Has anyone ever told you that you have incredibly beautiful eyes?"
"Yes, and you're prevaricating!"
"And that you're extremely well-spoken, too?" he continued, ignoring her remark.
In the first place, you aren't qualified or experienced enough to work at this level.In the second place, I don't want you here."
His contempt brought Lauren's simmering fury to a rolling boil, and she couldn't stop herself from goading him.
"Perfect!" she said brightly, backing away a step. "Now would you just be kind enough to call Mr. Weatherby and tell him that? I've already given him my reasons for not wanting to work for you, but he insisted that I come up here."
Nick jabbed at the intercom. "Get me Weatherby," he snapped, then his gaze sliced back to Lauren. "Just what 'reasons' did you give him?"
"I told him," Lauren lied wrathfully, "that you are an arrogant conceited lecher, and that I'd rather be dead than work for you."
"You told Weatherby that?" he asked in a low, threatening voice.
Lauren kept her smile fixed on her face. "Yep."
"What did Weatherby say?"
Unable to endure the icy blast of his gaze, Lauren pretended to study her manicure. "Oh,he said that a lot of women you've slept with probably feel that way about you,but that I should put company loyalty above my understandable revulsion for you."
"Lauren," Nick said silkily, "you're fired.
We need to straighten out some personal matters between us. Why don't we do it over dinner tonight?" he suggested.
Lauren courteously refused with a half truth. "I'm sorry, I already have a date."
"All right,how about tomorrow night?" he asked,holding out his hand for hers.
Lauren plunked his messages into his outstretched palm. "You already have a date-Miss Moran at seven at the Recess Club."
Nick ignored that reminder. "I'm leaving for Italy on Wednesday-"
"Have a good trip," Lauren interrupted lightly.
"I'll be back on Saturday," he continued with a trace of impatience. "We'll go-"
"Sorry," Lauren said with an amused little smile that was intended to annoy him. "I'm busy Saturday, and so are you. Vicky called to find out if the party Saturday night is formal or not." And then because she was thoroughly relishing his visible frustration, she added with a dazzling smile, "She calls you Nicky.I think that's adorable-Vicky and Nicky."
"I'll break the date," Nick stated tersely.
"But I won't break mine.Now,is there anything else?
With a regal inclination of her head, she said, "You know,I was positive you wouldn't want me to work for you either, and I tried to tell Mr. Weatherby that." She started toward the rosewood doors. "But he felt that when you realized I'm bilingual, you'd change your mind."
"Bilingual?" Nick scoffed contemptuously.
She turned toward him with her hand on the doorknob. "Oh,but I am. I can tell you exactly what I think of you in perfect Italian." She saw a nerve jerk in his tightly clenched jaw, and she added in a low,scathing voice, "But it's much more satisfying to say it to you in English; you're a bastard!"
Wrenching open the door,Lauren marched across the luxurious reception area. She was punching the button to summon the elevator when Nick's hand clamped over her wrist. "Get back into my office," he growled between his teeth.
"Take your hand off me!" she whispered furiously.
"There are four people watching us," he warned. "Either you walk into my office on your own,or I'll drag you in there in front of them."
"Go ahead and try it!" she raged right back at him. "I'll sue you for assault and subpoena all four of them as witnesses!"
Unexpectedly,her threat wrung a reluctant, admiring smile from him. "You have the most incredibly beautiful eyes. When you're angry,they-"
"Save it!" Lauren hissed, jerking violently at her wrist.
"I have been," he teased suggestively.
"Don't talk to me like that-I don't want any part of you!"
"Little liar.You want every part of me.
You're rather young, Miss Danner," Mary summarized, her pale blue gaze scraping Lauren's face and figure.
"I'm aging quickly," Laruen replied. Ignoring the older woman's piercing look, she settled into the secretarial desk opposite Mary's in the large officec.
Nick,please let me go."
"I can't." His forehead creased into a dark frown of irritated bewilderment. "Whenever I see you,I can't seem to let you go."
"You fired me!"
He grinned. "I just rehired you.
When I came back from lunch and found out you'd been reassigned to Nick, I went up to be certain that you were doing all right. Mary told me that you'd just gone into Nick's office, so I opened the door and looked in to see if you needed rescuing. There you were-smiling angelically at him while you gave him messages from other women and turned down his offer of an 'affair.'"
Resting his head against the back of his chair, Jim closed his eyes and laughed. "Oh Lauren, you were magnificent! I was just about to leave when you pushed him too far and told him you'd call him when your daughter was of age, so that he could, er, initiate her,as I gather he initiated you?
Maybe I ought to do exactly what I told Nick I was going to do and pursue you myself."
Lauren smiled. "I have a feeling you're as jaded and cynical as he is." He looked so stung that she added teasingly, "Well,you are-but still very attractive,for all that."
"Thanks," he said dryly.
By the way-" Jim stopped her "-I spoke with Mary and set her straight about who was seduced by whom a few weeks ago."
Lauren sighed defeatedly. "I wish you hadn't..."
"Be damned glad I did. Mary worked for Nick's grandfather, and she's known Nick since he was a baby.She's fiercely loyal to him. She's also a staunch moralist with a particular dislike for aggressive young women who pursue Nick. She'd have made your life a living hell."
"If she's such a staunch moralist," Lauren said mutinously, "I can't imagine how she can possibly work for Nick."
Jim winked. "Nick and I are great favorites of hers.She's convinced that the two of us aren't beyond redemption.
You were wearing your hair up like that the day we left for Harbor Springs," he said, his deep voice pitched seductively low. "I like it."
"In that case," Lauren said lightly, "I'll start wearing it down."
He grinned. "So that's the way we're going to play it,is it?"
"Play what?"
"This little game we started yesterday."
"I am not playing your game," she said with quiet firmness. "I do not want the prize.
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