Paradise

by Judith McNaught

  “Only what I’ve read in the magazines and newspapers in the last eleven years. I’d rather find out the rest by myself.”

  For a man who checked out an attorney right down to the size of his shoe, Stuart thought it was meaningful that Farrell, who was supposedly interested only in revenge, hadn’t done an equally impersonal background check on Meredith. “Then you don’t know the little things about her,” Stuart said as he continued watching him over the rim of his glass, “like the fact that in the summer after her freshman year of college there was a rumor going around that she’d had some sort of tragic love affair, and that’s why she wouldn’t go out with anyone. You, of course, were probably inadvertently the cause of that.” He paused, watching the flare of intense interest and emotion that Farrell belatedly tried to conceal by lifting his glass and taking a swallow of his drink. “And of course,” he continued, “You wouldn’t know that in her junior year a rejected fraternity boy started the rumor that she was either a lesbian or frigid. The only thing that stopped the lesbian thing from sticking to her was her friendship with Lisa Pontini, who was dating the president of the kid’s fraternity. Lisa was so far from being a lesbian, and so loyal to Meredith, that she made the kid a laughingstock with the help of her current boyfriend. The part about being frigid stuck though. They nicknamed her the ‘ice queen’ at school. When she finished grad school, and came back here, the nickname got whispered, but she was so damned beautiful that it added to her allure because it made her a challenge. Besides, showing up with Meredith Bancroft on your arm, looking at that face of hers across a restaurant table, was such an ego boost that you didn’t much care that she wouldn’t sleep with you.”

  Stuart waited, hoping Farrell would finally take the bait and start asking questions, which would have been a tip-off about his true feelings, but Farrell either had no feelings for her—or else he was too smart to risk giving any hints that might cause her attorney to tell her that her husband was definitely in love with her and that she could tear up that document without risk of having him carry out his threats. Irrationally convinced the latter was still the case, Stuart said idly, “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask,” Farrell emphasized.

  “What made you decide to double-team her today with two attorneys, particularly two attorneys whose methods are notoriously heavy-handed?”

  For a second Stuart thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then Farrell admitted with an ironic smile, “That was a tactical error on my part. In my haste to get the agreement drawn up in time for this meeting, I failed to make Levinson and Pearson understand that I wanted her convinced to sign, not bludgeoned to death.” Putting his half-empty glass down on the table, he stood up, making it obvious that their little tête-à-tête was over.

  Left with no choice, Stuart did likewise, but as he bent to pick up the papers, he added, “That was more than a mistake, it was the kiss of death. Besides bullying and coercing her, you betrayed and humiliated her by letting Levinson tell us all that she’d slept with you last weekend. She’s going to hate you for that for a lot longer than eleven weeks. If you knew her better than you do, you’d realize that.”

  “Meredith is incapable of lasting hatred,” Farrell informed him in an implacable voice that was tinged with pride, and Stuart had to hide his shock because every word Farrell was saying now was inadvertently confirming his own suspicion. “If she weren’t incapable of it, she’d hate her father for spoiling her childhood and for belittling her success at work. She’d be hating him now for what she’s just discovered he did to us eleven years ago. Instead, she’s trying to protect him from me. Rather than hating, Meredith looks for ways to excuse the inexcusable in people she loves—including me, by telling herself I was justified in leaving her because I’d been forced to marry her in the first place.” Oblivious to Stuart’s stunned fascination, Farrell eyed him across the cocktail table and added, “Meredith can’t stand to see people hurt. She sends flowers to dead babies with notes to tell them they were loved; she cries in an old man’s arms because he’s believed for eleven years that she aborted his grandchild, and then she drives four hours in a storm because she has to tell me the truth right away. She’s softhearted, and she’s overly cautious. She’s also smart, astute, and intuitive, and those things have enabled her to excel at the department store without being devoured by back-biting executives or turning into one herself.” Leaning down, he picked up his fountain pen and shot a cool, challenging look at Stuart. “What else could I possibly need to know about her?”

  Stuart returned the look with one of his own—satisfied triumph. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly, laughing. “I was right—you are in love with her. And because you are, you wouldn’t do a damned thing to hurt her by prosecuting her father.”

  Brushing the sides of his jacket back, Farrell shoved his hands into his pockets, spoiling some of Stuart’s triumph by showing no concern over his conclusion. He spoiled the rest of it by saying blandly, “You think that, but you aren’t sure enough to risk having Meredith put me to the test. You aren’t even sure enough to broach the subject with her again, and if you were sure, you’d still hesitate to do it.”

  “Really?” Stuart retorted, smiling to himself. As he walked over to the bar to get his briefcase, he was already debating what to tell Meredith and how to do it. “What makes you think so?”

  “Because,” Farrell replied calmly behind him, “from the moment you realized Meredith slept with me last weekend, you haven’t been completely certain about anything—particularly how she feels about me.” He walked forward, angling toward his office and politely escorting Stuart out.

  Stuart suddenly remembered the indescribable look on Meredith’s face earlier, when she’d stood with her hand in Farrell’s. Hiding his growing uncertainty behind a convincing shrug, he said, “I’m her lawyer—it’s my job to tell her what I think, even when it’s a hunch.”

  “You’re also her friend and you were in love with her once. You’re personally involved, and because you are, you’re going to hesitate and contemplate, and in the end you’ll decide to let this run its course. After all, if nothing comes of this, she’s lost nothing by doing what I’ve required of her, and she gains five million dollars.”

  They’d reached his desk and Farrell walked behind it, but he remained politely standing. Thoroughly annoyed by the probable accuracy of Farrell’s psychological summation, Stuart looked around for something to say to shake him up, and his gaze fell on the framed picture of a woman on Farrell’s desk. “Are you planning to keep that picture there while you’re trying to court your wife?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Something in the way he said that made Stuart revise his original impression that the woman was a girlfriend or mistress. “Who is she?” he asked bluntly.

  “My sister.”

  Farrell was watching him with that same infuriating calm, so Stuart shrugged, and with a deliberate effort to be offensive, he said, “Nice smile. Nice body too.”

  “I’ll ignore the last part of that,” Farrell said, “and politely suggest that the four of us have dinner when she’s in town next time. Tell Meredith I’ll pick her up tomorrow night at seven-thirty. You can phone my secretary in the morning and give her the address.”

  Summarily dismissed and duly cut down to size, Stuart nodded and opened the door, then he walked out and closed it. Outside Farrell’s office he began to wonder if he was doing Meredith a favor by not warning her to run, not walk, from the agreement she’d signed, whether she was in love with her husband or not. The man was like a machine; unyielding, detached, uncompromising, and completely unemotional. Not even a slur against his sister could rile the bastard.

  On the opposite side of the connecting door, Matthew Farrell sank heavily into his chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. “Christ!” he whispered, heaving a long, shaking breath of relief. “Thank you.”

  It was the closest he’d come to a prayer in more than eleven years
. It was the first easy breath he’d drawn in over two hours.

  41

  How did it go with Farrell?” Parker asked the minute he walked into Meredith’s apartment to take her out for what he’d predicted would be a dinner to celebrate her almost-divorced status. His smile faded as she raked her hair off her forehead and mutely shook her head. “Meredith, what happened?” he said, putting his hands on her arms.

  “I think you’d better sit down,” she warned him.

  “I’ll stand,” he said, already looking upset.

  Ten minutes later, when she’d finished telling him the whole thing, he no longer looked upset, he looked furious—with her. “And you agreed to that?”

  “What choice did I have?” Meredith cried. “I didn’t have anything to bargain with. He was holding all the cards, and he handed out the ultimatum. It’s not so very bad,” she said, trying to smile and make him feel better. “I’ve had a couple hours to think it over, and it’s more of a gross inconvenience—an annoyance—than anything else. I mean, when you’re objective.”

  “I’m damned objective, and I disagree,” Parker said harshly.

  Unfortunately, Meredith was so overwrought, so guilt-stricken, she failed to consider that Parker might feel better if she felt worse about having to go out with Matt. “Look,” she said with another encouraging smile, “even if I could have flown somewhere and gotten a divorce, I’d still be all snarled up in the property issues after the divorce because they have to be settled separately. As it stands now, everything will be completely settled and finished in six months—the divorce, the property, the works.”

  “Right,” Parker snapped furiously. “And three of those six months are supposed to be spent with Farrell!”

  “I told you, he specifically said that we wouldn’t have to be intimate. And—and that still leaves almost half of every week for us to be together.”

  “That’s certainly fair-minded of the son of a bitch!”

  “You’re losing your perspective!” Meredith warned, stunned at the belated realization that everything she was saying was angering him more. “He’s doing this to retaliate against my father, not because he wants me!”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Meredith! Farrell’s not gay or blind, and he intends to have a piece of you whenever and however he can get it. As you pointed out to me three times in your recitation of the meeting, that bastard’s lawyers repeatedly said that Farrell regards himself as your husband! And do you know what I find the most infuriating about all this?”

  “No,” she said, feeling frustrated tears in her throat, “suppose you tell me, if you can do it without being vulgar and overbearing—”

  “I’m vulgar and overbearing, am I? Farrell flips you a proposition like this, and I’m the one who’s being vulgar and overbearing? I’ll tell you what I find the most painful, the most disgusting, about all this—it’s that you aren’t particularly upset about it! He offers you five million dollars for rolling in the hay with him four times a week, and I’m vulgar? That’s what—a hundred thousand dollars or so per time?”

  “If you want to get all technical and precise,” Meredith flung back as her exhaustion and frustration built to a mindless fury, “he is technically my husband!”

  “What the hell am I technically—a wart?”

  “No, you’re my fiancé.”

  “How much do you intend to charge me?”

  “Get out, Parker.” She said it quietly. She meant it utterly.

  “Fine.” He snatched up his coat from the back of the chair, and Meredith tugged her engagement ring off her finger, fighting back tears.

  “Here,” she said hoarsely, thrusting it at him, “take this with you.”

  Parker looked at the ring in her hand and much of his anger faded. “Keep it for now,” he said. “We’re both too angry to think clearly. No, that’s wrong, and that’s what bothers me. I’m furious and you’re trying to pass this whole thing off like a goddamned lark!”

  “Dammit, I was trying to soothe things over so you wouldn’t be so angry.”

  He hesitated uncertainly, then reached out and closed her fingers over the ring. “Is that what you were doing, Meredith, or is that what you think you were doing? I feel like the world has caved in, and you—who have to face the next three months—are taking it better than I am. I think maybe I should stay away until you’ve had time to decide just how important I really am to you.”

  “And I think,” Meredith countered tautly, “You ought to spend some of that time wondering why you couldn’t have offered me some sympathy and understanding instead of seeing this whole thing like some sexual challenge to your private property!”

  He left then, closing the door behind him, and Meredith sank down on the sofa. The world, which had seemed so bright and promising just a few days before, had collapsed around her feet—exactly as it always did when she went near Matthew Farrell.

  42

  I’m sorry, sir, you aren’t allowed to park here,” the doorman said as Matt got out of his car in front of Meredith’s apartment building.

  His mind on his impending first date with his wife, Matt put a $100 bill into the man’s gloved hand and continued toward the entrance without breaking stride.

  “I’ll keep an eye on it for you, sir,” the doorman called behind him.

  The oversize tip was also payment for future favors as needed, but Matt didn’t pause to tell him that, nor would it have been necessary; doormen all over the world were masters of diplomacy and economics who understood that enormous tips such as that were advance payment for small future services, not merely present ones. At the moment Matt wasn’t certain what future services he might require, but ingratiating himself with Meredith’s doorman seemed like a wise precaution in any case.

  The guard at the desk checked his guest list, saw Matt’s name, and nodded politely. “Miss Bancroft—Apartment 505,” he said. “I’ll buzz her to let her know you’re on the way up. Elevators are right there.”

  Meredith was so tense that her hands shook as she combed her fingers through the sides of her hair, shoving it into a casual, windblown style that fell about her shoulders. Stepping back from the mirror, she glanced at the bright green silk shirt and matching wool crepe skirt she was wearing, adjusted the slender hammered-gold belt at her waist, then she clipped a pair of large gold squares at her ears and slid a gold bracelet onto her wrist. Her face was abnormally pale, so she applied more blusher to her cheekbones; she was just about to add more lipstick when the buzzer shrilled twice, and the tube slid from her trembling fingers, leaving a coral streak across the polished wood of her dressing table. Ignoring the fact that Matt was obviously on his way up, she picked up the tube, intending to use it, then she changed her mind, capped it, and tossed it into her purse. Looking nice for Matthew Farrell, who hadn’t even had the courtesy to let her know where they were going so that she could have a clue as to what to wear, was completely unnecessary. In fact, if he had seduction in mind, the worse she looked the better!

  She walked to the door, stoically ignoring her trembling knees, jerked it open, and, raising her eyes no higher than his chest, she said very truthfully, “I was hoping you’d be late.”

  The ungracious greeting was no less than Matt expected, but she looked so damned beautiful in emerald green with her shining hair swinging loose and artless about her shoulders, he had to suppress the urge to laugh and drag her into his arms. “How late were you hoping I’d be?”

  “About three months, actually.”

  He did laugh then, a rich, throaty chuckle that made Meredith’s head snap up a few inches, but she couldn’t quite look him in the face yet. “Are you enjoying yourself already?” she asked, staring fixedly at a pair of very broad shoulders encased in a soft fawn cashmere sport coat and an open-necked cream shirt that seemed to glow against his tanned throat.

  “You look lovely,” he said quietly, ignoring her jibe.

  Still without looking at him, she turned on her heel and walked
over to the closet to get a coat. “Since you didn’t have the courtesy to let me know where we’re going,” she said to the inside of the closet, “I had no idea what I should wear.”

  Matt said nothing, he knew she was going to put up a fight when she found out, and so he’d simply not told her. “You’re dressed perfectly,” he said instead.

  “Thank you, that’s extremely informative,” Meredith answered. She pulled out her coat from the closet, turned around, and collided with his chest. “Would you mind moving?”

  “I’ll help you with your coat.”

  “Don’t help me!” she said, stepping sideways and tugging her coat. “Don’t help me with anything! don’t ever help me again!”

  His hand locked on her upper arm, pulling her gently but forcibly around. “Is this the way it’s going to be all night?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” she said bitterly, “this is the good part.”

  “I know how angry you are—”

  Meredith lost her fear of looking at him. “No, you don’t know!” she said, her voice shaking with ire. “You think you know, but you can’t even begin to imagine!” Abandoning her vow to stay aloof and silent and to bore him to death, she said, “You asked me to trust you in your office, then you took everything I told you about what happened eleven years ago, and used it against me! Did you honestly think you could tear my life to pieces on Tuesday, and walk in here on Wednesday, and everything would be all sweet and rosy, you—you heartless hypocrite!”

  Matt gazed into her stormy eyes and honestly considered saying, “I’m in love with you.” But she wouldn’t believe that after what happened yesterday—and if by some chance he could make her believe it, she’d use it against him and walk out on their agreement. And that he could not let her do. Yesterday she’d told him that all there was between them was a horrible past. He desperately needed the time he’d bargained for—time to breach her defenses and prove to her that a future relationship with him would not cause a repeat of the pain of the past. So instead of trying to explain or argue, he embarked on phase one of the psychological campaign he’d mentally mapped out—which was to get her to break the habit of blaming him completely for that past. Taking her coat, he held it out for her. “I know I seem like a ruthless hypocrite to you now, and I don’t blame you for thinking it. But at least do me the justice of remembering that I was not the villain eleven years ago.” She slid her arms into the sleeves and wordlessly started to step away, but he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around, waiting until she lifted her resentful eyes to his. “Hate me for what I’m doing now,” he told her with quiet force, “I can accept that, but don’t hate me for the past. I was as much a victim of your father’s scheming as you were!”