Paradise (51 page)

"I know, and I had you paged after I got back to the office, but you didn't answer."

"I left the building for a few minutes. So, what happened?"

Meredith had told the whole story twice already, and she was too weary to tell it again. "It wasn't a successful meeting. Could I tell you the details tomorrow instead?"

"I understand. How about dinner?"

"Okay. But it's my turn to cook."

"Oh, no!" Lisa teased. "I still have indigestion from the last time you did that. Why don't I pick up some Chinese food on my way over?"

"All right, but I'll pay for it."

"Fair enough. Should I bring anything else?"

"If you want to hear about my meeting with Matt," Meredith replied with bleak humor, "you'd better bring a full box of Kleenex."

"That bad?"

"Yep."

"In that case, maybe I ought to bring a gun instead," she joked, "and after we eat we could go out hunting for him."

"Don't tempt me!" Meredith replied, but she smiled a little at Lisa's quip.

At
1:30
the following afternoon, Meredith left the advertising department and headed toward her own office. All day long, wherever she went, people were turning to stare at her, and she had no doubt about why they were doing it. She slapped the button for the elevator, thinking of Sally Mansfield's infuriating blurb in this morning's
Tribune:

Friends of Meredith Bancroft who were stunned to see her snub Chicago's most eligible bachelor, Matthew Farrell, at the opera benefit two weeks ago, have another shock in store for them: The couple was lunching together at one of Landry's cozy back tables! Our newest bachelor is certainly a busy man
—
that same night he escorted gorgeous Alicia Avery to the opening of
Taming of the Shrew
at the Little Theater.

In her office, Meredith opened her desk drawer with an angry jerk, marveling anew at the petty vindictiveness of the columnist who was a close friend of Parker's ex-wife, That mention of her lunch with Matt was nothing but a ploy to make Parker look like a fool in imminent danger
o
f being jilted.

"Meredith," Phyllis said, her voice tense. "Mr. Bancroft's secretary just called. She said he wants to see you in his office immediately."

Unscheduled, abrupt summonses from Meredith's father were extremely rare; he preferred to oversee the activities of his executives with regularly scheduled weekly meetings and to handle anything else by telephone. In the moment of silence that Meredith and her secretary looked at each other, they both assumed the reason might be related to the naming of an interim president.

That conclusion was borne out when Meredith reached the reception area outside her father's office and saw that all the other executive vice presidents had also been summoned, including Allen Stanley, who'd been on vacation for the past week.

"Miss Bancroft," her father's secretary said, motioning her forward, "Mr. Bancroft would like you to go right in." Meredith's heart soared as she walked toward his door—since she was the first to be advised of the board's choice, it was only logical that she was
that choice. Like her father, and his father, and all the other
Bancrofts
before them, Meredith Bancroft was going to be granted her birthright. More correctly, she was going to be allowed to prove her worthiness for the next six months.

Foolishly close to sentimental tears, Meredith knocked on the door and walked into his office. No one but a Bancroft had ever occupied this office or sat behind that desk; how could she have imagined that such a grand tradition would be ignored by her father?

Her father was standing at the windows, his hands clasped behind him. "Good morning," she said brightly to his back.

"Good morning, Meredith," he said, turning around, his voice and expression unusually friendly. He sat down behind his desk, watching her as she came forward. Although there was a sofa and coffee table at the far end of his office, he never sat there or offered anyone else a seat there. Instead, it was his habit to sit in the high-backed swivel chair behind his desk and to speak to people formally, across the expansive barrier of a large, antique baronial desk. Meredith wasn't certain whether he did that unconsciously, or whether it was with the deliberate intention of intimidating people. Either way, it was subtly unnerving to everyone, including Meredith at times, to have to traipse across the wide expanse of carpet to reach his desk, while he sat there, watching and waiting.

Now, Meredith noted, he waited with an unusual degree of patience, although he did not stand up. While good breeding and custom caused him to stand up whenever a woman arrived anyplace else, if that woman worked for Bancroft's at the management level or above, he remained seated, even when every other man arose. It was Meredith knew, his way of silently criticizing their presence in the executive ranks. And yet, when she was with him away from the store, he observed all the formalities. In the years she'd worked at the store, Meredith had learned to accept his two distinct and very different personas, even though there were still times when it disconcerted her to kiss him good night and have him walk past her the next morning at work with barely a curt nod.

"I like that dress you're wearing," he said, looking at her beige cashmere dress.

"Thank you," Meredith replied with
surprised sincerity.

"I hate seeing you in those business suits you wear most of the time. Women should wear dresses." Without giving her a chance to reply, he inclined his head toward one of the chairs in front of his desk, and Meredith sat down, desperately trying to hide her nervousness.

"I've sent for the entire executive staff because I have an announcement to make, but I wanted to speak with you first. The board of directors has decided upon an interim president." He paused, and Meredith leaned forward in her chair, tense with expectation. "They've chosen Allen Stanley."

"What?" she said in a gasp, reeling from a combination of shock, anger, and disbelief.

"I said, they've chosen Allen Stanley. I'm not going to lie to you—they did it on my recommendation."

"Allen Stanley," Meredith interrupted, coming to her feet and speaking in a stunned, furious voice, "has been on the verge of a nervous breakdown ever since his wife died! furthermore, he doesn't have the expertise or experience to run a retail operation—"

"He's been Bancroft's controller for twenty years," her father snapped, but Meredith wasn't intimidated and she wasn't finished. Outraged, not only because she'd been cheated of the opportunity she should have been given, but at the sheer stupidity of the choice of successor, she braced her hands on his desk. "Allen Stanley is a glorified accountant! You couldn't have made a
worse
choice, and you know it! Any one of the others,
any
of them, would have been a better choice...." It hit her then, a realization that nearly sent her to her knees. "That's why you recommended
Stanley, isn't it? Because he can't possibly run Bancroft's as well or better than you have. You're deliberately jeopardizing this company because your
ego—"

"I won't tolerate that sort of talk from you!"

"Don't you dare try to exert parental authority on me now!" Meredith warned furiously. "You've told me a thousand times that at this store our relationship doesn't exist. I am not a child, and I am not speaking as your daughter. I am a vice president and major shareholder of this company."

"If any of the other vice presidents dared to speak to me as you are now, I'd fire them on the spot—"

"Then fire me!" she flung back. "No, I won't give you that much satisfaction! I resign. Effective immediately. You'll have a letter on your desk in fifteen minutes."

Before she could take the first step to leave, he sank into his chair. "Sit down!" he ordered her. "Since you're determined to have it out at this inopportune moment, let's lay
all
our cards on the table."

"That will be a welcome change!" Meredith retorted, sitting down.

"Now," he said with biting sarcasm, "the truth is that you are
not angry about my choosing Allen Stanley, you're angry because I didn't choose
you."

"I'm angry about
both
those things."

"Either way, I had sound reasons for not choosing you, Meredith. For one thing, you are not old enough or experienced enough to take over the reins of this company."

Really?"
Meredith shot back. "How did you arrive at that conclusion? You were less than a year older than I am now when Grandfather put you in charge."

"That was different."

"It certainly was," she agreed, her voice shaking with anger. "Your record at this store when you were put in charge was a great deal less impressive than mine is! In fact, the only thing you really accomplished was to come to work on time!" She saw him put his hand to his chest, as if he were having a pain, and that only made her more furious. "Don't you dare fake a heart attack, because it won't stop me from saying what I should have said years ago." His hand fell from his jacket and he glared at her white-faced as she pronounced, "You are a
bigot.
And the real reason you won't give me a chance is because I am a female."

"You're not far from wrong," he gritted out with a suppressed rage that nearly matched hers. "There are five
men
out there in that reception room who have invested decades of their lives in this store. Not a few years, but
decades!
"

"Really?" she retorted sarcastically. "How many of them have invested four million dollars of their own money in it? Furthermore, you're not only bluffing, you're lying. Two of those men came to work here the same year I did, and for higher salaries, I might add."

His hands closed into fists on his desk. "This discussion is pointless."

"Yes, it is," she agreed bitterly, standing up. "My resignation still stands."

"Just where
do you
think you'll go from here?" he said in a voice that implied she'd never find a comparable job.

"To any major retailer in the country!" Meredith countered, too furious to consider the anguish such an act of disloyalty would cause her. Bancroft's was her history, her life. "Marshall Field's would hire me in five minutes, so would the May Company or
Neimans
—"

"Now
you're
bluffing!" he snapped.

"Just watch me!" she warned, but she was already sickened by the thought of working for Bancroft's competitors and exhausted by the holocaust of emotions inside her. Almost wearily, she said, "Just once, could you possibly be completely honest with me—"

When he waited in stony silence for her question, she said, "You never intended to turn the store over to me, did you? Not now, and not in the future, no matter how long or how hard I worked here?"

"No."

In her heart she'd always known that, but even so, she reeled from the shock of having him say it. "Because I'm a woman," she stated.

"That's one reason. Those men out there won't work for a woman."

"That's garbage," Meredith replied numbly. "And it's illegal. It's also untrue, but you already know that. Dozens of men report to me, directly or indirectly, in the departments under my control. It's your own egotistical bigotry that makes you believe I shouldn't run this organization."

"Maybe it's partly that," he shot back. "And maybe it's also because I refuse to aid and abet you in your blind determination to build your entire life around this company! In fact, I will do anything in my power to prevent you from building your life around any career with
any
store! Those are my motives for keeping you from inheriting this office, Meredith. And whether you like my motives or not, at least I
know
what they are. You, on the other hand, don't even know why you're determined to turn yourself into Bancroft's next president."

"What!" she uttered in blank, angry confusion. "Suppose you tell me why you think I am."

"Very well, I will. Eleven years ago you married a bastard who was after your money and who'd gotten you pregnant; you lost his baby and you discovered you could never have more children. And suddenly," he finished with bitter triumph, "you developed an abiding love for Bancroft and Company and a driving ambition to mother it!"

Meredith stared at him while all the flaws in his argument raged through her brain and a lump of emotion swelled painfully in her throat. Fighting to keep her voice steady, she said, "I have loved this place since I was a little girl; I loved it before I met Matthew Farrell and I loved it after he was out of my life. In fact, I can tell you exactly when I decided to work here and be president someday. I was six years old, and you brought me here to wait for you while you met with the board. And you told me," she continued raggedly, "that I could sit there, in your chair, while I waited for you. And I did. I sat there, touching your fountain pens and I buzzed your secretary on the intercom, and she came in and let me dictate a letter. It was a letter to
you,"
she said—and from the way his face paled, she knew he suddenly remembered that letter. "The letter said"—she paused to draw another shattered breath, adamantly refusing to let him see her cry—'Dear Father, I am going to study and work very hard, so that someday you will be so proud of me that you'll let me work here like you and Grandfather. And if I do, will you let me sit in your chair again?'