Double Standards

by Judith McNaught

  She stepped aside and let him in, then took his jacket and hung it in the closet. When she turned, Nick was leaning against the closed front door, his arms crossed over his chest. "On second thought," he grinned, "I take part of that back. I'd love to bite you."

  "Pervert!" she returned teasingly, her heart thumping so much with excitement that she hardly knew what she was saying.

  "Come here and I'll show you just how perverted I can be," he invited smoothly.

  Lauren took a cautious step backward. "Absolutely not. Would you like some coffee or a Coke?"

  "Either would be fine."

  "I'll make some coffee."

  "Kiss me first."

  Lauren shot him a look over her shoulder and walked into the kitchen. As she made the coffee, she was acutely conscious that he was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her.

  "Do I pay you enough to afford this apartment?" he asked casually.

  "No. There's a burglary problem here, so in return for watching the place, I get to live here free." She heard him start toward her, and she hastily turned to the table and put out cups and saucers. When she straightened, she knew he was standing right behind her, but she had no choice except to turn around and face him.

  "Have you missed me?" he asked.

  "What do you think?" she evaded smoothly—but not smoothly enough, because he chuckled.

  "Good. How much?"

  "Is your ego in need of bolstering today?" she countered lightly.

  "Yep."

  "Really, why?"

  "Because I got shot down by a beautiful twenty-three-year-old, and I can't seem to get her out of my mind."

  "That's too bad," Lauren said, trying unsuccessfully to hide the joy in her voice.

  "Isn't it," he mocked. "She's like a thorn in my side, a blister on my heel. She has the eyes of an angel, a body that drugs my mind, the vocabulary of an English professor and a tongue like a scalpel."

  "Thanks, I think."

  His hands glided up her arms, then curved around her shoulders, tightening as he drew her to within a few inches of his chest. "And," he added, "I like her."

  His mouth was making a deliberately slow descent, and Lauren waited helplessly for the physical impact of his lips covering hers. Instead he bypassed her lips and began to explore the creamy skin of her neck and shoulder, his warm mouth nuzzling the sensitive area, then slowly wandering upward along her neck toward her ear. With the kitchen table behind her and Nick's body in front, Lauren was incapable of doing anything except standing there, a mass of quivering sensations. His mouth left a burning trail of kisses up to her temple, then slowly began to drift toward her lips. A fraction of an inch above hers he stopped and repeated his earlier command. "Kiss me, Lauren."

  "No," she whispered shakily.

  He shrugged and began leisurely kissing her other cheek, stopping to linger sensuously at her ear, his tongue tracing every curve and hollow. He nipped her earlobe, and Lauren lurched forward in a startled movement that jolted their bodies together. A current leaped between them, and they both stiffened with the delicious shock of it. "God!" Nick muttered under his breath, and his lips began to trail down her neck to her shoulder.

  "Nick, please," Lauren whispered weakly.

  "Please what?" he murmured against her throat. "Please put us both out of this misery?"

  "No!"

  "No?" he repeated silkily, raising his head. "You don't want me to kiss you, and undress you, and make love to you?" His lips were tantalizingly close, and Lauren was almost faint with the desire to feel them crushing down on hers. Instead he bent his head and lightly brushed his mouth over hers, first in one direction, then the other. "Please kiss me," he coaxed huskily. "I dream about the way you kissed me in Harbor Springs, about how sweet and warm you felt in my arms…"

  With a silent moan of surrender, Lauren slid her hands up his muscular chest and kissed him. She felt the tremor that ran through his body, the gasp of his breath against her lips in the instant before his arms closed around her, and his mouth opened passionately over hers.

  Desire was racing through her like a wild fury by the time he finally dragged his mouth from hers. "Where's the bedroom?" he whispered hoarsely.

  Lauren pulled back in his arms and lifted her eyes to his. His face was dark with passion, and demand was blazing in his gray eyes. She remembered the last time she had looked into those insistent eyes and had yielded to his fiery passion. Memories flashed through her mind in chilling sequence: he had made love to her in Harbor Springs, had held her and caressed her as if he couldn't get enough of her, and then he had coolly sent her home. She had learned to her own shame and anguish that he was completely capable of making tender, passionate, shattering love to a woman for the sheer physical pleasure of it—without feeling the slightest emotional involvement with her.

  He wanted her more now than he had in Harbor Springs—Lauren knew that. She could feel it. She was also half convinced that he felt more for her than just desire, but then she'd foolishly believed that in Harbor Springs too. This time she wanted to be certain. Her pride would not permit her to let him use her again.

  "Nick," she said nervously, "I think it would be better if we got to know each other first."

  "We already know each other," he reminded her. "Intimately."

  "But I mean… I would like us to know each other better before we… before we start anything."

  "We've already started something, Lauren," he said with a hint of impatience in his voice. "And I want to finish it. So do you."

  "No, I—" She gasped as his hands cupped the thrusting roundness of her breasts and his thumbs began circling the hardened buds of her nipples.

  "I can feel how badly you want me," he told her. His hands swept around her grasping her hips, holding her tightly against him and making her forcefully aware of his hardened manhood thrusting against her. "And you can feel how much I want you. Now, what else do we need to know about each other? What else matters?"

  "What else matters?" Lauren hissed, pulling free of his arms. "How can you ask me that? I told you I couldn't handle a casual, unemotional affair with you. What are you trying to do to me?"

  Nick's jaw tightened. "I'm trying to get you into that bedroom so that we can ease the ache that's been building inside us for weeks. I want to make love to you all day until we're both too weak to move. Or, if you prefer it more blunt than that, I want to—"

  "And then what?" Lauren demanded hotly. "I want to know the rules, dammit! Today we make love, but tomorrow we're no more than casual acquaintances, is that it? Tomorrow you can make love to another woman if you want to, and I'm not supposed to care—right? And tomorrow I can let another man make love to me, and you won't care—is that right?"

  "Yes," he snapped.

  Lauren had her answer—he didn't care about her any more now than he had before. He merely wanted her more. Tiredly she said, "Coffee is ready."

  "I'm ready," he said crudely.

  "Well, I'm not!" Lauren stormed in mounting fury. "I'm not ready to be your Sunday-afternoon playmate. If you're bored, go play your games with someone who can handle a casual romp in bed with you."

  "What the hell do you want from me?" he demanded coldly.

  I want you to love me, she thought. "I don't want anything from you," she said. "Just go away, leave me alone."

  Nick's insolent eyes raked over her. "Before I go, I want to give you a piece of advice," he said icily. "Grow up!"

  Lauren felt as if he had slapped her. Infuriated past reason, she struck back at his ego. "You're absolutely right!" she blazed. "That's what I should do. Beginning today I'm going to grow up and start practicing what you preach! I'm going to sleep with any man who appeals to me. But not with you. You're much too old and too cynical for my taste. Now get out of here!"

  Nick pulled a small velvet box from his pocket and slapped it onto the kitchen table. "I owed you a pair of earrings," he said, already striding out of the kitchen.

  Lauren
heard the front door slam behind him, and with trembling fingers she picked up the little box and opened it. She expected to find her mother's small golden hoops, but instead there was a pair of glowing pearls in a setting so fragile that the pearls appeared to be two large, luminous raindrops suspended in thin air. Lauren snapped the box shut. Which of his girlfriends had lost those in his bed, she wondered in angry loathing. Or were they her "present" from Italy?

  She marched upstairs to get her purse and a warmer sweater to cover her shoulders. She would go shopping for Jim's birthday gift exactly as she'd planned, and she would put the last hour out of her thoughts—permanently. Nick Sinclair was not going to haunt her anymore. She would erase him from her mind. She jerked open her bottom drawer and stood looking down at the beautiful silver gray sweater she'd knitted for that… that bastard!

  Lauren removed it from the drawer. Jim was almost exactly Nick's size, and he would probably like it very much. She would give it to him, she decided, ignoring the sharp stab of anguish that shot through her.

  15

  « ^ »

  Lauren walked into the office the next morning wearing a chic burgundy suede suit and a determinedly bright smile. Jim took one look at her and grinned. "Lauren, you're gorgeous—but aren't you supposed to be upstairs?"

  "Not anymore," she replied, handing him his mail. She had assumed that because their "game" was over, Nick would no longer want her upstairs in the mornings.

  She was wrong. Five minutes later, as they were discussing a report Lauren was working on, the phone on Jim's desk rang. "It's Nick," he said, passing the receiver to her.

  Nick's voice was like a whip crack. "Get up here! I said I wanted you here all day and I meant it. Now move!"

  He hung up on her, and Lauren looked at the receiver as if it had just bitten her. She hadn't expected Nick to sound like that. She'd never heard anybody sound like that. "I—I think I'd better go upstairs," she said, hastily standing up.

  Jim's face was a study in incredulity. "I wonder what the hell has gotten under his skin?"

  "I think I have." She saw the thoughtful smile that slowly spread across Jim's attractive face, but she had no time to ponder it.

  Only a few minutes later Lauren tapped on Nick's door and, with an outward calm she didn't feel, walked into his office. She waited a full two minutes for him to acknowledge her, but after having practically shouted at her to get up there, he continued writing, ignoring her presence. With an irritated shrug she finally went over to his desk and held the little velvet jeweler's box toward him.

  "These are not my mother's earrings, and I don't want them," she told his granite profile. "My mother's earrings were ordinary gold hoops, not pearls. They weren't worth a fraction of what these are; their only value was sentimental. But to me they're priceless. They mean something to me, and I want them back. Are you capable of understanding that?"

  "Perfectly capable," he replied icily, without looking up. He reached out and buzzed for Mary to come in. "However, yours are lost. Since I couldn't get them back for you, I gave you something that had sentimental value to me. Those earrings belonged to my grandmother."

  Lauren's stomach knotted sickly, and the resentment left her voice as she said quietly, "I still can't accept them."

  "Then leave them there." He nodded curtly toward the corner of his desk.

  Lauren put the box down and went back to her temporary office. Mary followed her a minute later, closed the door to Nick's office behind her and came over to Lauren's desk. Smiling kindly, she relayed the instructions Nick had obviously just given. "Sometime during the next few days he's expecting a call from Signor Rossi. He wants you to be available to act as translator whenever the man decides to call. In the meantime, I would be very grateful for your help with some of my work. If you still have time to spare, you could bring some of Jim's work up here to do."

  During the next three days, Lauren saw sides of Nick that she had only imagined existed. Gone was the teasing man who had held and kissed and pursued her so relentlessly. In his place was a powerful, dynamic businessman who treated her with a brisk, aloof formality that thoroughly intimidated her. When he wasn't on the phone or in meetings, he was dictating or working at his desk. He arrived before she did in the morning and was still there when she left at night. Acting as his auxiliary secretary, she grew petrified of displeasing him in any way. She had the feeling he was merely waiting for her to make a mistake so that he would have a legitimate reason to fire her.

  On Wednesday, Lauren made the mistake she'd been dreading: she left an entire paragraph out of a detailed contract Nick had dictated to her. The moment his summons snapped over the intercom she knew her time had come, and she walked into his office with limbs shaking and hands perspiring. But instead of flaying her alive, which she could see was what he wanted to do, he pointed out the error and shoved the contracts toward her. "Do it again," he snapped, "and this time get it right."

  She relaxed slightly after that. If Nick hadn't fired her for that blunder, he obviously wasn't looking for an excuse to get rid of her. He must need her at hand for that call from Rossi no matter how poorly she performed.

  "I'm Vicky Stewart," a breathy voice announced to Lauren at noon that same day. Lauren looked up to see an incredibly glamorous brunette standing in front of her.

  "I happened to be downtown and decided to stop by and see if Nicky—Mr. Sinclair—is free for lunch," she informed Lauren. "Don't bother announcing me, I'll just go in."

  A few minutes later, Vicky and Nick strolled out of his office together, heading toward the elevators. Nick's hand was resting familiarly at the small of her back, and he was grinning at whatever she was telling him.

  Lauren swung back around to her typewriter. She hated Vicky Stewart's drawl; she hated the possessive way she looked at Nick; she hated the woman's breathless laugh. In fact, she loathed everything about her and she knew exactly why—Lauren was hopelessly, completely, irrevocably in love with Nick Sinclair.

  She adored everything about him, from the aura of power and authority that surrounded him, to the energetic confidence in his long strides, to the way he looked when he was deep in thought. She loved the way he wore his expensive clothes, the way he absently rolled his gold pen in his hand when he was listening to someone on the telephone. He was, she decided with an aching sense of tormented hopelessness, the most forceful, compelling, dynamic man in the world. And he had never seemed further beyond her reach.

  "Don't worry too much, my dear," Mary Callahan said, getting up to leave for lunch. "There have been many Vicky Stewarts in his life in the past. They don't last long."

  The reassurance only made Lauren feel worse. She'd suspected that Mary not only knew everything that had happened between Nick and herself in the past, but that she also knew exactly how Lauren felt about Nick now. "I don't care what he does!" she said with angry pride.

  "Is that right?" Mary retorted with a smile, and left for lunch.

  Nick didn't return until afternoon, and Lauren wondered furiously whose bed they had gone to—his or Vicky's.

  By the time she left the office, she was so overwrought with jealousy and so filled with self-loathing for loving such an unprincipled libertine that she had a splitting headache. At home she wandered aimlessly around the elegant living room.

  Being near Nick was hurting her more every day. She had to leave Sinco—she couldn't bear to be so close to him, to love him as she did and have to watch him with other women. To have him look at her as if she was a piece of office equipment whose presence offended him but whom he was obliged out of necessity to have nearby.

  Lauren had a sudden wild longing to tell both Nick Sinclair and Philip Whitworth to go to hell, to pack up and go home to her parents, her friends. But of course she couldn't do that. They needed…

  Abruptly she stopped pacing, her mind seizing on a solution that should have occurred to her before. There were other large corporations in Detroit that needed good secretaries and that
paid high salaries for them. When she bought the ingredients for Jim's birthday cake that night she would also buy a newspaper. Beginning immediately she would start looking for another job.

  In the meantime, she would phone Jonathan Van Slyke, whom she had studied under for the past year, and offer to let him buy her grand piano. He had wanted it the moment he'd laid eyes on it.

  Despite the dull ache she felt at the prospect of selling it, Lauren felt peaceful for the first time in weeks. She would find an inexpensive little apartment and move out of this place. Until then she would do the best job she could at Sinco—and if she happened to hear one of the names Philip had given her, she would forget it just as soon as she heard it. Philip was going to have to do his own dirty work. She could not and would not betray Nick.

  16

  « ^ »

  Lauren walked across the marble lobby the next morning, carefully balancing the box with Jim's birthday cake inside it as well as a gaily wrapped package that held the gray sweater. She felt relaxed and lighthearted, and she smiled as an elderly man wearing a brown suit stepped back in the elevator to give her more room.

  The elevator stopped on the thirtieth floor, and the doors opened. Lauren noted that directly across the hall was an office door bearing a nameplate that read, Global Industries Security Division.

  "Excuse me," the man in the brown suit said. "This is my floor."

  Lauren shifted to one side, and he maneuvered past her. She watched him walk across the hall to the security office.

  The security divisions' primary function was to protect Global Industries' manufacturing facilities, particularly those outlying facilities throughout the country where actual research was under way, or where government contracts were involved. However, here at headquarters the security division mostly processed paperwork from the field. As director in Detroit Jack Collins felt rather bored, but his failing health and advancing age had forced him to leave the field and accept this desk job.

  His assistant, an over-eager, round-faced young man named Rudy, was sitting with his feet propped up on his desk when Jack walked into the office. "What's up?" the younger man asked, hastily sitting up straight.