“You’re talking to me about my duty to Bancroft’s and, at the same time, telling me to sign those papers?” she repeated, and suddenly she felt like laughing with the sheer joy of having taken her stand—the right stand. “You’re dangerously incompetent if it hasn’t occurred to you what Matthew Farrell will do to this company in retaliation for slandering and libeling him with that folder full of garbage. He’ll own Bancroft’s and all of you when he’s finished suing you!” she finished almost proudly.
“We’ll take that risk. Sign the papers.”
“No!”
Unaware that the expressions of some of the board members were exhibiting definite signs of doubt about the wisdom of provoking Farrell, Nolan Wilder looked at her and said frigidly, “It appears that your misplaced loyalties are preventing you from fulfilling your responsibility as an officer of this corporation to act in its best interest. Either tender your resignation here and now, or prove me wrong and sign the papers.”
Meredith looked him right in the eye. “Go to hell!”
“Good for you, girlie!” she heard old Cyrus shout in the taut, shocked silence as his fist hit the table. “I knew you had more than just great legs!” But Meredith scarcely heard him; she was turning her back on all of them, walking out of the boardroom, slamming the door behind her. Slamming it closed on a lifetime of cherished hopes and dreams.
Matt’s words came back to her, cheering and forceful, as she walked swiftly toward her office. She’d asked him what he would do if his board pressured him unreasonably, and he’d replied, I’d tell them to fuck off. The memory almost made her laugh. She hadn’t quite said that to them, in fact she’d never said that to anyone, but what she had said amounted to the same thing, she decided proudly. Matt’s party was tonight, and she was in a hurry to go home and change. The phone on her desk was ringing when she got back to her office, and since Phyllis had already left for the day, Meredith answered it automatically.
“Miss Bancroft,” a cool, arrogant voice informed her, “this is William Pearson, Mr. Farrell’s attorney. I’ve been trying to reach Stuart Whitmore all day, and since he hasn’t yet returned my calls, I’m taking the liberty of calling you directly.”
“That’s fine,” Meredith said, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear as she opened her briefcase and began putting all her personal things from her desk into it. “Why are you calling?”
“Mr. Farrell has instructed us to tell you that he no longer has any desire to continue with the rest of the eleven-week trial period you agreed to. He has further instructed us to tell you,” he continued in his nastiest, threatening tone, “that you are to file for divorce no later than six days from now, or else we will file in his behalf on the seventh day.”
Meredith had already been subjected to all the coercion and threats she was willing to endure. Pearson’s ominous, autocratic tone was the last straw! She took the phone away from her ear, glowered furiously at the receiver, then she spoke two crisp, emphatic words into Pearson’s ear, and slammed the phone onto its cradle.
Not until she sat down to write out a hasty resignation did the full impact of Pearson’s call truly hit her, and her feeling of triumph gave way to burgeoning panic at Matt’s action. She’d already waited too long. He wanted a divorce. Immediately. No, that couldn’t be true, she told herself desperately, writing faster. She signed her name to her resignation, and stood up, then she looked at what she had written. For the second time in moments she felt the terrible force of reality. Her father walked into her office right then, and it hit her yet again that she was severing herself from everything. Even him.
“Don’t do this,” he said, his voice harsh as she shoved the resignation toward him.
“You made me do it. You convinced them to draw up those documents, then you led me in there like a lamb to the slaughter. You forced me to choose.”
“You chose him, not me, and not your heritage.”
Meredith leaned her damp palms against the desk, her voice anguished. “There shouldn’t have needed to be a choice. Daddy,” she said, so distracted that she called him by the name she’d stopped using as a little girl, “why did you have to do this to me? Why did you have to tear me apart like this? Why couldn’t I have loved you and him?”
“This isn’t about that,” he said angrily, but his shoulders were sagging and there was desperation in his voice. “He’s guilty, but you won’t see it. You’d rather believe I’m guilty of jealousy and manipulation and vengeance—”
“Because,” Meredith interrupted, knowing she couldn’t bear any more, “it’s true. You are. You don’t love me, not enough to want me to be happy. And anything less than that isn’t love, it’s nothing but selfish ownership of another human being.” Snapping the locks closed on her briefcase, Meredith picked up her purse and coat and headed for the door.
“Meredith, don’t!” he warned as she started past him.
She stopped and turned, looking at his haggard face through eyes swimming with tears. “Good-bye,” she said aloud. “Daddy,” she whispered in her heart.
She was partway across the reception area when Mark Braden called out to her, his face lit with a triumphant grin as he drew her off to the side. “I need you in my office right away. Gordon Mitchell’s secretary is down there, crying her little heart out. I’ve got Mitchell cold! We were right—the bastard’s on the take.”
“That’s confidential company business,” she said quietly, “and I no longer work here.”
His face fell and his angry dismay was so genuine, and so touching, that Meredith had to fight even harder for composure. But all he said was an embittered, “I see.”
She tried to smile. “I’m sure you do.” When she turned to go, he put his hand on her arm and drew her back. For the first time in fifteen rigid years of safeguarding Bancroft’s interests, Mark Braden broke his own rule; he divulged company information to someone other than the appropriate manager in charge. He did it because he felt she had a right to know. “Mitchell’s been taking big kickbacks from several suppliers. One of them blackmailed him into refusing the presidency.”
“And his secretary found out and turned him in?”
“Not exactly,” Mark said sarcastically. “She’s known for weeks. They’ve been having an affair and he’s been reneging on his promise to marry her.”
“And that’s why she turned him in,” Meredith concluded.
“No, she turned him in because he gave her an annual performance review this morning, and rated her adequate. Can you believe it!” Mark snorted. “The stupid ass rated her adequate and then he reneged on his promise to promote her to an assistant buyer. That’s why she turned him in. She’d already figured he was lying about wanting to marry her, but she was damned determined to become an assistant buyer.”
“Thanks for telling me,” she said, pressing an affectionate kiss on his cheek. “I would always have wondered.”
“Meredith, I’d like you to know how sorry—”
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head, afraid her control would shatter if someone was kind right now. Glancing at her watch, she reached out and pressed the elevator button, then she looked at Mark. With a winsome smile she explained, “I have a very important party to attend, and I’m going to be late. Actually, I’m going to be an uninvited, unwelcome guest—” The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. “Wish me luck,” she added as the doors slid closed.
“I do,” he said somberly.
56
Looking in the mirror, Matt tied his black tuxedo tie with the same cold efficiency with which he’d done everything else the past two days. Not long ago he’d dreamed of Meredith standing at his side tonight, greeting their guests, but no more. Not now. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about her, or to remember her, or to feel anything. He’d torn her out of his mind and heart, permanently this time, and he wanted to keep her out. Instructing Pearson to notify her to proceed with the divorce had been the first, hardest step. After tha
t the rest had been so much easier.
“Matt—” his father said, walking into the master suite, his forehead furrowed into an uneasy frown, “there’s someone here to see you. I told the security guard to let her up. She says she’s Caroline Bancroft—Meredith’s mother—and she needs to talk to you.”
“Get rid of her. I have nothing to say to anyone whose name is Bancroft.”
“The reason I let her come up,” Patrick continued, braving his son’s frigid displeasure, “is that she wants to talk to you about the bomb scares in the department stores. She says she knows who’s behind them.”
Matt froze momentarily, then he shrugged and reached for his black tuxedo jacket. “Tell her to take her information to the police.”
“It’s too late, I already let her in. She’s here.”
Swearing under his breath, Matt swung around and realized his father had actually brought the woman to the doorway of his bedroom. For a split second the resemblance she bore to Meredith tore at him as he looked at the slender blond woman who was hiding her uncertainty behind a façade of cool determination. She had Meredith’s eyes and her hair, but not the elegant perfection of Meredith’s bones and features. What resemblance there was was enough to make him long to throw her out bodily, just to get her out of his sight.
“I realize you’re having a party and I’m intruding,” she said cautiously, starting forward and passing Patrick, who was already retreating, “but my plane just got in from Rome, and I didn’t have any choice except to come straight here. You see, I realized after I was on the plane that once I got here, Philip would probably refuse to see me, let alone believe me, and even if Meredith would do either one, which I doubt, I don’t know where she lives.”
“How the hell did you know where I live?” he demanded.
“You are Meredith’s husband, aren’t you?”
“I’m about to be her ex-husband,” he stated implacably.
“Oh,” Caroline said, studying the coldly unapproachable man her daughter had married. “I think I’m sorry to hear that. But to answer your question, I get the Chicago newspapers in Italy, and there was a big layout a while back about this apartment and the building it’s in.”
“Fine,” Matt snapped impatiently. “Now that you’ve found me and gotten in here, what did you want to tell me?”
She bristled a little at his tone, and then smiled suddenly. “I can tell you’ve been involved with Philip. He makes a lot of people react negatively to anyone who has his name.”
That was close enough to bring a brief, grim smile to Matt’s lips. “What did you come here to tell me?” he asked, but with an effort at courtesy.
“Philip was in Italy last week,” she began as she unbuttoned her red wool coat and loosened the scarf at her neck. “I know from what he said there that he thinks you’re behind the bombs that have been put in Bancroft’s stores, and that he also thinks you’re the one who plans to take over Bancroft and Company. But he’s wrong.”
“It’s nice to hear that someone thinks that’s possible,” Matt said sarcastically.
“I don’t think it, I know it.” Unnerved by his unencouraging attitude and desperate to make him believe her, Caroline began talking faster. “Mr. Farrell, I own a large block of shares in B and C, and six months ago Charlotte Bancroft—she was Philip’s father’s second wife—called me. She asked me if I’d like a chance to get back at Philip for divorcing me and shutting me out of Meredith’s life. Charlotte heads Seaboard Industries in Florida,” she added disjointedly.
Matt remembered Meredith’s mentions of her stepgrandmother. “She inherited it from her husband,” he said, reluctantly drawn into the discussion.
“Yes, and she’s built it into an enormous holding company that owns a great many corporations.”
“And?” he said when she hesitated.
Caroline looked at him, trying to gauge his emotions, but he didn’t seem to have any at all. “And now,” she said, “she’s getting ready to add Bancroft and Company to her holdings. She asked if I’d vote my block of shares in her favor when she’d acquired enough shares of her own to equal a controlling interest. She hates Philip too, though she doesn’t think I know why she does.”
“I’m sure he gave her thousands of reasons,” Matt said ironically, turning away and shrugging into his tuxedo jacket. The buzzer at the door was ringing incessantly and the sound of conversation drifted into the bedroom as arriving guests stopped in the foyer to relinquish their coats.
“She hates Philip,” Caroline persevered, “because it was Philip she wanted, not his father, and she did her damnedest to get him into her bed even after she was engaged to his father. He turned her down repeatedly, and one day he did more than that. He told his father—Cyril—she was a common, mercenary slut who wanted to marry Cyril for his money and who had the hots for him—Philip. It was all true,” she said somberly, “but Philip’s father was in love with her. He blamed Philip for saying it, and yet he believed him. He called off his wedding and Charlotte, who’d been Cyril’s secretary, had to wait years before he finally decided to marry her. Anyway, a few months ago, I told Charlotte I’d think about voting my shares with her when she made her takeover move, but when I had time to consider it, I started changing my mind. Philip is an infuriating fool, but Charlotte is truly evil. She has no heart. A few weeks ago she called and told me someone else was buying up a lot of shares in B and C, and causing the price to go up.”
Matt knew he was responsible for that, but he said nothing as she continued. “Charlotte was panicky. She said she was going to do something to make the price drop way down, and then she was going to make her move. The next thing I knew I was hearing about bombs being found in the stores and how it was destroying B and C’s Christmas business and causing the stock to drop.”
She’d given Matt the missing pieces of the puzzle—the motive for the carefully placed bombs that had been meant to damage business but not the stores themselves, the motive for taking over a corporation that was a bad bet for short-term profit. Charlotte Bancroft had the motives and she had the vast sums of money needed to execute a takeover of a corporation in debt and then to wait until B & C was again profitable.
“You’ll have to tell the police,” he said, turning toward the phone beside his bed.
She nodded. “I know. Is that who you’re calling now?”
“No. I’m calling a man named Olsen who has contacts with the local police. He’ll go with you tomorrow and make certain you aren’t treated like a crackpot, or, worse, made into their newest suspect.”
Caroline stood perfectly still, her face mirroring astonishment as he called a long distance number and ordered the man named Olsen to Chicago on the first plane in the morning—all of it to ease her way through a difficult situation. She revised her initial opinion that he was the most unapproachable man she’d ever encountered and decided he simply didn’t want anything more to do with anyone whose name was Bancroft—including Meredith, judging from the cold way he’d said he was about to become her ex-husband. When he hung up he wrote two phone numbers on a pad beside the phone and tore the sheet off. “Here’s Olsen’s home phone number. Call him anytime tonight and tell him where to meet you. The second phone number is mine, in case you have a problem.” He turned back to her, and the hostility he’d shown her earlier was gone. He was still aloof and obviously reluctant to have any other involvement with her, but he unbent enough to say, “Meredith told me you used to be in films. The road cast from Phantom of the Opera is here tonight as well as a hundred and fifty other people, some of whom you probably know. If you’d like to stay for the party, my father will introduce you around.”
The party was already shifting into full swing as they walked toward the living room. “I’d rather not be introduced,” she said quickly, “and I have no desire to renew my acquaintance with any of the old-guard Chicago socialites out there.” She hesitated then, watching black-coated waiters passing trays of drinks among gorgeously dress
ed women and men in tuxedos. Someone was playing a piano and the lilting music blended with the sound of cultured voices and bursts of laughter. “I—I would like to stay for just a little while though,” she said with a sudden jaunty smile that made her look thirty-five instead of fifty-five. “I used to live for parties like this. It might be fun to stay and watch and wonder again why I ever thought they were so wonderful.”
“Let me know if you figure that out,” he said, his own indifference obviously surpassing even her own.
“Why are you giving the party if you don’t enjoy them?” she asked with an uncertain smile, wondering anew at this strange, enigmatic man her daughter had married.
“The proceeds of the performance tomorrow night are going to charity,” he said with a shrug.
Matt led her to the edge of the crowd, where his sister was deep in conversation with Stuart Whitmore, and he introduced her simply as Caroline Edwards. Whitmore and his sister had already hit it off, he noted, and he wished he hadn’t introduced them. Having Whitmore seeing his sister would be an unwanted reminder of Meredith—especially of that ill-fated afternoon in his conference room when she’d put her hand in his and promised to trust him. She hadn’t been capable of doing it that day, and she hadn’t been capable of it later when it was more important. Because when it came down to it, he was still a crude nobody to her. She would never have suspected Parker, or anyone else of her own class, of being a murderer or an arsonist. She’d been willing to sleep with Matt—but that was all. She’d have kept right on stalling about living with him forever. She’d liked going to bed with him, but when it came down to actually committing herself to him, to living with him, to being married to him, that she could not make herself do.
He stepped forward to begin playing host when Caroline put her hand on his sleeve and stopped him. “I won’t be staying long,” she said. “I suppose this is good-bye.”
Paradise Page 72
