Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

Standing up, she said with as much dignity as she could, "I was going to stay here until I go to South America. Obviously, that's impossible. I'll go upstairs and pack a few things." She turned to Matt to suggest he wait for her in the car, but her father interrupted her, his voice taut with strain. "This is your house, Meredith, and where you belong. Farrell and I need to have a private talk, however."

Meredith didn't like the sound of that, but Matt nodded curtly for her to go.

When the door closed behind her, Matt waited for another tirade to begin, but Bancroft seemed to get himself under control. He sat at his desk, his fingers steepled, staring at Matt for several long, hard moments —mentally calculating, Matt suspected, the best way to ram home whatever he planned to say next. His fury hadn't gotten him anywhere, so Matt knew he would try another tack. He did not, however, expect Philip Bancroft to stumble onto Matt's only vulnerable place where Meredith was concerned: Guilt. Nor did he expect him to be as eloquently lethal.

"Congratulations, Farrell," Bancroft sneered in a bitter, sarcastic voice. "You've gotten an innocent eighteen-year-old girl pregnant, a girl with her whole life in front of her—a life that would have given her a college education, traveling, the best of everything." Raking Matt with a contemptuous stare, he said, "Do you know why there are clubs like Glenmoor?" Matt remained silent, and Philip told him the answer. "They're to protect our families, our daughters, from smooth-talking filth like you."

Bancroft seemed to sense he'd drawn blood with those remarks, and with the instincts of a vampire, he went for more. "Meredith is eighteen and you've stolen her youth by getting her pregnant and getting her married. Now you want to drag her all the way down with you—you want to take her to South America to live like a laborer's drudge. I've been to South America, and I know Bradley Sommers. I know exactly what sort of drilling operation he's planning in Venezuela, where it is, and what it's really like. You'll have to hack out paths through the jungle in order to get from what passes for civilization down there to the drilling site. When the next rain comes, the paths will be gone. Supplies are airlifted in and out by helicopter, there's no phone, no air-conditioning, no nothing! And that humid hellhole is where you intend to take my daughter?"

Matt had known when he took the job that the $ 150,000 bonus drilling companies paid was to compensate for certain deprivations, but he was fairly confident he could work things out for Meredith. Despite his loathing for Philip Bancroft, Matt knew the man was entitled to some form of assurance about Meredith's future well-being. For the first time since he arrived, he spoke. "There's a large village sixty miles away," he began in a flat, resolute voice.

"Bullshit! Sixty miles is eight hours by jeep, assuming the path you hacked out last time hasn't already been reclaimed by the jungle! Is that the village where you're planning to ditch my daughter for a year and a half? When do you plan to see her? You'll be working twelve-hour shifts, as I understand it."

"There are also cottages on site," Matt pointed out even though he suspected, and he'd told Meredith, they might not be adequate by his standards, regardless of what Sommers claimed. He also knew Bancroft was right about the terrain and the inconveniences. He was gambling that Meredith might find Venezuela beautiful and their brief time there something of an adventure.

"That's a great life you're offering her," Philip shot back with cutting scorn. "A shack on site or a hovel in some godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere!" Abruptly, he changed the angle for the next verbal knife. "You've got a tough hide, Farrell, I'll give you that. You took everything I could hand out without so much as a flinch. Do you also have a conscience, I wonder? You've sold my daughter your dreams in return for her whole life. Well, she had dreams, too, you bastard. She wanted to go to college. She's been in love with the same man since childhood too— A banker's son who could have given her the world. She doesn't think I know about that, but I do. Did you?"

Matt's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

"Tell me something, where did she get the clothes she has on?" Without waiting for an answer, Philip jeered. "She's been with you for a few days and she doesn't even look the same! She looks like she's been dressed by K-Mart. Now, then," Philip said, his voice turning businesslike, "that brings us to the next issue which I'm sure is vital to you: Money. You are not going to see one cent of Meredith's money! Am I making myself clear?" he snapped, leaning forward in his chair. "You've already robbed her of her youth and her dreams, but you aren't ever going to see one cent of her money. I have control of it for twelve more years. If, by some chance she's still with you in twelve years, before I turn it over to her, I'll invest every goddamned cent of it in things she can't sell or trade for twenty-five years."

When Matt remained icily silent, he continued. "If you're thinking I'll take pity on the way she's living with you and start doling out money to make things better for her—ergo, for you—you don't know me very well. You think you're tough, Farrell, but you don't know what tough is yet. I'll stop at nothing to get Meredith free of you, and if that means letting her walk around in rags, barefoot and pregnant, I'll let it happen! Have I made myself clear so far?" he snapped, his control slipping a notch at Matt's lack of reaction.

"Perfectly," Matt bit out. "And now let me remind you of something," he continued with an inured expression that belied the battering he'd taken from guilt as Bancroft had hammered away. "There is a child involved here. Meredith is already pregnant, so most of what you've said is already immaterial."

"She was supposed to go to college," Philip countered. "Everybody knew that. I'll send her away, and she can have the baby. Also there is still time to consider another alternative—"

Fury ignited in Matt's eyes. "Nothing happens to that baby!" he warned in a low, savage voice.

"Fine. You want it, you take it."

In all the chaos of the past week that was one alternative neither of them had discussed. Because as things had turned out it hadn't been necessary. With a great deal more conviction than he felt at that moment, Matt said, "This is completely irrelevant. Meredith wants to stay with me."

"Of course she does!" Philip flung back. "Sex is a new experience for her." Casting a knowing, contemptuous look over Matt, he added, "Not for you though, is it?" Like two duelists, they circled mentally, but Philip had the sharpest rapier and Matt was on the defensive. "When you're gone, and sex isn't part of your allure, Meredith will think more clearly," Philip stated with absolute conviction. "She'll want her dreams, not yours. She'll want to go to college and go out with her friends. And so," he concluded, "I'm asking you for a concession, and I'm willing to pay handsomely for it. If Meredith is like her mother, her pregnancy won't really be apparent until she's past six months. So that she'll have time to reconsider, I want you to talk her into keeping this revolting marriage and the pregnancy secret—"