Double Standards

by Judith McNaught

  "Yes, but you aren't driving in this condition. I'll take you—"

  "No," she said swiftly. "I'm fine, really! I can drive."

  "Are you certain?"

  She finally got control of her quavering voice. "Positive, I was just shocked and a little embarrassed, that's all."

  Jim gestured lamely at the file. "Are you done with this?"

  "I haven't read it all," she said distractedly.

  He picked up the magazine from the floor, put it in the folder with the newspaper clipping and held the thick file toward her. Lauren took it automatically, and then fled. She thought she would cry again when she got to her car, but she didn't. Nor did she cry during the three hours she spent reading the file. There were no more tears left in her.

  Lauren pulled into the parking lot past the sign that read, Reserved for Sinco Employees. After what she'd read the night before, the name Sinco had a new meaning: Sinclair Electronic Components. The company had been founded, according to The Wall Street Journal, by Matthew Sinclair and his grandson Nick twelve years before, in a garage behind what was now Tony's restaurant.

  She parked her car, picked up the file on J. Nicholas Sinclair from the seat beside her and got out. Nick had built a financial empire, and now he kept it alive by employing spys among his competitors. Obviously he was as unscrupulous in his business dealings as he was in his personal life, she thought fiercely.

  The women in the office smiled cheerful greetings at her, and Lauren felt guilty because she was going to play a part in destroying the company for whom they worked. No, not destroying it, she corrected herself as she put her purse in her desk. If Sinco was fit to survive, then it should be able to compete honestly for contracts. Otherwise it deserved to die before it destroyed its honest competitors, companies like Philip Whitworth's.

  She paused outside Jim's office. Did he know that Sinco was paying spys? Somehow she didn't think he did. She couldn't believe that he would approve of such a thing. "Thank you for letting me take the file home," she said softly, walking into his office.

  His gaze leaped from the report in his hand to her pale, composed features. "How do you feel this morning?" he asked quietly.

  Self-consciously she put her hands in the deep side pockets of her skirt. "I feel embarrassed… and pretty foolish."

  "Without going into painful detail, could you give me some idea of what Nick did that hurt you so much? Surely you weren't crying like that just because you discovered he's wealthy and successful?"

  Lauren felt a fresh stab of pain at the memory of how willingly she'd collaborated in her own seduction. But she owed Jim some sort of explanation for her hysterical behavior yesterday, and she said with a lame attempt at indifference, "Because I thought he was simply an engineer, I said and did some things that are extremely embarrassing to remember now."

  "I see," Jim said calmly. "And what do you intend to do about it?"

  "I intend to throw myself into my job here, and to learn everything I can," she replied with bitter honesty.

  "I meant, what do you intend to do when you see Nick?"

  "I never want to see him again as long as I live!" she retorted tersely.

  A half smile tugged at his lips, but his voice was solemn. "Lauren, next Saturday there's a private cocktail party being given in the revolving restaurant atop the Global Industries Building. All the chief executives of our various companies are expected to attend, along with their secretaries. The purpose of the party is to bring together all of us who have worked in different buildings in the past, so that we can meet face to face. You'll have an opportunity to meet the secretaries you'll be dealing with in the future, as well as their bosses. Nick is the host."

  "If you don't mind, I'd rather not go," Lauren said flatly.

  "I do mind."

  She was trapped. Jim wasn't the sort of boss who would allow her personal life to interfere with her job, she knew. And if she lost her job she'd never find out who Nick was paying to spy on Philip Whitworth's company.

  "Sooner or later you're going to have to meet Nick face to face," Jim continued persuasively. "Wouldn't you rather have it happen on Saturday, when you're prepared for it?" When Lauren still hesitated, he said firmly, "I'll pick you up at seven-thirty."

  11

  « ^ »

  Lauren's hand shook as she applied her lipstick and brushed some blusher on her cheekbones. She glanced at her watch; Jim would be there in fifteen minutes. Walking over to one of the mirrored closets, she removed a flowing chiffon cocktail dress, the one she'd finally chosen that afternoon after trying on all of her newly acquired evening dresses.

  Now that she knew what an unprincipled, deceitful, arrogant bastard Nick really was, she probably wouldn't find him the slightest bit attractive, she decided, zipping up the dress and stepping into dainty sandals. Even so, her battered pride demanded that she look her best tonight.

  Closing the closet, she stepped back to survey her full-length image in the mirrored doors. Panels of cream chiffon drifted into deepening shades of peach, creating a subdued rainbow effect in the full skirt, while matching panels of chiffon crisscrossed beneath her breasts and swept upward in a deeply slashed halter top that clasped behind her neck, leaving her arms, shoulders and upper back bare.

  She tried to feel pleasure in her appearance but couldn't. Not when she was about to confront the man who had effortlessly seduced her and then suggested she call him if she got pregnant; a multimillionaire whom she'd invited to lunch and assured him that they could afford anything on the menu.

  Considering how low and cynical Nick was, it was amazing he hadn't actually let her pay for the expensive meal, Lauren thought, searching through her jewelry box for the precious gold earrings that had belonged to her mother.

  She paused to mentally rehearse the way she was going to treat him tonight. Because of what had happened, Nick would naturally expect her to be hurt and angry, but she had no intention of letting him see that she was either. Instead she was going to convince him that their weekend in Harbor Springs had been nothing but an amusing little escapade to her, just as it had obviously been to him. Under no circumstances would she treat him coldly, because by coldness she would show him that she still cared enough to be angry. Even if it killed her, she was going to treat him with casual, detached friendliness—the same sort of impersonal friendliness she would show the gatekeeper or the janitor at work.

  That should throw him off balance, Lauren decided, still searching for her mother's earrings.

  But where were they, she wondered a little frantically a moment later. She couldn't have lost them— she was always so careful with them. They were the only things of her mother's she had. She had worn them to the party in Harbor Springs, she remembered… and the next day at the Cove. And that night in bed Nick had been kissing her ear, and he'd taken her earrings off because they were in his way…

  Her mother's earrings were somewhere in Nick's girlfriend's bed!

  Lauren leaned her hands on the dresser, and her head fell forward as a fresh surge of anger and pain raged through her. Nick's girlfriend probably had her mother's earrings.

  The doorbell pealed downstairs, and she straightened up with a jerk. Taking a deep breath she walked downstairs and opened the door.

  Jim was standing in the doorway, looking every inch the impressive business executive in an attractive dark suit and tie. "Please come in," Lauren said quietly. He stepped into the foyer, and she added, "I'll just get my purse, and we can leave. Or would you like a drink first?"

  When he didn't immediately answer, she turned. "Is something wrong?"

  His gaze moved over her perfect features and the lustrous mass of her honey-colored hair, which spilled over her shoulders in deep, swirling waves. Appreciatively he examined her figure in the seductive chiffon, and her long, shapely legs. "Nothing that I can see," he said with a grin.

  "Would you like a drink?" Lauren repeated, surprised but not insulted by his frank masculine appraisal.
/>   "Not unless you need one to bolster your courage to face Nick."

  Lauren shook her head. "I don't need courage. He means nothing to me." Jim shot her an amused look as he ushered her out to his dark green Jaguar.

  "I gather you want to convince him that you no longer have any romantic interest in him, is that it?"

  Lauren had the uneasy feeling that Jim was not deceived by her facade of indifference—but then he had witnessed her crying her heart out. "That's right," she admitted.

  "In that case—" Jim shifted gears as they thundered onto the expressway "—I'll give you some unsolicited advice. Why don't you spend a few minutes chatting with him about the party or your new job and then, with a very charming smile, excuse yourself and walk over to someone else—me, if I'm close at hand, and I'll try to be."

  Lauren turned toward him with a soft smile of gratitude. "Thank you," she said. Feeling calm and confident, she relaxed.

  But when the elevator doors swept open at the elegant revolving restaurant on the eighty-first floor, Lauren took one look at the animated crowd milling around, and a rope of tension coiled around her chest, suffocating her. Nick was somewhere in this room.

  At the bar, Jim ordered their drinks, and Lauren cautiously glanced around just as a group of people shifted to one side.

  And there was Nick…

  He was standing across the room, his dark head thrown back as he laughed at something being said. Lauren's heart pounded uncontrollably as her gaze took in his handsome, tanned features; the elegant ease with which he wore his impeccably tailored dark suit; the casual way he held his drink in his hand. She noticed every painfully familiar thing about him. And then she noticed the beautiful blonde who was smiling up at him, her hand resting familiarly on his sleeve.

  Anguish poured through Lauren's veins like hot acid. It was Ericka Moran, the woman with Nick in the newspaper photograph. And the gorgeous cream dress she had on was the same one Nick had sent over to Lauren herself in Harbor Springs…

  She jerked her gaze away and started to speak to Jim, but the taut set of his jaw as he, too, saw the beautiful blond woman across the room stopped Lauren cold. On his face she saw angry desolation and helpless yearning—the same emotions she'd experienced a moment ago when she'd looked at Nick. Jim, she instantly concluded, was in love with Ericka.

  "Here's your drink," he finally said, handing it to Lauren. "It's time to begin our little charade." With a grim smile he took her elbow and started to guide her toward Nick and Ericka.

  Lauren drew back. "We surely don't have to rush right over to them, do we? If Nick is the host, it's his responsibility to make certain he greets everyone at his party."

  Jim hesitated, then nodded. "All right, we'll make them come to us."

  During the next half hour, as they circulated among the guests, Lauren became increasingly convinced that she was right about Jim and Ericka, and that her boss was trying to make both Nick and Ericka jealous. Whenever Ericka glanced in their direction, Jim would smile at Lauren or tease her about something. Lauren cooperated by trying to look as if she was having a positively wonderful time—but she did so for his sake, not for hers. In her shattered heart she knew that Nick didn't care what she did or with whom she did it.

  She was sipping her second drink when Jim suddenly slipped his arm around her. She was so surprised that she overlooked the warning squeeze of his hand at her waist. "The group standing over there," he said with a deliberate smile, "is the board of directors—all wealthy, industrialists in their own right. The man on the left is Ericka's father, Horace Moran. Horace's family," he explained, "has been in oil for generations."

  "How dreadfully uncomfortable for them," Lauren joked, comically batting her eyelashes to make him laugh.

  Jim shot her a warning look, then he continued, "The man beside him is Crawford Jones. Crawford's family, and his wife's family, as well, are in bonds."

  "I wonder why someone doesn't cut them loose?" Lauren teased.

  "Because," said an achingly familiar, laughing voice right behind her, "Crawford and his wife are both ugly, and no one wants them running around loose, frightening little children."

  Lauren's whole body snapped into rigidity at the sound of Nick's deep baritone, then she forced herself to turn. One look at the amusement in his gray eyes as he waited for her reaction made her pride come to her aid. Although she was crumbling into a thousand pieces inside, she managed to smile as she put her hand into his. "Hello, Nick."

  His fingers closed around hers. "Hello, Lauren," he said, grinning.

  She carefully pulled back her hand, then turned a bright, expectant smile on Ericka, whom Jim promptly introduced to her.

  "I've been admiring your dress all evening, Lauren," Ericka said. "It's stunning."

  "Thank you." Without looking at Nick, Lauren added, "I noticed your dress the moment we walked in." Then she turned to Jim. "Oh, there's Mr. Simon. He's been trying to talk to you all evening, Jim." With the last remaining ounce of her vanishing poise, Lauren raised her blue eyes to Nick's inscrutable features and said politely, "Will you excuse us, please?"

  Shortly afterward Jim became absorbed in a conversation with a vice-president, so Lauren made an effort to be charming and witty and to manage on her own. She was soon surrounded by a flatteringly large cluster of interested, admiring males, and for the rest of the evening she scrupulously avoided looking in Nick's direction. Twice she accidentally turned and encountered his piercing stare, and both times she casually looked right past him, as if she was searching for someone else. But after three hours, the tension of being in the same room with him had become unbearable.

  She needed some solitude, a few minutes' respite from the constant pull of his presence. She looked for Jim and saw him standing near the bar, talking to a group of men. Lauren waited until she caught his attention, then she tipped her head slightly toward the sliding glass doors that opened onto the outdoor patio portion of the restaurant. He nodded, his expression telling her that he would join her there.

  Turning, she slipped out doors into the welcome quiet of the cool evening. Wrapped in the velvet blackness of the night, she walked over to the chest-high wall that surrounded the patio restaurant and gazed at the glittering panorama of lights fanning out for miles, eighty-one stories below. She had succeeded—she had managed to treat Nick with a perfect combination of impersonal friendliness and smiling disregard. No recriminations, no justifiable indignation because he hadn't called her. He must have been amazed by her attitude, Lauren thought with tired satisfaction, as she lifted her glass and sipped her drink.

  Behind her, she heard the whisper of the sliding glass door opening and closing, and she resigned herself to the loss of her badly needed solitude. Jim had come out to join her. "How am I doing so far?" she asked, forcing a cheerful lightness into her voice.

  "You're doing very well," Nick's lazy voice mocked. "I'm half convinced that I'm invisible."

  Lauren's hand shook so violently that the ice cubes in her glass clinked together. She turned slowly, trying to gather her scattered wits. She should be unconcerned and urbane, she reminded herself, as if what had happened between them had meant no more to her than it had to him. She forced her gaze upward past his white shirt and striped tie, to his humor-filled eyes. "It's a lovely party," she commented.

  "Have you missed me?"

  Lauren's own eyes widened with pretended innocence. "I've been very busy."

  Nick walked over to the wall, leaned his elbow on it and studied her in silence. He watched the breeze blowing her shimmering hair across her bare shoulder before he shifted his gaze back to her face. "So," he said with a smile, "you haven't missed me at all?"

  "I've been busy," Lauren repeated, but her composure slipped a notch and she added, "And why should I miss you? You aren't the only willing and available man in Michigan."

  His dark brow flicked upward in amused speculation. "Is that your way of telling me that after you tried sex with me, you decided y
ou liked it and you've been… ah… adding to your experience?"

  Dear God! He didn't even care if she'd gone to bed with other men.

  "Now that you've had other men to use as a basis for comparison, how do I rate?" he teased.

  "That's an adolescent question," Lauren retorted scornfully.

  "You're right. Let's go." Tossing down the remainder of his drink in one swallow, he put his glass on one of the tables, took hers and put it beside his, then caught her hand. He twisted his wrist and laced his strong fingers through hers, and Lauren was so giddily aware of his warm fingers firmly clasping hers that she didn't stop to think until he had started to lead her toward an unidentified door around the corner of the building.

  When he reached out to open the door, sanity returned, and she drew back. "Nick, I would like to ask you a question, and I want an honest answer." He nodded and she said, "When I left you in Harbor Springs, did you ever intend to see me again—I mean, to take me out?"

  Nick looked at her levelly. "No."

  She was still reeling from the blow of that one word when he reached out again to open the door. "Where are we going?"

  "To my place, or yours, it doesn't matter."

  "Why?" she asked obstinately.

  He turned and looked at her. "For a smart girl, that's a very stupid question."

  Lauren's temper exploded. "You are the most arrogant, egotistical… !" She stopped long enough to draw a steadying breath and said tightly, "I can't handle casual, indiscriminate sex, and what's more, I don't like people who can—people like you!"

  "You liked me rather well four weeks ago," he reminded her coolly.

  Her color rose and her eyes blazed. "Four weeks ago I thought you were someone special!" she shot back angrily. "Four weeks ago, I didn't know you were a licentious millionaire playboy who changes beds as often as you change clothes. You're everything I despise in a man—you're unprincipled, promiscuous and morally corrupt! You're ruthless and selfish, and if I'd have known who you really were, I wouldn't have given you the time of day!"