it was bound to happen sooner or later. The second time, naturally, she shrugged it off as a fluke. The third time came as no surprise at all, because, as the saying goes, things come in threes. However, by that fourth time, Dorsey MacGuinness realized that she was clean out of explanations. There was just no good way to account for that fourth time, so it really got her attention.

The coincidental first occurrence, um … occurred … shortly after she began her lecture in her
eight o'clock
Intro to Sociology class. Dorsey wasn't happy to be teaching as many intro classes as she was, but that was what teaching assistants like her were for, weren't they? To baby-sit the students taking sociology as an elective and keep them off the streets, where they might otherwise get into trouble. Only real professors got to teach sociology to
real
sociology students. So Dorsey would just have to settle for being a pretend professor until after she defended her doctoral dissertation in six months.

Soc. 101 classes were always, in a word, uncooperative. Except, of course, for
eight o'clock
Soc. 101 classes, which were always, in a word, unconscious. Today was no exception. Dorsey faced the twenty odd—"odd," being a term of more than one definition here—students in her class, and was in no way surprised to find a good half of them dozing.

What she
was
surprised to find was that one of them was quite wide awake.

In the very back of the room, a female student—which was redundant, really, because
all
the students at Severn College were female, was not just very much awake, but also very much focused on her studies. Unfortunately, those studies did not include sociology. Not the kind of sociology Dorsey was trying to teach in this particular class, at any rate.

"Ms. Jennings," she called out in her best teaching assistant voice. It held a tone that gave even the best—
real
—professor voice a run for its money.

But Ms. Tiffany Jennings was not impressed by Dorsey's best teaching assistant-almost-doctor voice. Because Ms. Tiffany Jennings offered no indication whatsoever that she had even heard Dorsey summon her by name. She was far too wrapped up in the book that she held open before her face. Not her fat Soc. 101 textbook, but a slim paperback. A slim paperback titled
How to Trap a Tycoon
, authored by the undoubtedly pseudonymous—and utterly ridiculous—Lauren Grable-Monroe.

"Ms. Jennings," Dorsey tried again.

This time, the voice worked a trifle better, because two or three of the dozing students pried open their eyes. Ms. Tiffany Jennings, however, only continued to read.

With a resigned sigh, Dorsey tossed her stubby piece of chalk into the tray and strode forward, adjusting her oval, wire-rimmed glasses as she went and raking both hands through the rioting, dark-auburn curls that tumbled past her shoulders. As she covered the dozen or so steps between the blackboard and her uninterested student, she tugged her baggy, oatmeal-colored sweater down over faded Levi's.

Severn
College
was a tiny, tony women's liberal arts college situated in the tiny, tony
Chicago
suburb of Oak Brook, but staff and student body alike had long ago succumbed to a casual atmosphere. It was only one of the things Dorsey liked so much about both studying and teaching here. The school itself had been founded more than a century before, and the building where Dorsey did the bulk of her teaching and learning attested to that fact.

The scarred wood floors softened the sound of her rubber-soled hiking boots, so that Ms. Tiffany Jennings neither heard nor saw Dorsey's arrival beside her desk.

Not until Dorsey snatched the book right out of her hands.

"Hey!" the student then exclaimed, "I was just getting to chapter seven, the one everybody says has all the good stuff."

Dorsey closed the book and read the title aloud. "
How to Trap a Tycoon
, Ms. Jennings?" she asked. "Are you really interested in trying?"

The girl nodded her head with much enthusiasm. "You bet. Who wouldn't be?"

Dorsey could think of a few people off the top of her head—she herself, of course, would be in the number one spot—but declined comment. Instead, she opened the book to the table of contents and perused the offerings held within.

"'Chapter Seven. Keeping the Tycoon in the Bedroom.' Yes, I can see where the concentration of good stuff, as you call it, Ms. Jennings, would most certainly be in that chapter. One can only shiver with delicious anticipation at the prospect of bedding a man whose entire focus in life is adding more dollar signs to his name." She peered at Ms. Jennings from over the tops of her glasses. "While you're doing all the work, he'll be mentally undressing his board of directors in the hope of figuring out what makes them tick. And, naturally, looking at all those boxer shorts and black socks would make any tycoon feel randy, wouldn't it?"

Since the question really required no answer, Dorsey returned her attention to the top of the table of contents. "'Chapter One,'" she read. "'The Best Tycoon Bait.'"

"That one's about how to give yourself a makeover that would make you more attractive to tycoons."

"Oh, my," Dorsey remarked. "How have I made it through twenty-seven years of life without having this information at my fingertips?" She flipped to the chapter in question and quickly scanned a few pages. "According to this, if I want to trap myself a tycoon, I should rush right out and spend a small fortune—which, of course, I don't have, seeing as how I have yet to trap myself a tycoon, a development that rather negates the entire premise of the book, doesn't it?—on a wardrobe full of … what does it say here?"

She lifted her glasses to the top of her head and squinted at the paragraph in question. "'Sporty separates, cute little Chanel suits, seductive peignoirs, and diaphanous gowns.'" She glanced back up at Ms. Jennings. "Do they even make diaphanous gowns anymore?" she asked the girl. When Ms. Jennings only shrugged, Dorsey turned to the rest of the class. "Anyone?"

"I saw some diaphanous gowns in Better Dresses at the Marshall Fields on

Dorsey and Ms. Jennings both eyed the girl intently, the former with much disappointment, the latter with much hope.

"Thirty percent off," the other girl added. "But only through Sunday."

At the announcement, everyone in the classroom opened her notebook—for the first time that morning, Dorsey couldn't help but realize—and hastily jotted down the information. As Dorsey studied the student offering up shopping tips, her attention inescapably fell to the open backpack leaning against the student's desk. Sure enough, stuck haphazardly in the side pocket was a copy of
How to Trap a Tycoon
. Dorsey bit back an exasperated sigh and glanced once again at the copy she held in her hands, contemplating the chapter headings in the table of contents.

"'Identifying the Tycoon's Lair,'" she read aloud. "'Stalking the Wild Tycoon. Keeping the Tycoon in Captivity.' Goodness," she added, "one would expect a chapter on 'Stuffing and Mounting the Tycoon,' so clear is the author's intent to have every rich man in America taken to the taxidermist and turned into a trophy for whichever desperate female most perseveres in the hunt."

She closed the book, then pretended to study its cover with great interest. "You know," she said, "the fact that the author clearly took a pseudonym should tell you everything you need to know. For example… Oh, I don't know… Maybe the fact that she's ashamed to admit she's responsible for writing such tripe."

"Nuh-uh," Ms. Tiffany Jennings countered. "She's a career mistress, and she's spilling trade secrets. And she's afraid she'll be sued if she writes under her own name. She's been with
a lot
of tycoons. It's all there in the introduction. That's why she took the fake name. She just doesn't want anyone coming after her."

"She took the pseudonym," Dorsey corrected the girl, "because she knows that what she's penned here is sensationalistic claptrap that panders to the masses."

"Yeah, and she's gonna make a fortune off it, too," Ms. Jennings said, "because every woman on campus is reading that book. You can't log on the Internet anymore without seeing it mentioned a dozen times. Every chat room I've been in lately, sooner or later, the conversation turns to
How to Trap a Tycoon
. Even my mom wants to read it after I'm done."

Dorsey digested the information with a response that was rather mixed. And with results that were rather mixed, too, seeing as how her stomach pitched and rolled upon hearing it.

She closed the book, handed it back to Ms. Jennings, and replied, "Yes, well, do please try to keep your tycoon hunting for after class. That shouldn't be a problem, seeing as how
Severn
is just swarming with them, after all."

That last was added dryly, of course, because in addition to there being no men among the student body at
Severn
, there were few tycoons to be had there. Or any tycoons, for that matter. Virtually all the students were here on academic scholarship, and few of them would have been able to afford a similar education elsewhere.