Double Standards (25 page)
He remembered looking up into her enchanting face.
"What happens to me if this slipper fits?"
"I turn you into a handsome frog
. "
Instead she'd turned him into a raving maniac! Jealousy had been driving him insane for two weeks. Every time her phone rang, he wondered which lover was calling her. Every time a man looked at her in the office, he had a wild urge to smash the man's teeth down his throat.
Tomorrow she'd be gone. On Monday he wouldn't see her. It was best for both of them. It was best for the whole goddamned corporation; his own executives were sidling out of the way when they saw him coming!
The meeting adjourned at
Perhaps if he bought Lauren the pendant…
Suddenly he felt like a small boy again, standing beside Mary, buying a little enameled pillbox.
He turned away and stalked down the corridor. Bribery, he reminded himself savagely, was the lowest form of begging. He would not beg Lauren to change her mind. He would not beg anyone for anything.
He spent an hour and a half on the telephone in his suite, returning calls and dealing with business matters that had arisen in his absence. When he hung up, it was nearly eleven. He walked over to the windows and gazed out at the twinkling
Chicago
skyline.
Lauren was leaving. Jim said she was pale and exhausted. What if she was ill? What if she was pregnant? Hell, what if she was? He couldn't even be certain if it was his child or someone else's.
Once he could have been certain. Once he had been the only man she'd ever known. Now she could probably teach
him
things, he thought bitterly.
He thought of the Sunday afternoon he'd gone to her apartment to give her the earrings. When he'd tried to get her into bed, she'd exploded at him. Most women would have been satisfied with what he was offering, but not Lauren. She had wanted him to care, to be involved emotionally with her as well as sexually. She had wanted some sort of commitment from him.
Nick stretched out on the bed. It was just as well that she was leaving, he decided furiously. She should go back home and find some small-town jerk
who'd
grovel at her feet, tell her he loved her and make any commitment she wanted.
The meeting reconvened at precisely
Detroit
this morning on an urgent matter."
"We all have urgent matters pending," one of the members growled. "What the hell is Nick's problem that he can't be here?"
"He said it's a labor relations problem."
"That's no excuse!" another member exploded. "We all have labor relations problems."
"I reminded Nick of that," the chairman replied.
"What did he say?"
"He said that
nobody
has a labor relations problem like his."
Lauren carried another armload of her belongings out to her car,
then
she paused to look up at the overcast October sky. It was either going to rain or snow, she decided dismally.
She walked back into the apartment, leaving the door slightly ajar so that she could nudge it open with her foot when she carried out the next load of her things. Her feet were damp from splashing through the little puddles on the sidewalk, and she mechanically bent down and took off her canvas sneakers. She was planning to wear them when she drove home, so she'd have to dry them quickly. She carried them to the kitchen, put them in the oven and turned it on to Warm, leaving the oven door open.
Upstairs she put on another pair of shoes and closed the last suitcase. All she had to do now was write a note to Philip Whitworth,
then
she could leave. Tears burned her eyes, and she brushed them away with impatient fingertips. Picking up her suitcase, she carried it downstairs.
Halfway across the living room she heard footsteps coming from the kitchen behind her. She swung around in surprise,
then
froze as Nick stalked out of the kitchen. She saw the reckless glitter in his eyes as he came toward her, and her mind screamed a warning; he knew about Philip Whitworth.
Panicked, she dropped the suitcase and started edging away. In her haste she caught the backs of her knees on the arm of the sofa, lost her balance and landed flat on her back on the cushions.
His eyes gleaming with amusement, Nick looked at the delectable beauty sprawled invitingly across the sofa. "I'm flattered, honey, but I'd like something to eat first. What are you serving—besides baked shoes?"
Warily Lauren scrambled to her feet. Despite his humorous tone, there was
an iron
grimness in the set of his jaw, and every powerful muscle of his body was tensed. She took a cautious step out of his reach.
"Stand still," he ordered softly.
Lauren froze again. "Why… why aren't you at the international trade meeting?"
"As a matter of fact," he drawled, "I've asked myself that same question several times this morning. I asked myself that question when I walked out on seven men who require my vote on vitally important issues. I asked myself that question on the way here, when the woman in the seat beside me on the plane threw up in a bag."
Lauren choked back a nervous giggle. He was tense, he was angry, but he wasn't furious. Therefore he didn't know about Philip.
"I asked myself that question," he continued, advancing a step, "when I practically jerked an old man out of the back seat of a taxi and took it myself, because I was afraid I'd get here too late."
Lauren tried desperately to decipher his mood and couldn't. "Now that you're here," she said shakily, "what do you want?"
"I want you."
"I told you—"
"I know what you told me," Nick interrupted impatiently. "You told me I'm too old and too cynical for you.
Right?"
She nodded.
"Lauren, I am only two months older than I was in Harbor Springs.
Even though I
feel
a hell of a lot older than I did then.
But the fact is you didn't think I was too old for you then, and you don't really think so today. Now, I'll unload your car and you can start unpacking your things."
"I'm going home, Nick," Lauren said with quiet determination.
"No, you're not," he said implacably, "You belong to me, and if you force me to, I'll carry you up to bed and make you admit it there."
Lauren knew he could do exactly that. She backed away another step. "All you would prove is that you can physically overpower me. Nothing I admitted there would count. What does matter is that I don't want to belong to you in any way!"
Nick smiled somberly. "I want to belong to you… in every way."
Lauren's heart flung itself against her ribs.
What did he mean, belong?
She knew instinctively he wasn't offering marriage, but at least he was offering himself. What would happen if she told him now about Philip Whitworth?
Nick spoke, his coaxing voice tinged with desperation. "Consider what an amoral, unprincipled cynic I am—think of all the improvements you could make to my character."
The simultaneous urge to laugh and weep snapped Lauren's control. Her hair tumbled forward in a heavy curtain as she bent her head and fought back tears. She was going to do it; she was going to let herself become that sordid cliché—the secretary in love with her boss, having a secret affair with him. She was going to gamble her pride and self-respect on the chance that she could make him love her. She was going to risk having him hate her when she eventually told him about Philip.
"Lauren," Nick said hoarsely, "I love you."
Her head shot up. Unable to believe her ears, she stared at him through tear-glazed eyes.
Nick saw her tears and his heart sank with bitter defeat. "Don't you dare cry," he warned tersely, "I have never said that to a woman before, and I…" His words trailed off as Lauren unexpectedly flung herself into his arms, her shoulders shaking. Uncertainly, he tipped her chin up and gazed at her face. Her thick lashes were spiky with tears, and her blue eyes were drenched with them. She tried to speak and Nick tensed, braced for the rejection he had dreaded all the way from
Chicago
.
"I think you are so beautiful," she whispered brokenly. "I think you are the most beautiful—"
A low groan tore from Nick's chest, and he smothered her mouth with his. Devouring her lips with the insatiable hunger that had been torturing him for weeks, he crushed her melting, pliant body to the rigid, starved contours of his own. He kissed her fiercely, tempestuously, tenderly, and still he could not get enough of her. At last he dragged his mouth from hers, fighting down the rampaging demands of his body, and held her in his arms, pressed against his pounding heart.
When he didn't move for several minutes, Lauren leaned back in his arms and raised her face to his. He saw the question in her eyes and the willing acceptance of his decision. She would lie beside him here, or anywhere else he chose.
"No," he murmured tenderly. "Not like this. I'm not going to walk in here and rush you into bed. I did something like that in Harbor Springs."
The impudent beauty in his arms smiled one of her bewitching smiles. "Are you really hungry? I could fix you some sautéed stockings to go with the shoes. Or would you prefer something more conventional, like an omelette?"
Nick chuckled and brushed a kiss over her smooth forehead. "I'll have my housekeeper fix something for me while I shower. Then I'm going to get some sleep. I didn't get any last night," he added meaningfully.
Lauren gave him a look of sham sympathy, which earned her another kiss.
"I suggest you sleep too, because when we come back from the party tonight, we're going to bed, and I intend to keep you awake until morning."
In fifteen minutes he had unloaded her car. "I'll pick you up at nine," he said when he was ready to leave. "It's black tie; do you have something formal to wear?"
Lauren hated to wear the clothes that had belonged to Philip Whitworth's mistress, but for tonight she didn't have any choice. "Where are we going?"
"To the Children's Hospital Benefit Ball at the Westin Hotel.
I'm one of the sponsors, so I have tickets every year."
"That doesn't sound very discreet," Lauren said uneasily. "Someone may see us together there."
"Everyone will see us together. It's one of the social highlights of the year, which is why I want to take you. What's wrong with that?"
If the benefit ball was an elaborate society function, none of the other employees at Global were likely to be there, which explained to Lauren why Nick wasn't worried about causing office gossip. "Nothing's wrong with it. I'd love to go," she said,
raising
on tiptoe to kiss him goodbye. "I'd go anywhere with you."
N
ick looked breathtakingly elegant in his raven
black tuxedo, snowy ruffled shirt and formal black bow tie when Lauren answered her door that night. "You look wonderful," she said softly.
His own gaze moved with glinting admiration over her vivid features, over her shining hair caught up in intricate sophisticated twists at the back of her head, then froze for a moment at the tantalizing display of her creamy breasts swelling above the neckline of her black velvet sheath gown before sweeping over the straight skirt, which was slashed at the side from knee to heel. "Don't you like it?" Lauren asked, handing him a black velvet cape that was lined with white satin.
"I love them," he said, and Lauren blushed when she realized what he was referring to.
The Westin Hotel was located in downtown
Detroit
's magnificent
A doorman stepped forward and opened Lauren's door. When Nick followed her out of the limousine and took her elbow, flashbulbs exploded on both sides, and television cameras tracked their progress up the red carpet.
The first person Lauren saw when they walked into the crowded ballroom was Jim. He saw them too, and he watched them approaching with a look of ill-concealed glee on his face. Yet when he put out his hand, Lauren noticed that Nick hesitated before acknowledging the greeting.