Paradise

by Judith McNaught

  She spotted a short blue jar and recognized its label; it was supposed to relieve the symptoms of congestion, and it didn’t smell a whole lot better than the stuff in the tube, but it might help make him more comfortable. She added it to what she had and looked it all over. The aspirin would help his headache, she knew, but it might also upset his stomach. She needed an alternative. “Ice,” she said aloud. An ice bag would definitely help his headache.

  She went down to the kitchen with her store of medicines, opened the freezer, and was relieved to see that there was plenty of ice. Unfortunately, after searching through all the cupboards and drawers, she couldn’t find anything suitable for use as an ice bag. And then she remembered the red rubber bag she’d seen in the cabinet beneath the bathroom sink that morning when she was looking for a towel after her shower. Upstairs, she bent down and pulled the rubber bag out of the cabinet, but it had no cap on it. Crouching down, she felt around for a cap, then she crawled partway into the cabinet to look for it. She saw it at the back, behind a can of cleanser, and she pulled it out, only to discover the cap was attached to a three-foot length of slender red rubber tubing with a curious metal clamp on it.

  Straightening, Meredith surveyed the peculiar cap-and-tubing arrangement, then she tried to pull the threaded cap loose from the tube, but the manufacturer had, for some unknown reason, made the whole thing as one piece. With no alternative but this one, Meredith checked the clamp, then she tied a tight knot in the tubing to be on the safe side, and brought the contraption downstairs to fill it with ice and water.

  With that task completed, the only remaining problem she confronted was breakfast, and she had precious little to choose from. It had to be something bland and easy to digest, which eliminated almost everything in the cabinets except the loaf of fresh bread on the counter. In the refrigerator she found a package of fresh lunch meat, another of bacon, a pound of butter, and a carton of eggs; the freezer contained two steaks. Cholesterol count was evidently not one of Matt’s priorities. She took out the butter and put two slices of bread into the toaster, then she looked through the cupboards again to see what he might be able to eat for lunch. Other than some cans of soup, everything else was spicy or rich: stew, spaghetti, tuna fish—and a can of sweetened condensed milk. Milk!

  Elated, she found a can opener, and poured some into a glass. It looked awfully thick, and when she read the directions they said it could be used directly from the can or diluted with water. Not certain which way Matt preferred it, she tasted it and shuddered. Diluting wasn’t going to help this stuff, and she couldn’t imagine why he liked it, but he evidently did. When the toast was ready, she went into the living room, took the top off a TV snack table, and used that as a tray so that she could carry medicines, ice bag, and breakfast upstairs in one trip.

  Matt’s throbbing head tugged him from a drugged sleep to an aching semi-awareness that it must be morning. Turning his face on the pillow, he forced his eyes open, and was momentarily confused by the sight of an old-fashioned white plastic alarm clock with black hands indicating 8:30, instead of the digital clock radio in his bedroom. Memory came drifting back then; he was in Indiana, and he’d been sick. Judging from the amazing effort it took to roll over and lean up on his forearm so that he could reach for the bottles of pills beside the clock, he was still sick. Trying to clear his head, he shook it, then winced at the trip-hammers that began to thunder in his temples. His fever had broken, though, because his shirt was drenched with sweat. As he picked up the glass of water on the table and swallowed the pills, he considered trying to get up so that he could take a shower and get dressed, but he felt so exhausted, he decided to sleep another hour and then give it a try. The label on one of the bottles warned, CAUTION. CAUSES DROWSINESS, and he dimly wondered if that was the reason he couldn’t shake off this stupor. He lay back down on the pillows and closed his eyes, but some fuzzy memory was hovering at the edges of his mind. Meredith. He’d had that demented dream that she’d come in a snowstorm and helped him up to bed. He wondered how his subconscious had conjured up an image as bizarre as that one. Meredith might help him off a bridge or over the edge of a mountain or into bankruptcy if she thought she could, but anything less destructive was ludicrous.

  He’d just started to drift back to sleep when he heard footsteps moving stealthily up the creaky steps. Jolted into startled awareness, he lurched into a sitting position, reeling dizzily from the sudden movement, but as he started to shove back the covers, the intruder knocked on the door. “Matt?” a soft voice called, a unique voice, musical, cultured.

  Meredith’s voice.

  His hand froze as he stared blankly at the wall across from him, and for one crazy moment he was completely disoriented.

  “Matt, I’m coming in—” The doorknob turned, and reality hit him—it had not been a bizarre dream. Meredith was there.

  Using her shoulder to shove open the door, Meredith backed slowly into the room, deliberately giving him time to get under the covers in case he was up but not yet dressed. Lulled into a false sense of security because he’d been reasonably pleasant the previous night, she almost dropped the tray when his infuriated voice erupted behind her like steam hissing from a volcano. “What are you doing here!”

  “I brought you a tray,” she explained, turning toward him and heading around the bed, surprised by his furious expression. But that expression was nothing compared to the menace that tightened his face an instant later when his gaze riveted on the red rubber bag.

  “What in the living hell,” he exploded, “do you think you’re going to do with that?”

  Determined not to let him ruffle or intimidate her, Meredith lifted her chin and calmly replied, “It’s for your head.”

  “Is that supposed to be your idea of a dirty joke?” he demanded, looking murderous.

  Completely disconcerted, Meredith put the tray down on the bed beside his hip and said soothingly, “I put ice in it for you—”

  “You would,” he bit out, and then he said in an awful voice, “I’ll give you exactly five seconds to get the hell out of this room and one minute more to get out of this house, before I throw you out.” He leaned forward, and Meredith realized he intended to shove back the bedcovers and overturn the tray.

  “No,” she cried, but there was as much pleading as protest in her voice. “There’s no use threatening me, because I can’t leave. I lost my car keys out in front when I got out of the car. And even if I hadn’t, I still couldn’t leave until I tell you everything I came here to say.”

  “I’m not interested,” Matt said savagely, reaching out to jerk the covers off, furious because he had to wait for a wave of dizziness to pass.

  “You weren’t behaving like this last night,” she argued desperately, and whisked the tray off the blankets before he dumped it onto the floor. “I didn’t think you’d get this upset just because I made an ice bag for your head!”

  He stopped, his hand arrested on the edge of the blankets, an indescribable expression of blank, comic shock on his chiseled features. “You did what?” he uttered in a choked whisper.

  “I just told you. I made up an ice bag for your head—”

  Meredith broke off in alarm as he suddenly covered his face with his hands and fell backward against the pillows, his shoulders shaking. His body shook from head to foot, and muffled sounds came from behind his hands. He shook so violently, his head left the pillows and the bedsprings squeaked. He shook so hard that Meredith thought he was having a seizure or choking to death.

  “What’s wrong?” she burst out. Her question seemed to make the bed shake harder and his strangled sounds increase. “I’m calling an ambulance!” she cried, putting the tray down and running for the door. “There’s a phone in my car—” She was out of the room and starting down the steps when Matt’s laughter exploded behind her: great, gusty shouts of laughter; huge, prolonged bursts of uncontrollable mirth . . .

  Meredith stopped dead, turned, and listened, realizing tha
t the seizure she’d witnessed had in actuality been a fit of wild hilarity. Arrested on the steps, her hand on the railing, she reflected upon his outburst of laughter and speculated uneasily over its possible cause. That long rubber tube had bothered her from the beginning, but the assembled contraption had borne not the slightest resemblance to the disposable hygiene products one usually saw in drugstores. Furthermore, she thought a little fiercely in her own defense as she started slowly back up the stairs, that red rubber bag had been hanging on the back of the bathroom door the last time she’d been there! Surely, if it was a hygiene product, it shouldn’t have been left in full view.

  Outside his door, she paused, feeling excruciatingly self-conscious. It occurred to her then that whatever discomfort she felt, it was probably worth it. After all, mirth had diverted him from his furious attempt to eject her. Even when he was flat on his back, Matthew Farrell was the most formidable foe she’d ever confronted. And when he was angry, he was actually terrifying. But no matter what he said or did, no matter how angry or unreasonable he might become, it was time for her to try to make peace with him.

  Her mind made up, Meredith shoved her hands into her pockets, affected an expression which she hoped looked like well-bred confusion, and walked back into the bedroom.

  The moment he saw her, Matt had to bite back a fresh onslaught of laughter. Despite her furious blush, she was sauntering toward him with her hands in her pockets, trying to look as if she didn’t have the slightest idea why he’d laughed. All she needed to do to complete the comic picture of blank innocence she was trying to effect was to gaze up at the ceiling and start whistling.

  In the midst of that thought it suddenly hit him why she was there, and the smile that had been lurking at the corner of his mouth abruptly vanished. Obviously, Meredith had discovered he’d bought the land she wanted in Houston and that it was now going to cost her ten million dollars more. She’d come racing out there to wheedle and cajole and do whatever else it took to make him change his mind—even if that meant fixing him a bed tray and hovering solicitously at his bedside. Disgusted by her clumsy, transparent attempt to manipulate him, he waited for her to speak, and when she didn’t he curtly demanded, “How did you find me?”

  Meredith was instantly aware of an alarming change in his mood. “I went to your apartment last night,” she admitted. “About the tray—”

  “Forget that,” he snapped impatiently. “I asked you how you found me.”

  “Your father was at your apartment, and we talked. He told me you were here.”

  “You must have put on one hell of an act to convince him to help you,” he said with unconcealed contempt. “My father wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

  So desperate was Meredith to make him listen and believe, she sat down on the bed beside him without thought as she began, “Your father and I talked, and I explained some things to him. And he believed me. After we—understood each other—he told me where you were so that I could come here and explain to you too.”

  “Then start explaining,” he said tersely, leaning back against the pillows. “But keep it short,” he added, so astonished that she’d been able to wheedle her way around his father that he was suddenly curious to witness a little of whatever performance she’d given last night.

  Meredith looked at his cold, forbidding face, and drew a steadying breath, forcing herself to meet his eyes. Moments ago those eyes had been warm with laughter; now they were like shards of ice. “Are you going to talk,” he snapped, “or sit there studying my face?”

  She flinched at his tone, but didn’t drop her eyes. “I’m going to talk,” she said. “The explanation is a little complicated—”

  “But hopefully convincing,” he jeered.

  Instead of retorting with that haughty fury she’d used on him in the past, she nodded and smiled wryly. “Hopefully.”

  “Then get on with it! But just stick to the salient points—what you want me to believe, what you’re offering, and what you want from me in return. In fact, you can skip the last part, I know what you want, I’m just interested to see how you plan to get it.”

  His words flicked against her lacerated conscience like whips, but she kept her eyes on his and began to speak with quiet sincerity. “What I want you to believe is the truth, which I’m about to tell you. What I’m offering are some peace-offerings which I’d intended to make to you last night when I went to your apartment. And what I want from you in return,” she continued, ignoring his order to skip that part, “is a truce. An understanding between us. I want that very much.”

  Sardonic amusement twisted his mouth when she said the last part. “And that’s all you want—a truce and an understanding?” The biting irony in his voice gave her the uneasy feeling that he was referring to the Houston land. “I’m listening,” he prodded rudely when she hesitated. “Now that I understand your purely altruistic motives, let’s hear what you’re willing to offer.”

  He made it sound not only as if he doubted her motives, but as if he doubted she could offer anything that wasn’t paltry and insignificant, so Meredith played her trump card, presenting him with the most important concession she had to give—and one that she knew was vitally important to him. “I’m offering you the approval of your rezoning request by the Southville zoning commission,” she said, and saw his momentary surprise at her frank admission that she knew about the situation. “I know my father had it blocked, and I’d also like you to understand that I never agreed with that. I quarreled with him about it long before you and I had lunch.”

  “How fair-minded you’ve suddenly become.”

  Her lips turned up into a funny little smile. “I thought you’d react like that. In your position, so would I. However, you can believe this, because I can prove it: The Southville zoning commission will approve your request just as soon as you resubmit it. My father has given me his word that he’ll not only stop blocking it, he’ll reverse his position and use his influence to get it approved. In turn, I give you my word to make certain he keeps his.”

  He gave a short, unpleasant laugh. “What makes you think I’d take your word, or his, for anything? Now I’ll make you a deal,” he added in a silky, threatening voice. “If my rezoning request is approved by five o’clock Tuesday night, without being resubmitted, I’ll call off the lawsuits my attorneys are preparing to file on Wednesday—a lawsuit against your father and Senator Davies for illegally attempting to influence public officials, and another lawsuit against the Southville zoning commission for deliberately failing to act in the best interest of their community.”

  Meredith’s stomach lurched sickly at the discovery he’d planned to do that—and at the incredible speed with which he mobilized the forces for revenge. What had Business Week said of him—A man who’s a throwback to the days when an eye for an eye was regarded as justice, not cruel and inhuman revenge. Suppressing a shudder of fear, Meredith reminded herself that despite all that had been written of him, despite the fact that Matt had every reason to despise her, he had still tried to treat her cordially at the opera, and had been willing to try again that day at lunch. Not until he’d been pushed past all bounds of endurance was he turning his power against her father and her. The knowledge restored her courage and it did something more—it sent a shaft of piercing tenderness through her for this angry, dynamic man who had shown so much restraint.

  “What else?” Matt snapped impatiently and was stunned by the soft expression in her eyes when she raised them to his and said, “There will be no further acts of vengeance on my father’s part—petty or large.”

  “Does this mean,” he asked with mocking delight, “that I can be a member of that exclusive little country club of yours?”

  Flushing, she nodded.

  “I’m not interested. I never was. What else are you offering?” When she hesitated, and twisted her fingers in her lap, he lost patience. “Don’t tell me that was it? That’s your entire offer? And now I’m supposed to forgive and forge
t and give you what you really want?”

  “What do you mean, really want?”

  “Houston!” he clarified icily. “Among your unselfish motives for this visit, you left out the thirty-million-dollar motive that sent you scurrying to my apartment last night. Or am I misjudging the purity of your actions, Meredith?”

  She surprised him again by shaking her head and quietly admitting, “I found out yesterday that you’d bought the Houston land, and you’re right—it was the catalyst that sent me to your apartment.”

  “And then brought you running out here,” he added sarcastically. “And now that you’re here, you’re prepared to say or do whatever it takes to make me change my mind and sell you the property for what I paid for it. Just how far are you willing to go?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, is that it? Surely those few paltry concessions aren’t the best you can do?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but Matt had enough of this disgusting charade. “Let me save you the trouble of answering that,” he said nastily. “Nothing you can do or say, now or in the future, will make one damned bit of difference to me. You can hover solicitously by my bedside, you can offer to climb into bed with me, and the Houston property is still going to cost you thirty million if you want it. Is that clear?”

  Her reaction stunned him utterly. He’d been hammering at her with every sentence he spoke, threatening her with public lawsuits and devastating scandal that would ensue, insulting her with every nuance of his voice; in short, he’d subjected her to the sort of intimidation that made hardened business adversaries either sweat or rage, but he hadn’t been able to break her control. In fact, she was looking at him with an expression that, if Matt didn’t know it was impossible, looked almost like tenderness and contrition.

  “That’s very clear,” she replied softly, and she slowly stood up.

  “You’re leaving, I take it?”