Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

He stepped forward to begin playing host when Caroline put her hand on his sleeve and stopped him. "I won't be staying long," she said. "I suppose this is good-bye."

Matt nodded, hesitated, and then made himself bring up Meredith for her mother's sake. "Stuart Whitmore is an old friend of your daughter's, and also her lawyer," he told Caroline. "If you can find a way to lead the conversation around to her, he's bound to talk about her. Assuming you're interested."

"Thank you," she said with a catch in her voice. "I'm very interested."

By the time Meredith walked into the lobby of Matt's building, she wasn't certain if it was clever or crazy to try to confront him in the middle of his party—particularly when he was so angry with her that he was insisting on an immediate divorce. She wasn't completely sure he wouldn't have her thrown out with everyone watching, and she wasn't completely sure that she didn't deserve it.

In desperate hopes of weakening his resistance, she was wearing her most provocative cocktail dress—a backless black chiffon confection with narrow straps and a deep V at the bodice that was encrusted with tiny black beads sewn tightly into intricate leaves and flowers. They covered her breasts, then dipped below her arms to frame the low back of the dress. Obsessed with the need to look her absolute best, she'd spent almost an hour trying different hairstyles. In the end she'd brushed her hair out and let it fall against her shoulders. The sophistication of the dress required a sophisticated hairstyle, but on the other hand, wearing her hair down gave her a naive, youthful look that she hoped might soften Matt when she tried to talk to him. To accomplish that, she'd have worn braids if she'd thought they'd help!

The uniformed guard at the security desk checked his list and Meredith breathed a ragged sigh of profound relief when she saw that Matt hadn't removed her name. With her knees trembling and her pulse pounding, she took the elevator to the penthouse, and there she encountered an obstacle in the last place she'd anticipated it: When she pressed the buzzer at Matt's door, Joe O'Hara opened it, took one look at her, and stepped forward, blocking her way. "You shouldn't have come, Miss Bancroft," he said coldly, and the fact that he hadn't called her Mrs. Farrell for the first time in their acquaintance made her heart ache a little. "Matt doesn't want anything to do with you. I heard him say so. He wants a divorce."

"Well, I don't," Meredith said emphatically. "Please, Joe, let me in so I can convince him he doesn't want one either."

The big man hesitated, torn between loyalty to Matt and the pleading sincerity in her aqua eyes while the roar of laughter and conversation from inside the penthouse surrounded both of them. "I don't think you can do it, and I don't think this is the place you should try. There's a crowd in there, and there's reporters."

"Good," she said with more assurance than she felt. "Then they can all leave here and tell the world that Mr. and Mrs. Farrell were together tonight."

"There's a better chance they'll be telling the world that Mr. Farrell threw you out on your ear and fired my ass for letting you in," he muttered grimly, but he stepped back, and Meredith impulsively threw her arms around him. "Thank you, Joe." She pulled away, too nervous to notice his face had reddened with embarrassed pleasure. "How do I look?" she asked, suddenly filled with quaking doubts. She spread the chiffon skirt of her dress as if she were about to curtsy and waited for his opinion.

"You look beautiful," he replied gruffly, "but it ain't going to matter a damn to Matt."

On that alarming and depressing prediction, Meredith stepped into the noisy gaiety of the penthouse. The moment she started down the foyer steps, heads started to turn and conversations dropped off, then started again with renewed force, and she heard her name being repeated. Ignoring all of that, she scanned the crowded living room, the dining room, and then the raised dais that created a glass-enclosed conversation area at the far corner of the penthouse. Her heart began to hammer as she saw Matt standing there, several inches teller than the people around him, and she started forward on legs that quaked.

As she walked up the steps toward him, she could see faces of the group around him. The star of the musical play was standing beside him, talking animatedly to him, while he gazed indifferently at her stunning face. Meredith was just a few feet away when Stanton Avery, who was standing on Matt's other side, looked up and saw her. He said something to Matt—obviously warning him that she was there—because Matt turned abruptly toward her. He stared at her, his glass arrested halfway to his lips, his eyes like shards of ice as they leveled on her, his expression so forbidding that Meredith hesitated in midstep, then she made herself walk up to him.

Taking some unspoken cue, or perhaps out of courtesy, the people who'd been talking to him disbanded, leaving the two of them alone on the dais. Meredith waited, hoping he'd say something, do something. When he finally did, he acknowledged her with a curt inclination of his head, and said only one word—her name—in a chilling tone. "Meredith."

Follow your instincts, he'd advised her a week ago, and Meredith tried to do that. "Hi," she said inanely, pleading with her eyes for some help, but Matt wasn't interested in helping her now. "You're probably wondering what I'm doing here."

"Not particularly."

That hurt, but at least he was waiting for her to speak, and her instincts told her he wasn't completely indifferent to her. She smiled a little, dying to surrender, not certain how to do it "I came here to tell you about my day." Her voice shook with nerves and she knew he heard it, but he didn't say a word, encouraging or otherwise. Summoning her courage, Meredith drew a deep breath and forged ahead. "This afternoon I got called into an emergency board meeting. The board was very upset. Furious, actually. They accused me of having a conflict of interest where you're concerned."

"How foolish of them," he said with acid contempt. "Didn't you tell them Bancroft and Company is your only interest?"

"Not exactly," she said, biting back a queasy smile. "They also wanted me to sign some affidavits and formal complaints—accusations that blamed you for Spyzhalski's death, and for illegally using your contact with me to get control of us, and for having bombs placed in our stores."

"Is that all?" he asked sarcastically.

"Not exactly," Meredith said again. "But that's the gist of it." She searched for some sign, some warmth— anything at all in his face to tell her he still cared about all this. And she couldn't see it. What she did see was people turning everywhere to watch them. "I—I told the directors ..." She trailed off, her voice strangled with tension and fear that he truly didn't want her anymore.