Paradise

  “Okay, what do you want me to do?”

  “For the time being, ask for a postponement of any ruling.”

  “And then what?”

  In answer, Matt picked up the phone and called Vanderwild. “What’s Bancroft selling for?” he asked Peter, and when the other man answered, he said, “Start buying it. Use the same technique we used when we decided to acquire Haskell. Keep it quiet.” He hung up and looked at Tom. “I want you to check out every member on Bancroft’s board of directors. One of them may be for sale. Find out who he is and what his price is.”

  Not once in the years they’d been together, in the corporate battles they’d fought and won, had Matt ever resorted to anything as indefensible as bribery. “Matt, you’re talking about plain bribery—”

  “I’m talking about beating Bancroft at his own game. He’s using influence to buy votes on the zoning commission. We’ll use money to buy votes on his board. The only difference between what he’s doing and what I’m doing is the medium of exchange. When I’m through with that vindictive old bastard, he’ll be taking his orders from me in his own boardroom!”

  “All right,” Tom said after a hesitant pause. “But this will have to be handled very discreetly.”

  “There’s more,” Matt instructed, walking into the conference room that adjoined his office. He pressed a button on the wall and the mirrored panel that concealed the bar slid silently away. Matt jerked a bottle of scotch out of the cabinet, poured some into a glass, and took a long swallow. “I want to know everything there is to know about Bancroft’s operation. Work with Vanderwild on it. In two days I want to know everything about their finances, their executives. Most of all, I want to know exactly where they’re the most vulnerable.”

  “I gather you intend to take them over.”

  Matt tossed down another long swallow of his drink. “I’ll decide that later. What I want right now is enough stock to control them.”

  “What about Southville? We’ve got a fortune invested in that land.”

  A mirthless smile twisted Matt’s lips. “I phoned Pearson and Levinson from the car,” he said, referring to the Chicago law firm he kept on retainer, “and told them what I want to do. We’ll get our rezoning and we’ll also make a handsome profit from Bancroft’s.”

  “How?”

  “There’s the little matter of that Houston property they want so badly.”

  “And?”

  “And we now own it.”

  Anderson nodded, took two steps toward the door, stopped, and turned back. Hesitantly, he said, “Since I’m going to be in the front lines alongside you in this battle with Bancroft, I’d like to at least know how it got started in the first place.”

  Had any of his other executives asked that question, Matt would have verbally flayed him. Trust was a luxury that men in Matt’s financial stratum couldn’t afford. He had learned, as others who’d made it to the top had also learned, that it was risky, even dangerous to confide too much to anyone. More often than not, they used the information to garner favors elsewhere; sometimes they used it simply to prove they were truly a confidant of a famous and successful man. Of all the people he knew, there were only four whom Matt trusted implicitly: his father, his sister, Tom Anderson, and Joe O’Hara. Tom had been with him since the old days, when he was getting by on daring and guts, building an empire on a foundation of audacity and hunches—and very little real capital. He trusted Anderson and O’Hara because they’d proven their loyalty. And, to a certain extent, he trusted them because, like him, they didn’t come from privileged backgrounds and fancy prep schools. “Ten years ago,” Matt replied after a reluctant pause, “I did something Bancroft didn’t like.”

  “Jesus, it must have been pretty damned bad for him to keep up a vendetta all this time. What did you do?”

  “I dared to reach above myself and to intrude on his own elite little world.”

  “How?”

  Matt took another swallow of his drink to wash away the bitterness of the words, the memory. “I married his daughter.”

  “You married his—Meredith Bancroft? That daughter?”

  “The very same,” Matt averred grimly.

  When Anderson gaped at him in stunned silence, Matt added, “There’s something else you might as well know. She told me today that the divorce she thought she got eleven years ago wasn’t legal. The lawyer was a fraud who never filed the petition with the court. I told Levinson to check that out, but I have a hunch it’s the truth.”

  After another moment of stunned silence, Anderson’s agile mind began to function. “And now she wants a fortune as a settlement, right?”

  “She wants a divorce,” Matt corrected, “and she and her father would like to ruin me, but beyond that, she claims she doesn’t want anything.”

  Tom reacted with angry loyalty and a bitter, sarcastic laugh. “When we’re through with them, they’re going to wish to God they hadn’t started this war,” he promised, heading for the door.

  When he was gone, Matt walked over to the windows and stood looking out on a day as bleak and dreary as his soul. Anderson was probably right about the outcome of all this, but Matt’s sense of triumph was already dissolving. He felt . . . empty. As he stared out at the rain, Meredith’s parting words revolved around and around in his mind: you’re not fit to touch Parker’s shoes! He’s ten times the man you are! Underneath that tailor-made suit you’re wearing, you’re still nothing but a dirty steelworker, from a dirty little town, with a dirty, drunken father! He tried to blot those two sentences out of his mind, but they stayed, taunting him with his own stupidity, forcibly reminding him again of what a fool he was where she was concerned. For years after he thought they were divorced, he had not been able to drive her completely out of his heart. He had worked himself half to death to build an empire, driven by some stupid, half-formed plan to come back someday and impress Meredith with all he’d achieved and become.

  His mouth twisted with bitter self-mockery. Today he’d had his chance to impress her: He was a financial success; the suit he was wearing cost more than the truck he had owned when they met; he’d taken her to a beautiful, expensive restaurant in a chauffeur-driven limousine—and after all that, he was still “nothing but a dirty steelworker” to her. Normally, he was proud of his origins, but Meredith’s words had made him feel like some slimy monster dredged up from the bottom of a stagnant swamp, a monster who’d exchanged his scales for skin.

  It was nearly seven P.M. when he finally left the building. Joe opened the door of the car, and Matt slid inside. He was inordinately tired, and he leaned his aching neck against the back of the seat, trying to ignore the faint scent of Meredith’s soft perfume that lingered in the car. His thoughts drifted to their lunch, and he thought of the way she had smiled into his eyes while she talked to him about the store. With typical Bancroft arrogance she had smiled at him and asked him for a favor—a quiet, friendly divorce—at the same time she was publicly humiliating him and privately collaborating with her father to ruin him. Matt was perfectly willing to let her have her divorce, but not quite yet.

  The car swerved suddenly, and horns blared beside and behind it. Matt’s eyes snapped open, and he caught Joe watching him in the rearview mirror. “Did it ever occur to you,” he said curtly, “to glance at the road now and then? It might make the trip less adventurous, but more restful.”

  “Naw. I get traffic-hypnosis if I stare at the road too much. So,” he said, launching into the topic that was obviously on his mind after witnessing the altercation between Matt and Meredith in the car, “that was your wife today, huh, Matt?” He glanced at the road, then returned his gaze to the rearview mirror. “I mean, you were arguing about a divorce, so I figured she must be your wife, right?”

  “Right,” Matt snapped.

  “She sure is a spitfire,” Joe chuckled, ignoring Matt’s narrowed gaze. “She doesn’t like you very much, does she?”

  “No.”

  “What’s she g
ot against steelworkers?”

  Her parting words shot through Matt’s brain. You’re nothing but a dirty steelworker. “Dirt,” Matt said uninformatively. “She doesn’t like dirt.”

  When it was obvious his employer was not going to offer any further information, Joe reluctantly changed the subject. “Are you gonna need me when you’re in Indiana at the farm next week? If not, your father and I thought we’d have a two-day orgy of checkers.”

  “No. Stay with him.” Although his father had been sober for over a decade, Patrick was very emotional about the sale of the farm despite the fact that it had ultimately been his decision to sell it. Because of that, Matt felt a little uneasy about leaving him entirely alone while he was going to be out there, packing up their personal belongings.

  “What about tonight? Are you going out?”

  Matt had a date with Alicia. “I’ll use the Rolls,” he said. “Take the night off.”

  “If you need me—”

  “Dammit! I said I’ll use the Rolls.”

  “Matt?”

  “What!”

  “Your wife sure is a knockout,” Joe said with another chuckle. “Too bad she makes you so grouchy.”

  Matt reached out and rudely closed the communicating window.

  With Parker’s arm around her shoulders offering silent comfort, Meredith stared at the fire crackling in her fireplace, her mind riveted in helpless anger on her ill-fated meeting with Matt. He’d been so nice in the beginning, teasing her because she’d been unable to make up her mind about what to drink . . . listening to her talk about her work.

  The call he’d gotten about the Southville Zoning Commission had changed everything; Meredith realized that, now that she’d had time to think. But there were some things she didn’t understand, things that made her feel uneasy because they made no sense: Even before Matt had gotten the phone call she’d felt as if he harbored some sort of underlying anger—no, contempt—for her. And despite what he had done eleven years earlier, he had not once been on the defensive today. Far from it. Instead, he’d acted as if he thought she should be! He had wanted a divorce, she had been the injured party, yet today Matt had called her a vicious, conceited bitch.

  With an irritated mental shrug, Meredith shoved those useless thoughts aside. She was looking for reasons to justify his actions, she realized with disgust, trying to find excuses for him. From the night she’d met him, she’d been so dazzled by his hard-bitten strength and rugged looks, that she’d set out to make a knight in shining armor of him. To a lesser degree she was doing the same thing now—and all because, today, he’d had almost the same mesmerizing effect on her senses that he had years ago.

  A glowing red log tumbled off the grate in a shower of orange sparks, and Parker glanced at his watch. “It’s seven o’clock,” he said. “I suppose I’d better leave.” Sighing, Meredith stood up and accompanied him to the door, grateful for his considerate departure. Her father had been having tests run at the hospital all afternoon, and had insisted on coming over that night to hear a full accounting of Meredith’s meeting with Matt. What she had to tell him was undoubtedly going to make him angry, and though Meredith was used to his ire, it embarrassed her to have him unleash it in front of Parker. “Somehow,” she said, “I have to make him agree to reverse his stand about the Southville zoning commission. Until he does that, I haven’t a prayer of making Matt agree to a quiet divorce.”

  “You’ll succeed,” Parker predicted, his arms sliding around her as he drew her close for a reassuring kiss. “For one thing, your father has very little choice. He’ll realize that.”

  She was closing the door when she heard Parker greeting her father down the hall, and Meredith drew a long breath and braced herself for the confrontation that lay ahead of her.

  “Well?” Philip said to her as he strode into her apartment. “What happened with Farrell?”

  Meredith ignored that for the moment. “What did your doctor say about the test results? What did he say about your heart?”

  “He said it’s still in my chest,” Philip sarcastically replied, taking off his coat and tossing it over a chair. He hated all doctors in general and his own doctor in particular, because Dr. Shaeffer could not be bullied or intimidated or bribed to give Philip what he wanted—a strong heart and a clean bill of health. “Never mind all that. I want to know exactly what Farrell said,” he announced, walking over and pouring himself a glass of sherry.

  “Don’t you dare drink that!” she warned, then her mouth dropped open when he took a slender cigar out of his inside jacket pocket. “Are you trying to kill yourself? Put that cigar down!”

  “Meredith,” he snapped icily, “You are causing my heart more stress by not answering my question than this drop of brandy and puff of cigar could possibly do. I am the parent, not the child, kindly remember that.”

  After a day of frustration, that unfair attack sent sparks of anger to her eyes. He looked better than he had all week, which meant the test results must have been encouraging, particularly since he was deciding to risk the sherry and cigar. “Fine!” she replied, glad he was feeling strong, because she suddenly felt incapable of trying to gloss over the meeting. He wanted a blow-by-blow accounting, and Meredith gave it to him. Strangely, when she was finished, he looked almost relieved.

  “That’s it? That’s everything Farrell said? He didn’t say anything that seemed”—he glanced at his cigar as if trying to think of exactly the right word—“anything that seemed odd?” he emphasized.

  “I’ve told you everything that was said,” Meredith replied. “Now I’d like some answers.” Looking him straight in the eye, she said with quiet force, “Why did you block Matt’s membership at Glenmoor? Why did you get his rezoning request denied? Why, after all these years, are you still carrying on this crazy vendetta? Why?”

  Despite his angry tone, her father looked uneasy. “I kept him out of the club to protect you from having to see him there. I got his rezoning request denied because I want him to get the hell out of Chicago so we don’t have to see him everywhere we go. That’s beside the point, what’s done is done.”

  “It’s going to have to be undone,” Meredith informed him flatly.

  Philip ignored that. “I don’t want you talking to him again. I went along with it today only because I let Parker convince me there was no other way. He should have volunteered to go with you. Frankly, I’m beginning to think Parker is weak, and I don’t like weak men.”

  Meredith choked on a laugh. “In the first place, Parker is not at all weak, and he was intelligent enough to know his presence would only have complicated a difficult situation. In the second place, if you ever met anyone as strong as you, you’d hate him.”

  He had started to pick up his coat from the back of the chair where he’d tossed it, and he glowered at her over his shoulder. “Why would you say a thing like that?”

  “Because,” Meredith said, “the only man I’ve ever known who can equal you for sheer, fearless strength of will is Matthew Farrell! It’s true, you know,” she said gently, “in some ways he’s very much like you—shrewd, invulnerable, and willing to go to any lengths to get what he wants. In the beginning you hated him because he was a nobody, and because he dared to sleep with me. But you hated him even more because you couldn’t intimidate him—not that first night at the country club when you had him evicted, and not later, after we were married and I brought him home.” She smiled, a sad smile devoid of anger, as she finished calmly, “You despise him because he’s the only man you’ve ever met who is as indomitable as you are.”

  As if indifferent to her answer, he said coolly, “You don’t like me, do you, Meredith?”

  Meredith considered that with a mixture of fondness and wariness. He had given her life and then tried to direct every breath she took, every day of that life. No one could ever accuse him of not caring for her, or of neglecting her, for he had hovered over her like a hawk since she was a child. He had spoiled so much for her, and y
et he had acted out of love—a possessive, strangling love. “I love you,” she answered with an affectionate smile to take the sting out of her words, “but I don’t like many of the things you do. You hurt people without regret, just as Matt does.”

  “I do what I think needs to be done,” he replied, pulling on his coat.

  “What needs to be done at the moment,” Meredith reminded him, standing up so that she could walk him to the door, “is for you to immediately reverse the damage you’ve done to him at Glenmoor and the Southville zoning commission. Once you have, I’ll contact him again and smooth things over.”

  “And you think he’ll settle for that and agree to the divorce you want?” he replied with sarcastic disbelief.

  “Yes, I do. You see, I have one advantage here: Matthew Farrell doesn’t want to be married to me any more than I do to him. Right now he wants revenge, but he isn’t insane enough to complicate the rest of his own life for the sake of retaliating against you and me. I hope. Now,” she finished, “will you give me your word to get on the phone tomorrow and get the zoning commission moving on his request?”

  He looked at her, his will on a collision course with her needs. “I’ll look into the matter.”

  “That’s not good enough—”

  “It’s as far as I’m willing to go.”

  He was bluffing, Meredith decided after studying his set face, and she placed a relieved kiss on his cheek. When he left, she wandered back to the sofa and sat down. She’d been staring blankly into the dying embers of the fire for a quarter of an hour before she remembered that Parker had told her tonight that Bancroft’s board was meeting tomorrow to try to decide on an interim president. He would not be voting on this particular issue because of his involvement with Meredith. Tonight, however, she was too exhausted to feel much suspense or excitement over a meeting that might be inconclusive.

  The television’s remote controller was on the coffee table, and as she reached for it, she suddenly thought of Barbara Walters’s interview with Matt. They’d talked about his success and the famous women he’d been with, and Meredith wondered how she could have ever believed she and Matt could be happy together. She and Parker understood each other; they came from the same social background, the same class—a class of people who endowed hospitals with new wings and donated their time to charity of civic causes. They did not discuss their wealth on public television—or talk about their tawdry little affairs there either!