Double Standards

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "I wanted to be near Nick. I knew that he worked in this building, so I accepted your offer. But I have never relayed one bit of information to Philip."

"I can't believe this," Jim said shortly, rubbing his fingers over his forehead as if he was getting a splitting headache. The moments ticked away in silence. Lauren was too desolate to notice or to care. She simply sat there, waiting for him to pronounce sentence on her. "It doesn't matter," he said finally. "You aren't quitting. I won't let you."

Lauren gaped at him. "What are you talking about? Don't you care that I could be telling Philip everything I know?"

"You aren't."

"How can you be sure?" she challenged.

"Common sense. If you were going to spy on us, you wouldn't walk in here to resign and tell me you're related to Whitworth. Besides, you're in love with Nick, and I think he's in love with you."

"I don't think he is," Lauren said with quiet dignity. "And even if he is, the minute he discovers who I am related to, he won't want anything to do with me. He'll insist on knowing why I happened to apply for a job at Sinco, and he'll never believe it was coincidence, even if I was willing to lie to him, which I'm not…"

"Lauren, a woman can confess almost anything to a man if she chooses the right time to do it. Wait until Nick comes back, and then—"

When Lauren refused with a firm shake of her head, he threatened, "If you resign without notice like this, I won't give you a good reference."

"I don't expect one."

Jim watched her leave his office. For several minutes he was very still, his brows drawn together in a thoughtful frown. Then he slowly reached out and picked up the telephone.

"Mr. Sinclair." The secretary bent down beside Nick, her voice lowered to avoid disturbing the seven other major U.S. industrialists seated around the conference table discussing an international trade agreement. "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but there's a Mr. James Williams on the phone for you…"

Nick nodded, already sliding his chair back, his face betraying none of the alarm he felt over this emergency interruption. He couldn't imagine what disaster could have arisen that would warrant Mary's having Jim call him here. The secretary showed him to a private room, and Nick snatched up the telephone. "Jim, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just needed some guidance."

"Guidance?" Nick repeated in angry disbelief. "I'm in the middle of an international trade meeting and—"

"I know, so I'll be quick. The new sales manager I hired can come to work for us three weeks from now, on November fifteenth."

Nick swore in irritation. "So what?" he snapped.

"Well, the reason I'm calling is because I wanted to know if it would be all right if he reports for work in November, or if you'd rather have him wait and start in January as we originally discussed. I—"

"I can't believe this!" Nick interrupted furiously. "I don't give a damn when he starts, and you know it. November fifteenth is fine. What else?"

"That's about all," Jim replied imperturbably. "How's Chicago?"

"Windy!" Nick snarled. "So help me, if you've gotten me out of this meeting just to ask me that—"

"Okay, I'm sorry. I'll let you go. Oh, by the way, Lauren resigned this morning."

The announcement hit Nick like a slap in the face. "I'll talk to her on Monday when I get back."

"You won't be able to—her resignation's effective immediately. I think she plans to leave for Missouri tomorrow."

"You must be losing your touch," Nick gritted sarcastically. "Usually they fall in love with you, and you have to transfer them to another division to get them out of your hair. Lauren saved you the trouble."

"She's not in love with me."

"That's your problem, not mine."

"The hell it is! You wanted to play bedtime games with her, and when she wouldn't, you worked her until she was pale and exhausted. She's in love with you, and you've made her take messages from other women, made her—"

"Lauren doesn't give a damn about me!" Nick snapped furiously, "and I haven't got time to discuss her with you."

He slammed the phone into the cradle and stalked back into the conference room. Seven men glanced up at him with a mixture of polite concern and accusation. By mutual agreement, none of them was taking calls except in extreme emergency. Nick sat down in his chair and curtly said, "I apologize for the interruption. My secretary overestimated the importance of a problem and had the call forwarded here."

Nick tried to concentrate on the business at hand and nothing else, but visions of Lauren kept floating through his mind. In the middle of a heated discussion over marketing rights, he saw Lauren laughing, her face turned up to the sun, her hair blowing around her shoulders as they sailed on Lake Michigan.

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 seven o'clock, and when dinner was over, Nick excused himself to go up to his suite. As he walked down the main corridor of the fashionable hotel toward the elevators, he passed the wind

ow of an exclusive jewelry shop. A magnificent ruby pendant surrounded by glittering diamonds caught his eye and he paused. He looked at the matching earrings. 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 ten o'clock the following morning. Because all the men present were industrial giants whose time was extremely valuable, everyone was punctual. The chairman of the committee looked at the six men seated around the conference table and said, "Nick Sinclair will not be here today. He asked me to explain that he was called back to Detroit this morning on an urgent matter."