Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

"Matt likes marble, but I'm not so comfortable around it," he teased, grinning. "It makes me feel like I've died and been interred."

"I can imagine how you must feel in his black marble bathtubs, then," Meredith said with a slight smile.

"Entombed," Patrick promptly agreed, walking beside her past the dining room and up the three steps to the sitting room.

When she sat down, Patrick remained standing and Matt walked over to the bar. "What would you both like to drink?"

"Ginger ale for me," Patrick said.

"I'll have ginger ale too," Meredith said.

"You'll have sherry," Matt countered arbitrarily.

"He's right," Patrick said. "It doesn't bother me a bit to watch everyone else drink. So," he said, "you know all about Matt's marble bathtubs?"

Meredith devoutly wished she'd never blurted that out. "I—I saw some pictures of the apartment in the Sunday newspaper."

"I knew it!" Patrick declared, winking at her. "All these years, whenever Matt's picture was in a magazine or somewhere, I'd say to myself, I hope Meredith Bancroft sees this. You were keeping track of him, weren't you?"

"No!" Meredith exclaimed defensively. "I most certainly was not!"

Oddly, it was Matt who rescued her from the embarrassing discussion. Glancing up from the bar, he said to her, "While we're on the subject of notoriety, I'd like you to tell me how you expect to keep our seeing each other a secret, which is what your attorney said you want."

"A secret?" Patrick said to her. "Why do you want to do that?"

Meredith thought of at least a dozen angry and highly descriptive reasons, but she couldn't very well tell them to his father, and Matt interceded anyway. "Because Meredith is still engaged to someone else," he told his father, then he shifted his gaze to her. "You've been all over the news here for years. People will recognize you wherever we go."

Patrick spoke up. "I think I'll go see when dinner can be ready," he said, and walked off toward the dining room, leaving Meredith with the impression that he was either starving or eager to make himself scarce.

Meredith waited until he was out of earshot, then she said with angry satisfaction, "I won't be recognized, but you will. You're America's corporate sex symbol; you're the one whose motto is 'If it moves, take it to bed.' You're the one who sleeps with rock stars and then seduces their housemaids—are you laughing at me?" she gasped, her gaze riveting on his shaking shoulders.

Uncapping the ginger ale, he slid her a sideways grin. "Where are you getting all this junk about housemaids?"

"Several of the secretaries at Bancroft's are among your many admirers," Meredith retorted with scathing disdain. "They read about you in the Tattler."

"The Tattler?" Matt said, trying to hide his laughter behind a thoughtful frown. "Is that the tabloid that said I was taken aboard a UFO and told by clairvoyant aliens what business decisions to make?"

"No, that was The World Star!" Meredith retorted, growing more frustrated by his amused dismissal of the whole topic. "I saw it in the grocery store."

His amusement vanished and his voice took on an edge. "I seem to recall reading somewhere that you were having an affair with a playwright."

"That was in the Chicago Tribune, and they didn't say I was having an affair with Joshua Hamilton, they said we were seeing a lot of each other!"

He picked up the glasses and carried them over to her. "Were you having an affair with him?" he persisted.

Hating the feeling of being dwarfed by him, Meredith stood up and took the glass from his hand. "Hardly. Joshua Hamilton happens to be in love with my stepbrother, Joel."

She had the satisfaction of finally seeing Matthew Farrell at a complete loss. "He's in love with your what?"

"Joel is my step-grandmother's son, but he's close to my age, so we agreed years ago to call each other stepbrother and sister. Her other son's name is Jason."

Matt's lips twitched. "I gather," he said dryly, "that Joel is gay?"

Meredith's satisfied smile vanished and her eyes narrowed at his tone. "Yes, but don't you dare say anything ugly about Joel! He's the kindest, dearest man I've ever known! Jason is straight and he's an utter pig!"

His expression softened at her militant defense of the one brother, and he lifted his hand, unable to restrain the urge to touch her. "Who would have guessed," he said, smiling into her stormy eyes as he brushed his knuckles over her arm, "that the prim and proper debutante I met long ago would actually have so many skeletons in her closet?"

Oblivious to Patrick Farrell, who was arrested on the bottom step, listening to their altercation with fascinated interest, Meredith jerked her arm away. "At least I haven't slept with all of mine," she retorted hotly, "and not one of them," she added, "has pink hair!"

"Who," Patrick asked in a choked, laughing voice as he finally made his presence known, "has pink hair?"

Matt glanced up distractedly and saw the cook carrying in a tray and placing it on the dining room table. "It's too early for dinner," he said, frowning.

"That's my fault," Patrick said. "I thought my plane left at midnight tonight, but just after you went to get Meredith, I realized it leaves at eleven o'clock. I asked Mrs. Wilson to set dinner forward an hour."

Meredith, who was eager to get the evening over with, was delighted with an early dinner, and immediately decided to ask Patrick to drop her off at home when he left. Buoyed up by that, she managed to make it through the entire meal with relative equanimity, and Patrick made that easier by keeping up a stream of impersonal conversation in which she participated only when and if Matt didn't. In fact, though Matt was seated at the head of the table and she was on his immediate right, Meredith managed to avoid not only speaking to him, but looking at him—until dessert was cleared away. The end of the meal seemed to chart an entirely new course for the evening.

Before that, she'd believed that Patrick had no idea of the unethical extremes his son had gone to, but as he arose from the table, she discovered his apparent lack of knowledge, and even his neutrality, was an illusion. "Meredith," he said in a censorious tone, "you haven't spoken a word to Matt since we sat down at this table. Silence isn't going to get you anywhere. What you two need is a nice big fight to get everything out in the open and clear the air." He glanced at Matt with a meaningful smile. "You can start just as soon as I kiss Meredith good-bye. Joe will be waiting out in front."