Double Standards

by Judith McNaught

  Dangerous? Agreeing to go away for the weekend with him had been completely out of character for her—as out of character and unexplainable as this deep compelling attraction she felt for him. It was also a rash, reckless thing to do, she admitted to herself. But was it dangerous? What if Nick was a demented killer who intended to murder her, mutilate her body and bury it in the woods? If he did, no one would ever know what had happened to her, because no one knew she was with him—except Tony and his sons, and Nick could simply tell them she'd gone back to Missouri. They'd believe him. Literally and figuratively, Nick could get away with murder.

  Lauren stole a swift, apprehensive glance at his chiseled profile, and her features relaxed into a faint smile. Her instincts about people had never let her down before, and she knew instinctively that she was not in any physical danger.

  The next three hours passed in a delightful blur. The car ate up the miles, sending a balmy breeze to touch their faces and ruffle their hair, and they talked companionably about everything and nothing.

  Nick, Lauren noticed, was extremely evasive when it came to actually talking about himself, but positively insatiable when it came to probing into her background. All she learned about him was that his father had died when he was four, and that his grandparents, who had raised him, had both died a few years ago.

  In the town of Grayling, which Nick said was about an hour and a half's drive from their destination of Harbor Springs, he stopped at a little grocery store. When he came out, Lauren saw that he was carrying two cans of Coke and a package of cigarettes. A few miles down the road, he pulled over at a roadside picnic table, and they both got out.

  "Isn't it a gorgeous day?" Lauren tipped her head back to gaze in delight at the lacy white clouds drifting across the brilliant blue sky. She glanced at Nick and found him observing her with an indulgent expression.

  Ignoring his blasé attitude she said, "At home the sky never seems to be this blue, and it's much hotter. I suppose because Missouri is so far south of here."

  Nick opened both cans of Coke and handed one to her. He leaned his hip casually on the picnic table behind him, and Lauren tried to pick up their conversation where it had been interrupted a few minutes ago. "You said your father died when you were four, and your grandparents raised you—what happened to your mother?"

  "Nothing happened to her," he replied. Putting a cigarette between his lips, he struck a match, cupping his hands around the flame to protect it from the breeze.

  Lauren stared at the vital thickness of his dark brown hair as he bent his head to the match, then she quickly lifted her blue eyes to his. "Nick, why are you so uncommunicative about yourself?"

  He squinted his eyes against the aromatic smoke drifting up from the cigarette. "Uncommunicative? I've been talking my head off for a hundred miles."

  "But not about anything really personal. What happened to your mother?"

  He laughed. "Has anyone ever told you that you have incredibly beautiful eyes?"

  "Yes, and you're prevaricating!"

  "And that you're extremely well-spoken, too?" he continued, ignoring her remark.

  "Which isn't surprising because my father is an English teacher, as you've already discovered." Lauren sighed, exasperated by his deliberate evasiveness.

  Nick glanced up at the sky, his gaze drifting over the trees and the deserted highway, before he finally looked at Lauren again. "I didn't realize how tense I was until three hours ago, when I finally started to relax. I needed to get away like this."

  "Have you been working very hard?"

  "About seventy hours a week for the past two months."

  Her expressive eyes filled with sympathy, and Nick smiled at her—one of those warm, engaging smiles that quickened her heartbeat. "Did you know that you're very relaxing company?" he asked softly.

  She was not particularly pleased to hear that while she found him electrifying, he found her relaxing. "Thank you—I'll try not to put you to sleep before we get to Harbor Springs."

  "You can put me to sleep after we get there," he said suggestively.

  Lauren's heart slammed into her rib cage. "What I meant was, I hope I'm not boring you."

  "Believe me, you haven't bored me." His voice deepened with sensuality. "As a matter of fact, there's something I've wanted to do ever since last night, when I turned around with your glass of tonic in my hand and saw you standing there, trying very hard not to laugh at my shock."

  Even in her state of heightened nervousness, Lauren knew he intended to kiss her. He took her Coke from her limp fingers and calmly put it on the picnic table beside him, then he reached out and drew her purposefully between his legs. Her hip brushed the inside of his hard thigh, sending shock waves of alarmed awareness through her entire nervous system. His hands slid up her arms to gently imprison her shoulders. In helpless anticipation she watched his firm, sensual lips slowly descend to hers.

  His mouth covered hers, moving and probing in a kiss that was lazily coaxing, yet breathtakingly insistent. Lauren tried desperately to hold on to her fleeing sanity, but the moment his tongue slid against her lips she lost the battle.

  With a smothered moan, she leaned into him and let him part her lips. His response was instantaneous. His arms tightened around her, imprisoning her against his chest, while his mouth opened hungrily, his tongue plunging into her mouth and stroking against hers. Something exploded inside Lauren; her body arched against him, and her hands lifted compulsively to caress his neck and slide through the soft hair at his nape as she eagerly responded to his hungry mouth.

  By the time Nick finally lifted his head, Lauren felt branded by that kiss, permanently marked as his possession. Trembling with inner turmoil, she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. His warm lips drifted across her cheek to her temple, trailing downward until his teeth playfully nipped her earlobe. He chuckled huskily against her ear, "I think I owe you an apology, Lauren."

  She leaned back in his arms and looked up at him. The smoky gray eyes gazing back at her were heavy-lidded and smoldering with passion, and although he was smiling, it was a wry smile of self-mockery.

  "Why do you owe me an apology?"

  His hand slid up and down her spine in a lazy caress. "Because despite your assurance that you aren't naive, until a few minutes ago I was worried that this weekend might be more than you could handle—and more than you bargained for."

  Still dazed from their kiss, Lauren asked softly, "And now what do you think?"

  "I think," he murmured dryly, "that this weekend might turn out to be more than I bargained for." He gazed into her glowing blue eyes, and his own eyes darkened with response. "I also think that if you continue to look at me like that, we're going to be about two hours late getting to Harbor Springs."

  His glance flicked meaningfully to the motel across the highway but before Lauren even considered panicking, he reached up and firmly pulled her sunglasses down onto her nose. "Those eyes of yours are going to be my undoing," he said with grim humor.

  Then he took her arm and led her toward the car.

  Lauren collapsed into her seat, feeling as if she had just been through a cyclone. The car engine roared to life, and she forced herself to relax and think logically. She had two immediate problems facing her: the first was that it was now obvious Nick intended to take her to bed this weekend. In his mind it was already a forgone conclusion. Of course, she could simply say no when the time came, but the second problem was that she wasn't at all certain she wanted to say no. Never before had she been so attracted to a man, or so affected by a kiss. Never before had she so wanted a man to make love to her.

  She looked at Nick's strong, capable hands on the steering wheel, then lifted her eyes to his ruggedly handsome profile. He was so attractive, so blatantly virile, that women probably took one look at him and eagerly went to bed with him without ever expecting any emotional commitment from him. Surely she herself wouldn't be such an easy conquest. Or would she?

  A rueful sm
ile touched Lauren's lips as she turned her head toward the window. Everyone always said she was so intelligent, so sensible, yet here she was, already planning to make Nick Sinclair fall in love with her… because she knew she was already falling in love with him.

  "Lauren, this trip is getting a little lonely on my side of the car. What are you thinking about?"

  Filled with thoughts of their destiny, Lauren turned to him and, smiling, slowly shook her head. "If I told you, it would scare you to death."

  5

  « ^ »

  Lauren's gaze strayed admiringly over the panorama of Lake Michigan's sparkling blue waves swelling and frothing with white as they tumbled lazily onto the sandy beach. "We'll be there in a few minutes," Nick told her as he turned off the highway onto a well-maintained country road that wound through towering stands of pine trees. Several minutes later he turned left onto an unmarked blacktop driveway. For at least a mile the smooth private drive meandered gracefully between stately mountain-ash trees, their branches laden with magnificent hanging clusters of bright orange fruit.

  Lauren looked at the manicured landscape on both sides of the drive and realized that the ordinary lake cottage she'd originally envisioned when Nick invited her here for the weekend was not going to be what she would find. Nothing prepared her, however, for the sight that greeted her when they shot out of the dappled shadows into the golden glow of the setting sun and pulled to a stop behind a long row of expensive parked cars.

  In the distance, against the backdrop of a steep bluff, sprawled an immense, modernistic three-story glass-and-stucco house. Acres of lush green lawns, dotted with colorful umbrella tables, sloped gently to a sandy beach. Waiters in light blue jackets were passing trays among what had to be at least a hundred guests, who were lounging on chaises around a gigantic kidney-shaped swimming pool, talking and laughing in animated groups on the lawn, or strolling on the beach.

  Silhouetted against a pink-and-gold sky, gleaming white yachts rode languidly at anchor on the swelling water. Lauren decided they looked serenely unimpressed by a lake that was nearly a thousand feet deep in places, and unintimidated by the fact that storms could rage across its 22,000-square-mile surface, whipping it into a turbulent gray fury.

  Nick got out of the car and came around to open her door. With his hand at her elbow, Lauren had no choice but to walk beside him along the winding row of racy foreign sports cars and luxurious sedans toward the throngs of guests.

  At the edge of the lawn she stopped and surveyed the people with whom she was about to mingle. Besides several famous movie stars, there were other vaguely familiar faces—faces she'd seen repeatedly in magazine articles about the international jet set and the fabulously rich.

  She glanced at Nick, who was slowly scanning the crowd. He looked neither impressed nor intimidated by this glittering assembly of the beautiful and the rich; in fact, he looked irritated. When he spoke, his voice was tinged with the same annoyance she saw in his expression. "I'm sorry, Lauren. If I'd known Tracy's 'little gathering' was going to be like this, I'd never have brought you here. It's going to be noisy, crowded and frenetic."

  Although she felt rather ill at ease surrounded by such famous people, she managed an air of nonchalance and gave him a jaunty smile. "Maybe, if we're lucky, no one will realize we're here."

  "Don't count on it," he warned dryly. They strolled along the perimeter of the lawn, which was bordered by dense woods. When they came to a bar that had been set up for the use of the guests, Nick stepped behind it. Rather than staring at him like a besotted idiot while he made their drinks, Lauren forced herself to turn and observe her surroundings. As her gaze moved over to a chattering group nearby, a gorgeous redhead glanced up and saw Nick.

  With a smile dawning across her perfect features, the woman left her friends and hurried toward Nick and Lauren, her wide-legged lounging pants billowing softly at her ankles. "Nick, darling!" she said, laughing, her beringed hands already sliding up his arms as she leaned forward to kiss him.

  Nick put the liquor bottle down and obligingly curved both his arms around her, drawing her to him to return the kiss.

  Even after he released her, Lauren noted that the redhead kept her hands on his arms while smiling warmly into his gray eyes. "Everyone has been wondering if you were going to disappoint us and not come," she said. "But I knew you'd be here because the phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from your office. The servants and everyone else have been taking messages for you all afternoon. And who's this?" she asked brightly, at last taking her hands from his arms and stepping back to regard Lauren with open curiosity.

  "Lauren, this is Barbara Leonardos," Nick began the introductions.

  "Call me Bebe—everyone does." The woman turned back to Nick and continued, almost as if Lauren wasn't there, "I thought you were bringing Ericka."

  "Really?" Nick mocked lightly. "And I thought you were in Rome with Alex."

  "We were," Bebe admitted, "but we wanted to see you."

  When she left a few moments later, Nick started to explain, "Bebe is—"

  "I already know who she is," Lauren admitted softly, trying not to sound awed. Barbara Leonardos was the darling of the fashion magazines and gossip columnists, an American oil heiress who was married to a fabulously rich Greek industrialist. "I've seen her pictures in fashion magazines and newspapers dozens of times."

  Nick handed Lauren the drink he had mixed for her, picked up his own and inclined his head toward the couple who were striding quickly toward them, arm in arm. "Do you recognize either of those two?"

  "No," Lauren admitted. "They don't look even slightly familiar."

  Nick smiled at her. "In that case, I'll introduce you. They happen to be our host and hostess, as well as very good friends of mine."

  Bracing herself for the inevitable round of introductions, Lauren studied the beautiful brunette in her thirties and the rather heavyset man beside her, who was close to sixty.

  "Nick!" The woman laughed delightedly, flinging herself into Nick's arms in utter disregard of the drink he was holding and kissing him with the same intimate, enthusiastic familiarity that Bebe had. "We haven't seen you for months!" she scolded as she stepped back. "What on earth have you been doing?"

  "Some of us still work for a living," Nick told her with an affectionate smile. Reaching out, he caught Lauren's arm, drawing her into the circle of comradery. "Lauren, I'd like you to meet our hosts, Tracy and George Middleton."

  "Lauren, I'm so happy to meet you," Tracy said, then she demanded of Nick, "Why are you two standing way over here by yourselves? No one will even realize you're here."

  "Which is precisely why I'm standing over here," Nick told her bluntly.

  Tracy's breath came out in a rueful laugh. "I know I promised you this was going to be a small gathering. I swear we had no idea that nearly everyone we invited was actually going to come. You can't imagine the problem it's created up at the house."

  She glanced at the purpling sky and then over her shoulder. Following her gaze, Lauren saw that nearly all the guests had begun to stroll toward the house or down to the pier, where motor launches were waiting to take them out to their yachts. Waiters had started to set up tables under a huge striped canopy, and torches were being lit around the pool. Musicians were moving their instruments onto a large portable stage that had been erected at the far end of the pool.

  "Everyone is already dressing for dinner," Tracy stated. "Are you two going over to the Cove to change, or were you planning to change here?"

  Lauren's mind reeled. Dressing for dinner? She had absolutely nothing that was even remotely suitable to wear if they were going to dress formally for dinner!

  Ignoring Lauren's urgent grip on his forearm, Nick said, "Lauren will change here. I'll go over to the Cove, return whatever phone calls can't wait and change there."

  Tracy smiled at Lauren. "The house is bursting at the seams; you and I can use our room, and George will find somewhere else to change.
Shall we go?" she invited, already starting to turn away.

  Nick glanced at Lauren's expression with a wry gleam of understanding. "I think there's something Lauren wants to discuss with me. You go ahead, and she'll join you."

  As soon as the couple strolled out of hearing distance, Lauren said desperately, "Nick, I don't have anything suitable to wear. Surely you don't, either?"

  "I have things over at the Cove, and I'll find a dress for you there too," he assured her calmly. "I'll send it over, and it will be in Tracy's room by the time you're ready to put it on."

  Inside, the house was a cacophony of voices and bustling activity. Laughter and conversation drifted from twenty different rooms on three different floors, while servants hurried in every direction carrying freshly pressed clothing draped over their arms and trays of drinks in their hands.

  Nick stopped one of the servants and asked for his phone messages. In an instant they were in his hand, and he turned to Lauren with a warm smile. "I'll meet you outside by the pool in about an hour. Can you manage without me for that long?"

  "I'll be fine," Lauren assured him. "Take your time."

  "Are you certain?"

  With his compelling gray eyes searching hers, Lauren wasn't certain of her own name, but she nodded anyway. When he left, she turned to find Bebe Leonardos watching her with open curiosity. Quickly wiping the dreamy expression from her face, Lauren said, "Is there a phone I can use somewhere? I'd like to call home."

  "Of course. Where's home?" Bebe inquired casually.

  "Fenster, Missouri," Lauren told her, following her into a luxurious study near the back of the house.

  "Fenster?" Bebe sniffed, as if there was an offensive odor associated with the name of the town. Then she left, closing the door behind her.

  The long-distance collect call to her father didn't take long because they were both acutely aware of the expense involved. But her dad laughed with pride and astonishment when he heard about her new job and salary, and he was relieved when she told him that Philip Whitworth had insisted she live in his aunt's condominium, rent free. She didn't mention her bargain with Philip because she didn't want to cause her father any anxiety. All she wanted him to know was that his financial burden was now eased.