Double Standards

"About your marital status mostly—whether you're married, engaged or available." With an inquiring lift of his brows he said, "Are you available, Lauren?"

"For what?" she quipped, but she had an uneasy feeling he was indirectly asking about the status of her relationship with Nick. Standing up, she said quickly, "Do you want me to finish this dictation tonight before I leave?"

"No, tomorrow morning will be soon enough."

Had she only imagined it, or had Jim's questions been for himself rather than for the sake of general information, Lauren wondered as she cleared off her desk. Surely he couldn't be thinking of asking her out. According to what she'd been told at lunch today, three of his secretaries had made the mistake of falling for Jim's charismatic appeal, and he had promptly transferred them to other divisions.

According to the gossip, Jim was socially prominent, wealthy and infinitely eligible, but he did not believe in mixing business with pleasure. He was certainly good-looking, Lauren thought dispassionately. Tall, with thick sandy hair and warm golden brown eyes.

She glanced at the clock and hastily locked her desk. If Nick was ever going to call, he would surely do it tonight. He would call to ask her how her first day on the job had been. If he didn't call now, after two weeks and a day, he obviously had no intention of ever calling her again. She felt sick at the thought.

She drove home as quickly as the heavy traffic permitted. It was six-fifteen as she rushed into the condominium. She made herself a sandwich, snapped on the television set, then sat down on the blue-and-white striped silk sofa, staring at the phone. Willing it to ring.

At nine-thirty she went upstairs and showered, leaving the bathroom door open so that she could hear the phone in her bedroom. At ten o'clock, she climbed into bed. Nick was not going to call her. Ever.

She closed her tear-shrouded eyes, and his handsome, bronzed face was there before her. She could see the frank desire in his heavy-lidded gaze when he looked at her, could hear his smooth, deep voice saying, "I want you, Lauren."

Obviously, he did not want her anymore. Lauren turned her head on the pillow, and hot tears trickled from the corners of her eyes.

The next morning Lauren threw herself into her work with more determination than success. She made errors on the letters she typed, disconnected two of Jim's calls and mislaid an important file. At noon she went for a walk past the Global Industries Building, hoping against hope that Nick would materialize. But it proved futile, and what was worse, in doing so she sacrificed what little was left of her ravaged pride.

So much for the sexual liberation of women! she thought miserably, winding another sheet of paper into her typewriter that afternoon. She was not capable of treating sex casually. She would still feel confused and disappointed if she hadn't slept with Nick, but at least she wouldn't feel used and discarded.

"Having a bad day?" Jim asked late that afternoon as she handed him a report she'd had to retype twice before it was correct.

"Yes, I'm sorry," Lauren said. "I don't have them often," she added, with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry about it—it happens to everyone," he remarked, scrawling his initials across the bottom of the report. He glanced at his watch, then stood up. "I have to take this report over to the controller's office in the new building."

Everyone there referred to the Global Industries Building as "the new building" so there was no doubt in Lauren's mind what he meant.

"Have you seen the space we're going to occupy over there?"

Lauren felt as if her smile was plastic. "No, I haven't; all I know is that on Monday morning we're all supposed to report for work over there."

"Right," he said, shrugging into his suit jacket. "Sinco is the smallest and least profitable of the Global Industries subsidiaries, but our offices are going to be very impressive. Before you leave," he said, handing Lauren a folded sheet torn from a newspaper, "would you show this to Susan Brook in public relations and ask her if she's seen it? If she missed it, tell her she can have this copy for her file."

He turned back as he started from his office. "You'll probably be gone by the time I get back. Have a nice evening."

A few minutes later Lauren headed rather listlessly for the public relations department. She nodded and smiled at the other staff as she passed their desks, but in her mind she was seeing Nick. How was she ever going to forget the way the breeze had ruffled his dark hair when he caught that stupid fish? Or the way he looked in a tuxedo?

Fighting back her desolation, she smiled at Susan Brook as she handed her the sheet Jim had torn from the newspaper. "Jim said to ask you if you'd seen this. If not, he said you can have this copy for your file."

Susan unfolded the paper and glanced at it. "I didn't see it." Grinning, she reached into her desk and extracted a very thick folder crammed with magazines and newspaper clippings. "My favorite job is keeping his file updated," she said, laughing as she opened the folder. "Look—isn't he the most gorgeous hunk of male you've ever seen?"

Lauren's gaze slid from Susan's irrepressible smile to the coolly handsome masculine face looking back at her from the cover of Newsday magazine. Shock froze her entire body into rigidity as she reached compulsively for the magazine. "Take the whole file back to your desk and drool at your leisure," Susan suggested gaily, unaware of Lauren's state of alarm.

"Thank you," she answered hoarsely. She fled back to Jim's office and, closing the door behind her, sank into a chair and opened the file. Her clammy hands left fingerprints on the glossy cover of Newsday magazine as she traced Nick's arrogant dark brows, the faintly smiling male lips that had caressed and devoured hers. "J. Nicholas Sinclair," the caption below the picture read. "President and Founder, Global Industries." She couldn't believe what she was seeing; her mind refused to accept it.

Putting the magazine aside, Lauren slowly unfolded the page Jim had torn from the newspaper. The paper was dated two weeks ago—that would be the day after Nick had sent her home from Harbor Springs because a "business associate" was coming to see him. The headline read: "FINANCIAL EAGLES AND THEIR BUTTERFLIES GATHER FOR FIVE DAYS OF PLEASURE AT PARTY IN HARBOR SPRINGS." The entire page was devoted to the pictures of and commentary about the party. In the center of the page was a picture of Nick lounging on the cedar deck of the house at the Cove, his arm around a beautiful blonde who hadn't been at the party while Lauren was there. The caption said, "Detroit industrialist J. Nicholas Sinclair and longtime companion, Ericka Moran, shown at Miss Moran's home near Harbor Springs."

Longtime companion… Miss Moran's home…

Pain ripped through Lauren, cutting and tearing at her. Nick had taken her to his girlfriend's house and had made love to her in his girlfriend's bed! "Oh, my God," she whispered aloud, her eyes filling with scalding tears. He'd made love to her, and then he'd sent her away because his girlfriend had decided to join the group at Harbor Springs.

As if she needed to further torment herself, Lauren read every word on the page, and then she picked up the issue of Newsday and read the entire eight-page article. Wh

en she finished, the magazine slid from her numb fingers to the floor.

No wonder Bebe Leonardos had been so hostile! According to the magazine story, Nick and Bebe had once indulged in a widely publicized torrid affair that had lasted until he dropped Bebe for a French movie star—the same woman who had been playing tennis in her high heels that night in Harbor Springs…

Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside Lauren. While she had been driving back to Missouri, he had been making love to his mistress. While she had been sitting by the phone day and night last week, knitting him a sweater, he had been attending a charity ball with Ericka in Palm Springs.

Humiliation washed over her in drowning waves and exploded through her body. Her shoulders shook with silent wrenching sobs as she folded her arms on Jim's desk and buried her face in them. She wept for her stupidity, for her shattered illusions and broken dreams. Shame sent more tears pouring from her eyes—she'd made love with a man whom she'd known for only four days—and she hadn't even known his real name! If it hadn't been for sheer good luck, she could have been pregnant right now!

She remembered the angry hurt she had felt because his mother had abandoned him as a young boy, and she cried even harder. His mother should have drowned him!

"Lauren?" Jim's voice interrupted her sobbing.

She jerked her head up just as he reached her side. "What's wrong?" he demanded in alarm.

Swallowing her misery, she dragged her gaze to his concerned face. Her luxurious lashes were spiky with tears and her blue eyes were swimming. "I thought—" she stopped to draw a tortured breath "—I thought he was an ordinary engineer who wanted to start a business of his own someday. And he let me think it!" she choked. "He let me!"

The compassion in Jim's face was more than she could bear. She stood up. "Can I get out of here without anyone seeing me? I mean, has everyone gone home?"