Paradise

by Judith McNaught

  He looked around at her then, and the quiet amusement in his eyes was almost as startling as what he said. “I’m satisfying years of curiosity.”

  “About what?”

  “About you,” he said, and if Meredith hadn’t known better, she’d have believed there was tenderness in his expression. “About how you live.”

  Wishing she’d stayed out in the open instead of backing herself into a wall, she watched him walk forward, finally stopping in front of her, both hands in his pockets again. “You like chintz,” he said with a boyish half smile. “Somehow I never imagined you with chintz. It suits you though—the antiques and bright flowers; it’s warm and inviting. I like it very much.”

  “Good, then I can die happy,” Meredith said, increasingly wary of the warmth in his eyes and his smile. “Now, what did you want to talk about?”

  “For one thing, I’d like to know why you’re even angrier tonight than you were yesterday.”

  “I’ll tell you why,” she said, her voice shaking with suppressed resentment. “Yesterday I yielded to your blackmail and agreed to see you for eleven weeks, but I will not—will not—participate in this farce you apparently want to enact!”

  “What farce?”

  “The farce of pretending you want a reconciliation, which is what you did in front of the lawyers on Tuesday and your father tonight! What you want is revenge, and you found a subtler, cheaper way of getting it than suing my father!”

  “In the first place,” he pointed out, “I could have staged a public massacre in a courtroom for the five million dollars I’m giving you if this doesn’t work out. Meredith,” he said forcefully, “this is not about revenge! I told you at that meeting exactly why I was asking for this time with you. There’s something between us—there has always been something between us—and not even eleven years could kill it! I want it to have a chance.”

  Meredith’s mouth fell open, and she gaped at him, torn between ire at his outrageous lie and mirth that he actually expected her to believe it. “Am I supposed to think”—she had to stop to swallow back an angry, hysterical laugh—“that you’ve been carrying some sort of torch for me for all these years?”

  “Would you believe it if I said it’s true?”

  “I’d have to be an idiot to believe it! I told you tonight that I and everybody who subscribes to a magazine or reads a newspaper knows about hundreds of your affairs!”

  “That statement is an outrageous exaggeration, and you damned well know it!” In skeptical silence she raised her brows. “Dammit!” Matt swore, angrily shoving a hand through the side of his hair. “I didn’t expect this. Not this.” He walked away from her, then he turned on his heel, his voice ringing with harsh irony. “Will it help convince you if I admit that you haunted me for years after our divorce? Well, you did! Would you like to know why I worked myself into the ground and took insane gambles, trying to double and triple every cent I made? Would you like to know what I did the day my net worth actually reached one million dollars?”

  Dazed, incredulous, and unwillingly enthralled, Meredith stared at him, and without meaning to she nodded slightly.

  “I did it,” he snapped, “out of some obsessive, demented determination to prove to you I could do it! The night an investment paid off and put me over the one-million-dollar mark, I opened a bottle of champagne, and I toasted you with it. It wasn’t a friendly toast, but it was eloquent in its way. I said, To you, my mercenary wife—may you long regret the day you turned your back on me.

  “Shall I tell you,” he continued bitterly, “how I felt when I finally realized that every woman I took to bed was blond, like you, with blue eyes, like yours, and that I was unconsciously making love to you?”

  “That’s disgusting,” Meredith whispered, her eyes wide with shock.

  “That’s exactly how I felt!” He walked back to stand in front of her, and he softened his voice, but not much. “And since we’re having confession time here, it’s your turn.”

  “What do you mean?” Meredith said, unable to believe everything he’d said, and yet half convinced that somehow he was telling her what he believed was true. . . .

  “Let’s start with your incredulous reaction when I said I think there’s been something between us all this time.”

  “There is nothing between us!”

  “You don’t find it odd that neither of us remarried during all these years?”

  “No.”

  “And, at the farm, when you asked for a truce, you weren’t feeling anything for me then?”

  “No!” Meredith said, but she was lying and she knew it.

  “Or in my office,” he demanded, firing questions at her like an inquisitor, “when I asked you for a truce?”

  “I didn’t feel anything, either of those times, except . . . except a casual sort of friendship,” she said a little desperately.

  “And you’re in love with Reynolds?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then what the hell were you doing in bed with me last weekend?”

  Meredith drew a shaky breath. “Well, it was something that just happened. It didn’t mean anything. We were trying to comfort each other, that’s all. It was . . . pleasant enough, but no more than that.”

  “Don’t lie to me! We couldn’t get enough of each other in that bed, and you damned well know it!” When she remained stubbornly, resistantly silent, he pushed her harder. “And you have absolutely no desire to make love with me again, is that it?”

  “That’s it!”

  “How would you like to give me five minutes to prove you’re wrong?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Meredith flung back.

  “Do you honestly think,” he said more quietly, “I’m naive enough not to know you wanted me as badly as I wanted you, that day in bed?”

  “I’m sure you’re experienced enough to gauge how a woman feels to within a fraction of a sigh!” she shot back, too angry to realize what she was admitting as she added, “But at the risk of wounding your damnable confidence, I’ll tell you exactly how I felt that day! I felt like I’ve always felt in bed with you—naive, clumsy, and gauche!”

  He looked ready to explode. “You what?”

  “You heard me,” she said, but her satisfaction at his stunned reaction was short-lived, because instead of being enraged at his overestimation of her feelings, he put his hand against the mantel for support and started to laugh. He laughed until Meredith got so angry that she tried to move away, and then he sobered abruptly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said contritely, a strange, tender light in his eyes. Lifting his hand, Matt laid it against her smooth cheek, amazed and shamelessly delighted that for all her innate sensuality, she obviously hadn’t slept around very much. If she had, instead of feeling gauche in bed with him, she’d surely know she turned his body into an inferno with a simple touch. “God, you are lovely,” he whispered. “Inside and out.” He bent his head, intending to kiss her, but she turned her face away, so he kissed her ear.

  “If you’ll kiss me back,” he whispered huskily, brushing his lips along the curve of her jaw, “I’ll make it six million. If you’ll go to bed with me tonight,” he continued, losing himself in the scent of her perfume and the softness of her skin, “I’ll give you the world. But if you’ll move in with me,” he continued, dragging his mouth across her cheek to the corner of her lips, “I’ll do much better than that.”

  Unable to turn her face farther because his arm was in the way, and unable to turn her body because his body was in the way, Meredith tried to infuse disdain in her voice and simultaneously ignore the arousing touch of his tongue against her ear. “Six million dollars and the whole world!” she said in a slightly shaky voice. “What else could you possibly give me if I move in with you?”

  “Paradise.” Lifting his head, Matt took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced her to meet his gaze. In an aching, solemn voice he said, “I’ll give you paradise on a gold platter. Anything you want—everything you
want. I come with it, of course. It’s a package deal.” Meredith swallowed audibly, mesmerized by the melting look in his silver eyes and the rich timbre of his deep voice. “We’ll be a family,” he continued, describing the paradise he was offering while he bent his head to her again. “We’ll have children . . . I’d like six,” he teased, his lips against her temple. “But I’ll settle for one. You don’t have to decide now.” She drew in a ragged breath and Matt decided he’d pushed matters as far as he dared for one night. Straightening abruptly, he chucked her under her chin. “Think about it,” he suggested with a grin.

  Meredith watched in a stupor of shock and disbelief as he turned and headed to the door without another word. It closed behind him, and she stared at it, riveted to the spot, her mind trying to absorb everything he’d said. Reaching blindly for the back of a chair, she walked around it and sank into it, not sure whether to laugh or cry. He had to be lying. He had to be crazy. That alone would explain his resolute pursuit of a foolish goal he’d evidently set for himself eleven years earlier—of proving he was good enough to be married to her, to a Bancroft. She’d read articles about his occasional business clashes with competitive companies or takeover targets, and they’d implied that he was almost inhumanly single-minded.

  Evidently, Meredith realized with a hysterical, panicky giggle, she really was Matthew Farrell’s newest “takeover target.” She could not—would not—let herself believe he’d actually been hung up on her for years after their parting. My God, he’d never even said I love you to her when they were married—not even at the height of passion or the afterglow.

  She did, however, believe some things he’d told her tonight: He probably had spent those early years working himself into the ground to prove to her, and undoubtedly her father, that he could make a fortune. That sounded just like Matt, she thought with a wry smile—and so did the champagne toast he said he drank to her the night he was worth a million dollars. Vengeful to the very end, she decided with amusement. No wonder he’d become such a force to be reckoned with in the business world! It occurred to her that her thoughts were a little mild, given the circumstances, and she reluctantly faced the reason for that: One other thing that Matt had said was true—there had always been something between them. From the very first night she’d met him, there’d been an immediate and inexplicable rapport that had sprung up between them, a bond that swiftly drew them closer together during those long-ago days at the farm. She’d felt it then, but it came as a shock to discover that Matt had been aware of it too. That same inexplicable rapport had already been struggling to resurface the day of their ill-fated lunch when he had teased her about not knowing what she wanted to drink. It had burst into bloom again at the farm, when she put her hand in his and asked for a truce, then grown stronger, more vibrant, when they sat together in the living room that night, talking about business. In a way, it was almost as if they’d been born friends. It was impossible for her to truly hate Matt for anything.

  With a baffled sigh Meredith got up, turned out the lamp, and started toward her bedroom. She was standing beside her bed, unbuttoning her blouse, when the rest of his words, the ones she was adamantly trying not to remember, whispered forcefully through her mind, and her hands stilled on the buttons. Go to bed with me tonight and I’ll give you the world. Move in with me, and I’ll give you paradise on a gold platter. Anything you want—everything you want. I come with it, of course. It’s a package deal.

  Mesmerized by the memory, Meredith stood still, then she gave her head a hard shake and finished unbuttoning her blouse. The man was absolutely lethal. No wonder women fell at his feet. Just the memory of his voice whispering those things in her ear was making her hands tremble! Really, she decided as she tried to suppress a halfhearted smile, if he could bottle all that awesome sex appeal, he wouldn’t need to work to make money. Her smile faded as she wondered how many other women he’d offered his paradise to, and then she realized the answer had to be none. In all the rabid press coverage of his personal life, she’d never seen a single piece of information that implied he lived other than alone. She felt unaccountably better now that she’d remembered that. And she was too exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the past two days to wonder if that wasn’t a little odd.

  When she got into bed, her thoughts turned to Parker and her spirits plummeted. She’d hoped all day that he would call. Despite the way they’d parted, she knew in her heart that neither of them wanted to end their engagement. It dawned on her that perhaps he was waiting for her to call. Tomorrow, she decided, she’d call him tomorrow and try again to make him understand.

  43

  Mornin’, Matt,” Joe said as Matt slid into the back seat of the limo at 8:15 the next morning, then he glanced uneasily at the folded newspaper in Matt’s hand and added, “Is—is everything okay? With you and your wife, I mean?”

  “Not exactly,” Matt replied dryly. Ignoring the Chicago Tribune, which he normally read in the car every morning, Matt stretched his legs out in front of him and gazed out the side window. A faint smile played about his mouth as the limo pulled into traffic, and his thoughts drifted to Meredith. Several minutes had passed before Matt noticed that his car was not making its usual daring assault on traffic this morning. Puzzled, he looked up and saw Joe watching him in the rearview mirror. “Something on your mind?” Matt asked.

  “No, why?”

  “You passed up a chance to cut off that delivery truck.” Wordlessly, Joe withdrew his gaze from the mirror, stepped on the accelerator, and Matt let his thoughts return pleasurably to Meredith. He let them linger on her until he arrived at Haskell’s building, then he forced himself to start thinking of the business day that lay ahead as he got out of the car in the underground garage.

  “Good morning, Eleanor,” he said with a grin as he walked through his secretary’s office and opened his door. “You’re looking very well this morning.”

  “Good morning,” she managed to say in an odd, shocked voice. In accordance with their usual morning ritual, she followed him into his office and stood beside his desk with a notepad in one hand, his mail and phone messages in the other, ready to write down his instructions for dealing with each item. Matt saw her gaze ricochet to the newspaper when he tossed it onto his desk, but his attention was diverted by the thick stack of phone messages she was holding. “Who are those calls from?”

  “The news media,” she replied with disgust as she began flipping through them. “The Tribune has called four times and the Sun-Times has called three. UPI is on hold on my desk right now, and the Associated Press is downstairs in the main lobby, along with the reporters from the local television and radio stations. All four of the major networks have called, so has CNN. People magazine wants to talk to you, but the National Tattler wanted to talk to me—they said they ‘want to know the dirt from a secretary’s point of view.’ I hung up on them. You’ve also had two crank calls from anonymous individuals who inferred you must be homosexual, and one from Miss Avery, who said to tell you that you are a deceitful bastard. Tom Anderson called to ask if he can do anything to help, and the guard in the lobby phoned for reinforcements to stop the press from barging up here.” She paused and glanced at him. “I’ve already handled that.”

  Frowning, Matt mentally sorted through the business activities of Intercorp’s various companies, trying to think which would have caused a public furor. “What’s happened that I don’t know about?”

  She nodded grimly to the folded newspaper lying on Matt’s desk. “Have you opened that paper yet?”

  “No,” Matt said, reaching for the Tribune and irritably snapping it open, “but if something happened last night to cause an uproar in the press, Anderson should have called me at ho—” He glanced at the front page of the paper and froze, momentarily unable to absorb the shock: Pictures of Meredith, himself, and Parker Reynolds were staring back at him beneath a headline that screamed:

  FAKE LAWYER CONFESSES TO DUPING FAMOUS CLIENTS

&
nbsp; He snatched up the paper, scanning the accompanying story, his jaw clenching.

  Last night, police in Belleville, Illinois, arrested Stanislaus Spyzhalski, 45, on charges of fraud and practicing law without a license. According to the Belleville police department, Spyzhalski has confessed to duping hundreds of clients over the past fifteen years by falsifying judges’ signatures on documents that he never filed, including a divorce decree which he claims to have been hired to obtain a decade ago for department store heiress Meredith Bancroft from her alleged husband, industrialist Matthew Farrell. Meredith Bancroft, whose impending marriage to financier Parker Reynolds was announced this month . . .

  With a savage curse Matt looked up from the story, rapidly calculating the possible consequences of all this, then he looked at his secretary, and began issuing rapid-fire instructions: “Get Pearson and Levinson on the phone, then find my pilot. Call Joe O’Hara in the car and tell him to stand by for instructions, and get my wife on the phone.”

  She nodded and left, and Matt finished scanning the article.

  Officials say they were originally alerted to Spyzhalski by a Belleville man who tried to obtain a copy of his marriage annulment from the St. Clair County courthouse. Belleville police have already recovered some of Spyzhalski’s files, but the suspect has refused to turn over the rest prior to his hearing tomorrow, where he plans to represent himself. Neither Farrell, Bancroft, nor Reynolds were available for comment tonight. . . . Details of the alleged Bancroft-Farrell divorce remain undivulged, but a spokesman for the Belleville police department said that they are confident that Spyzhalski, who they describe as flamboyant and unrepentant, will provide them . . .