Paradise by Judith McNaught
“You’re joking,” he said sarcastically. “You’ve never failed to make it eloquently clear how you feel about me and my profession.”
“Oh, that,” she said. “That was—that was teasing.” Her gaze skated away from those piercing blue eyes of his, and she headed for the kitchen, dismayed when he picked up the tea tray and followed.
“Why?” he persisted, referring to her assault on Farrell.
“Why have I teased you, you mean?”
“No, but you could start with that.”
Lisa shrugged, making an adventure in fastidiousness out of putting away the tea things and wiping the sink, but her mind was working frantically. Parker was a banker; everything had to add up to him, and her actions and explanations weren’t doing that. She could either try to bluff, which she was dismally aware wasn’t going to work—not with him—or she could take the biggest gamble of her life and tell him the truth. She decided to gamble. She had lost her heart to him long ago; she had nothing left to lose now but her pride. “Can you remember when you were a kid, say nine or ten years old?” she began, hesitantly continuing to wipe nonexistent crumbs from the countertop.
“I’m capable of that, yes,” he said dryly.
“Did you ever like a girl back then, and try to get her attention?”
“Yes.”
Swallowing audibly, she plunged ahead because it was too late to turn back. “I don’t know how preppy boys did it, but in my neighborhood a boy usually threw a stick at you. Or teased you terribly. They did that,” she finished achingly, “because they didn’t know any other way to make you notice them.”
Gripping the countertop with both hands, Lisa waited for him to speak behind her, and when he said absolutely nothing, her stomach clenched. Drawing a long, shattered breath, she stared fixedly ahead and said, “Do you have any idea how I feel about Meredith? Everything I am and have—all the good things—are because of her. She is the kindest, the finest person I’ve ever known. I love her more than my own sisters. Parker,” she finished brokenly, “can you imagine how . . . how horrible it feels to be in love with a man—and have him propose to the friend you also love?”
Parker spoke then, his voice blunt and incredulous. “I’ve obviously passed out somewhere, stinking drunks, and I’m hallucinating,” he pronounced. “In the morning when they bring me around, some psychoanalyst is going to want to know all about this dream. Just so I can be completely accurate when I describe it, are you trying to tell me you’ve been in love with me?”
Lisa’s shoulders shook with teary laughter. “It was very stupid of you not to notice.”
His hands settled on her shoulders. “Lisa, for God’s sake . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m sorr—”
“Don’t say anything!” she cried. “And especially not that you’re sorry!”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
She tipped her head back, tears streaming from her eyes, and addressed the ceiling in a tone of frustrated misery. “How could I possibly fall in love with such an unimaginative man?” The pressure on her shoulders increased, and she reluctantly let him turn her around. “Parker,” she said, “on a night like this, when two people are badly in need of comfort, and they happen to be a man and a woman, doesn’t the answer seem obvious to you?”
Her heart stopped beating when he remained still, then it hammered madly when his fingers touched her chin, tipping it up. “The odds are that it’s a very bad idea,” he said, looking down at her wet lashes, surprised and touched by what she’d said and what she was offering.
“Life is one big gamble,” she told him, and Parker belatedly realized that she was laughing and crying at the same time. And then he forgot to think at all, because Lisa’s arms were twining around his neck and he was suddenly the recipient of the sweetest, hottest kiss . . . a kiss that brought his arms reflexively around her, pulling her tighter and closer. Lisa matched his ardor, subtly pushing it one step further, almost daring him to hold back. And then he wasn’t holding back anymore. . . .
48
Wrapped in a bathrobe, Meredith sat in her living room, the television’s remote control in her hand. Sunday morning cartoons were on most of the local channels, and she passed them by with an impatient press of the button, looking for the channel that replayed the previous night’s late news so that she could torture herself with what she was already certain would be news coverage of the debacle. On the sofa beside her, where she’d flung it down a minute ago, was the Sunday morning newspaper with its sensational front-page story and pictures of the brawl. The Tribune had taken a tongue-in-cheek approach by quoting Parker’s remark from their press conference and putting it above the pictures of the fight:
“Matt Farrell and I are civilized men and we’re handling this in the friendliest of ways. This whole problem is little different than a business contract that wasn’t properly executed, and now has to have the T’s crossed.”
Beneath that, the caption read:
FARRELL AND REYNOLDS—“CROSSING THE T’S”
Below it were pictures of Parker swinging his fist at Matt, another of Matt’s fist connecting with Parker’s jaw, and a third of Parker lying on the floor with Meredith bending down to help him.
Meredith sipped her coffee as she watched the newscaster finish the national news and switch to his co-anchor for local coverage. “Janet,” he said, grinning at the woman beside him, “I hear there’s something new tonight on the Bancroft-Farrell-Reynolds menage à trois.”
“There certainly is, Ted,” she replied, turning full face to the camera, her voice filled with amused glee. “Most of you will recall that at their recent press conference, Parker Reynolds, Matthew Farrell, and Meredith Bancroft all seemed like a congenial little family. Well, tonight the three of them dined at the Manchester House, and it seems there was a little family fight. I mean, folks, a real, full-fledged fistfight! It was Parker Reynolds in one corner and Matthew Farrell in the other; husband against fiancé; Princeton University versus Indiana State; old money squaring off against new . . .” She paused to laugh at her own wit, and then said wryly, “Wondering who won? Well, place your bets, folks, because we have pictures that tell all.”
A picture of Parker swinging at Matt and missing flashed on the screen, followed by one of Matt leveling Parker.
“If you put your money on Matt Farrell, you won,” she concluded, laughing. “Second place in the match goes to Miss Lisa Pontini, a friend of Miss Bancroft’s, who, we’re told, landed a right hook on Matt Farrell right after that picture was taken. Miss Bancroft didn’t wait around to congratulate the winner or console the loser. We’re told she made a hasty getaway in Matt Farrell’s limousine. The three combatants left together in a taxi and—”
“Dammit!” Meredith exclaimed, punching the remote control’s off button, then she stood up and headed into her bedroom. As she passed her dresser, she automatically turned on the radio. “And now for the nine o’clock local news,” the announcer said. “Last night, at the Manchester House on the North Side, open hostilities broke out between none other than industrialist Matthew Farrell and financier Parker Reynolds. Farrell, who is married to Meredith Bancroft, and Reynolds, who is engaged to her, were reportedly both having dinner with her when—”
Meredith slapped the off button on the top of the radio. “Unbelievable!” she gritted out. From the instant Matt crossed her path at the opera, nothing in her life was the same. Her entire world was being turned upside down! Sinking down on the bed, she picked up the phone and called Lisa’s number again. She’d tried until late last night to reach her, but either Lisa wasn’t answering her phone or she wasn’t home. Neither was Parker, for that matter, because Meredith had tried to call him too.
Parker answered on the fifth ring, and for a split second Meredith went blank. “Parker?” she uttered.
“Mmmm,” he said.
“Are—are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he mumbled, sounding groggily as if he’d been
“Oh. I’m sorry. Well, is Lisa around?”
“Mmmm,” he said again, and a second later Lisa’s husky whisper murmured sleepily into the phone, “Whosethis?”
“It’s Meredith,” she answered just as it hit her that they were both sleeping in such proximity that Parker could hand Lisa the phone. Lisa had two phones in her apartment—one in the kitchen, and one beside the bed. They weren’t sleeping in the kitchen. Shock sent her to her feet. “Are—are you in bed?” Meredith blurted out before she could stop herself.
“Mmm-hmm.”
With Parker? Meredith thought, but she didn’t ask. She already knew the answer, and she clutched the headboard to steady herself in a room that seemed to tilt crazily. “Sorry I woke you both up,” she managed to get out, and hung up. The world had spun off its axis . . . or she was spinning off hers. Everything was completely out of control. Her best friend was in bed with her fiancé. Equally shocking, she didn’t feel betrayed or crushed. She felt dazed. Turning, she glanced around at the bedroom as if to assure herself that it, at least, hadn’t changed completely in the last few hours. The cream lace and satin bedspread was where it belonged with its ruffles cascading to a half inch above the Oriental carpet, like they always did. All ten of the matching throw pillows were artfully propped in exactly the order she always placed them. She was so shaken by everything else that she felt absurdly better knowing her bedspread hadn’t picked itself up and left the room, taking all her throw pillows with it. But then she looked up and caught the reflection of her face in the mirror. Even that had changed.
An hour later Meredith picked up her keys, slid a pair of large, dark sunglasses onto her nose, and left her apartment. She would go to the office and spend the day working. That at least was something she could understand and control. Matt hadn’t bothered to call, and that would have surprised her if she hadn’t passed the point where anything could do that. The elevator doors opened on the lower level parking garage beneath her apartment building, and she headed toward her reserved parking space. She rounded the corner, car keys in hand, and stopped dead.
Her car was gone.
Her car was gone, and someone had already parked a new Jaguar sports car in her space.
Her car had been stolen! Her parking space had been usurped!
That did it! She had finally reached her breaking point. She gaped at the shiny, dark blue Jaguar, and she had a sudden insane impulse to shriek with laughter, a mad urge to put her thumb to her nose and wiggle her fingers at fate. There was nothing else, absolutely nothing more that fate could do to her! She was ready to fight back—spoiling for it.
Turning on her heel, Meredith went back to the elevator, slapped the button for the lobby level, and walked up to the security clerk at the lobby desk. “Robert,” she said, “there is a blue Jaguar in my parking space—L12. Please have it towed out of there. Immediately.”
“But it’s probably just a new tenant who doesn’t—”
Meredith picked up the phone on the desk and held the receiver toward him. “Now,” she said in a dangerously strained voice, “call that garage on Lyle Street and tell them to get that car out of my space in fifteen minutes!”
“Okay, Miss Bancroft. Okay. No problem.”
Partially satisfied, Meredith marched toward the lobby doors, intending to take a taxi to her office and call the police from there about her stolen car. Determined to flag down the taxi that was just pulling up at the curb, she rushed forward, then halted abruptly when she saw the throng of reporters milling around outside her building. “Miss Bancroft—about last night,” one of them called, and two photographers took pictures of her through the glass windows. Unaware that the man climbing out of the cab wearing pilot’s sunglasses was Matt, Meredith turned on her heel and stalked to the elevator. So what if she was now a prisoner in her own apartment building? No problem. She would go upstairs and phone for a taxi to pick her up at the delivery entrance, then she’d sneak out there, crouch down behind the trash cans, and leap into the cab when it pulled up. No problem at all! She could do that. Of course she could.
She had just picked up the telephone in her apartment when someone knocked on her door. Completely overwhelmed by the trials and tribulations of her recent life, Meredith opened the door without bothering to ask who was there, then she gazed distractedly at the sight of Matt filling her doorway, his sunglasses reflecting her own image back at her. “Good morning,” he said with a hesitant smile.
“Oh, is that what it is?” she replied, letting him in.
“What does that mean?” Matt asked, trying to see her eyes behind the big round amber sunglasses perched on her small nose so that he could gauge her mood.
“That means,” she primly replied, “that if this is a good morning, I’m locking myself in a closet so I don’t have to see what tomorrow is like.”
“You’re upset,” he concluded.
“Me?” she said sarcastically, pointing to her chest. “Me, upset? Just because I’m a prisoner in my own apartment building, and I can’t go near a newspaper, radio, or television without finding us the main topic? Why on earth should that upset me?”
Matt bit back a wayward smile at her harassed tone. She saw it. “Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned indignantly. “This is all your fault. Every time you come near me, things start happening to me!”
“What’s happening to you?” he asked in a laughter-tinged voice, longing to drag her into his arms.
She threw up her hands. “Everything is going crazy! At work, things are happening that have never happened before—I have bomb scares to deal with and our stock is fluctuating. So far this morning my car has been stolen, someone else is using my parking space, and I’ve discovered my best friend and my former fiancé spent the night together!”
He chuckled at her logic about her problems at the office. “And you think all of that is my fault?”
“Well, how do you explain it?”
“Cosmic coincidence?”
“Cosmic catastrophe, you mean!” she corrected him. Putting her hands on her slim hips, she informed him, “One month ago I was leading a nice life. A quiet life. A dignified life! I went to charity balls and danced. Now I go to barrooms and get into brawls, and then I go careening through the streets in a limousine driven by a demented chauffeur who assures me that he—he packs a rod! We are talking about a handgun here—a murder weapon to shoot someone with!”
She looked so beautiful and so flustered and so irate that Matt’s shoulders began to shake with laughter. “Is that all?”
“No. There’s one more little thing I didn’t mention about last night.”
“What’s that?”
“This—” she announced triumphantly, and pulled off her sunglasses. “I have a black eye! A shiner. A—a—”
Torn between laughter and regret, Matt lifted his finger and touched the tiny blue smudge at the outer corner of her lower lid. “That,” he said with a sympathetic grin, “doesn’t have the dignity of a shiner or a black eye; it’s just a little mouse.”
“Oh, good,” she said. “I’ve learned a new term!”
Ignoring her jibe, Matt studied the well-concealed little bruise with thoughtful admiration. “It barely shows. What are you using to hide it?”
“Makeup,” she answered, disconcerted by his question. “Why?”
Almost choking with laughter, Matt took off his sunglasses. “Do you think I could borrow some?”
Meredith gaped incredulously at the identical mark at the corner of his eye, and suddenly her emotions veered crazily to mirth. She saw the wry grin tugging at his lips, and she started to giggle. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, her eyes widened, and the giggles erupted into great gales of gusty mirth. She laughed so hard that her eyes teared, and Matt started laughing too. When he reached out and drew her quaking body against his own, she collapsed against him and laughed harder.
When most of her hilarity had passed, Meredith leaned back in his arms. “Did,” she asked, swallowing another irrepressible giggle, “Parker give you your— mouse?”
“I’d be less mortified if he had,” Matt teased. “The truth is, your friend Lisa nailed me with a right hook. How did you get yours?”
“You did it.”
His smile faded. “I did not.”
“Yes, you did.” She nodded emphatically, her intoxicating face still flushed with merriment. “Y-you hit me with your elbow when I bent down to rescue Parker. Although, if it happened today, I’d probably jump on him with both feet!”
Matt’s smile widened with delight. “Really? Why?”
“I told you,” she said, drawing a shaky, laughing breath. “I called Lisa this morning to see if she was all right, and they were in bed together.”
“I’m shocked!” he said. “I gave her credit for better taste!”
Meredith bit her lip to stop herself from laughing at his quip. “It’s really terrible, you know—your best friend in bed with your fiancé.”
“It’s an outrage!” Matt declared with sham indignation.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed, grinning helplessly at the laughter gleaming in his eyes.
“You have to get even.”
“I can’t,” she said on a suffocated giggle.
“Why not?”
“Because,” she said, dissolving into fresh gales of laughter. “Lisa doesn’t have a fiancé!” She collapsed in his arms again, overcome with the absurdity of her own joke, burying her laughing face in his chest, her hands sliding around his nape as they used to—clinging to him as instinctively as they had during those long-ago nights of passion. Her body knew she still belonged to him, Matt realized. He tightened his arms around her, his voice turning low-pitched and suggestive. “You can still get even.”