Paradise Read online

  “Only what I’ve read in the magazines and newspapers in the last eleven years. I’d rather find out the rest by myself.”

  For a man who checked out an attorney right down to the size of his shoe, Stuart thought it was meaningful that Farrell, who was supposedly interested only in revenge, hadn’t done an equally impersonal background check on Meredith. “Then you don’t know the little things about her,” Stuart said as he continued watching him over the rim of his glass, “like the fact that in the summer after her freshman year of college there was a rumor going around that she’d had some sort of tragic love affair, and that’s why she wouldn’t go out with anyone. You, of course, were probably inadvertently the cause of that.” He paused, watching the flare of intense interest and emotion that Farrell belatedly tried to conceal by lifting his glass and taking a swallow of his drink. “And of course,” he continued, “You wouldn’t know that in her junior year a rejected fraternity boy started the rumor that she was either a lesbian or frigid. The only thing that stopped the lesbian thing from sticking to her was her friendship with Lisa Pontini, who was dating the president of the kid’s fraternity. Lisa was so far from being a lesbian, and so loyal to Meredith, that she made the kid a laughingstock with the help of her current boyfriend. The part about being frigid stuck though. They nicknamed her the ‘ice queen’ at school. When she finished grad school, and came back here, the nickname got whispered, but she was so damned beautiful that it added to her allure because it made her a challenge. Besides, showing up with Meredith Bancroft on your arm, looking at that face of hers across a restaurant table, was such an ego boost that you didn’t much care that she wouldn’t sleep with you.”

  Stuart waited, hoping Farrell would finally take the bait and start asking questions, which would have been a tip-off about his true feelings, but Farrell either had no feelings for her—or else he was too smart to risk giving any hints that might cause her attorney to tell her that her husband was definitely in love with her and that she could tear up that document without risk of having him carry out his threats. Irrationally convinced the latter was still the case, Stuart said idly, “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask,” Farrell emphasized.

  “What made you decide to double-team her today with two attorneys, particularly two attorneys whose methods are notoriously heavy-handed?”

  For a second Stuart thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then Farrell admitted with an ironic smile, “That was a tactical error on my part. In my haste to get the agreement drawn up in time for this meeting, I failed to make Levinson and Pearson understand that I wanted her convinced to sign, not bludgeoned to death.” Putting his half-empty glass down on the table, he stood up, making it obvious that their little tête-à-tête was over.

  Left with no choice, Stuart did likewise, but as he bent to pick up the papers, he added, “That was more than a mistake, it was the kiss of death. Besides bullying and coercing her, you betrayed and humiliated her by letting Levinson tell us all that she’d slept with you last weekend. She’s going to hate you for that for a lot longer than eleven weeks. If you knew her better than you do, you’d realize that.”

  “Meredith is incapable of lasting hatred,” Farrell informed him in an implacable voice that was tinged with pride, and Stuart had to hide his shock because every word Farrell was saying now was inadvertently confirming his own suspicion. “If she weren’t incapable of it, she’d hate her father for spoiling her childhood and for belittling her success at work. She’d be hating him now for what she’s just discovered he did to us eleven years ago. Instead, she’s trying to protect him from me. Rather than hating, Meredith looks for ways to excuse the inexcusable in people she loves—including me, by telling herself I was justified in leaving her because I’d been forced to marry her in the first place.” Oblivious to Stuart’s stunned fascination, Farrell eyed him across the cocktail table and added, “Meredith can’t stand to see people hurt. She sends flowers to dead babies with notes to tell them they were loved; she cries in an old man’s arms because he’s believed for eleven years that she aborted his grandchild, and then she drives four hours in a storm because she has to tell me the truth right away. She’s softhearted, and she’s overly cautious. She’s also smart, astute, and intuitive, and those things have enabled her to excel at the department store without being devoured by back-biting executives or turning into one herself.” Leaning down, he picked up his fountain pen and shot a cool, challenging look at Stuart. “What else could I possibly need to know about her?”

  Stuart returned the look with one of his own—satisfied triumph. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly, laughing. “I was right—you are in love with her. And because you are, you wouldn’t do a damned thing to hurt her by prosecuting her father.”

  Brushing the sides of his jacket back, Farrell shoved his hands into his pockets, spoiling some of Stuart’s triumph by showing no concern over his conclusion. He spoiled the rest of it by saying blandly, “You think that, but you aren’t sure enough to risk having Meredith put me to the test. You aren’t even sure enough to broach the subject with her again, and if you were sure, you’d still hesitate to do it.”

  “Really?” Stuart retorted, smiling to himself. As he walked over to the bar to get his briefcase, he was already debating what to tell Meredith and how to do it. “What makes you think so?”

  “Because,” Farrell replied calmly behind him, “from the moment you realized Meredith slept with me last weekend, you haven’t been completely certain about anything—particularly how she feels about me.” He walked forward, angling toward his office and politely escorting Stuart out.

  Stuart suddenly remembered the indescribable look on Meredith’s face earlier, when she’d stood with her hand in Farrell’s. Hiding his growing uncertainty behind a convincing shrug, he said, “I’m her lawyer—it’s my job to tell her what I think, even when it’s a hunch.”

  “You’re also her friend and you were in love with her once. You’re personally involved, and because you are, you’re going to hesitate and contemplate, and in the end you’ll decide to let this run its course. After all, if nothing comes of this, she’s lost nothing by doing what I’ve required of her, and she gains five million dollars.”

  They’d reached his desk and Farrell walked behind it, but he remained politely standing. Thoroughly annoyed by the probable accuracy of Farrell’s psychological summation, Stuart looked around for something to say to shake him up, and his gaze fell on the framed picture of a woman on Farrell’s desk. “Are you planning to keep that picture there while you’re trying to court your wife?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Something in the way he said that made Stuart revise his original impression that the woman was a girlfriend or mistress. “Who is she?” he asked bluntly.

  “My sister.”

  Farrell was watching him with that same infuriating calm, so Stuart shrugged, and with a deliberate effort to be offensive, he said, “Nice smile. Nice body too.”

  “I’ll ignore the last part of that,” Farrell said, “and politely suggest that the four of us have dinner when she’s in town next time. Tell Meredith I’ll pick her up tomorrow night at seven-thirty. You can phone my secretary in the morning and give her the address.”

  Summarily dismissed and duly cut down to size, Stuart nodded and opened the door, then he walked out and closed it. Outside Farrell’s office he began to wonder if he was doing Meredith a favor by not warning her to run, not walk, from the agreement she’d signed, whether she was in love with her husband or not. The man was like a machine; unyielding, detached, uncompromising, and completely unemotional. Not even a slur against his sister could rile the bastard.

  On the opposite side of the connecting door, Matthew Farrell sank heavily into his chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. “Christ!” he whispered, heaving a long, shaking breath of relief. “Thank you.”

  It was the closest he’d come to a prayer in more than eleven years