Paradise

by Judith McNaught

  She shook her head and smiled a little. “I’m going to take the cover off your breakfast plate and hover solicitously at your bedside.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Matt exploded, his own rigid control over the situation slipping a notch. “didn’t you understand what I just said? Nothing you do is going to make me change my mind about the Houston property!”

  Her expression sobered, but her eyes remained soft, looking into his. “I believe you.”

  “And?” he demanded, his anger giving way to complete bafflement which he blamed upon the drug that was making it hard to concentrate.

  “And I accept your decision as—as a sort of, well, penance for past misdeeds. You couldn’t have found a better one either, Matt,” she admitted without rancor. “I wanted that property for Bancroft and Company, and it’s going to hurt terribly when it goes to someone else. We can’t afford to pay thirty million.” He stared at her in shocked disbelief as she continued with a somber smile. “You’ve taken away from me something I wanted desperately. Now that you have, will you call it even between us and agree to a truce?”

  His first instinct was to tell her to go to hell, but that was a purely emotional reaction, and when it came to bargaining, Matt had learned long before never to let his emotions overrule his judgment or interfere with his logic. And logic reminded him that some sort of civilized relationship with her was exactly what he’d hoped to achieve in their last two encounters. Now she was offering it to him—and at the same time she was conceding victory to him with a grace that was astounding. And nearly irresistible. Standing there, waiting for his decision, with her hair tumbling in artless waves and curls over her shoulders, and her hands shoved into her pants pockets, Meredith Bancroft looked more like a contrite high school girl who’d been summoned to the principal’s office than like a corporate executive. And at the same time, she still managed to look like the proud young socialite she was—quietly regal, serenely unattainable, enticingly beautiful.

  Looking at her now, Matt finally and completely understood his long-ago obsession with her. Meredith Bancroft was the quintessential woman—changeable and unpredictable, haughty and sweet, witty and solemn, serene and volatile, incredibly proper . . . unconsciously provocative.

  What was the point in carrying on this ridiculous war with her, he asked himself. If he called it off, they could go their own ways without any more regrets. The past should have been buried years earlier; it was long past time to do it now. He’d had his revenge—ten million dollars’ worth, because he didn’t believe for a minute that she wouldn’t find a way to raise the extra money. He was already wavering when he suddenly remembered her carrying that tray into him, and he had to stifle the urge to chuckle. The moment his expression altered, she seemed to sense that he was on the verge of capitulating; her shoulders relaxed a little and her eyes lit with relief. The fact that she could read him that well was just irksome enough to make him decide to prolong her suspense. Crossing his arms over his chest, Matt said, “I don’t make deals when I’m flat on my back.”

  She wasn’t fooled. “Do you think some breakfast might sweeten your disposition?” she asked with a teasing smile.

  “I doubt it,” he replied, but her smile was so contagious that he started to grin in spite of himself.

  “So do I,” she joked, then she offered him her hand. “Truce?”

  Matt reacted automatically to the gesture, starting to extend his hand, but she suddenly pulled her hand just out of reach, and with a winsome smile she said, “Before you agree, there’s one thing I ought to warn you about.”

  “And that is?”

  Her voice was half serious. “I was thinking of suing you over the Houston property. I wouldn’t want my earlier remark to mislead you into thinking I’m voluntarily accepting the loss of it as penance. When I said that, I only meant that if the courts won’t force you to sell it for current market value, I’ll accept that without hard feelings toward you. I hope you’ll understand that whatever happens on that matter, it’s only business, not personal.”

  Matt’s eyes gleamed with suppressed laughter. “I admire your honesty and tenacity,” he told her truthfully. “However, I suggest that you reconsider taking me to court. It will cost you a fortune to sue me for fraud or whatever grounds you’re considering, and you’ll still lose.”

  Meredith knew he was probably right, and losing the Houston property didn’t matter so very much at that moment; she was overjoyed because she had already won something just as important as a lawsuit: Somehow, some way, she’d actually diverted this proud, dynamic man from fury to laughter; she’d made him accept a truce. Determined to cement that truce and lighten the atmosphere even more if possible, she teasingly confided, “Actually, I was thinking more of suing you for restraint of trade, or something like that. What do you think of my chances then?”

  He pretended to give that consideration, then he shook his head. “That won’t hold up in court either. However, if you’re absolutely determined to sue, I’d sue me for collusion and conspiracy.”

  “Could I win that one?” she asked with a widening smile.

  “No, but it would be a more entertaining trial.”

  “I’ll give that some thought,” she promised with sham gravity.

  “You do that.”

  He grinned at her. Meredith smiled back at him. And in that prolonged moment of warmth and understanding, the eleven-year barrier of anger and sorrow between them began to crumble, and then it collapsed. Slowly, uncertainly, Meredith lifted her hand and held it out to him in a gesture of truce and friendship. Overwhelmed with the poignancy of the moment, she watched Matt’s hand reach out for hers, felt his long fingers sliding across hers, his palm grazing her palm, and then his fingers, strong and warm, curled tightly, engulfing her hand. “Thank you,” she whispered, lifting her eyes to his.

  “You’re welcome,” he quietly replied, holding her hand for a moment longer, and then letting go. Letting go of the past.

  Like two strangers who’ve accidentally shared something more profound than they intended or expected, they both sought at once to withdraw to safer ground. Matt leaned back into the pillows and Meredith quickly turned her attention to her neglected tray of food and medicine. From the corner of his eye Matt watched her as she picked up the offending red rubber item with the tips of thumb and forefinger only, and in an excess of fastidious modesty, she put it on the floor out of sight. When she turned back to him and put the tray on the table beside the bed, she’d recovered her smiling composure. “I didn’t know how you’d feel this morning, and I didn’t think you’d be very hungry, but I brought you some breakfast.”

  “It all looks very tasty,” Matt lied, surveying the items on the tray. “Castor oil is a great favorite of mine—as an appetizer, of course. And I gather that smelly goo in the blue jar is the main course?”

  Meredith burst out laughing and picked up a plate with a bowl upended on it. “The castor oil was a joke,” she promised.

  Now that the emotional battle between them was over, Matt felt himself beginning to lose the battle to stay awake. Waves of drowsiness were sweeping over him, pulling him down, making his eyelids feel as heavy as boulders. He no longer felt ill; he felt exhausted. Obviously, those damned pills were partly the cause of it. “I appreciate the gesture, but I’m not hungry,” he told her.

  “I didn’t think you would be,” she said, studying his features with the same gentleness that had softened her luminous turquoise eyes all morning. “But you have to eat anyway.”

  “Why?” he demanded a little testily, and then it belatedly dawned on him that Meredith had actually made up a tray for him—Meredith, who hadn’t known how to turn on a stove eleven years ago, and hadn’t wanted to try. Touched by her thoughtfulness, he forced himself back into a sitting position, resolved to eat whatever she had prepared.

  She sat down beside him on the bed. “You have to eat in order to keep your strength up,” she explained, then she reached out an
d picked up the glass of white liquid from the tray, holding it out to him.

  He took it, turning it in his hand, eyeing it warily. “What is this?”

  “I found a can of it in the cupboard. It’s warm milk.”

  He grimaced, but obediently raised it to his lips and swallowed.

  “With butter in it,” Meredith added when he choked.

  Matt thrust the glass into her hand, leaned his head back against the pillows, and closed his eyes. “Why?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “I don’t know—because it’s what my governess used to give me when I got sick.”

  His lids opened, and humor flickered briefly in his gray gaze. “To think I used to envy rich kids—”

  Meredith sent him a laughing look and started slowly to lift the cover off the plate of toast.

  “What’s under there?” he demanded warily.

  She swept off the cover then, revealing two slices of cold toast, and Matt sighed with a mixture of relief and weariness; he didn’t think he could possibly stay awake long enough to chew it. “I’ll eat it later, I promise,” he said, making a superhuman effort to keep his eyelids from slamming shut. “Right now I just want to sleep.”

  He looked so tired and drained that Meredith reluctantly agreed. “All right, but at least take these aspirin. If you take them with milk, they’re less likely to bother your stomach.” She handed them to him along with the glass of buttered milk. Matt grimaced at the warm white liquid, but he obediently took the aspirin and chased the tablets down with it.

  Satisfied, Meredith stood up. “Can I get you anything else?”

  He shuddered convulsively. “A priest,” he gasped.

  She laughed. And the musical sound lingered in the room after she left, drifting through his sleep-drugged mind like a soft melody.

  36

  By noon the pills had worn off, and Matt felt vastly better, although he was surprised to discover how weak he was after doing nothing more strenuous than take a shower and put on a pair of jeans. Behind him the bed beckoned invitingly, and he ignored it. Downstairs, Meredith was evidently making lunch, and he could hear her moving about in the kitchen. He took the tiny electric travel shaver he’d bought in Germany out of its case, plugged it into the current converter, looked in the mirror, and forgot the shaver was running quietly in his hand. Meredith was downstairs . . .

  Impossible. Inconceivable. But true nonetheless. Fully awake now, her motives for being here and her calm acceptance of his verdict about Houston seemed improbable at best. Matt knew it, but as he began to shave, his mind skated away from reexamining her behavior too closely. No doubt the reason was that it was far more pleasant not to do that right now. Outside, it was snowing again, and cold as the Arctic, judging from the icicles clinging to the tree limbs. But inside there was warmth, and unexpected companionship, and the simple truth was he wasn’t fit to resume his packing tasks and he wasn’t sick enough to be contented lying in bed staring at the walls. Meredith’s company, although not restful by any wild stretch of the imagination, was going to be a pleasant diversion.

  In the kitchen, Meredith heard him moving above her head, and she smiled as she put the canned soup she’d prepared into a bowl and the sandwich she’d made for him onto a plate. From the moment Matt’s hand had closed around hers, a strange peace had swept over her, a peace that had now burst into bloom like roses in springtime. She had never really known Matt Farrell, she realized, and she wondered if anyone truly did. According to everything she had read and heard about him, his business foes feared and hated him; his executives admired and were awed by him. Bankers courted him, CEOs asked his advice, and the Securities & Exchange Commission that presided over the stock exchange watched him like a hawk.

  With few exceptions, she realized as she considered the stories she’d read, even people who admired him subtly gave the impression that Matthew Farrell was a dangerous predator to be handled gently and never angered.

  And yet, Meredith thought with another soft smile, he had lain upstairs in that bed, still believing that she had coldly aborted his child and divorced him as if he were some insignificant beggar . . . and he had still taken her hand in his. He had been willing to forgive her. The memory of that moment, the sweetness of it, was incredibly poignant.

  Obviously, Meredith decided, all those people who talked of him with fear and awe didn’t know Matt well at all! If they did, they’d realize that he was capable of enormous understanding and great compassion. She picked up the tray and headed upstairs. Tonight, or in the morning, she would tell him about what had happened to their baby, but not right now. On the one hand, she was desperately eager to have it done with, to eradicate completely and forever the hurt, the anger, the confusion that they had both felt. Then the slate would be wiped clean; they could find real peace with each other, perhaps even real friendship, and they could put a graceful, congenial end to this ill-fated, tumultuous marriage of theirs. But as much as Meredith wanted to have it all out in the open, she was dreading the actual confrontation as she’d never dreaded anything before. This morning Matt had been willing to let bygones be bygones, but she did not like to think about his probable reaction when he discovered the extent of her father’s treachery and duplicity.

  For now she was content to let him exist in blissful ignorance of what was coming, and to give herself a short respite from what had been a wildly stressful and draining twenty-four hours . . . and what was bound to be a painful and wrenching discussion for her as well as for him. It occurred to her that she was inordinately satisfied at the prospect of spending a quiet evening in his company, if he was well enough, but she didn’t think that was in the least significant or alarming. After all, they were old friends in a way. And they deserved this chance to renew their friendship.

  Pausing outside his door, she knocked and called, “Are you decent?”

  With amused dread, Matt sensed instinctively that she was bringing him another tray. “Yes. Come in.”

  Meredith opened the door and saw him standing in front of the mirror with his shirt off, shaving. Stunned by the odd intimacy of seeing him like that again, she jerked her gaze from the sight of his bronze back and rippling muscles. In the mirror his brows rose when he noted her reaction. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” he remarked dryly.

  Chastising herself for acting like an inexperienced, unsophisticated virgin, she tried to say something suitably flippant and blurted out the first banal thing that came to mind. “True, but I’m an engaged woman now.”

  His hand stilled. “You’ve got yourself a problem,” he said lightly after a pulsebeat of silence. “A husband and a fiancé.”

  “I was homely and unpopular with boys when I was young,” she joked, putting down the tray. “Now I’m trying to collect men to make up for lost time.” Turning toward him she added on a more sober note, “From something your father said, I gather I’m not the only one who has a problem with a spouse as well as a fiancé. Evidently you’re thinking of marrying the girl whose picture is on your desk.”

  With an outward appearance of nonchalance, Matt tipped his head back and ran the shaver up his neck to his jaw. “Is that what my father said?”

  “Yep. Is it true?”

  “Does it matter?”

  She hesitated, oddly unhappy with the direction the conversation was taking, but she answered honestly. “No.”

  Matt unplugged the razor, feeling physically weak and loath to deal with the future right now. “Could I ask a favor?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ve had an exhausting two weeks, and I was actually looking forward to coming out here to find some peace and quiet—”

  Meredith felt as if he’d slapped her. “I’m sorry I’ve interrupted your peace.”

  Warm amusement sent a wry smile to his lips. “You’ve always cut up my peace, Meredith. Every time we come within sight of each other, all cosmic hell breaks loose. I didn’t mean that I’m sorry you’re here, I only meant that
I’d like to spend a pleasant, restful afternoon with you, and not have to deal with anything heavy right now.”

  “I feel the same way, actually.”

  In complete accord, they stood silently contemplating each other, and then Meredith turned away and picked up the heavy navy-blue bathrobe with a Neiman-Marcus label that was lying over the back of the chair. “Why don’t you put this on, and then you can sit here and eat your lunch.”

  He shrugged obligingly into the robe, knotted it at the waist, and sat down, but Meredith saw the uneasy way he was looking at the covered plates. “What’s under that bowl?” he asked warily.

  “A string of garlic,” she lied with sham solemnity, “to hang around your neck.” He was still laughing when she swept off the cover. “Even I can manage to cook a can of soup and slap sandwich meat between two slices of bread,” she informed him, smiling back at him.

  “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “This is very nice of you.”

  After he finished eating, they went downstairs and sat in front of the fire he insisted on building. For a while they talked pleasantly about nothing more controversial than the weather, his sister, and finally the book he’d been reading. Obviously, Matt had amazing recuperative powers, she thought, but even so, she could see that he was getting tired. “Wouldn’t you like to go back up to bed?” she asked.

  “No, I like it better down here,” he answered, but he was already stretching out on the sofa, leaning his head against a throw pillow. When Matt awoke an hour later, he had the same thought he’d had that morning when he first opened his eyes—that he’d only dreamed Meredith was there. But when he turned his head slightly and looked over at the chair she’d been sitting in earlier, he saw that it was no dream. She was there—jotting notes on a yellow writing tablet propped on her lap, her legs curled beneath her. Firelight gilded her hair, brushed her smooth cheeks with a faint rosy glow, and cast shadows off her long curly lashes. He watched her as she worked, smiling inwardly because she looked more like a schoolgirl doing her homework than the interim president of a national retail chain. In fact, the longer he watched her, the more impossible the truth seemed. That misconception was immediately disproved when he quietly asked, “What are you working on?”