AUREN WALKED ACROSS THE MARBLE LOBBY the next morning, carefully balancing the box with Jim's birthday cake inside it as well as a gaily wrapped package that held the gray sweater. She felt relaxed and lighthearted, and she smiled as an elderly man wearing a brown suit stepped back in the elevator to give her more room.

The elevator stopped on the thirtieth floor, and the doors opened. Lauren noted that directly across the hall was an office door bearing a nameplate that read, Global Industries Security Division.

"Excuse me," the man in the brown suit said. "This is my floor."

Lauren shifted to one side, and he maneuvered past her. She watched him walk across the hall to the security office.

The security divisions' primary function was to protect Global Industries' manufacturing facilities, particularly those outlying facilities throughout the country where actual research was under way, or where government contracts were involved. However, here at headquarters the security division mostly processed paperwork from the field. As director in Detroit Jack Collins felt rather bored, but his failing health and advancing age had forced him to leave the field and accept this desk job.

His assistant, an over-eager, round-faced young man named Rudy, was sitting with his feet propped up on his desk when Jack walked into the office. "What's up?" the younger man asked, hastily sitting up straight.

"Probably nothing." Jack slid his briefcase onto the desk and removed a file that was labeled "SECURITY INVESTIGATION REPORT/LAUREN E. DANNER/EMPLOYEE NO. 98753." Jack didn't particularly like Rudy, but part of his job before he retired was to train him. Reluctantly he explained, "I just got the report from an investigation we ran on a secretary in the building."

"A secretary?" Rudy sounded disappointed. "I didn't think we ran security checks on secretaries."

"Normally we don't. In this case she was assigned to a top priority, confidential project, and the computer automatically reclassified her and issued a security clearance request."

"So what's the problem?"

"The problem is that when the investigators in Missouri checked with her former employer, he said that she worked for him part-time for five years while she went to college. Not full time, as Weatherby at Sinco assumed."

"So she lied on her application, right?" Rudy asked, becoming interested.

"Yes, but not about that. She didn't actually say she worked there full-time. The thing is, she lied and said she had never attended college. The Missouri investigators checked with the university, and she not only graduated, she also got a Master's degree."

"Why would she say she hadn't gone to college if she had?"

"That's one of the things that bothers me a little. I could understand if she said she'd gone to college when she actually hadn't. I'd presume she must have figured that a college degree would help her get hired."

"What are the other things that bother you?"

Jack glanced up at Rudy's rotund face, his avid eyes, and shrugged. "Nothing," he lied. "I just want to check her out for my own peace of mind. I have to go into the hospital for some tests this weekend, but on Monday I'll start working on it."

"How about letting me check her out while you're in the hospital?"

"If they decide to keep me in for more tests, I'll call you and tell you how to handle it."

"It's my birthday," Jim announced as Lauren walked into his office. "Normally a secretary brings a cake for her boss, but I don't suppose you've been here long enough to know that." He sounded a little doleful.

Lauren started to laugh. She hadn't realized how much her promise to Philip Whitworth had burdened her until now. Suddenly the weight of it was gone. "Not only did I bake you a cake, I have a present for you too," she informed him gaily. "One I made myself."

Jim unwrapped the package she handed him, and he was boyishly delighted with the sweater. "You shouldn't have—" he grinned, holding it up "—but I'm glad you did."

"It was to say happy birthday and thank you for helping me with… things," she finished lamely.

"Speaking of 'things,' Mary tells me that Nick is like a keg of dynamite ready to explode at the first spark. She says you're bearing up under the strain marvelously. You've won her wholehearted approval," he added quietly.

"I like her too," Lauren said, her eyes clouding at the mention of Nick.

Jim waited until she had left to go upstairs, then he picked up his telephone and punched four numbers. "Mary, what's the atmosphere like up there this morning?"

"Positively explosive," she chuckled.

"Is Nick going to be in the office this afternoon?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because I've decided to light a match under him and see what happens."

"Jimmy, don't!" she said in a low, sharp voice.

"See you a little before five, beautiful," he laughed, ignoring her warning.

When Lauren returned from lunch there were two dozen breathtakingly gorgeous red roses in a vase on her desk. She removed the card from its envelope and stared at it in blank amazement. On it was written "Thank you, sweetheart," followed by the initial J.

When Lauren looked up, Nick was standing in the doorway, his shoulder casually propped against the frame. But there was nothing casual about the rigid set of his jaw or the freezing look in his gray eyes. "From a secret admirer?" he asked sarcastically.

It was the first personal comment he had addressed to her in four days. "Not a secret admirer exactly," she hedged.

"Who is he?"

Lauren tensed. He seemed so angry she didn't think it would be wise to mention Jim's name. "I'm not absolutely certain."

"You aren't absolutely certain?" he bit out. "How many men with the initial J are you seeing? How many of them think you're worth more than a hundred dollars in roses as a way of saying thank you?"

"A hundred dollars?" Lauren repeated, so appalled at the expense that she completely overlooked the fact that Nick had obviously opened the envelope and read the card.

"You must be getting better at it," he mocked crudely.

Inwardly Lauren flinched, but she lifted her chin. "I have much better teachers now!"

With an icy glance that raked her from head to toe, Nick turned on his heel and strode back into his office. For the rest of the day he left her completely alone.

At five minutes to five, Jim walked into Mary's office, wearing his gray sweater and balancing four pieces of birthday cake on two plates. He put the plates down on Mary's empty desk and glanced at the doorway to Nick's office. "Where's Mary?" he asked.

"She left almost an hour ago," Lauren said. "She said to tell you that the nearest fire extinguisher is beside the elevators—whatever that means. I'll be right back. I have to take these letters in to Nick."

As she got up and started around the desk, she was looking down at the letters in her hand, and what happened next stunned her into immobility. "I miss you, darling," Jim said, quickly pulling her into his arms.

A moment later he released her so suddenly that Lauren staggered back a step. "Nick!" he said. "Look at the sweater Lauren gave me for my birthday. She made it herself. And I brought you a piece of my birthday cake—she made that too." Seemingly oblivious to Nick's thunderous countenance, he grinned and added, "I have to get back downstairs." To Lauren he said, "I'll see you later, love." And then he walked out.

In a state of shock, Lauren stared at his retreating back. She was still staring after him when Nick spun her around to face him. "You vindictive little bitch, you gave him my sweater! What else has he gotten that belongs to me?"

"What else?" Lauren repeated, her voice rising. "What are you talking about?"

His hands tightened. "Your delectable body, my sweet. That's what I'm talking about."

Lauren's amazement gave way to comprehension and then to fury. "How dare you call me names, you hypocrite!" she exploded, too incensed to be afraid. "Ever since I've known you, you've been telling me that there's nothing promiscuous about a woman satisfying her sexual desires with any man she pleases. And now—" she literally choked on her wrath "—and now, when you think I've done it, you call me a dirty name. You of all people—you, the United States contender for the bedroom Olympics!"

Nick let go of her as if she had burned him. In a low, dangerously controlled voice he said, "Get out of here, Lauren."

When she'd left, he walked over to the bar and poured himself a stiff bourbon, while fury and anguish twisted through him like a hundred snakes.

Lauren had a lover. Lauren probably had several lovers.

Regret shot through him like acid. She was no longer a starry-eyed little fool who thought people should be in love before they made love. That beautiful body of hers had been thoroughly explored by others. His mind instantly conjured up tormenting pictures of Lauren lying naked in Jim's arms.

He tossed down his drink and poured himself another to blot out the pain, the images. Carrying it over to the sofa, he sat down and propped his feet up on the table.

The liquor slowly began to work its numbing magic, and his rage subsided. In its place was nothing, only an aching emptiness.

"What possessed you?" Lauren demanded of Jim the next morning.

He grinned. "Call it an uncontrollable impulse."

"I call it insanity!" she burst out. "You can't imagine how furious he was. He called me names! I—I think he's insane."

"He is," Jim agreed with complacent satisfaction. "He's insane about you. Mary thinks so too."

Lauren rolled her eyes. "You're all insane. I have to work up there with him. How am I going to do that?"

Jim chuckled. "Very, very cautiously," he advised.

Within an hour Lauren knew exactly what Jim meant, and during the days that ensued she began to feel as if she were walking on a tightrope. Nick began to work at a demonic pace that kept everyone, from his top executives to the lowest mailboys, rushing frantically to keep up with him and trying to avoid the lash of his temper.

If he was satisfied with someone's efforts, he was coolly courteous. But if he wasn't satisfied—and he usually wasn't—he tore into the offender with an icy savagery that chilled Lauren's blood. With democratic impartiality he spread his displeasure from switchboard operators to vice-presidents, ripping into them with a caustic sarcasm that made the vice-presidents perspire and the switchboard operators cry. High-powered executives walked confidently into his office, only to slink out a few minutes later and exchange warning glances with auditors who in turn soon scurried out, clutching their ledger sheets and computer printouts protectively to their chests.

By Wednesday of the following week the atmosphere on the eightieth floor had deteriorated to a strained, crackling panic that stretched its tentacles from division to division, from floor to floor. No one laughed on the elevators or gossiped at the copy machines anymore. Only Mary Callahan seemed serenely impervious to the mounting tension. In fact, it seemed to Lauren that she grew more elated with every harrowing hour that passed. But then Mary escaped the cutting edge of Nick's tongue, while Lauren herself did not.

To Mary Nick was always courteous, and to Vicky Stewart, who called him at least three times a day, he was positively charming. No matter how busy he was, or what he was doing at the time, he always had time for Vicky. And whenever she called he would pick up the phone and lean back in his chair. From her desk Lauren could hear the lazy, seductive huskiness that vibrated in his deep voice when he spoke to the other woman, and her heart twisted every time.

That Wednesday evening Nick was scheduled to leave for Chicago, and Lauren was eager to see him go. After so many days of tension, of being treated as if the sight of her revolted him, she felt her composure crumbling, and she restrained her temper and tears by nothing but sheer force of will.

At four o'clock, two hours before his departure time, Nick called Lauren into the conference room to help Mary take notes during a meeting of the financial staff. The meeting was under way, and Lauren's attention was riveted on her shorthand notebook, her pen flying across the pages, when Nick's voice slashed into the proceedings. "Anderson!" he snapped murderously, "if you can tear your attention from Miss Danner's bust, the rest of us will be able to finish this meeting." Lauren flushed a vivid pink, but the elderly Anderson turned a purple hue that might be indicative of an impending stroke.

As soon as the last staff member had filed out of the conference room, Lauren ignored Mary's warning look and turned furiously on Nick. "I hope you're satisfied!" she hissed furiously. "You not only humiliated me, you nearly gave that poor old man a heart attack. What do you plan to do for an encore?"

"Fire the first woman who opens her mouth," Nick retorted coldly. He walked around her and strode out of the conference room.

Outraged past all reason, Lauren started after him, but Mary stopped her. "Don't argue with him," she said, gazing after Nick with a beatific smile on her face. She looked as if she had just witnessed a miracle. "In his present mood he'd fire you, and he'd regret that for the rest of his life."

When Lauren hesitated, she added kindly, "He isn't coming back from Chicago until Friday night, which gives us two days to recuperate. Tomorrow we'll have a long lunch out of the building—maybe at Tony's. We've earned it."

Without Nick's electric vitality, the executive suite seemed hauntingly empty the next morning. Lauren told herself it was blissfully peaceful and that she liked it this way, but she really didn't.

At noon she and Mary drove to Tony's, where Lauren had phoned for a reservation. A headwaiter wearing the usual formal black was stationed at the entrance to the dining rooms, but Tony saw them and hurried over. Lauren stepped back in surprise as he caught Mary in a bear hug that nearly swept her off her sensibly shod feet. "I liked it better when you worked for Nick's papa and grandpapa in the garage behind us," he was saying. "In the old days, I at least got to see you and Nick."

He turned to Lauren with a beaming smile. "So, my little Laurie, now you know Nick and Mary and me. You are becoming one of the family."

He showed them to their table, then grinned at Lauren. "Ricco will take care of you," he said. "Ricco thinks you are beautiful—he blushes when your name is mentioned."

Ricco took their order and blushed when he put a glass of wine in front of Lauren. Mary's eyes twinkled, but when he left she looked directly at Lauren and said without preamble, "Would you like to talk about Nick?"

Lauren choked on her wine. "Please, let's not ruin a lovely lunch. I already know more than enough about him."

"What, for example?" Mary persisted gently.

"I know that he's an egotistical, arrogant, bad-tempered, dictatorial tyrant!"

"And you love him." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"Yes," Lauren said angrily.

Mary was struggling obviously to hide her amusement at Lauren's tone. "I was certain that you did. I also suspect that he loves you."

Trying to suppress the anguished hope that flared in her heart, Lauren turned her face to the stained-glass window near their table. "What makes you think so?"

"To begin with, he isn't treating you the way he normally treats the women in his life."

"I know that. He's nice to the others," Lauren said bitterly.

"Exactly!" Mary agreed. "He's always treated his women with an attitude of amused indulgence… of tolerant indifference. While an affair lasts he's attentive and charming. When a woman begins to bore him he courteously but firmly dismisses her from his life. Not once to my knowledge has any woman touched an emotion in him deeper than affection or desire. I've seen them try in the most inventive ways to make him jealous, yet he has reacted with nothing stronger than amusement, or occasionally exasperation. Which brings us to you."

Lauren blushed at being correctly categorized with the other women Nick had taken to bed, but she knew it was useless to deny it.

"You," Mary continued quietly, "have evoked genuine anger in him. He is furious with you and with himself. Yet he doesn't dismiss you from his life; he doesn't even send you downstairs. Doesn't it seem odd to you that he won't let you work for Jim, and simply have you come upstairs to act as translator when Rossi's call finally comes through?"

"I think he's keeping me up there for revenge," Lauren said grimly.

"I think he is too. Perhaps he's trying to get back at you for what you're making him feel. Or possibly he's trying to find fault with you, so that he won't feel the way he does any longer. I don't know. Nick is a complex man. Jim, Ericka and I are all very close to him, and yet he keeps each one of us at a slight distance. There's a part of himself that he will not share with others, not even us… Why do you look so strange?" Mary interrupted herself to ask.

Lauren sighed. "If you're matchmaking, and I think you are, you have the wrong woman. You should be talking to Ericka, not me."

"Don't be silly—"

"Did you see the newspaper article about the party in Harbor Springs a few weeks ago?" Lauren's embarrassed gaze drifted away from Mary's face as she added, "I was in Harbor Springs with Nick, and he sent me home because Ericka was coming. He called her a 'business acquaintance.' "

"Well, she is!" Mary said, reaching across the table and giving Lauren's hand a squeeze. "They're close friends, and they're business acquaintances— and that's all they are. Nick is on the board of directors of her father's corporation, and her father is on Global's board of directors. Ericka was buying the house at the Cove from Nick. She's always loved it, and she probably went up there to close the deal."

Lauren's heart soared with sudden relief and happiness, even though her mind warned her that her situation with Nick was still hopeless. At least he hadn't taken her to his girlfriend's bed in his girlfriend's house! She waited while Ricco served them their food, then she asked, "How long have you known Nick?"

"Forever," Mary said. "I went to work as a bookkeeper for his father and grandfather when I was twenty-four. Nick was four years old. His father died six months after that."

"What was he like when he was little?" Lauren felt helplessly eager to learn everything she could about the powerful, enigmatic man who owned her heart and didn't seem to want it.

Mary smiled reminiscently. "We called him Nicky then. He was the most charming little dark-haired devil you've ever seen—proud like his father and stubborn occasionally. He was sturdy, cheerful and bright—exactly the sort of little boy that any mother would be proud to have. Except his own," she added, her face sobering.

"What about his mother?" Lauren persisted, remembering how reluctant Nick had been to talk about her in Harbor Springs. "He didn't say much about her."

"I'm amazed that he spoke of her at all. He never talks about her." Mary's glance strayed slightly as she thought back to the past. "She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, as well as being rich, spoiled, pampered and moody. She was like a Christmas-tree ornament—beautiful to look at, but brittle and empty inside. Nicky adored her, despite all her faults.

"Right after Nicky's father died, she walked out, leaving Nicky with his grandparents. For months after she left the house, he watched out the window, waiting for her to come back. He understood that his father was dead and couldn't come back to him, but he refused to believe that his mother wasn't coming back either. He never asked about her, he just waited for her. I mistakenly thought his grandparents wouldn't let her come, and frankly, I blamed them for that—unfairly, as it turned out.

"And then one day, about two months before Christmas, Nicky stopped waiting at the window and suddenly became a whirlwind of activity. By then his father had been dead for nearly a year. His mother had remarried, and she'd just had a baby boy, though none of us knew about the baby. Anyway, Nicky became a bundle of energy; he did every chore he could think of that would earn him a nickel for doing it. He saved up all his money, and about two weeks before the holidays talked me into taking him shopping for 'an extraspecial present.'

"I thought he was searching for a gift for his grandmother, because he dragged me in and out of a dozen stores looking for something that was 'just perfect for a lady.' Not until late in the afternoon did I discover that he wanted to buy a Christmas present for his mother.

"In the bargain section of a huge downtown department store, Nicky finally found his 'extra-special present'—a lovely little enameled pillbox marked down to a fraction of what it should have cost. Nicky was ecstatic, and his enthusiasm was contagious. In five minutes he'd charmed the salesclerk into gift wrapping it, and me into taking him over to his mother's house so that he could present her with the gift."

Mary glanced at Lauren with tear-brightened eyes. "He… he intended to bribe his mother into coming back to him, only I didn't realize it." She swallowed and then continued, "Nicky and I took the bus to Grosse Pointe, and he was so nervous he could hardly sit still. He kept making me check to see if his hair and clothes were tidy. 'Do I look all right, Mary?' he kept asking me again and again.

"We found the house without any trouble—a palatial estate that was beautifully decorated for the holidays. I started to ring the doorbell, but Nicky put his hand on my arm. I looked down at him, and I have never seen a child look so desperate. 'Mary,' he said, 'are you sure I look okay to see her?' "

Mary turned her face toward the restaurant window and her voice shook. "He looked so vulnerable, and he was such a handsome little boy. I honestly believed that if his mother saw him, she'd realize that he needed her, and she'd at least visit him from time to time. Anyway, a butler let us in, and Nicky and I were shown into a beautiful drawing room with an enormous Christmas tree that looked as if it had been decorated for the window of a department store. But Nicky didn't notice that. All he saw was the shiny red bicycle with the big bow on it that was beside the tree, and his face positively lit up. 'See,' he said to me, 'I knew she didn't forget me. She's just been waiting until I came to see her.' He reached out to touch the bicycle, and the maid who was dusting the room almost snapped his head off. The bicycle, she told him, was for the baby. Nicky pulled his hand away from it as if he'd been burned.

"When his mother finally came downstairs, her first words to her own son were, 'What do you want, Nicholas?' Nicky gave her the present and explained that he'd chosen it for her himself. When she started to put it under the tree, he insisted that she open it right then…"

Mary had to wipe her eyes as she finished, "His mother opened the package, glanced at the dainty little pillbox and said, 'I don't take pills, Nicholas— you know that.' She handed it to the maid who was dusting the room, and said, 'Mrs. Edwards takes pills, however. I'm sure she'll put it to good use.' Nicky watched his gift go into the maid's pocket, and then he said very politely, 'Merry Christmas, Mrs. Edwards.' He looked at his mother and said, 'Mary and I have to go now.'

"He didn't say anything else until we got to our bus stop. I was fighting back tears the whole way, but Nicky's face was… expressionless. At the bus stop, he turned to me and pulled his hand out of mine. In a solemn little voice he said, 'I don't need her anymore, Mary. I'm all grown up now. I don't need anybody anymore.'" Mary's voice quavered. "It was the last time he ever let me hold his hand."

After a moment of painful silence, Mary went on, "From that day forward, to the best of my knowledge, Nick has never bought a gift for a woman— other than his grandmother and me. According to what Ericka has heard from Nick's girlfriends, he is extravagantly generous with his money, but he never gives them gifts, no matter what the occasion is. He gives them money instead and tells them to pick out something they'll like; he doesn't care whether it's jewelry or furs or anything else. But he doesn't pick it out himself."

Lauren remembered the beautiful earrings he'd given her, and the way she'd contemptuously informed him that she didn't want them. Her heart turned over. "Why would his mother want to forget about him, to pretend he didn't exist?"

"I can only guess. She was from one of the most prominent families in Grosse Pointe. She was an acclaimed beauty, the queen of the debutante ball. To people like that, bloodlines mean everything. They all have money, so their social status is based on the prestige of their family connections. When she married Nick's father, she became a social outcast from her own class. These days, that's changed—money is its own prestige. Nick moves in her social circles now and completely eclipses her and her husband. Of course, being handsome in addition to being outrageously rich doesn't hurt him a bit.

"At any rate, in the early days Nick must have been a living reminder of her fall from social grace. She didn't want him around, and neither did his stepfather. You would have to know the woman in order to comprehend such coldhearted, utter selfishness. The only person who matters to her, other than herself, is Nick's half brother—she positively dotes on him."

"It must be painful for Nick to see her."

"I don't think it is. The day she gave his present to the maid, his love for her died. He killed it himself, carefully and completely. He was only five years old, but he had the strength and determination that enabled him to do it, even then."

Lauren had a simultaneous urge to strangle Nick's mother and to find Nick and lavish on him her own love, whether he wanted it or not.

Just then Tony materialized at the table and handed Mary a small piece of paper with a name on it. "You've had a phone call from this man. He says he needs some papers that are locked in your office."

Mary glanced at the note. "I guess I'll have to go back. Lauren, you stay and finish your lunch."

"Why did you not eat your pasta?" Tony frowned accusingly at both women. "Does it not taste good?"

"It isn't that, Tony," Mary said, putting her napkin on the table and reaching for her purse. "I was telling Lauren about Carol Whitworth, and it ruined our appetites."

The name roared in Lauren's ears and pounded in her brain. A silent scream of denial rose up in her throat, cutting off her breath when she tried to speak.

"Laurie?" Tony worriedly squeezed her shoulder as she continued to stare in paralyzed horror at Mary's retreating back.

"Who?" she whispered frantically. "Who did Mary say?"

"Carol Whitworth. Nick's mama."

Lauren raised her stricken blue eyes to his. "Oh God," she breathed hoarsely. "Oh God, no!"

Lauren took a cab back to the building. The shock had faded slightly, leaving in its place a cold numbness. She walked into the marble lobby and went over to the reception desk, where she asked to use the phone. "Mary?" she said when the other woman answered. "I'm not feeling well—I'm going home."

Wrapped in her robe that night, she sat staring into the empty fireplace in her apartment. She pulled the afghan she had knitted the previous year closer around her shoulders, trying to ward off the chill, but it was inside her. It shuddered through her every time she thought of her last visit to the Whitworths: Carol Whitworth serenely presiding over an intimate little gathering where three people were plotting against her own son. Her son. Her beautiful, magnificent son. Oh God, how could she do that to him!

Lauren shivered with impotent fury and clutched at the afghan with fingers that longed to scratch and claw at Carol Whitworth's regal face—that vain, unlined, haughty, lovely face.

If there was any spying being done, Lauren felt sure it was Philip, not Nick, who was doing it. But if it was Nick, if he really was paying someone to leak information on the Whitworth Enterprises bids, she wouldn't blame him. If it had been within her power at that moment, she would have brought Whitworth Enterprises crashing down around Philip's ears.

Nick might love her; Mary thought he did. But Lauren would never know. The moment he discovered she was related to the Whitworths, he would kill whatever feelings he had for her, exactly as he had killed his feelings for his mother. He would want to know why she had applied for a job at Sinco, and he would never believe it was coincidence, even if she lied to him.

Lauren cast a bitter, contemptuous glance around the silken love nest where she was ensconced. She'd been living like Philip Whitworth's pampered mistress. But no longer. She was going home. If she had to, she would get two jobs and teach piano too, to make up for the difference in salary. But she couldn't stay in Detroit. She'd go insane watching for a glimpse of Nick everywhere she went, wondering if he ever thought of her.

"Feeling better?" Jim asked the next morning. Dryly, he added, "Mary said she was talking about Carol Whitworth, and it made you ill."

Lauren's face was pale but composed as she closed his office door and handed him the sheet of paper she'd just rolled out of her typewriter.

He unfolded it and scanned the four simple lines. "You're resigning for personal reasons—what the hell does that mean? What personal reasons?"

"Philip Whitworth is a distant relative of mine. I didn't know until yesterday that Carol Whitworth is Nick's mother."

Shock jerked him erect in his chair. He stared at her in angry confusion, then he said, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you asked why I was resigning."

He watched her silently, the rigidity slowly fading from his features. "So you're related to his mother's second husband," he said finally. "So what?"

Lauren hadn't expected an argument. Exhausted, she sank into a chair. "Jim, when is it going to occur to you that as Philip Whitworth's relative, I could be spying on you for him?"

Jim's amber eyes turned sharp and piercing. "Are you, Lauren?"

"No."

"Has Whitworth asked you to?"

"Yes."

"And you agreed?" he snapped.

Lauren didn't know it was possible to feel this miserable. "I thought about it, but on my way to be interviewed here, I decided I couldn't do it. I never expected to be hired, and I wouldn't have been…" Briefly, she told him how she had met Nick that evening. "And the next day you interviewed me and offered me a job."

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "I wanted to be near Nick. I knew that he worked in this building, so I accepted your offer. But I have never relayed one bit of information to Philip."

"I can't believe this," Jim said shortly, rubbing his fingers over his forehead as if he was getting a splitting headache. The moments ticked away in silence. Lauren was too desolate to notice or to care. She simply sat there, waiting for him to pronounce sentence on her. "It doesn't matter," he said finally. "You aren't quitting. I won't let you."

Lauren gaped at him. "What are you talking about? Don't you care that I could be telling Philip everything I know?"

"You aren't."

"How can you be sure?" she challenged.

"Common sense. If you were going to spy on us, you wouldn't walk in here to resign and tell me you're related to Whitworth. Besides, you're in love with Nick, and I think he's in love with you."

"I don't think he is," Lauren said with quiet dignity. "And even if he is, the minute he discovers who I am related to, he won't want anything to do with me. He'll insist on knowing why I happened to apply for a job at Sinco, and he'll never believe it was coincidence, even if I was willing to lie to him, which I'm not…"

"Lauren, a woman can confess almost anything to a man if she chooses the right time to do it. Wait until Nick comes back, and then—"

When Lauren refused with a firm shake of her head, he threatened, "If you resign without notice like this, I won't give you a good reference."

"I don't expect one."

Jim watched her leave his office. For several minutes he was very still, his brows drawn together in a thoughtful frown. Then he slowly reached out and picked up the telephone.

"Mr. Sinclair." The secretary bent down beside Nick, her voice lowered to avoid disturbing the seven other major U.S. industrialists seated around the conference table discussing an international trade agreement. "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but there's a Mr. James Williams on the phone for you…"

Nick nodded, already sliding his chair back, his face betraying none of the alarm he felt over this emergency interruption. He couldn't imagine what disaster could have arisen that would warrant Mary's having Jim call him here. The secretary showed him to a private room, and Nick snatched up the telephone. "Jim, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just needed some guidance."

"Guidance?" Nick repeated in angry disbelief. "I'm in the middle of an international trade meeting and—"

"I know, so I'll be quick. The new sales manager I hired can come to work for us three weeks from now, on November fifteenth."

Nick swore in irritation. "So what?" he snapped.

"Well, the reason I'm calling is because I wanted to know if it would be all right if he reports for work in November, or if you'd rather have him wait and start in January as we originally discussed. I—"

"I can't believe this!" Nick interrupted furiously. "I don't give a damn when he starts, and you know it. November fifteenth is fine. What else?"

"That's about all," Jim replied imperturbably. "How's Chicago?"

"Windy!" Nick snarled. "So help me, if you've gotten me out of this meeting just to ask me that—"

"Okay, I'm sorry. I'll let you go. Oh, by the way, Lauren resigned this morning."

The announcement hit Nick like a slap in the face. "I'll talk to her on Monday when I get back."

"You won't be able to—her resignation's effective immediately. I think she plans to leave for Missouri tomorrow."

"You must be losing your touch," Nick gritted sarcastically. "Usually they fall in love with you, and you have to transfer them to another division to get them out of your hair. Lauren saved you the trouble."

"She's not in love with me."

"That's your problem, not mine."

"The hell it is! You wanted to play bedtime games with her, and when she wouldn't, you worked her until she was pale and exhausted. She's in love with you, and you've made her take messages from other women, made her—"

"Lauren doesn't give a damn about me!" Nick snapped furiously, "and I haven't got time to discuss her with you."

He slammed the phone into the cradle and stalked back into the conference room. Seven men glanced up at him with a mixture of polite concern and accusation. By mutual agreement, none of them was taking calls except in extreme emergency. Nick sat down in his chair and curtly said, "I apologize for the interruption. My secretary overestimated the importance of a problem and had the call forwarded here."

Nick tried to concentrate on the business at hand and nothing else, but visions of Lauren kept floating through his mind. In the middle of a heated discussion over marketing rights, he saw Lauren laughing, her face turned up to the sun, her hair blowing around her shoulders as they sailed on Lake Michigan.

He remembered looking up into her enchanting face.

"What happens to me if this slipper fits?"

"I turn you into a handsome frog. "

Instead she'd turned him into a raving maniac! Jealousy had been driving him insane for two weeks. Every time her phone rang, he wondered which lover was calling her. Every time a man looked at her in the office, he had a wild urge to smash the man's teeth down his throat.

Tomorrow she'd be gone. On Monday he wouldn't see her. It was best for both of them. It was best for the whole goddamned corporation; his own executives were sidling out of the way when they saw him coming!

The meeting adjourned at seven o'clock, and when dinner was over, Nick excused himself to go up to his suite. As he walked down the main corridor of the fashionable hotel toward the elevators, he passed the window of an exclusive jewelry shop. A magnificent ruby pendant surrounded by glittering diamonds caught his eye and he paused. He looked at the matching earrings. Perhaps if he bought Lauren the pendant… Suddenly he felt like a small boy again, standing beside Mary, buying a little enameled pillbox.

He turned away and stalked down the corridor. Bribery, he reminded himself savagely, was the lowest form of begging. He would not beg Lauren to change her mind. He would not beg anyone for anything.

He spent an hour and a half on the telephone in his suite, returning calls and dealing with business matters that had arisen in his absence. When he hung up, it was nearly eleven. He walked over to the windows and gazed out at the twinkling Chicago skyline.

Lauren was leaving. Jim said she was pale and exhausted. What if she was ill? What if she was pregnant? Hell, what if she was? He couldn't even be certain if it was his child or someone else's.

Once he could have been certain. Once he had been the only man she'd ever known. Now she could probably teach him things, he thought bitterly.

He thought of the Sunday afternoon he'd gone to her apartment to give her the earrings. When he'd tried to get her into bed, she'd exploded at him. Most women would have been satisfied with what he was offering, but not Lauren. She had wanted him to care, to be involved emotionally with her as well as sexually. She had wanted some sort of commitment from him.

Nick stretched out on the bed. It was just as well that she was leaving, he decided furiously. She should go back home and find some small-town jerk who'd grovel at her feet, tell her he loved her and make any commitment she wanted.

The meeting reconvened at precisely ten o'clock the following morning. Because all the men present were industrial giants whose time was extremely valuable, everyone was punctual. The chairman of the committee looked at the six men seated around the conference table and said, "Nick Sinclair will not be here today. He asked me to explain that he was called back to Detroit this morning on an urgent matter."

"We all have urgent matters pending," one of the members growled. "What the hell is Nick's problem that he can't be here?"

"He said it's a labor relations problem."

"That's no excuse!" another member exploded. "We all have labor relations problems."

"I reminded Nick of that," the chairman replied.

"What did he say?"

"He said that nobody has a labor relations problem like his."

Lauren carried another armload of her belongings out to her car, then she paused to look up at the overcast October sky. It was either going to rain or snow, she decided dismally.

She walked back into the apartment, leaving the door slightly ajar so that she could nudge it open with her foot when she carried out the next load of her things. Her feet were damp from splashing through the little puddles on the sidewalk, and she mechanically bent down and took off her canvas sneakers. She was planning to wear them when she drove home, so she'd have to dry them quickly. She carried them to the kitchen, put them in the oven and turned it on to Warm, leaving the oven door open.

Upstairs she put on another pair of shoes and closed the last suitcase. All she had to do now was write a note to Philip Whitworth, then she could leave. Tears burned her eyes, and she brushed them away with impatient fingertips. Picking up her suitcase, she carried it downstairs.

Halfway across the living room she heard footsteps coming from the kitchen behind her. She swung around in surprise, then froze as Nick stalked out of the kitchen. She saw the reckless glitter in his eyes as he came toward her, and her mind screamed a warning; he knew about Philip Whitworth.

Panicked, she dropped the suitcase and started edging away. In her haste she caught the backs of her knees on the arm of the sofa, lost her balance and landed flat on her back on the cushions.

His eyes gleaming with amusement, Nick looked at the delectable beauty sprawled invitingly across the sofa. "I'm flattered, honey, but I'd like something to eat first. What are you serving—besides baked shoes?"

Warily Lauren scrambled to her feet. Despite his humorous tone, there was an iron grimness in the set of his jaw, and every powerful muscle of his body was tensed. She took a cautious step out of his reach.

"Stand still," he ordered softly.

Lauren froze again. "Why… why aren't you at the international trade meeting?"

"As a matter of fact," he drawled, "I've asked myself that same question several times this morning. I asked myself that question when I walked out on seven men who require my vote on vitally important issues. I asked myself that question on the way here, when the woman in the seat beside me on the plane threw up in a bag."

Lauren choked back a nervous giggle. He was tense, he was angry, but he wasn't furious. Therefore he didn't know about Philip.

"I asked myself that question," he continued, advancing a step, "when I practically jerked an old man out of the back seat of a taxi and took it myself, because I was afraid I'd get here too late."

Lauren tried desperately to decipher his mood and couldn't. "Now that you're here," she said shakily, "what do you want?"

"I want you."

"I told you—"

"I know what you told me," Nick interrupted impatiently. "You told me I'm too old and too cynical for you. Right?"

She nodded.

"Lauren, I am only two months older than I was in Harbor Springs. Even though I feel a hell of a lot older than I did then. But the fact is you didn't think I was too old for you then, and you don't really think so today. Now, I'll unload your car and you can start unpacking your things."

"I'm going home, Nick," Lauren said with quiet determination.

"No, you're not," he said implacably, "You belong to me, and if you force me to, I'll carry you up to bed and make you admit it there."

Lauren knew he could do exactly that. She backed away another step. "All you would prove is that you can physically overpower me. Nothing I admitted there would count. What does matter is that I don't want to belong to you in any way!"

Nick smiled somberly. "I want to belong to you… in every way."

Lauren's heart flung itself against her ribs. What did he mean, belong? She knew instinctively he wasn't offering marriage, but at least he was offering himself. What would happen if she told him now about Philip Whitworth?

Nick spoke, his coaxing voice tinged with desperation. "Consider what an amoral, unprincipled cynic I am—think of all the improvements you could make to my character."

The simultaneous urge to laugh and weep snapped Lauren's control. Her hair tumbled forward in a heavy curtain as she bent her head and fought back tears. She was going to do it; she was going to let herself become that sordid cliché—the secretary in love with her boss, having a secret affair with him. She was going to gamble her pride and self-respect on the chance that she could make him love her. She was going to risk having him hate her when she eventually told him about Philip.

"Lauren," Nick said hoarsely, "I love you."

Her head shot up. Unable to believe her ears, she stared at him through tear-glazed eyes.

Nick saw her tears and his heart sank with bitter defeat. "Don't you dare cry," he warned tersely, "I have never said that to a woman before, and I…" His words trailed off as Lauren unexpectedly flung herself into his arms, her shoulders shaking. Uncertainly, he tipped her chin up and gazed at her face. Her thick lashes were spiky with tears, and her blue eyes were drenched with them. She tried to speak and Nick tensed, braced for the rejection he had dreaded all the way from Chicago.

"I think you are so beautiful," she whispered brokenly. "I think you are the most beautiful—"

A low groan tore from Nick's chest, and he smothered her mouth with his. Devouring her lips with the insatiable hunger that had been torturing him for weeks, he crushed her melting, pliant body to the rigid, starved contours of his own. He kissed her fiercely, tempestuously, tenderly, and still he could not get enough of her. At last he dragged his mouth from hers, fighting down the rampaging demands of his body, and held her in his arms, pressed against his pounding heart.

When he didn't move for several minutes, Lauren leaned back in his arms and raised her face to his. He saw the question in her eyes and the willing acceptance of his decision. She would lie beside him here, or anywhere else he chose.

"No," he murmured tenderly. "Not like this. I'm not going to walk in here and rush you into bed. I did something like that in Harbor Springs."

The impudent beauty in his arms smiled one of her bewitching smiles. "Are you really hungry? I could fix you some sautéed stockings to go with the shoes. Or would you prefer something more conventional, like an omelette?"

Nick chuckled and brushed a kiss over her smooth forehead. "I'll have my housekeeper fix something for me while I shower. Then I'm going to get some sleep. I didn't get any last night," he added meaningfully.

Lauren gave him a look of sham sympathy, which earned her another kiss.

"I suggest you sleep too, because when we come back from the party tonight, we're going to bed, and I intend to keep you awake until morning."

In fifteen minutes he had unloaded her car. "I'll pick you up at nine," he said when he was ready to leave. "It's black tie; do you have something formal to wear?"

Lauren hated to wear the clothes that had belonged to Philip Whitworth's mistress, but for tonight she didn't have any choice. "Where are we going?"

"To the Children's Hospital Benefit Ball at the Westin Hotel. I'm one of the sponsors, so I have tickets every year."

"That doesn't sound very discreet," Lauren said uneasily. "Someone may see us together there."

"Everyone will see us together. It's one of the social highlights of the year, which is why I want to take you. What's wrong with that?"

If the benefit ball was an elaborate society function, none of the other employees at Global were likely to be there, which explained to Lauren why Nick wasn't worried about causing office gossip. "Nothing's wrong with it. I'd love to go," she said, raising on tiptoe to kiss him goodbye. "I'd go anywhere with you."