AUREN SPENT THE REST OF THE WEEK WORKING LIKE A FIEND at the office. At home she alternately thought about Nick and worried about her father's financial situation. The hospital was demanding half of the fee at once. The only thing she could think of doing was to sell her mother's splendid grand piano, but the thought broke her heart. It was her piano too, and here in Michigan she missed it. She missed being able to play, to work out her frustrations and disappointments at the keyboard as she used to do. On the other hand, her father was far from being well, and if he needed to go to the hospital again, she couldn't risk having him turned away because his last bill wasn't paid.

Late Friday afternoon, Susan Brook stopped her in the public relations department. "Jim's birthday is next week, on Thursday," she told Lauren. "It's sort of a custom here to bring a cake for your boss." With an irrepressible grin she added, "Cake and coffee is a terrific excuse to quit working fifteen minutes early."

"I'll bring a cake," Lauren quickly assured her. She glanced at her watch, said good-night to Susan and quickened her pace toward her desk. Philip Whitworth had called and invited her over for dinner that night, and she didn't want to be late.

On the way to her apartment to change her clothes, Lauren considered telling Philip about the Curtis deal. She felt uneasy about it, however. Before she interfered with anyone's reputation and job, she ought to be certain of what she actually knew. It occurred to her that Philip might consider news of the Rossi project "valuable information," and that he might pay her the $10,000 he'd offered, but her conscience screamed at her for even contemplating the thought. She decided to write to the hospital and offer $3,000. She might be able to borrow that much from a bank.

Over dinner later Philip asked her if she liked her job at Sinco. When Lauren replied that she did, he said, "Have you heard mentioned any of the names I gave you?"

She hesitated. "No, I haven't."

Philip sighed with disappointment. "The most important contracts we've ever considered bidding on have deadlines only a few weeks from now. Before then I've got to know who's leaking the information to Sinco. I needthose contracts."

Lauren immediately felt guilty for not telling him about Curtis or Rossi. More than ever she felt confused, torn between her loyalty to Philip and her desire to do the right thing.

"I told you Lauren wouldn't be able to help," Carter put in.

Lauren didn't know how she'd ever let herself get into this mess. In her own defense, she said, "It's too soon to know, actually. I've been reassigned to work on a special project on the eightieth floor, so I haven't been working full time for Sinco until yesterday, when Nick—Mr. Sinclair—flew to Italy."

Nick's name sent a bolt of electricity through the entire room, and all three Whitworths stiffened perceptibly.

Carter's eyes gleamed with excitement. "Lauren, you're fantastic! How did you manage to get yourself assigned to him? Hell, you'll have access to all sorts of confidential—"

"I didn't manage anything," Lauren interrupted. "I'm there because I happened to put down on my application that I speak Italian, and he needed a temporary secretary who was fluent in it to work on a special project."

"What kind of project?" Philip and Carter demanded in unison.

Lauren glanced uneasily at Carol, who was watching her intently over the rim of her glass. Then she looked at the two men. "Philip, you promised when I agreed to work for Sinco that all you would ask me to do was tell you if I overheard one of those six names. Please don't ask me about anything else. If I tell you, I'll be no better than the person who's spying on you."

"You're right of course, my dear," he instantly agreed.

But an hour later, when Lauren had left, Philip turned to his son. "She said Sinclair flew to Italy yesterday. Call that pilot friend of yours and find out if he can get access to his flight plan. I want to know exactly where in Italy he went."

"Do you really think it's that important?"

Philip studied the brandy in his glass. "Lauren obviously thinks it's very important. If she didn't, she would have told us about it without a qualm." After a pause he said, "If we can trace him, I want you to send a team of investigators over there to pick up his trail. I have a hunch he's working on something big."

Lauren glanced at the small thermometer outside the window of her bedroom as she pulled on a buttercup yellow sweater and slacks. Despite the sunny autumn Sunday afternoon, despite her luxuriously furnished apartment, she felt lonely and isolated. Shopping for Jim's birthday present would give her something to do, she decided. She was debating what to buy him when the sudden shrill ring of her doorbell interrupted her thoughts.

When she opened the door she stared in amazement at the man whose tall frame seemed to fill the doorway. Dressed in an open-collared cream shirt with a rust-colored suede jacket hooked negligently over his shoulder, Nick looked so unbearably handsome that Lauren could have cried. She forced herself to sound composed and only mildly curious. "Hi. What are you doing here?"

He frowned. "Damned if I know."

Unable to suppress her smile she said, "The usual excuse is that you happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by."

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Nick mocked dryly. "Well, are you going to invite me in?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "Should I?"

His gaze traveled down the entire length of her body, lifted to her lips and finally her eyes. "I wouldn't if I were you."

Breathless from his frankly sensual glance, Lauren was nevertheless determined to abide by her decision to avoid all personal involvement with him. And judging from the way he had just looked at her, his reason for being here was very, very personal. Reluctantly she made her decision. "In that case, I'll follow your advice. Goodbye, Nick," she said, starting to close the door. "And thank you for stopping by."

He accepted her decision with a slight inclination of his head, and Lauren made herself finish closing the door. She forced herself to walk away on legs that felt like lead, reminding herself at the same time how insane it would be to let him near her. But halfway across the living room she lost the internal battle. Pivoting on her heel, she raced for the door, yanked it open and hurtled straight into Nick's chest. He was lounging with one hand braced high against the doorframe, gazing down at her flushed face with a knowing, satisfied grin.

"Hello, Lauren. I happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop by."

"What do you want, Nick?" she sighed, her blue eyes searching his.

"You."

Resolutely she started to close the door again, but his hand shot out to stop her. "Do you really want me to go?"

"I told you on Wednesday that what I want has nothing to do with it. What matters is what's best for me, and—"

He interrupted her with a boyish grin. "I promise I'll never wear your clothes, and I won't steal your allowances or your boyfriends either." Lauren couldn't help starting to smile as he finished, "And if you swear never to call me Nicky again, I won't bite you."

She stepped aside and let him in, then took his jacket and hung it in the closet. When she turned, Nick was leaning against the closed front door, his arms crossed over his chest. "On second thought," he grinned, "I take part of that back. I'd love to bite you."

"Pervert!" she returned teasingly, her heart thumping so much with excitement that she hardly knew what she was saying.

"Come here and I'll show you just how perverted I can be," he invited smoothly.

Lauren took a cautious step backward. "Absolutely not. Would you like some coffee or a Coke?"

"Either would be fine."

"I'll make some coffee."

"Kiss me first."

Lauren shot him a look over her shoulder and walked into the kitchen. As she made the coffee, she was acutely conscious that he was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her.

"Do I pay you enough to afford this apartment?" he asked casually.

"No. There's a burglary problem here, so in return for watching the place, I get to live here free." She heard him start toward her, and she hastily turned to the table and put out cups and saucers. When she straightened, she knew he was standing right behind her, but she had no choice except to turn around and face him.

"Have you missed me?" he asked.

"What do you think?" she evaded smoothly—but not smoothly enough, because he chuckled.

"Good. How much?"

"Is your ego in need of bolstering today?" she countered lightly.

"Yep."

"Really, why?"

"Because I got shot down by a beautiful twenty-three-year-old, and I can't seem to get her out of my mind."

"That's too bad," Lauren said, trying unsuccessfully to hide the joy in her voice.

"Isn't it," he mocked. "She's like a thorn in my side, a blister on my heel. She has the eyes of an angel, a body that drugs my mind, the vocabulary of an English professor and a tongue like a scalpel."

"Thanks, I think."

His hands glided up her arms, then curved around her shoulders, tightening as he drew her to within a few inches of his chest. "And," he added, "I like her."

His mouth was making a deliberately slow descent, and Lauren waited helplessly for the physical impact of his lips covering hers. Instead he bypassed her lips and began to explore the creamy skin of her neck and shoulder, his warm mouth nuzzling the sensitive area, then slowly wandering upward along her neck toward her ear. With the kitchen table behind her and Nick's body in front, Lauren was incapable of doing anything except standing there, a mass of quivering sensations. His mouth left a burning trail of kisses up to her temple, then slowly began to drift toward her lips. A fraction of an inch above hers he stopped and repeated his earlier command. "Kiss me, Lauren."

"No," she whispered shakily.

He shrugged and began leisurely kissing her other cheek, stopping to linger sensuously at her ear, his tongue tracing every curve and hollow. He nipped her earlobe, and Lauren lurched forward in a startled movement that jolted their bodies together. A current leaped between them, and they both stiffened with the delicious shock of it. "God!" Nick muttered under his breath, and his lips began to trail down her neck to her shoulder.

"Nick, please," Lauren whispered weakly.

"Please what?" he murmured against her throat. "Please put us both out of this misery?"

"No!"

"No?" he repeated silkily, raising his head. "You don't want me to kiss you, and undress you, and make love to you?" His lips were tantalizingly close, and Lauren was almost faint with the desire to feel them crushing down on hers. Instead he bent his head and lightly brushed his mouth over hers, first in one direction, then the other. "Please kiss me," he coaxed huskily. "I dream about the way you kissed me in Harbor Springs, about how sweet and warm you felt in my arms…"

With a silent moan of surrender, Lauren slid her hands up his muscular chest and kissed him. She felt the tremor that ran through his body, the gasp of his breath against her lips in the instant before his arms closed around her, and his mouth opened passionately over hers.

Desire was racing through her like a wild fury by the time he finally dragged his mouth from hers. "Where's the bedroom?" he whispered hoarsely.

Lauren pulled back in his arms and lifted her eyes to his. His face was dark with passion, and demand was blazing in his gray eyes. She remembered the last time she had looked into those insistent eyes and had yielded to his fiery passion. Memories flashed through her mind in chilling sequence: he had made love to her in Harbor Springs, had held her and caressed her as if he couldn't get enough of her, and then he had coolly sent her home. She had learned to her own shame and anguish that he was completely capable of making tender, passionate, shattering love to a woman for the sheer physical pleasure of it—without feeling the slightest emotional involvement with her.

He wanted her more now than he had in Harbor Springs—Lauren knew that. She could feel it. She was also half convinced that he felt more for her than just desire, but then she'd foolishly believed that in Harbor Springs too. This time she wanted to be certain. Her pride would not permit her to let him use her again.

"Nick," she said nervously, "I think it would be better if we got to know each other first."

"We already know each other," he reminded her. "Intimately."

"But I mean… I would like us to know each other better before we… before we start anything."

"We've already started something, Lauren," he said with a hint of impatience in his voice. "And I want to finish it. So do you."

"No, I—" She gasped as his hands cupped the thrusting roundness of her breasts and his thumbs began circling the hardened buds of her nipples.

"I can feel how badly you want me," he told her. His hands swept around her grasping her hips, holding her tightly against him and making her forcefully aware of his hardened manhood thrusting against her. "And you can feel how much I want you. Now, what else do we need to know about each other? What else matters?"

"What else matters?" Lauren hissed, pulling free of his arms. "How can you ask me that? I told you I couldn't handle a casual, unemotional affair with you. What are you trying to do to me?"

Nick's jaw tightened. "I'm trying to get you into that bedroom so that we can ease the ache that's been building inside us for weeks. I want to make love to you all day until we're both too weak to move. Or, if you prefer it more blunt than that, I want to—"

"And then what?" Lauren demanded hotly. "I want to know the rules, dammit! Today we make love, but tomorrow we're no more than casual acquaintances, is that it? Tomorrow you can make love to another woman if you want to, and I'm not supposed to care—right? And tomorrow I can let another man make love to me, and youwon't care—is that right?"

"Yes," he snapped.

Lauren had her answer—he didn't care about her any more now than he had before. He merely wanted her more. Tiredly she said, "Coffee is ready."

"I'm ready," he said crudely.

"Well, I'm not!" Lauren stormed in mounting fury. "I'm not ready to be your Sunday-afternoon playmate. If you're bored, go play your games with someone who can handle a casual romp in bed with you."

"What the hell do you want from me?" he demanded coldly.

I want you to love me, she thought. "I don't want anything from you," she said. "Just go away, leave me alone."

Nick's insolent eyes raked over her. "Before I go, I want to give you a piece of advice," he said icily. "Grow up!"

Lauren felt as if he had slapped her. Infuriated past reason, she struck back at his ego. "You're absolutely right!" she blazed. "That's what I should do. Beginning today I'm going to grow up and start practicing what youpreach! I'm going to sleep with any man who appeals to me. But not with you. You're much too old and too cynical for my taste. Now get out of here!"

Nick pulled a small velvet box from his pocket and slapped it onto the kitchen table. "I owed you a pair of earrings," he said, already striding out of the kitchen.

Lauren heard the front door slam behind him, and with trembling fingers she picked up the little box and opened it. She expected to find her mother's small golden hoops, but instead there was a pair of glowing pearls in a setting so fragile that the pearls appeared to be two large, luminous raindrops suspended in thin air. Lauren snapped the box shut. Which of his girlfriends had lost those in his bed, she wondered in angry loathing. Or were they her "present" from Italy?

She marched upstairs to get her purse and a warmer sweater to cover her shoulders. She would go shopping for Jim's birthday gift exactly as she'd planned, and she would put the last hour out of her thoughts—permanently. Nick Sinclair was not going to haunt her anymore. She would erase him from her mind. She jerked open her bottom drawer and stood looking down at the beautiful silver gray sweater she'd knitted for that… that bastard!

Lauren removed it from the drawer. Jim was almost exactly Nick's size, and he would probably like it very much. She would give it to him, she decided, ignoring the sharp stab of anguish that shot through her.