"You owe them nothing," Dorsey countered.
"I owe them more than you realize," Carlotta countered. "More than you will ever know." She paused only a moment before adding, "And even if I didn't, they all have battalions of attorneys at their disposal, attorneys who could ultimately claim every nickel from those piles of money Anita has promised."
"So you'd rather have your daughter's life thrown into an uproar?" Dorsey asked.
"No," her mother told her. "But I think that you would bounce back from uproar much more quickly than any of those men would. Men are such frail creatures, after all. We do so have to shelter them, Dorsey. And who knows?" she added with a smile. "You might just like uproar, if you'd only give it a chance. I don't know why your quiet, peaceful, academic existence is so all-fired important to you."
No, of course she wouldn't know that, Dorsey thought. Carlotta would never understand her need for quiet and permanence. But all she said was, "And the other reason?"
This time her mother's smile held resignation. "The other reason is that nobody wants Lauren Grable-Monroe to be a fifty-something woman who only has a few good years left in her."
"Oh, Carlotta, you don't honestly think—"
"What I know to be true, Dorsey," she said, "is that the American public would much rather see you as Lauren than they would me."
"A peace-and-quiet-loving academic who dresses like a lumberjack?" Dorsey asked. "I doubt it."
"Dorsey MacGuinness is the peace-and-quiet-loving academic who dresses like a lumberjack," her mother corrected her. "Lauren Grable-Monroe is no such thing. Lauren is a blond bombshell party girl who knows men. Or, at least, she will be when I get through with her. Through with you. Whatever."
Dorsey narrowed her eyes at her mother curiously. "What are you thinking?" she asked.
In response, Carlotta stood and extended both hands toward her daughter, silently bidding her to rise as well. Reluctantly, Dorsey did, then allowed herself to be guided over to the full-length mirror affixed to the closet door. Her mother positioned her to face it, then turned back to the bed and swept up the discarded dresses.
"We'll have to go shopping for a good wig and a few wardrobe pieces that don't scream Great White North," she said as she held up both dresses to inspect first one and then the other. "And it goes without saying, we'll also need to get you a Wonderbra."
"Carlotta…"
But her mother ignored what Dorsey had hoped was an unmistakable warning in her voice. "We will also," she continued, "without a doubt, have to make a rather substantial investment at the Lancôme counter. But we will pull this off, Dorsey. I promise you that. When you go out into the world as Lauren Grable-Monroe, no one will ever suspect Dorsey MacGuinness is hiding there."
"It'll never work," Dorsey told her. "There's no way we'll make it work."
Instead of commenting on Dorsey's conviction, however, Carlotta moved to stand behind her and placed first one dress and then the other in front of her. Then she grinned impishly. "So … what do you think, Lauren? The blue or the green?"
Chapter 4
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A dam Darien had adopted a new role in life, but it wasn't one he could see himself adding to his resume any time soon. Because—call him unrealistic—Skulker just wasn't the kind of position that led to prodigious promotion. Not in any of the professional capacities in which he wanted to find himself, at any rate.
Yet here he was skulking. Skulking through a major retail establishment, at that, the Borders Books and Music on Michigan Avenue , where Lauren Grable-Monroe was about to launch a national book tour by signing her runaway best-seller, How to Trap a Friggin' Tycoon.
The only thing that made Adam's new role tolerable was that he had drafted Lucas Conaway to man the position of Skulker's Assistant. Lucas, curiously, had no qualms whatsoever about skulking. In fact, he'd approached it with relish. Adam, too, found himself putting skulking in a whole new light, because in an effort to locate the best vantage point for Lauren Grable-Monroe's arrival, he had been forced to position himself in the psychology and self-help section of the store. Right in front of the books on—he tried not to look—impotence.
Oh, how the mighty had fallen. So to speak.
"Ooo, this one looks good," Lucas piped up from beside him, plucking a slender tome from a high shelf—where just about anybody could see him, for chrissakes. "Me and My Penile Implant: One Man's Journey to Enlightenment and Self-Discovery. I just don't think I can wait for this bad boy to show up in paperback. I think I'll have to take this home and start reading it tonight. Gosh, I hope it has a happy ending."
Adam rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw, then smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle out of his charcoal suit jacket. He'd come to Borders straight from the Man's Life offices, because he hadn't wanted to miss a minute of Lauren Grable-Monroe's seven o'clock debut. Now, however, in his three pieces of dark wool—even if he had unbuttoned two of them—and his discreetly patterned necktie—even if he had loosened it—he was feeling significantly overdressed among the shoppers. Lucas, naturally, in his rumpled navy sweater and khaki trousers, didn't seem at all out of place.
"Oh, just shut up and drink your Starbucks, will you?" Adam instructed the other man.
The Skulker's Assistant dutifully reshelved the book, but instead of sipping from the steaming cup in his hand, he scanned the titles for another. "Know Your Scrotum," he read from one spine. "Gosh, now, there's a philosophical quandary for you. Can any man truly know his scrotum?"
"Lucas…"
"Oh, now, here's one that might actually have some
