Double Standards

"Thank you, Mr. Williams. I'll see you two weeks from Monday."

"Call me Jim."

Lauren smiled, accepting his handshake. "In that case, you may call me Lauren."

"I thought I had been."

"You have."

His lips twitched. "Good for you—don't let me intimidate you."

Lauren emerged from the dim building into the dazzling sunlight of a wonderful August day. As she waited for the traffic light to change from red to green, her gaze was irresistibly drawn to the Global Industries Building across the street. Would Nick be there working, she wondered. She longed to see him.

The light changed and she crossed the wide boulevard to her car. But if Nick had wanted to see her again, surely he would have asked for her phone number. Perhaps he was shy. Shy! Lauren shook her head derisively as she reached for the car door handle. Nick Sinclair was not in the least shy! With his looks and lazy charm, he was probably accustomed to women who took the initiative and asked him out…

The glass doors of the building swung open, and Lauren's heart soared as Nick himself strode into view. For a joyous moment, Lauren thought he'd seen her standing at her car and had come out to talk to her, but he turned to his right and started toward the far corner of the building.

"Nick!" she called impulsively. "Nick!"

He glanced over his shoulder, and Lauren waved at him, feeling absurdly happy when he headed toward her with those long strides of his.

"Guess where I've been?" She beamed.

There was a warm, teasing light in his gray eyes as they swept over her shining honey hair in its elegant chignon, her smart beige suit, silky blouse and chocolate brown sandals. "Modeling for a Bonwit Teller fashion show?" he ventured with a grin.

Lauren glowed at the compliment, but she hung on to her composure. "No, I've been across the street at Sinco Electronics, and they offered me a job—thanks to you."

He ignored her reference to his help. "Did you take it?"

"Did I! The money's fantastic; the man I'll be working for is terrific, and the job sounds interesting and challenging."

"You're pleased, then?"

Lauren nodded… then waited, hoping he would ask her out. Instead he reached down to open her car door for her. "Nick," she said before her courage could desert her. "I'm in the mood to celebrate. If you know a good place for sandwiches and a cold drink, I'll buy you lunch."

He hesitated for an unbearable moment, then a smile dawned across his tanned features. "That's the best offer I've had all day."

Rather than give her directions, Nick drove the car. A few blocks away he turned off Jefferson and pulled into a parking lot behind what looked like a narrow, renovated three-story brick house. The sign above the back door, made of dark wood with gold letters etched deeply into it, said simply, Tony's. Inside, the house had been converted into a dimly lit, charming restaurant, with dark oaken floors, tables polished to a glossy shine and copper pots and pans hanging artistically on the rough brick walls. Sunlight illuminated the stained glass windows, and red-and-white checked tablecloths added to the warmth and charm.

A waiter stationed near the door greeted Nick with a polite, "Good morning," then showed them to the only unoccupied table in the entire place. As Nick pulled out her chair, Lauren glanced around at the other customers. She was one of the few women present, but there was certainly a mixed variety of men. Most of them were wearing suits and ties, while three others, including Nick, wore slacks with open-collared sports shirts.

An older waiter appeared at their table, greeted Nick with an affectionate pat on the shoulder, a cheery, "Good to see you again, my friend," and began to hand them huge, leather-bound menus. "We'll have the special, Tony," Nick said, and at Lauren's quizzical look, he added, "The specialty is French-dip sandwiches—is that all right with you?"

Since she had offered to buy his lunch, Lauren thought he was asking her permission to order something that cost more than a regular sandwich. "Please have whatever you like," she insisted graciously. "We're celebrating my new job, and I can afford anything on the menu."

"How do you think you're going to like living in Detroit?" he asked when Tony, who was apparently the owner, had left. "It's bound to be a big change for a small-town girl from Missouri."

A small-town girl? Lauren was puzzled. That wasn't the impression she normally conveyed to people. "Actually, we lived in a suburb of Chicago until my mother died, when I was twelve. After that my father and I moved to Fenster, Missouri—the town where he grew up. He took a job teaching in the same school he'd attended as a boy. So you see, I'm not completely a 'small-town girl' after all."

Nick's expression didn't change. "Were you an only child?"

"Yes, but my father remarried when I was thirteen. Along with a stepmother, I also acquired a stepsister two years older than me, and a stepbrother one year older."

He must have caught the note of distaste in her voice when she mentioned her stepbrother because he said, "I thought all little girls liked the idea of having a big brother. Didn't you?"

An irrepressible smile lit Lauren's vivid face. "Oh, I liked the idea of having a big brother. Unfortunately, I didn't like Lenny at the time. We detested each other on sight. He teased me unmercifully, yanked my braids and stole money from my bedroom. I retaliated by telling everyone in town that he was gay—which no one believed because he turned out to be an absolute lecher!"

Nick chuckled, and Lauren noticed that when he smiled, his eyes crinkled at the corners. In contrast to the warm golden tan of his face, his eyes were a light metallic silver. Beneath his straight dark brows and thick spiky lashes, they glinted with humor and keen intelligence, while his firm lips promised excitingly aggressive male sensuality. Lauren felt the same delicious stirring of her senses that she had experienced the night before and cautiously lowered her gaze to the tanned column of his throat.

"What about your stepsister?" Nick asked. "What was she like?"

"Gorgeous. All she had to do was stroll down the street and the boys positively drooled over her."

"Did she try to steal your boyfriends?"

Lauren's eyes kindled with humor as she gazed at him across the narrow table. "I didn't have many boyfriends for her to steal—at least, not until I was seventeen."

One dark brow lifted in disbelief as his gaze moved over the classic perfection of her features, over her eyes like shining turquoise satin beneath their heavy fringe of curly lashes, to linger on her thick, honey-colored hair. Sunlight streaming through the stained-glass window beside their table bathed her face in a soft glow. "I find that very hard to believe," he said finally.

"I promise you, it's true," Lauren averred, dismissing his compliment with a smile. She remembered with great clarity the homely little girl she had been, and while the memories were not particularly painful, she really couldn't place much importance now on anything as unreliable as surface beauty.

Tony put two plates down on the red-checked tablecloth, each containing a crusty loaf of French bread that had been sliced lengthwise and piled high with wafer-thin rare roast beef. Beside each plate, he placed a little bowl of beef juice. "It's delicious—try it," he urged.

Lauren tasted hers and agreed. "It's wonderful," she told him.

"Good," he said, his round, mustachioed face beaming paternally at her. "Then you let Nick pay for it! He has more money than you. Nick's grandfather loaned me the money to start this place," he confided before bustling off to chastise a clumsy busboy.

They ate their meal in companionable silence interspersed with Lauren's questions about the restaurant and its owner. From what little she could gather from Nick's brief answers, his family and Tony's had been friends for three generations. At one point Nick's father had actually worked for Tony's father, yet somehow the financial situation must have reversed itself for Nick's grandfather later had enough money to lend to Tony.

The moment they were finished Tony appeared at their table to whisk away their plates.

The service in the place was much too good, Lauren thought with dismay. They had only been here for thirty-five minutes, and she'd hoped to have at least an hour with Nick.

"Now, how about some dessert," Tony said, his friendly dark eyes on Lauren. "For you I have canoli—or some of my special spumoni. My spumoni is not what you find in stores," he told her proudly. "It is the real thing. It is ice cream of several flavors and colors, arranged in layers. Then into it I put—"

"Bits of fruit and lots of nuts," Lauren finished, smiling warmly at him. "The way my mother used to make it."

Tony's mouth dropped open, then he minutely scrutinized her face. After a long moment he nodded decisively. "You are Italian," he proclaimed with a broad smile.