Paradise Read online

  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