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 woen 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 fro 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.
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 woen 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 fro 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.
( Judith McNaught )
[ Double Standards ]
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