Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

The image was so preposterous that she smiled, but her next thought made her groan in dismay: Before she could reach his door, she'd undoubtedly have to get past the inevitable security desk and security guard which all of the luxury buildings provided to protect their tenants. If her name wasn't on their list of expected guests, they'd never let her get to the elevators.

Her hands tightened reflexively on the steering wheel; panic and frustration started to overwhelm her, and she made herself draw a long, calming breath. Traffic had started to move, and she accelerated. Somehow, some way, she would just have to bluff her way past the guards.

If BerkeleyTowers' security system was anything like that of other luxury residences, it wasn't going to be easy. A doorman would probably admit her to the lobby, where a security guard would ask her name. He would look at a list that contained the names of everyone who was expected by the various tenants, and when he didn't find her name on it, he would offer to let her use the phone to call Matt. And that was the problem.... She didn't know Matt's phone number and, even if she did, she was certain now that he'd refuse to see her. Somehow, she was going to have to bluff her way past the guards and up to the penthouse without alerting Matt in advance that she was there.

Twenty minutes later, when Meredith braked her car to a stop at the curb in front of Matt's building, she still wasn't certain how she was going to manage it, but she had the beginnings of a plan.

A doorman met her with an umbrella to shield her from the rain, and she handed him her car keys, then reached into her briefcase and took out a large manila envelope that contained some mail for her father.

From the moment she stepped into the luxurious lobby and walked over to the reception desk, everything went exactly as she'd feared and anticipated it would. The uniformed security guard asked her name, then he checked the list on his desk and, failing to find her name, he gestured to the ivory and gold phone on his desk. "Your name doesn't seem to be on tonight's list, Miss Bancroft. If you would like to use this phone, you can call Mr. Farrell. I'll need clearance from him to let you up. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

He was only twenty-three or twenty-four, she noted with relief; therefore more likely to fall for her performance than an older, hardened security guard. Meredith gave him a smile that could have melted brick. "There's no need to apologize." She glanced at the name tag on the breast of his uniform. "I understand perfectly, Craig. I have the number in my address book."

Aware of his admiring stare, Meredith dug through her Hermes handbag, searching, ostensibly, for her little address book. With another apologetic smile, she rifled through her handbag again, then she patted her coat pockets, and finally she looked in the manila envelope. "Oh, no!" she burst out, looking devastated. "My address book. I don't have it with me! Craig, Mr. Farrell is waiting for these papers." She fluttered the large manila envelope. "You have to let me go up."

"I know," Craig murmured, his gaze roving over her beautiful, stricken face, then he checked himself. "But I can't. It's against the rules."

"I really have to go up there," she pleaded, and then, because she was desperate, she did something she'd never normally do. Meredith Bancroft, who prized her privacy and hated name-droppers, looked the young man straight in the eye and said with a sudden smile, "Haven't I seen you somewhere? I know I have. Yes, of course—in the store!"

"What—what store?"

"Bancroft and Company! I'm Meredith Bancroft," she announced, cringing inwardly at the breathy enthusiastic sound of her voice. Pompous. Disgustingly pompous, she thought.

Craig snapped his fingers. "I knew it! I knew I recognized you. I've seen you on the news and in the papers. I'm a big fan of yours, Miss Bancroft."

Her lips twitched at the exuberant, naive admiration that caused him to act as if she were a movie star. "Well, now that you know for certain that I'm not some criminal, couldn't you make an exception for me just this once?"

"No." When she opened her mouth to argue, he explained. "It wouldn't do you any good anyway. You can't get off the elevators at the penthouse because the elevator doors won't open there unless you have a key or unless someone up there buzzes you through."

"I see." Meredith was disheartened and frustrated, but his next offer nearly made her faint with alarm.

"Tell you what I'll do," he said, picking up the phone and pressing a series of buttons. "Mr. Farrell instructed us not to call him about unlisted guests, but I'll call up there myself and tell him you're here."

"No!" she burst out, knowing what he was likely to hear from Matt. "I—I mean, rules are rules and you probably shouldn't break them."

"For you I'll break a rule," he said with a grin, then he spoke into the phone. "This is the security guard in the lobby, Mr. Farrell. Miss Meredith Bancroft is here to see you. Yes, sir, Miss Meredith Bancroft... . No, sir, not Banker. Bancroft. You know—the department store Bancroft."

Unable to bear seeing his face when Matt told him to throw her out, she closed her purse, intending to beat an ignominious retreat.

"Yes, sir," Craig said. "Yes, sir, I will. Miss Bancroft," he said as she started to turn away, "Mr. Farrell said to tell you—"

She swallowed. "I can imagine what he said to tell me."

Craig drew the elevator keys out of his pocket and nodded. "He said to tell you to come up."

Matt's chauffeur/bodyguard answered Meredith's knock, wearing rumpled black trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his thick forearms. "This way, ma'am," he said in a gravelly, Bronx-accented voice that was right out of a 1930s gangster movie. Quaking with tension and determination, she followed him across the foyer, past pairs of graceful white pillars, down two steps, and halfway across an immense living room with white marble floors, to a trio of light green sofas that formed a broad U around a huge glass cocktail table.

Meredith's gaze bounced nervously from the checkerboard and checkers that rested on the table's surface to the white-haired man who was seated on one of the sofas, then back to the chauffeur, who she assumed had been playing checkers with the other man when she arrived. That assumption was reinforced when the chauffeur walked around the cocktail table, sat down on one of the sofas, spread his arms across the back of it, and eyed her with an expression of fascinated amusement. In uneasy confusion Meredith glanced at the chauffeur and then at the white-haired man who was watching her in wintry silence. "I—I've come to see Mr. Farrell," she explained.