Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

Late last night he'd returned from Greece, where negotiations to acquire a shipping fleet had taken four long, frustrating weeks, instead of two, to bring to fruition. Now the only thing that was holding him up was this damned interview. Silently cursing the delay, Matt turned toward the house. On the east lawn, his helicopter was already waiting to take him to the airport, where the Lear he'd bought was ready to take off for Chicago.

The helicopter pilot returned Matt's brief wave, then gave the thumbs-up sign that the chopper was fueled and ready to fly, but he glanced worriedly toward the wall of fog closing in on them, and Matt knew his pilot was as eager as he to be airborne. Crossing the flagstone terrace, he entered the house through the French doors that opened into his private study. He was reaching for the telephone, intending to call his Los Angeles office, when the door across the room banged open. "Hey, Matt—" Joe O'Hara poked his head into the opening, his gruff, uncultured voice and unkempt appearance a jarring contrast to the almost antiseptic grandeur of the marble-floored study with its thick cream carpet and glass-topped desk. Officially, O'Hara was Matt's chauffeur, unofficially, he was his bodyguard, and far better suited to that role than the role of chauffeur—for when O'Hara slid behind the wheel of an automobile, he drove as if he were jockeying for first place in the Grand Prix.

"When're we leavin' for Chicago?" O'Hara demanded.

"As soon as I get this damned interview over with."

"Okay. I phoned ahead and the limo will be waitin' for us on the runway at Midway. But that's not what I came in here to tell you," O'Hara continued, walking over to the window and parting the draperies. Gesturing for Matt to join him, he pointed toward the wide, curving drive that wound through the cypress trees at the front of the house. His weathered face softened and his voice became low, lustful. "Take a look at that sleek sweetheart out there," he said as Matt walked over to the window. Someone else would have expected the sweetheart to be a woman, but Matt knew better. After O'Hara's wife died, cars became his only remaining love. "She belongs to one of the cameramen who came out here with the Walters broad."

The sweetheart was a 1959 red Cadillac convertible in mint condition.

"Will you look at them globes," O'Hara said, referring to the car's headlights in the awed, lascivious voice of an adolescent looking at a Playboy centerfold. "And those curves! Sleek, Matt, real sleek. Makes you want to run yer hands across 'em, don't it?" He nudged the silent man beside him with an elbow. "Have you ever seen anything prettier than that?"

Matt was spared the need to reply by the arrival of the script girl, who politely said they were finished setting up in the living room.

The interview had been proceeding along predictable lines for nearly an hour, when the door suddenly opened and a woman hurried into the room, her lovely, unsuspecting face wreathed in a smile. "Matt darling, you're back! I—" Every head in the room swiveled, the ABC crew gaped, the taping session forgotten as Meryl Saunders rushed forward wearing a red negligee so transparent, so suggestive, that it would have made the lingerie buyer at Frederick's of Hollywood blush.

But it was not Meryl's body the ABC group was staring at, it was her face—a face that graced movie and television screens all over the world; a face whose girlish sweetness and outspoken religious beliefs had made her America's darling. Adolescents liked her because she was so pretty and looked so young; parents liked her because she set a wholesome image for their teenagers; and producers liked her because she was one hell of an actress and because any movie she was in was guaranteed to gross in the mega-millions. Never mind that she was twenty-three years old with a strong sexual appetite—in the pulse beat of shocked silence that greeted Meryl's arrival, Matt felt as if he'd been caught in the act of seducing Alice in Wonderland.

Like the valiant little trooper she was on the movie set, Meryl smiled politely at the speechless group, made a pretty apology to Matt for interrupting him, then turned and walked out with all the modest dignity of a pinafore-clad student in a girls' convent school—which was a true tribute to her acting skills, since the little red G-string and the cheeks of her fanny were clearly visible beneath the fiery red negligee draping her lithesome body.

Barbara Walters's face was a mirror of conflicting reactions, and Matt braced himself for the inevitable barrage of prying questions about Meryl, sorry that her carefully constructed public image was about to be demolished. But Ms. Walters merely asked if Meryl Saunders was a frequent houseguest of his. Matt replied that she enjoyed staying at his house whenever it was unoccupied, as it often was.

To his surprise, the journalist accepted his evasive answer and returned to the topic she'd been discussing before Meryl's arrival. Leaning slightly forward in her chair, she asked, "How do you feel about the growing number of hostile corporate takeovers?"

"I think it's a trend that's bound to continue until such time as guidelines are set up to control it," Matt replied.

"Is Intercorp planning to swallow up any more?"

A leading question, but not unexpected, and he sidestepped it smoothly. "Intercorp is always interested in acquiring good companies in order to further our own growth and theirs."

"Even if the company doesn't wish to be acquired?"

"It's a risk we all run, even Intercorp," he replied, smiling politely.

"But it would take another giant the size of Intercorp to swallow you up. Is anyone immune to a forced merger with you—friends, and so forth? I mean," she teased, "is it possible our very own ABC could find itself your next prey?"

"The object of a takeover attempt is called the target," he said dryly, "not the prey. However," he joked, "if it will set your mind at rest, I can assure you that Intercorp does not have an acquisitive eye on ABC at this time."

She laughed and then gave him her best professional media journalist smile. "Can we talk a little about your private life now?"

Carefully concealing his irritation behind a bland smile, he asked, "Could I prevent you?"

Her smile widening, she shook her head and began. "During the past few years you've reportedly had torrid love affairs with several movie stars, a princess, and most recently with Maria Calvaris, the Greek shipping heiress. Were these widely publicized love affairs real, or were they invented by the gossip columnists?"

"Yes," Matt replied unanswerably.

Barbara Walters laughed at his deliberate evasion, then she sobered. "What about your marriage? Can we talk about that?"