Let's get it over with, so I can stop wondering. How many have there been?"
Lauren stared at him."How many what?"
"Lovers," he clarified bitterly.
She could hardly believe her ears. After treating her as if her standards of morality were childish, after acting as if promiscuity was a virtue, after telling her how man preferred experienced women, he was jealous. Because now he cared.
Lauren didn't know whether to hit him, burst out laughing or hug him. Instead she decided to exact just a tiny bit of revenge for all the misery and uncertainty he had put her through. Turning,she walked over to the bar and reached for a bottle of white wine. "Why should the number make any difference?" she asked innocently. "You told me in Harbor Springs that men don't prize virginity anymore, that they don't expect or want a woman to be inexperienced.Right?"
"Right," he said grimly, glowering at the ice cubes in his glass.
"You also said," she continued, biting back a smile, "that women have the same physical desires men have,and that we have the right to satisfy them with whomever we wish.You were very emphatic about that-"
"Lauren," he warned in a low voice, "I asked you a simple question. I don't care what the answer is, I just want an answer so I can stop wondering. Tell me how many there were. Tell me if you liked the, if you didn't give a damn abou them,or if you did it to get even with me.Just tell me.I won't hold it against you."
Like hell you wouldn't! Lauren thought happily as she struggled to uncork the bottle of wine. "Of course you won't hold it against me," she said lightly. "You specifically said-"
"I know what I said," he snapped tersely. "Now,how many?"
She flicked a glance in his direction, implying that she was bewildered by his tone. "Only one."
Angry regret flared in his eyes,and his body tensed as if he had just felt a physical blow. "Did you...care about him?"
"I thought I loved him at the time," Lauren said brightly, twisting the corkscrew deeper into the cork.
"All right.Let's forget him," Nick said curtly. He finally noticed her efforts with the wine bottle and walked over to help her.
"Are you going to be able to forget him?" Lauren asked, admiring the ease with which he managed the stubborn cork.
"I will...after a while."
"What do you mean,after a while? You said there was nothing promiscuous about a woman satisfying her biological-"
"I know what I said,dammit!"
"Then why do you look so angry? You didn't lie to me,did you?"
"I didn't lie," he said, slamming the bottle onto the bar and reaching for a glass from the cabinet. "I believed it at the time."
"Why?" she goaded.
"Because it was convenient to believe it," he bit out. "I was not in love with you then."
Lauren loved him more at that moment than ever. "Would you like me to tell you about him?"
"No," he said coldly.
Her eyes twinkled, but she backed a cautious step out of his reach. "You would have approved of him. He was tall, dark, and handsome, like you. Very elegant,sophisticated and experienced. He wore down my resistence in two days,and-"
"Dammit, stop it!" Nick grated in genuine fury.
"His name is John."
Nick braced both hands on the liguor cabinet,his back to her. "I do not want to hear this!"
"John Nicholas Sinclair," Lauren clarified.
Lauren's eyes widened.An entire page had been devoted to the Children's Hospital Benefit Ball.In the center was a color picture of her-with Nick. They were dancing, and he was grinning down at her. Lauren's face was in profile, tilted up to his. The caption read, "Detroit industrialist J. Nicholas Sinclair and companion."
"It does look like me, doesn't it?" she hedged, glancing at the excited, avidly curious faces surrounding her desk. "Isn't that an amazing coincidence?" She didn't want her relationship with Nick to be public knowledge until the time was right, and she certainly didn't want her co-workers to treat her any differently.
"You mean it isn't you?" one of the women said disappointedly. None of them noticed the sudden lull, the silence sweeping over the office as people stopped talking and typewriters went perfectly still...
"Good morning, ladies," Nick's deep voice said behind Lauren. Six stunned women snapped to attention, staring in fascinated awe as Nick leaned over Lauren from behind and braced his hands on her desk. "Hi," he said, his lips so near her ear that Lauren was afraid to turn her head for fear he would kiss her in front of everyone. He glanced at the newspaper spread out on her desk. "You look beautiful, but who's that ugly guy you're dancing with?" Without waiting for an answer, he straightened, affectionately rumpled the hair on the top of her head and strolled into Jim's office, closing the door behind him.
Lauren felt like sinking throught the floor in embarrassment. Susan Brook raised her brows. "What an amazing coincidence," she teased.
Nick Sinclair will not be present today," he informed the thunderous-looking group. "He asked me to express his regrets and to explain that he was called away on an urgent matter."
In unison, six outraged faces turned to glare with impotent hostility at the vacant chair of their missing member. "Last time it was a labor relations problem. What the hell is Sinclair's problem this time?" a jowly man demanded unsympathetically.
"A merger," the chairman answered. "He said he is going to try to negotiate the most important merger of his life.
By the way," he said, so casually that Lauren was instantly on guard, "a magazine reporter called me this morning. They know who you are and they know we're getting married. When the story breaks, I'm afraid the press will start hounding you."
"How did they find out?" Lauren gasped.
He shot her a glinting smile. "I told them."
Everything was happening so quickly that Lauren felt dazed. "Did you happen to tell them when and where we're getting married?" she chided.
"I told them soon." He closed his briefcase and drew her out of the chair in which she had just sat down. "Do you want a big church wedding with a cast of hundreds-or could you settle for me in a little chapel somewhere, with just your family and a few friends? When we come back from our honeymoon we could throw a huge party,and that would satisfy our social obligations to everyone else we know."
Lauren quickly considered the burden a big church wedding would place on her father's health and nonexistent finances, and the highly desirable alternative of becoming Nick's wife right away. "You and a chapel," she said.
"Good." He grinned. "Because I would go quietly insane waiting to make you mine. I'm not a patient man."
"Really?" She straightened the knot in his tie so that she'd have an excuse to touch him. "I never noticed that."
"Brat," he said affectionately.
So I'm tellin' you now-" Tony drew himself up to his most impressive height and slapped his hat on his head "-from now on you're off my list, Nick.If you wanna eat in my restaurant, you better bring Laurie with you!
Judith McNaughtAnd then come and join us in a toast. I'm about to whisk Lauren off to Las Vegas to get married. The plane is being refueled and checked out right now."
"Does Lauren know about this?" Mary said, frowning. "She's downstairs in Jim's office, hard at work."
"I'll convince her of the wisdom of the plan."
"When the plane is airborne and she has no choice," Ericka put in with a knowing smile.
"Exactly." Nick grinned in high good spirits. He had missed her so much that he'd called her three times a day, every day, like a lovesick schoolboy.
I think," Nick snarled, "that the stupid bastard isn't smart enough to win a poker hand with a deck of marked cards.
Judith McNaughtHe remembered the sheer perfection of her creamy breasts; the incredible silkiness of her skin; the exquisite taste of her lips; the way she had kissed him and held him to her...
"Nick," the chairman said sharply, "I assume you are in favor of this proposal?"
Nick dragged his gaze from the windows. He had no idea what proposal was being discussed. "I'd like to hear more about it before I decide," he prevaricated.
Seven surprised faces turned toward him. "It's your proposal,Nick," the chairman scowled. "You wrote it."
"Then naturally I'm in favor of it," he informed them coolly.
You have to marry me. I think I've just been voted off the committee on international trade-they think I'm unstable. And Tony took me off his lift. Mary says she'll quit if I don't bring you back. Ericka found your earrings, and she gave them to Jim. He said to tell you that you can't have them unless you come back for them...
Judith McNaughtMy name is Nick Sinclair," he said, and watched the young man's curious smile change to open animosity. "I would like to see Lauren."
"I'm Lauren's brother," the young man retorted, "and she doesn't want to see you."
Her brother! Nick's momentary relief was followed by an absurd impulse to smash the younger man's face for stealing Lauren's allowances when she was a little girl. "I've come to see her," Nick stated impacably, "and if I have to walk over you to get to her, I will.
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