Paradise

by Judith McNaught

  “You were heartless even then!” Meredith said as she shrugged off his hands and picked up her purse. “You hardly bothered to write when you were in South America.”

  “I wrote you dozens of letters,” he said, and opened the door for her. Wryly he added, “I even mailed half of them. And you’re in no position to criticize on that score,” he added as they started down the carpeted hallway. “You only wrote six to me in all those months!”

  Meredith watched his hand rise and press the down button for the elevator, telling herself that to exonerate himself, he was lying about the letters, but something was niggling at the back of her mind, something he’d told her during his phone call from Venezuela that she’d interpreted at the time as a criticism of her letter writing style. You aren’t much of a correspondent, are you . . . ?

  Until the doctor had restricted her activity, she’d been in the habit of taking her letters to Matt out to the mailbox at the end of the driveway herself but anyone could have removed those letters afterward—her father, a servant. The only five letters she’d gotten from Matt were ones that had come when she was hovering at the mailbox and got the mail herself from the postman’s hand. Perhaps the only letters Matt received were the ones she’d given to the postman personally.

  The awful suspicion grew inside her, and she glanced unwillingly at Matt, fighting down an impulse to question him further about the letters. The elevator doors slid open and he ushered her through the lobby and outside to the street, where a maroon Rolls-Royce was waiting at the curb, gleaming like a polished jewel in the light of a streetlamp.

  Meredith slid into the luxurious barley leather interior, and gazed fixedly out the windshield as Matt put the car into gear and they glided into traffic. The Rolls was beautiful, but she’d have died rather than say anything that sounded admiring about his car, and besides, her mind was still on the letters.

  Evidently, so was Matt’s, because as they stopped at a light, he said, “How many letters did you actually get from me?”

  She tried not to answer, honestly tried to ignore him, but while she could hold her own in an open confrontation, she was incapable of silent sulking. “Five,” she said flatly, staring at her gloved hands.

  “How many did you write?” he persisted.

  She hesitated, then she shrugged. “I wrote you at least twice a week at first. Later, when you didn’t answer, I cut back to once a week.”

  “I wrote dozens of letters to you,” he said again, more emphatically. “I presume your father was intercepting our mail, and evidently failed to catch the five that got through?”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Doesn’t it?” he said with biting irony. “God, when I think of the way I used to wait for mail from you, and the way I felt when it never came!”

  The intensity of his voice stunned her almost as much as the words he’d uttered. She glanced at him in shock because he’d never given the slightest indication back then that she meant anything to him as a person. In bed, yes, but not out of it. The muted light of the dashboard played over the harsh, rugged contours of his face and jaw, highlighting the sculpted mouth and arrogant chin. Suddenly she was hurtled back in time, and she was sitting beside him in the Porsche, watching the wind ruffle his thick, dark hair, attracted and repelled by those sternly handsome features and his blatant sensuality. He was more handsome than ever, and the relentless ambition she’d sensed in him in the past had been channeled and realized; it was power now—irrefutable, harsh, and terribly potent. And it was being used on her. After several minutes she finally said, “Is it too much to expect to be told where you’re taking me?”

  She saw him smile because she’d at last broken the silence. “Right here,” he said, and he flipped on the turn indicator and swung the Rolls into the underground parking garage beneath his apartment building.

  “I should have known you’d try this,” she burst out, fully prepared to get out of the car the instant he stopped and walk home if necessary.

  “My father wants to see you,” Matt said calmly, pulling into a parking space directly in front of the elevator, between a limousine with California license plates and a midnight-blue Jaguar convertible that was so new it had only temporary license plates. Reluctantly willing to go upstairs if his father was there, Meredith got out of the car.

  Matt’s burly chauffeur opened the door, and behind him, Patrick Farrell was already walking up the foyer steps, his face wreathed in a smile.

  “Here she is,” Matt told his father with grim humor, “delivered to you just as I promised she’d be—safe, sound, and mad as hell at me.”

  Patrick held his arms out to Meredith, beaming at her, and she walked into his embrace, turning her face away from Matt.

  Looping his arm over her shoulders, he turned her to the chauffeur. “Meredith,” he said, “this is Joe O’Hara. I don’t think you two have ever been formally introduced.”

  Meredith managed a weak, embarrassed smile as she recollected the two highly emotional scenes that the chauffeur had witnessed. “How do you do, Mr. O’Hara.”

  “It’s a pleasure t’meet you, Mrs. Farrell.”

  “My name is Bancroft,” Meredith said firmly.

  “Right,” he said, shooting a challenging grin at Matt. “Pat,” he said, starting for the door, “I’ll pick you up out front later on.”

  The last time she’d been there, Meredith had been too distracted to notice the extravagant luxury of the apartment. Now she was too tense to look at anyone, so she glanced around her and was reluctantly impressed. Since Matt’s penthouse occupied the entire top floor, all the exterior walls were made entirely of glass, offering a spectacular view of the city lights. Three shallow steps led down from the marble foyer to the various living areas, but instead of being divided by walls, they were left wide open, indicated only by pairs of marble columns. Directly ahead of her was a living room large enough to accommodate several sofas and numerous chairs and tables. To the right of the living room was a dining room, which was elevated like the foyer, and just above and behind that was a cozy sitting room with its own intricately carved English bar to serve it. It was an apartment that had been designed and furnished to entertain in; it was showy and impressive and opulent with its various levels and marble floors; it was also the exact opposite of Meredith’s own apartment. And even so, she liked it immensely.

  “So,” Patrick Farrell said, beaming, “how do you like Matt’s place?”

  “It’s very nice,” she admitted. It hit her then that Patrick’s being there could be the answer to her prayer. Not for a moment did she believe he knew the full extent of Matt’s heavy-handed tactics, and she vowed to speak to him, privately if possible, and beg him to intervene.

  “Matt likes marble, but I’m not so comfortable around it,” he teased, grinning. “It makes me feel like I’ve died and been interred.”

  “I can imagine how you must feel in his black marble bathtubs, then,” Meredith said with a slight smile.

  “Entombed,” Patrick promptly agreed, walking beside her past the dining room and up the three steps to the sitting room.

  When she sat down, Patrick remained standing and Matt walked over to the bar. “What would you both like to drink?”

  “Ginger ale for me,” Patrick said.

  “I’ll have ginger ale too,” Meredith said.

  “You’ll have sherry,” Matt countered arbitrarily.

  “He’s right,” Patrick said. “It doesn’t bother me a bit to watch everyone else drink. So,” he said, “You know all about Matt’s marble bathtubs?”

  Meredith devoutly wished she’d never blurted that out. “I—I saw some pictures of the apartment in the Sunday newspaper.”

  “I knew it!” Patrick declared, winking at her. “All these years, whenever Matt’s picture was in a magazine or somewhere, I’d say to myself, I hope Meredith Bancroft sees this. You were keeping track of him, weren’t you?”

  “No!” Meredith exclaimed defensively
. “I most certainly was not!”

  Oddly, it was Matt who rescued her from the embarrassing discussion. Glancing up from the bar, he said to her, “While we’re on the subject of notoriety, I’d like you to tell me how you expect to keep our seeing each other a secret, which is what your attorney said you want.”

  “A secret?” Patrick said to her. “Why do you want to do that?”

  Meredith thought of at least a dozen angry and highly descriptive reasons, but she couldn’t very well tell them to his father, and Matt interceded anyway. “Because Meredith is still engaged to someone else,” he told his father, then he shifted his gaze to her. “You’ve been all over the news here for years. People will recognize you wherever we go.”

  Patrick spoke up. “I think I’ll go see when dinner can be ready,” he said, and walked off toward the dining room, leaving Meredith with the impression that he was either starving or eager to make himself scarce.

  Meredith waited until he was out of earshot, then she said with angry satisfaction, “I won’t be recognized, but you will. You’re America’s corporate sex symbol; you’re the one whose motto is ‘If it moves, take it to bed.’ You’re the one who sleeps with rock stars and then seduces their housemaids—are you laughing at me?” she gasped, her gaze riveting on his shaking shoulders.

  Uncapping the ginger ale, he slid her a sideways grin. “Where are you getting all this junk about housemaids?”

  “Several of the secretaries at Bancroft’s are among your many admirers,” Meredith retorted with scathing disdain. “They read about you in the Tattler.”

  “The Tattler?” Matt said, trying to hide his laughter behind a thoughtful frown. “Is that the tabloid that said I was taken aboard a UFO and told by clairvoyant aliens what business decisions to make?”

  “No, that was The World Star!” Meredith retorted, growing more frustrated by his amused dismissal of the whole topic. “I saw it in the grocery store.”

  His amusement vanished and his voice took on an edge. “I seem to recall reading somewhere that you were having an affair with a playwright.”

  “That was in the Chicago Tribune, and they didn’t say I was having an affair with Joshua Hamilton, they said we were seeing a lot of each other!”

  He picked up the glasses and carried them over to her. “Were you having an affair with him?” he persisted.

  Hating the feeling of being dwarfed by him, Meredith stood up and took the glass from his hand. “Hardly. Joshua Hamilton happens to be in love with my stepbrother, Joel.”

  She had the satisfaction of finally seeing Matthew Farrell at a complete loss. “He’s in love with your what?”

  “Joel is my step-grandmother’s son, but he’s close to my age, so we agreed years ago to call each other stepbrother and sister. Her other son’s name is Jason.”

  Matt’s lips twitched. “I gather,” he said dryly, “that Joel is gay?”

  Meredith’s satisfied smile vanished and her eyes narrowed at his tone. “Yes, but don’t you dare say anything ugly about Joel! He’s the kindest, dearest man I’ve ever known! Jason is straight and he’s an utter pig!”

  His expression softened at her militant defense of the one brother, and he lifted his hand, unable to restrain the urge to touch her. “Who would have guessed,” he said, smiling into her stormy eyes as he brushed his knuckles over her arm, “that the prim and proper debutante I met long ago would actually have so many skeletons in her closet?”

  Oblivious to Patrick Farrell, who was arrested on the bottom step, listening to their altercation with fascinated interest, Meredith jerked her arm away. “At least I haven’t slept with all of mine,” she retorted hotly, “and not one of them,” she added, “has pink hair!”

  “Who,” Patrick asked in a choked, laughing voice as he finally made his presence known, “has pink hair?”

  Matt glanced up distractedly and saw the cook carrying in a tray and placing it on the dining room table. “It’s too early for dinner,” he said, frowning.

  “That’s my fault,” Patrick said. “I thought my plane left at midnight tonight, but just after you went to get Meredith, I realized it leaves at eleven o’clock. I asked Mrs. Wilson to set dinner forward an hour.”

  Meredith, who was eager to get the evening over with, was delighted with an early dinner, and immediately decided to ask Patrick to drop her off at home when he left. Buoyed up by that, she managed to make it through the entire meal with relative equanimity, and Patrick made that easier by keeping up a stream of impersonal conversation in which she participated only when and if Matt didn’t. In fact, though Matt was seated at the head of the table and she was on his immediate right, Meredith managed to avoid not only speaking to him, but looking at him—until dessert was cleared away. The end of the meal seemed to chart an entirely new course for the evening.

  Before that, she’d believed that Patrick had no idea of the unethical extremes his son had gone to, but as he arose from the table, she discovered his apparent lack of knowledge, and even his neutrality, was an illusion. “Meredith,” he said in a censorious tone, “You haven’t spoken a word to Matt since we sat down at this table. Silence isn’t going to get you anywhere. What you two need is a nice big fight to get everything out in the open and clear the air.” He glanced at Matt with a meaningful smile. “You can start just as soon as I kiss Meredith good-bye. Joe will be waiting out in front.”

  Meredith stood up quickly. “We’re not going to have a fight. In fact, I have to leave. Could you drop me off at home on your way to the airport?”

  Patrick’s tone was as implacable as it was paternal and kind. “Don’t be foolish, Meredith. You’ll stay here with Matt and he’ll take you home later.”

  “I’m not being foolish! Mr. Farrell—”

  “Dad.”

  “I’m sorry—Dad,” she corrected herself, and then because she realized this was going to be her only chance to enlist his support, she said, “I don’t think you realize why I’m here right now. I’m here because your son has blackmailed and coerced me into seeing him for an eleven-week period.”

  She expected him to be surprised, to demand an explanation from Matt. She did not expect him to look at her unflinchingly, and then side with his son against her. “He did what was necessary to stop you from doing something you might both regret for the rest of your lives.”

  Meredith stepped back as if he had slapped her, and she struck back verbally with quiet force. “I never should have told either one of you the truth about what happened years ago. Tonight, all night, I’ve thought you didn’t realize why I’m here now—” Her voice dropped and she shook her head at her own naivete. “I was planning to explain it to you, and to ask you to intercede.”

  Patrick lifted his hand in a gesture of helpless appeal to be understood, then he looked worriedly to Matt, who stood there, unmoved by the little tableau. “I have to go,” he said, and lamely added, “Do you want me to give a message to Julie for you?”

  “You can give her my sympathy,” she quietly replied, turning around and looking for her purse and coat, “for being raised in a family of heartless men.” She missed the tensing of Matt’s jaw, but she felt Patrick’s hand on her shoulder, and though she stopped, she refused to turn back. His hand dropped away and then he left.

  The moment the door closed behind him, silence fell over the apartment . . . heavy, waiting, stifling. Meredith took one step, intending to get her things, but Matt caught her arm and drew her back. “I’m getting my coat and purse and I’m leaving,” she said.

  “We’re going to talk, Meredith,” he said in the cool, authoritative tone she particularly hated.

  “You’ll have to physically restrain me to make me stay here,” she warned him, “and if you try, I’ll swear out a warrant for your arrest in the morning, so help me God!”

  Torn between frustration and amusement, Matt reminded her, “You said you wanted our meetings to be private.”

  “I said secret!”

  Matt real
ized he was getting nowhere, that her animosity was building by the moment, and so he did the last thing he wanted to do; he issued a threat. “We had a bargain! Or do you no longer care what happens to your father?” The look she gave him was so filled with contempt that for the first time, he wondered if he’d been wrong about her ability to hate. “We’re going to talk tonight,” he said, gentling his tone, “either here or at your place. You decide where.”

  “My place,” she said bitterly.

  They made the fifteen-minute trip in complete silence. By the time she opened her apartment door, the atmosphere was vibrating with tension.

  Meredith went directly to a lamp, turned it on, then she walked over to the fireplace because it was as far as she could possibly get from him. “You said you wanted to talk,” she reminded him ungraciously. Crossing her arms over her chest, she leaned her shoulders against the mantel, waiting for him to start trying to bully and coerce her, which she was positive he meant to do. For that reason, she was slightly disconcerted when he made no effort to do either, and instead shoved his hands into his pockets and stood in the center of the living room, slowly looking around at the cozy room as if he were fascinated by every piece of furniture and each knickknack.

  Baffled, she watched as he took one hand out of his pocket and picked up a photograph of Parker in an ornate antique frame from the end table near his hip. He put the picture back, and then let his gaze drift from the antique secretary she used as a desk to the dining room table with its silver candlesticks, to the chintz-covered Queen Anne chairs before the fire. “What are you doing?” Meredith demanded warily.