Double Standards

by Judith McNaught

  She sensed that her answer irritated him, but his voice was calmly unemotional. "If there should be any consequences, I want you to let me know. Don't try to face it alone. Will you promise to let me know?"

  Lauren was too embarrassed to speak. She nodded, and he opened the car door for her. By the time she put the car into reverse, he was already striding back into the house.

  Lauren glanced at the clock on the dashboard as she drove through the long stretches of Indiana farmland. "If there should be any consequences, I want you to let me know." Let me know … The last three words revolved continuously in her brain.

  Yesterday, when they'd been talking about her move to Detroit, she had managed to casually impart the information that she would be back in Detroit on Friday, and that in the meantime the phone was being connected in her name. Nick could reach her on Friday simply by picking up the telephone and asking the operator for her new number, and he knew it. Why had he made it sound as if they wouldn't be talking to each other unless she needed to reach him to tell him she was pregnant?

  In a way Lauren felt like something that had been used and then thrown away. They had laughed together and gotten to know each other; she felt so close to him—surely he felt close to her too. Surely he couldn't intend to just walk away and forget about her.

  She loved Nick, and she knew he liked her. Perhaps he had already begun to love her… Perhaps that was why he had become so withdrawn and impersonal this morning! After thirty-four years of independence, and after being shunned by his own mother, Nick wouldn't like feeling dependent on a woman for his happiness. The more he felt himself caring, the more he would probably fight it, Lauren decided.

  The sky was streaked with a pink sunrise as Lauren drove across the Mississippi River into Missouri. She was weary, but optimistic. When she got back to Detroit on Friday, Nick would call her. He might even hold out until Saturday or Sunday, but surely no longer.

  9

  « ^ »

  Lauren's optimism stayed with her through the busy days of packing, and blossomed into excited anticipation on Thursday morning as she waved goodbye to her father and stepmother and started for Michigan.

  With the directions Philip Whitworth had given her she had no trouble locating the elegant suburban community of Bloomfield Hills that night. She did have a little trouble believing that she was actually going to live there. One magnificent home after another flashed by. Spectacular stone-and-glass ranch houses were set well back from the tree-lined street, partially obscured by careful landscaping; splendid tudors sprawled beside immense white-pillared Georgian colonials.

  It was ten o'clock at night when she pulled to a stop at the gates of a breathtakingly lovely Spanish-style condominium complex. The gatekeeper came out and peered at her through the open car window. When Lauren told him her name, he said, "Mr. Whitworth drove in half an hour ago, miss." Then he directed Lauren to the proper street, respectfully touched his fingers to the visor of his cap, and added, "I understand you're a new resident. If I can be of help, just let me know."

  Lauren forgot her weariness as she pulled to a stop before a lovely courtyard with an arched entryway displaying the number 175. Philip had promised to meet her here and show her around, and his Cadillac was parked in the driveway leading to the private garage.

  "Well, what do you think?" he said a half hour later as they completed the tour of the luxurious apartment.

  "I think it's wonderful," Lauren said, carrying one of her suitcases into the bedroom, where an entire mirrored wall concealed closet space. She opened a closet door and her gaze swung back to Philip. "What should I do with these clothes?" It and every closet she opened was filled to capacity with wonderful suits and dresses of linen, silk and crepe. Lauren recognized some of the designer labels, while other garments looked as if they were Paris originals. Most of the things still had tags on them and had obviously never been worn. "Your aunt certainly has very youthful tastes in clothes," Lauren commented.

  "My aunt is a compulsive shopper," Philip explained disinterestedly. "I'll phone some charity and have them come over and take all this stuff."

  Lauren ran her hand down a gorgeous wine velvet blazer, then she glanced at the tag hanging from the sleeve. Not only did the woman have very youthful taste in clothing, she also wore the same size Lauren did. "Philip, would you consider letting me buy some of these clothes?"

  He shrugged. "Take whatever you want and give the rest away; you'll save me the trouble."

  He had started down the stairs to the living room below, and Lauren turned off the lights and followed him. "But those are very expensive clothes—"

  "I know what they cost," he interrupted irritably, "I paid for them. Take whatever you want—they're yours."

  After helping her carry in the rest of her things from the car, he turned to leave. "By the way," he said, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. "My wife doesn't know I bought this place for my aunt. Carol feels that my relatives impose on me financially, so I've never mentioned it to her. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention it either."

  "No, of course I won't," Lauren promised.

  After he left, she looked around at the luxurious apartment that was now her home, at the marble fireplace, valuable antiques and gracious silk-upholstered furnishings. The condominium looked as if it had been decorated for a magazine layout. A vision of the alluring clothes hanging in the upstairs closets superimposed itself in her mind. "My wife doesn't know I bought this place for my aunt; so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention it…"

  A knowing smile slowly dawned on Lauren's face as she glanced again at the beautiful room and wryly shook her head. Not his aunt—his mistress! At some time in the recent past, Philip Whitworth must have had a mistress. Lauren shrugged the matter aside; it was none of her business.

  She walked over to the telephone, sighing with relief when she heard the dial tone. The phone was working. Tomorrow was Friday, and Nick might call.

  Early the next morning she sat at the kitchen table, making out her grocery list. Besides all the essentials, she needed two special items for when Nick came over: bourbon and Grand Marnier. Picking up her purse, she glanced at the telephone. The thought that he might never call her pushed forward in her mind, but she shoved it aside. Nick had wanted her very badly in Harbor Springs; he had made that obvious. If nothing else, sexual desire would bring him to her.

  Two hours later she carried in the groceries she'd bought. She spent the rest of the day sorting through the clothes in the closets, trying them on and separating those that fit from those that had to be altered. Nick hadn't called by the time she went to bed, but she consoled herself with the thought that he would surely call tomorrow, which was Saturday.

  She spent the next day unpacking and staying close to the phone. On Sunday she sat down at the desk and worked out a budget that would enable her to send home as much money as possible. Both Lenny and Melissa were helping too, but each of them had mortgages and other financial obligations she was free of.

  The $10,000 bonus Philip had promised her was certainly tempting. If she could only find out the name of that spy, or else learn something that would be of real value to the Whitworths' company. Lauren shied away from the latter alternative. If she gave Philip confidential information, she would be no better than the spy she was trying to unmask.

  Apart from her parents' debts there were her electrical bill, phone bill, groceries. She had a car payment to make and automobile insurance… There seemed to be no end to the list of obligations.

  On Monday she saw some silver-gray yarn the color of Nick's eyes in a store, and she decided to buy it and knit a sweater. She told herself she would make it as a Christmas present for her stepbrother, but inside she knew she was knitting it for Nick…

  The following Sunday night, as she laid out the clothes she would wear for her first day at work, she told herself that tomorrow he would call—he would call her at her new job to wish her luck.

  10
/>   « ^ »

  "Well, are you ready to quit?" her new boss, Jim Williams, joked at five o'clock the next afternoon. "Or do you think you want to stay on?"

  Lauren sat across the desk from him, her shorthand notebook loaded with dictation. Nick hadn't called to wish her good luck on her first day, but she'd been so busy that she hadn't had much time to be miserable about it. "I think," Lauren said, laughing, "that you're like working with a whirlwind."

  He grinned apologetically. "We work so well together that after you'd been here an hour, I forgot you were new."

  Lauren smiled at the compliment. It was true, they did work well together.

  "What do you think of the staff?" he prodded, and before Lauren could answer, he added, "It's the consensus among the men here that I have the most beautiful secretary in the corporation. I've been answering questions about you all day."

  "What sort of questions?"

  "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?"