Paradise Read online

  “All right, let’s hear it!” Philip began, slamming his office door. “The damn plane had mechanical trouble or I’d have been here hours ago.” Taking over in his inimitable style, he walked forward, flinging off his coat, and demanded of Mark Braden, “Well? What have you found out about these bomb scares? Who’s behind it? Why aren’t you in New Orleans—that store seems to be the prime target!”

  “I just got back from New Orleans, and all we have now are theories,” Mark began patiently, then he paused as Philip marched over to the computer screens on the credenza behind the desk and punched in commands on the keyboard that brought onto the screen the total sales in all the stores for the day. When he compared that figure with last year’s, on the other screen, his face turned an alarming shade of gray beneath his newly acquired tan. “Good God!” he whispered. “It’s worse than I expected.”

  “It’ll get better soon,” Meredith said, trying to sound soothing as he belatedly pressed an absentminded kiss on her cheek. If things hadn’t been so dire, she’d have laughed at his appearance. Never less than impeccably attired, her father now wore a suit wrinkled from the long transatlantic flight, he needed a shave, and his hair looked as if he’d been combing it with his fingers. “People are staying away from our stores right now,” she added, “but in a couple of days, when the publicity about the bombs is over, they’ll come back.” She started to move away from his desk so that he could sit in the chair behind it, but he surprised her by distractedly motioning her to stay there. Walking over to one of the guest chairs, he eased himself into it, and she realized that he was more exhausted and strained than he looked.

  “Start from the day I left,” he told her. “Sit down, Mark. Before I hear your theories, I want to hear some facts from Meredith first. Did you complete the purchase of the land in Houston yet?”

  Meredith froze at the mention of that particular project, then she glanced at Mark. “Would you mind waiting outside for a few minutes, Mark, while I discuss this with my—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Meredith,” her father said. “Braden can be trusted, and you should know it.”

  “I do know it,” she said, chafing at his tone, but she remained firm. “Mark, would you please give us five minutes?”

  She waited until he left, then she came around the desk. “If we’re going to talk about the Houston project, we’re going to have to talk about Matt. Are you calm enough to listen without going into a rage?”

  “You’re damned right we’re going to talk about Farrell! But first I want to try to salvage my business—”

  Instinct told Meredith that this was the right time to tell him about everything, including her involvement with Matt—now, when he was distracted with business concerns and Braden was outside waiting to fill them in on whatever he knew. For one thing, he wouldn’t have much time to rant and rave over each event. “You said you want to hear everything that’s happened, and I’m going to tell you all of it—I’ll keep it short and in chronological order, so it’ll only take a few minutes, but you’re going to have to understand that Matt is involved in some of it.”

  “Start talking,” he ordered, scowling.

  “Fine,” she said, and reached out for the diary she’d kept at his instruction before he went on the cruise. As she flipped through pages she said, “We did try to buy the Houston land, but in the midst of the negotiations, someone else bought it.” Glancing up, she said levelly, “Intercorp bought it—”

  He half rose out of his chair, his eyes blazing with fury and shock. “Sit down and stay calm,” she warned him quietly. “Intercorp bought it for twenty million and upped the price to thirty million. Matt did it,” she emphasized, “in retaliation against you—because he discovered that you’d had his rezoning in Southville blocked. He also planned to sue you and Senator Davies and the Southville zoning commission.” He paled at that and she quickly added, “It’s all been settled already. There’ll be no lawsuits, and Matt is selling us the property for the original twenty million.”

  She watched him, hoping to see some sign of softening toward Matt after that, but he was rigid with the effort to control his hatred and anger, and she dragged her gaze back to the business diary, flipping through the pages. Glad that the next matter didn’t involve Matt, she said, “Sam Green said there’s been an unusual amount of interest in our stock on the market. It drove the price up until this week, when the price began dropping because of the bomb scares. We should know any day now who the new shareholders are and how large a block they own—”

  “Did Sam happen to use the word takeover?” he demanded, his voice tight.

  “Yes,” Meredith said reluctantly, and flipped to the next page, “but we all agreed that’s probably an imaginary worry, because we’d be a poor takeover target right now. As you already know, we had a bomb threat in the New Orleans store, which proved to be false. It slowed down sales for several days; then they returned to normal.” For the next few minutes she continued leafing through the pages until she’d brought him up-to-date on everything, including Parker’s call that morning about their new lenders. “That takes care of business,” she said, watching him for signs that the strain was more than his heart could take. He looked like a stone statue in that chair, but his color had returned to normal. “Now let’s take care of personal matters—Matthew Farrell in particular.” Deliberately phrasing the question as a challenge, she said, “Can you handle a discussion of him now?”

  “Yes,” he snapped.

  Gentling her voice, she said, “When I discovered he’d bought the Houston land, I went to his apartment to force a showdown. Instead of finding Matt there, I found his father, who warned me to stay away from Matt, and who accused me of trying to ruin his life and of having an abortion eleven years ago.” His jaws clamped, and Meredith calmly continued. “I went to see Matt at the farm that weekend, and together we realized what you had done, including preventing him from seeing me in the hospital. When I had time to think,” she said with a sad smile, “I realized you obviously thought you were protecting me from—from a man you believed to be a social-climbing gold digger, which is what you called him back then. You shouldn’t have interfered,” she added somberly. “I loved him, and I never got completely over the pain of believing he’d deserted me and the baby. In the end you caused me more hurt than he ever could have. But I know you didn’t mean to,” she added, searching his rigid face.

  When he didn’t move or speak, Meredith continued. “The week after I came back from seeing Matt at the farm, the bogus lawyer you hired was arrested, and he started naming his clients’ names, which caused an uproar in the press about Matt, Parker, and me. Matt had him bailed out of jail and taken care of, then the three of us gave a joint press conference. We tried to pass the matter off as lightly as possible and to put up a show of solidarity. Unfortunately, last week four of us went out to dinner for my birthday, and Parker had too much to drink . . . and, well, there was a fight, and that got us in the newspapers again. About all I can say,” she added, trying desperately to joke and find something positive from it, “is that our business had an upward surge for several days after the press conference, which probably came from all the publicity.”

  Her father didn’t smile. When he finally spoke, his voice shook with angry disbelief. “You’ve broken your engagement to Parker, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because of Farrell.”

  “Yes.” Softly, but with absolute conviction, she said, “I love him.”

  “Then you’re an idiot!”

  “And he loves me.”

  That brought her father out of his chair, his lip curled with contempt. “That monster doesn’t want you or love you—what he wants is revenge against me!”

  His tone hurt as much as his words, but Meredith didn’t falter. “Matt understands that I can’t live with him for a few weeks—not after I stood in the auditorium downstairs and publicly announced that we scarcely knew each other and there was no pos