Double Standards (3 page)
When Lauren emerged from the building, she discovered that the dreary overcast August evening had deepened into a prematurely dark and windy night. With a convulsive shiver, she pulled her navy blue blazer closer around her.
Downtown traffic was backed up on
Breathless and damp, she glanced up at the darkened high-rise building under construction in front of her. The parking garage where she had left her car was four blocks away, but if she cut across the area surrounding the high-rise, she could save herself at least a block. A fresh blast of wind blowing off the
Walking as quickly as the uneven ground would permit, Lauren glanced up at the lights scattered here and there in the otherwise dark building. It was at least eighty stories high, made entirely of mirrored glass that reflected the twinkling lights of the city. Where lights were on inside the building, the mirror surface became ordinary two-way glass, and Lauren could see boxes piled in the offices, as if the tenants were getting ready to occupy the space.
Close to the building she found she was shielded from the wind blowing off the river, so she carefully stayed within its protection. As she hurried along it occurred to her that she was a solitary female, alone in the dark in what was purported to be a crime-ridden city. The thought sent fear racing up her spine.
Heavy footsteps suddenly thudded in the dirt behind her, and Lauren's heart gave a leap of terror. She quickened her pace, and the unidentified footsteps moved more quickly too. Panicking, Lauren broke into a stumbling run. Just as she flew toward the main entrance, one of the huge glass doors swung open, and two men emerged from the shadowy building.
"Help!" she cried. "There's someone—" Her foot struck a pile of conduit that coiled around her ankle, then tightened. Lauren soared through the air, her mouth open in a silent scream, her arms flailing for balance, and landed
sprawling,
face down in the dirt at the men's feet.
"You damn fool!" one of the men grated in angry concern as they both squatted down on their haunches and peered anxiously at her. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Bracing herself on her forearms, Lauren lifted her chagrined gaze from the man's shoes to his face. "Auditioning for the circus," she told him dryly. "And for an encore, I usually fall off a bridge."
A rich chuckle sounded from the other man as he took her firmly by the shoulders and helped her to her feet. "What's your name?" he asked, and when Lauren had told him, he added worriedly, "Can you walk?"
"For miles," Lauren assured him unsteadily. Every muscle in her body was protesting, and her left ankle was throbbing painfully.
"Then I guess you can make it as far as the building so we can have a look at the damage," he said with a smile in his voice. Sliding his arm around her waist, he moved against her so that she could lean on him for support.
"Nick," the other man said sharply, "I think it would be better if I go in and call an ambulance while you stay here with Miss Danner."
"Please don't call an ambulance!" Lauren implored. "I'm more embarrassed than hurt," she added desperately, almost sagging with relief when the man called Nick began guiding her toward the dark lobby.
She briefly considered the inadvisability of going into a deserted building with two unknown men, but when they entered the lobby, the other man switched on some small spotlights high in the ceiling, and most of Lauren's doubts were dispelled: he was middle-aged, dignified and wearing a suit and tie. Even in the dim light, he seemed more like a successful business executive than a thug. Lauren glanced at Nick, whose arm was still around her. He was wearing jeans and a denim jacket. Judging from his shadowy profile, Lauren guessed him to be in his mid-thirties, and there was nothing about him, either, that struck her as being ominous.
Over his shoulder, Nick spoke to the other man. "Mike, there should be a first-aid kit in one of the maintenance rooms. Find it and bring it up."
"Right," Mike said, striding toward a glowing red Stairs sign.
Lauren glanced curiously around at the immense lobby. Everything was white travertine marble: the walls, the floors, and even the graceful pillars that soared two stories to the ceiling high above. Dozens of huge potted trees and lush green plants were lined up against one wall, apparently waiting for someone to move them to their proper positions on the vast lobby floor.
When they came to a bank of elevators set into the far wall, Nick reached around her and pressed the elevator button. The gleaming brass doors slid open and Lauren stepped into the brightly lit elevator. "I'm taking you up to a furnished office where you can sit down and rest until you feel steady enough to walk unaided," Nick explained.
Lauren flicked a smiling, grateful glance at him— and froze with shock. Standing beside her, his features clearly illuminated now by the improved light, was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. Simultaneously, the elevator doors closed and Lauren jerked her gaze from his face. "T
hank
s," she said in an odd, croaking whisper, self-consciously pulling free of his supporting arm, "but I can stand alone."
He pressed the button for the eightieth floor, and Lauren quelled the feminine impulse to reach up and pat her hair into place—it would be too obvious, too vain. She wondered if she had a trace of lipstick left, or if her face was dirty, then she caught herself up short. For a sensible young woman, she was reacting very foolishly to what was, after all, nothing more than an attractive male face.
Had he really been that handsome, she wondered. She decided to look at him again, but discreetly this time. Very casually, she raised her eyes to the light above the doors, which flashed the number of the passing floors. Cautiously, she let her gaze slide sideways… Nick was watching the flashing
numbers,
his head tipped slightly back, his face in profile.
Besides being even more handsome than she had thought, he was at least six feet three inches tall, broad shouldered and athletically muscular. His thick dark hair was coffee brown, beautifully cut and styled. Masculine strength was carved into every feature of his proud profile, from the straight dark brows to the arrogant jut of his chin and jaw. His mouth was firm, but sensually molded.
Lauren was still studying the mobile line of his lips when they quirked suddenly, as if amusement was lurking there. Her gaze shot up, and to her utter horror she discovered that his gray eyes had shifted to her.
Caught in the act of staring at him and practically drooling over him, Lauren said the first thing that came to mind. "I—I'm afraid of elevators," she improvised madly. "I try to concentrate on something else to, er, keep my mind off the height."
"That's very clever," he remarked, but his teasing tone made it obvious he was applauding not her sensible solution to her alleged fear of elevators, but rather her ingenuity in inventing such a plausible lie.
Lauren was torn between laughing at his dry observation and blushing because she hadn't fooled him in the least. She did neither, and instead carefully kept her eyes on the elevator doors until they opened on the eightieth floor.
"Wait here while I turn on the lights," Nick said. A few seconds later panels of ceiling lights flickered on, illuminating the entire floor, the left half of which appeared to be an immense reception area and four very large walnut-paneled offices. Nick put his hand beneath her elbow, and Lauren's feet sank into the emerald green carpeting as he guided her around the elevator wall to the opposite side.
This half of the floor contained another even larger reception area, with a circular receptionist's desk in the center. Lauren glimpsed a beautiful office opening off the right of the reception area. It was already equipped with built-in filing cabinets and a gleaming wood-and-chrome secretarial desk. Mentally she compared it to her own steel desk at her old part-time job. That one had been in the middle of a cluttered three-person office. It was hard to believe that so much spacious luxury was here for the benefit of a mere secretary.
When she voiced that thought aloud, Nick gave her a derisive look. "Skilled professional secretaries take great pride in being just that, and the salaries they're getting are soaring every year."
"I happen to
be
a secretary," Lauren told him as they walked across the reception area toward a pair of eight-foot-high rosewood doors. "I was across the street applying for a job at Sinco just before
I
, ah, met you." Nick threw open both doors, then stood back for Lauren to precede him while he studied her limping walk.
Lauren was so acutely aware of his penetrating silver gaze on her legs that her knees wobbled, and she was halfway across the room before she actually looked at her surroundings. What she saw stopped her short. "Good Lord!" she breathed. "What
is
this, anyway?"
"This," Nick said with a smile at her awestruck expression, "is the president's office. It's one of the few offices
that's
completely finished."
Speechless, Lauren let her admiring gaze wander over the gigantic office. The long wall in front of her was glass from floor to ceiling, providing an uninterrupted view of nighttime
Detroit
in
all its
fantastic, glittering splendor as it fanned out for endless miles in the distance below. The three remaining walls were paneled in satiny rosewood.
Acres of thick cream carpeting covered the floor, and a splendid rosewood desk was off to her far right, facing the room. Six chrome chairs upholstered in moss green were strategically placed before the desk, while on the opposite side of the office, three long, deeply tufted moss green sofas formed a wide U around an immense glass-topped coffee table, its base an enormous piece of highly polished driftwood. "It's absolutely breathtaking," she said softly.
"I'll fix something for us to drink while Mike is getting the first-aid kit," Nick said.
Lauren turned, watching bemusedly as he walked over to a blank rosewood wall and pressed it with his fingertips. A huge panel glided silently aside, revealing a gorgeous mirrored bar lit by tiny concealed spotlights above it. Glass shelves held rows of
Waterford
crystal glasses and decanters.
When Lauren didn't reply to his offer of a drink, he glanced over his shoulder at her. She lifted her blue eyes from the recessed bar to his face and saw the expression he was trying to hide. Obviously, he was vastly amused by her thunderstruck reaction to this opulence, and the knowledge made her suddenly realize something she had heretofore overlooked; while
she
was acutely aware of his male attraction,
he
seemed completely oblivious to her as a female.
After six years of enduring men's gaping admiration, their leers and stares, she had finally met a man whom she desperately wanted to impress, and nothing was happening.
Absolutely nothing.
A little puzzled and definitely disappointed, Lauren tried to shrug the matter aside. Beauty was said to be in the eyes of the beholder, and apparently Nick's eyes beheld nothing of interest when he looked at her. That wouldn't have been so awful if only he didn't find her so damned funny!
"If you'd like to clean up, there's a bathroom right there." Nick inclined his head toward the wall beside the bar.
"Where?"
Lauren asked blankly, following the direction of his nod.
"Walk straight ahead, and when you get to the wall, just
press
it."
His lips were twitching again, and Lauren gave him an exasperated look while she did as he'd said. When her fingertips touched the smooth rosewood, a panel clicked open to reveal a spacious bathroom, and she stepped inside.
"Here's the first-aid kit," the man called Mike announced as he entered the suite just then. Lauren started to close the bathroom door but paused when she heard him add in a lowered voice, "Nick, as the corporation's attorney, I'm advising you that the girl ought to be seen by a physician tonight to prove that she isn't seriously injured. If you don't insist on it, some lawyer could claim she's been crippled by her fall and could sue the company for millions."
"Stop making such a big issue out of it," she heard Nick reply. "She's just a nice wide-eyed kid who got the hell scared out of her in a nasty fall. An ambulance ride would terrify her."
"All right," Mike sighed. "I'm late for a meeting in
Troy
, and I've got to leave. But for God's sake, don't offer her anything alcoholic to drink. Her parents could sue you for trying to seduce a minor, and—"
Feeling both puzzled and insulted at being called a wide-eyed frightened kid, Lauren quietly closed the door. Frowning, she turned to the mirror above the sink,
then
stifled a shriek of horrified laughter. Her face was covered with wide streaks of dirt and grime; her neat chignon was half undone, dangling crazily askew at her nape; wisps of hair were sticking out like scraggly spikes all over her head; and her suit jacket was hanging drunkenly off her left shoulder.