Paradise (35 page)

"Tom!" David said testily. "Will you get to the point so we can go on with the meeting! What did you notice while you were walking around this building?"

Completely unperturbed, Tom lifted his shaggy brows and said, "I saw men sitting in private offices."

"So what?"

"What I didn't see were any women sitting in them, except in the accounting division, where there've historically been women managers. And only a couple of the women who did have offices had secretaries sitting outside of them. Which made me wonder if your buddy
Waldrup
isn't handing out some fancy titles to keep the ladies happy and make himself look good on his employment reports. If these women actually have management-level jobs, where are their secretaries? Where are their offices?"

"I'll check it out," David said with an irritated sigh. "I'd have discovered it sooner or later, but it's better to know it now." Turning to Matt, he continued. "At some point in the future we're going to have to bring Haskell's vacation policy and salary scales into some sort of alignment with
Intercorp's
. Haskell gives their people three weeks vacation after three years employment and four weeks after eight years. That policy is costing the company a fortune in lost time and the constant need to hire additional temporary help."

"How do their wage scales compare?" Matt asked.

"They're lower than ours. Haskell's philosophy was to give employees more time off but pay them less. I'll meet with you and go over this in more detail when I've had a chance to work up some figures and recommendations."

For the next two hours Matt listened while the remaining men reported on their individual areas and debated solutions. When they were finished discussing Haskell, Matt brought them up-to-date on developments in other divisions of
Intercorp
that might concern them now or later, developments that ranged from a threatened union strike at
Intercorp's
textile mill in Georgia to the design and capabilities of the new manufacturing facility he intended to build for Haskell on the large parcel of land he'd purchased in
Southville
.

Throughout the entire meeting, one man, Peter
Vanderwild
, remained silent and attentive, like a brilliant, slightly awed graduate student who understood all the basics—but who was learning the finer points from a group of experts. At twenty-eight, Peter was a former Harvard "whiz kid" with a genius I.Q., who specialized in reviewing companies for
Intercorp
to acquire, analyzing their potential for profit, and then making his recommendations to Matt. Haskell Electronics had been one of
Vanderwild's
choices, and it was going to be his third winner in a row. Matt had sent him here to
Chicago with the rest of the team because he wanted Peter to experience firsthand what happened
after
a company was acquired. He wanted him to observe what could
not
be seen on the financial statements that Peter relied on so heavily when he made his recommendations to buy a company—like controllers who were lax about collecting money, and human resources directors who were closet bigots.

Matt had brought him there to observe and to be observed. Despite Peter's outstanding success thus far, Matt knew he still needed guidance. Moreover, he was cocky and hypersensitive, brash and timid, depending upon the situation, and that was something Matt intended to curb. He had a tremendous amount of raw talent; it needed channeling.

"Peter?" Matt said. "Any new developments in your area that we ought to hear about?"

"I have several possible companies in mind that would be excellent acquisitions," Peter announced. "They're not as big as Haskell but they're profitable. One of them is a nice little computer software company in silicon valley—"

"No software companies, Peter," Matt said firmly.

"But JLH is—"

"No software companies!" Matt interrupted. "They're too damned risky right now." He saw the embarrassed flush creep up
Vanderwild's
neck. Reminding himself that his goal was to direct the younger man's enormous talents, not to crush his enthusiasm, Matt curbed his impatience and added, "It's no reflection on you, Peter. I've never told you my feelings about software companies. What else do you want to recommend?"

"You mentioned you wanted to expand our commercial property division," Peter said hesitantly. "There is a company in
Atlanta, another here in Chicago, and a third one down in
Houston. All three are looking for someone to buy them out. The first two own mostly high- and mid-rise office buildings. The third one, in
Houston, is predominantly invested in commercial land. It's a family-owned company and the two Thorp brothers, who've run it since their father died a few years ago, reportedly can't stand each other." Still flinching from Matt's swift rejection of his last recommendation, Peter hastened to point out the drawbacks of this one. "
Houston has been in a long slump, and I suppose there's no reason to assume its recent recovery will continue. Also, since the Thorp brothers can't agree on anything, the deal would probably cause us more trouble than it's worth—"

"Are you trying to convince me it's a good idea or a bad one?" Matt asked with a smile to atone for his earlier curtness. "You make the choices based on your best judgment, and I'll shoot them down for you. That's my job, and if you start doing my job plus your own, I won't have anything to do. I'll feel useless."

Chuckles greeted that joking remark and, getting up, Peter handed him a folder labeled
recommended acquisitions/commercial property companies.
In it were data sheets on the three companies he'd mentioned, and a dozen other, less appealing ones. More relaxed now, he sat back down.

Matt opened the file and saw that the dossiers were long and
Peter's analyses were very complex. Rather than detain the other men needlessly, he said, "Peter has been his usual thorough self, gentlemen, and this file is going to take considerable time to go over. I think we've covered everything that needs to be discussed for now. I'll meet with
each of you next week. Let Miss Stern know when you're ready to go over your individual divisions in more detail." To Peter he said, "Let's go over this in my office."

He'd just sat down at his desk when his intercom buzzed, and Miss Stern told him that his
Brussels call was coming through. With the phone cradled between his shoulder and jaw, Matt began looking over the financial statement of the
Atlanta company Peter had recommended.

"Matt," Josef
Hendrik
said, his delighted voice rising above the static on the line, "we have a bad connection, my friend, but my excellent news cannot wait for a better one. My people here are in full accord with the limited partnership I proposed to you last month. They offered no opposition to any of the stipulations you made."

"That's fine, Josef," Matt replied, but his enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by jet lag and the realization that it was much later than he'd thought. Beyond the broad expanse of windows at the outer wall of his office, the sky was shrouded in darkness and lights were twinkling in the adjoining skyscrapers. Far below on
Michigan Avenue
, he could hear car horns honking as commuters sat in snarled rush hour traffic, trying to fight their way home. Reaching toward the lamp on his desk, Matt switched it on, then he glanced at Peter, who got up and turned the overhead lights up as well. "It's later than I thought, Peter, and I still have several phone calls to make. I'll take this file home and look through it over the weekend. We'll discuss it Monday morning at
ten o'clock
."

Refreshed from a sauna and shower, Matt wrapped a towel around his waist and reached for the wristwatch lying on the black marble vanity that swept around his circular bathroom. The telephone rang, and he picked it up.

"Are you naked?" Alicia Avery's sultry voice asked before he'd said a word.

"What number are you calling?" he said with
feigned confusion.

"Yours, darling.
Are
you naked?"

"Semi-naked," Matt said, "and running late."

"I'm so glad you're finally in
Chicago. When did you get in?"

"Yesterday."

"I have you in my clutches at last!" She laughed, an enticing, contagious laugh. "You can't believe the fantasies I've been having, thinking about tonight when we get back from the opera's benefit ball. I've missed you, Matt," she added, blunt and direct as always.

"We're going to see each other in an hour," Matt promised, "if you let me get off the phone, that is."

"All right. Actually, Daddy made me call. He was afraid you'd forget about the opera benefit tonight. He's almost as eager to see you as I am—for very different reasons, of course."

"Of course," Matt joked.

"Oh, and I may as well warn you that he intends to put you up for membership at the
Glenmoor
Country Club. The ball is the perfect spot to introduce you to some of the members and get their vote, so he'll try to drag you all over if you let him get by with
it. Not that he needs to bother," she added. "You’ll be a shoo-in. Oh, and the press will be there en masse, so prepare to be mobbed when they see you. It's very humiliating, Mr. Farrell," she teased, "to know my date is going to cause more of a sensation tonight than I am...."

The mention of the
Glenmoor
Country Club, where he'd met Meredith that long-ago Fourth of July, made Matt's jaw tighten with grim irony, and he hardly heard the rest of what Alicia said. He already held memberships in two country clubs, both of them as exclusive as
Glenmoor
. He rarely used the clubs he belonged to, and if he joined one in
Chicago, which he had no desire to do, it sure as hell wouldn't be
Glenmoor
. "Tell your father I appreciate the thought, but I'd rather he didn't." Before he could say more, Stanton Avery picked up an extension. "Matt," he said in his bluff, hearty voice. "You haven't forgotten the opera benefit shindig tonight, have you?"

"I remembered it,
Stanton."

"Good, good. I thought we'd pick you up at nine, stop at the Yacht Club for drinks, and then go on to the hotel. That way, we won't have to sit through
La
Traviata
before the serious drinking and partying begins. Or are you especially fond of
La
Traviata
?"

"Operas make me comatose," Matt joked, and
Stanton chuckled in agreement. In the past several years Matt had attended dozens of operas and symphonies because he moved in a social stratum where sponsorship of, and attendance at, cultural functions was necessary from a business standpoint. Now that he was unwillingly familiar with most famous symphonies and operas, his original opinion of them hadn't changed: He found most of them boring as hell and all of them overlong. "Nine is fine," he added.

Despite his dislike of operatic music and of being mobbed by the press, Matt was generally looking forward to the evening as he buckled on his wristwatch and picked up his shaver. He had met Stanton Avery in
Los Angeles four years before, and whenever Matt was in
Chicago or
Stanton was in
California
, they tried to get together. Unlike many of the dilettante socialites Matt had met,
Stanton was a tough, blunt, down-to-earth businessman, and Matt liked him immensely. In fact, if he could choose a father-in-law,
Stanton would have been his choice. Alicia was much like her father— sophisticated and polished but direct as hell when it came to getting what she wanted. They had both wanted him to accompany them to the opera benefit tonight, and they wouldn't take no for an answer. He'd ended up not only agreeing to attend, but agreeing to contribute $5,000 as well.

Two months ago, when Alicia was with him in California and blatantly hinting that they ought to get married, Matt had briefly entertained the idea, but the impulse had passed very quickly. He enjoyed Alicia in bed and out of it, and he liked her style, but he'd already had one disastrous marriage to a spoiled, rich,
Chicago socialite, and he had no intention of repeating the experience. Conversely, he'd never seriously considered remarrying because he'd never been
able
to duplicate the feelings he'd had for Meredith—that violent, possessive, insane need to see and touch and laugh with her, that volcanic passion that controlled him and couldn't be sated. No other woman had looked up at him and made him feel humbled and powerful at the same time—or ignited that same desperate desire to prove that he could be more and better than he was. To marry someone who didn't do that to him was settling for second-best, and second-best in anything wasn't good enough. At the same time, he had absolutely no desire to ever again experience those tormenting, stormy, crushing emotions again. They'd been as painful as they were pleasant, and when his misbegotten marriage was over, the mere memory of them—
and
of the traitorous young wife he'd adored— had made his life a hell for years afterward.

The truth was that if Alicia
had
been able to get under his skin as Meredith had, he'd have broken off with her as soon as he felt it happening. He didn't want, would never permit himself, to be that vulnerable to anyone, ever again. Now that he was in
Chicago, Alicia wasn't likely to let the issue of marriage drop. If she didn't, he was either going to have to make it clear that was permanently out of the question, or he would have to put an end to their very delightful relationship.