Paradise (99 page)

Matt knew he was responsible for that, but he said nothing as she continued. "
Charlotte was panicky. She said she was going to do something to make the price drop way down, and then she was going to make her move. The next thing I knew I was hearing about bombs being found in the stores and how it was destroying B and C's Christmas business and causing the stock to drop."

She'd given Matt the missing pieces of the puzzle—the motive for the carefully placed bombs that had been meant to damage business but not the stores themselves, the motive for taking over a corporation that was a bad bet for short-term profit. Charlotte Bancroft had the motives and she had the vast sums of money needed to execute a takeover of a corporation in debt and then to wait until B & C was again profitable.

"You'll have to tell the police," he said, turning toward the phone beside his bed.

She nodded. "I know. Is that who you're calling now?"

"No. I'm calling a man named Olsen who has contacts with the local police. He'll go with you tomorrow and make certain you aren't treated like a crackpot, or, worse, made into their newest suspect."

Caroline stood perfectly still, her face mirroring astonishment as he called a long distance number and ordered the man named Olsen to Chicago on the first plane in the morning—all of it to ease her way through a difficult situation. She revised her initial opinion that he was the most unapproachable man she'd ever encountered and decided he simply didn't want anything more to do with anyone whose name was Bancroft—including Meredith, judging from the cold way he'd said he was about to become her ex-husband. When he hung up he wrote two phone numbers on a pad beside the phone and tore the sheet off. "Here's Olsen's home phone number. Call him anytime tonight and tell him where to meet you. The second phone number is mine, in case you have a problem." He turned back to her, and the hostility he'd shown her earlier was gone. He was still aloof and obviously reluctant to have any other involvement with her, but he unbent enough to say, "Meredith told me you used to be in films. The road cast from
Phantom of the Opera
is here tonight as well as a hundred and fifty other people, some of whom you probably know. If you'd like to stay for the party, my father will introduce you around."

The party was already shifting into full swing as they walked toward the living room. "I'd rather not be introduced," she said quickly, "and I have no desire to renew my acquaintance with any of the old-guard
Chicago socialites out there." She hesitated then, watching black-coated waiters passing trays of drinks among gorgeously dressed women and men in tuxedos. Someone was playing a piano and the lilting music blended with the sound of cultured voices and bursts of laughter. "I—I would like to stay for just a little while though," she said with a sudden jaunty smile that made her look thirty-five instead of fifty-five. "I used to live for parties like this. It might be fun to stay and watch and wonder again why I ever thought they were so wonderful."

"Let me know if you figure that out," he said, his own indifference obviously surpassing even her own.

"Why are you giving the party if you don't enjoy them?" she asked with an uncertain smile, wondering anew at this strange, enigmatic man her daughter had married.

"The proceeds of the performance tomorrow night are going to charity," he said with a shrug.

Matt led her to the edge of the crowd, where his sister was deep in conversation with Stuart Whitmore, and he introduced her simply as Caroline Edwards. Whitmore and his sister had already hit it off, he noted, and he wished he hadn't introduced them. Having Whitmore seeing his sister would be an unwanted reminder of Meredith—especially of that ill-fated afternoon in his conference room when she'd put her hand in his and promised to trust him. She hadn't been capable of doing it that day, and she hadn't been capable of it later when it was more important. Because when it came down to it, he was still a crude nobody to her. She would never have suspected Parker, or anyone else of her own class, of being a murderer or an arsonist. She'd been willing to sleep with Matt—but that was
all.
She'd have kept right on stalling about living with him forever. She'd liked going to bed with him, but when it came down to actually committing herself to him, to living with him, to being married to him,
that
she could not make herself do.

He stepped forward to begin playing host when Caroline put her hand on his sleeve and stopped him. "I won't be staying long," she said. "I suppose this is good-bye."

Matt nodded, hesitated, and then made himself bring up Meredith for her mother's sake. "Stuart Whitmore is an old friend of your daughter's, and also her lawyer," he told Caroline. "If you can find a way to lead the conversation around to her, he's bound to talk about her. Assuming you're interested."

"Thank you," she said with a catch in her voice. "I'm very interested."

By the time Meredith walked into the lobby of Matt's building, she wasn't certain if it was clever or crazy to try to confront him in the middle of his party—particularly when he was so angry with her that he was insisting on an immediate divorce. She wasn't completely sure he wouldn't have her thrown out with everyone watching, and she wasn't completely sure that she didn't deserve it.

In desperate hopes of weakening his resistance, she was wearing her most provocative cocktail dress—a backless black chiffon confection with narrow straps and a deep V at the bodice that was encrusted with tiny black beads sewn tightly into intricate leaves and flowers. They covered her breasts, then dipped below her arms to frame the low back of the dress. Obsessed with the need to look her absolute best, she'd spent almost an hour trying different hairstyles. In the end she'd brushed her hair out and let it fall against her shoulders. The sophistication of the dress required a sophisticated hairstyle, but on the other hand, wearing her hair down gave her a naive, youthful look that she hoped might soften Matt when she tried to talk to him. To accomplish that, she'd have worn
braids
if she'd thought they'd help!

The uniformed guard at the security desk checked his list and Meredith breathed a ragged sigh of profound relief when she saw that Matt hadn't removed her name. With her knees trembling and her pulse pounding, she took the elevator to the penthouse, and there she encountered an obstacle in the last place she'd anticipated it: When she pressed the buzzer at Matt's door, Joe O'Hara opened it, took one look at her, and stepped forward, blocking her way. "You shouldn't have come, Miss Bancroft," he said coldly, and the fact that
he ha
dn't
called her Mrs. Farrell for the first time in their acquaintance made her heart ache a little. "Matt doesn't want anything to do with you. I heard him say so. He wants a divorce."

"Well, I don't," Meredith said emphatically. "Please, Joe, let me in so I can convince him he doesn't want one either."

The big man hesitated, torn between loyalty to Matt and the pleading sincerity in her aqua eyes while the roar of laughter and conversation from inside the penthouse surrounded both of them. "I don't think you can do it, and I don't think this is the place you should try. There's a crowd in there, and there's reporters."

"Good," she said with more assurance than she felt. "Then they can all leave here and tell the world that Mr. and Mrs. Farrell were together tonight."

"There's a better chance they'll be telling the world that Mr. Farrell threw you out on your ear and fired my ass for letting you in," he muttered grimly, but he stepped back, and Meredith impulsively threw her arms around him. "Thank you, Joe." She pulled away, too nervous to notice his face had reddened with embarrassed pleasure. "How do I look?" she asked, suddenly filled with quaking doubts. She spread the chiffon skirt of her dress as if she were about to curtsy and waited for his opinion.

"You look beautiful," he replied gruffly, "but it
ain't
going to matter a damn to Matt."

On that alarming and depressing prediction, Meredith stepped into the noisy gaiety of the penthouse. The moment she started down the foyer steps, heads started to turn and conversations dropped off, then started again with renewed force, and she heard her name being repeated. Ignoring all of that, she scanned the crowded living room, the dining room, and then the raised dais that created a glass-enclosed conversation area at the far corner of the penthouse. Her heart began to hammer as she saw Matt standing there, several inches teller than the people around him, and she started forward on legs that quaked.

As she walked up the steps toward him, she could see faces of the group around him. The star of the musical play was standing beside him, talking animatedly to him, while he gazed indifferently at her stunning face. Meredith was just a few feet away when Stanton Avery, who was standing on Matt's other side, looked up and saw her. He said something to Matt—obviously warning him that she was there—because Matt turned abruptly toward her. He stared at her, his glass arrested halfway to his lips, his eyes like shards of ice as they leveled on her, his expression so forbidding that Meredith hesitated in
midstep
, then she made herself walk up to him.

Taking some unspoken cue, or perhaps out of courtesy, the people who'd been talking to him disbanded, leaving the two of them alone on the dais. Meredith waited, hoping he'd say something, do something. When he finally did, he acknowledged her with a curt inclination of his head, and said only one word—her name—in a chilling tone. "Meredith."

Follow your instincts, he'd advised her a week ago, and Meredith tried to do that. "Hi," she said inanely, pleading with her eyes for some help, but Matt wasn't interested in helping her now. "You're probably wondering what I'm doing here."

"Not particularly."

That hurt, but at least he was waiting for her to speak, and her instincts told her he wasn't completely indifferent to her. She smiled a little, dying to surrender, not certain how to do it "I came here to tell you about my day." Her voice shook with nerves and she knew he heard it, but he didn't say a word, encouraging or otherwise. Summoning her courage, Meredith drew a deep breath and forged ahead. "This afternoon I got called into an emergency board meeting. The board was very upset. Furious, actually. They accused me of having a conflict of interest where you're concerned."

"How foolish of them," he said with acid contempt. "Didn't you tell them Bancroft and Company is your only interest?"

"Not exactly," she said, biting back a queasy smile. "They also wanted me to sign some affidavits and formal complaints—accusations that blamed you for
Spyzhalski's
death, and for illegally using your contact with me to get control of us, and for having bombs placed in our stores."

"Is that all?" he asked sarcastically.

"Not exactly," Meredith said again. "But that's the gist of it." She searched for some sign, some warmth— anything at all in his face to tell her he still cared about all this. And she couldn't see it. What she did see was people turning everywhere to watch them. "I—I told the directors ..." She trailed off, her voice strangled with tension and fear that he truly didn't want her anymore.

"What did you tell them?" he asked impassively, and Meredith grasped at his question as a tiny bit of encouragement to continue.

"I told them," she said with a proud tilt of her chin, "what you said they should be told!"

His expression didn't change. "You told them to fuck off?"

"No, not exactly," she said a little contritely. "I told them to go to hell."

He didn't say a word, and her heart was sinking when she suddenly saw it—the amused gleam in his beautiful eyes, the faint quirk of a smile dawning at his lips. "And then," she continued as hope burst in her like sunshine, "your attorney called to tell me that if I didn't file for a divorce within six days, he was going to file in your behalf on the seventh day. And I told him ..."

She trailed off, and with warm humor in his voice, Matt asked helpfully, "And you told him to go to hell too?"

"No, I told
him
to fuck off!"

"You did?"

"Yes."

He waited for her to say more, his eyes looking deeply into hers. "And?" he prodded quietly.

"And I'm thinking of taking a trip," she said. "I—I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands now."

"You took a leave of absence?"

"No, I resigned."

"I see," he said, but his voice had suddenly softened to a caress, and she wanted to drown herself in the look in his eyes. "What kind of trip did you have in mind, Meredith?"

"If you're still willing to take me there," she said, swallowing almost painfully, "I thought I'd like to see paradise."

He didn't move or speak, and for a horrible moment Meredith thought she'd been wrong, that she'd only imagined he still cared.

And then she realized he was holding out his hand for hers.

Tears of joy and relief sprang to her eyes as she laid her hand in his palm, feeling his fingers engulf hers in their warm strength, closing tightly on her hand, and then abruptly yanking her forward into arms that wrapped around her like steel bands.

Shielding her from view with his shoulders, he turned her face up to his. "I love you!" he whispered fiercely an instant before he seized her mouth in a smoldering kiss. A flash exploded somewhere as a photographer raised his camera, followed by another, and another. Someone started to clap, and the clapping became bursting applause, and the applause was joined with laughter, and still the kiss went on.