Paradise (64 page)

"Much better. You make very good coffee."

"Every woman is supposed to have
one
major culinary accomplishment to her credit—something she can show off whenever the occasion calls for it."

He caught the gleam of amusement in her eye and grinned lazily. "Who said that?"

"A magazine I read in the dentist's office," she replied, chuckling. "My major culinary achievement is coffee. Now, do you feel like breakfast?"

"That depends on whether or not you plan to serve it from bottles and jars like yesterday," he joked.

"I'd be more careful if I were you about insulting the cook. There's some powdered cleanser under the kitchen sink that would look just like sugar if I were to put it on your
cereal."

His shoulders shook with laughter, and he drained the last of his coffee.

"Seriously," she said, smiling back at him from the foot of his bed, a golden goddess in blue jeans; an angel with devilment in her eyes. "What would you like for breakfast?"

You,
he thought, and desire began to roar through his entire body. He wanted
her
for breakfast. He wanted to reach out and drag her into his bed, to shove his hands into the rumpled silk of her hair and join his famished body with hers. He wanted to feel her hands on him, he wanted to bury himself inside her and make her moan for him. "Whatever you fix will be fine," he said tightly, shifting the blankets to hide his arousal. "I'll have it downstairs after I shower."

When she left the room, Matt closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, caught between fury and disbelief. Despite everything that had happened in the past, she could still do this to him! If all he felt for her was lust, he could have forgiven himself, but he couldn't forgive himself for this sudden hopeless yearning to be a part of her again ... to be loved by her.

Eleven years ago he had fallen in love with her almost the moment he laid eyes on her, and for years afterward, his life had been haunted by a laughing, haughty, prim eighteen-year-old.

In the last decade he had gone to bed with dozens of women, all of them more experienced sexually than Meredith had been. With them, the sexual act was an act of mutual gratification. With Meredith, it had been an act of profound beauty. Exquisite. Tormenting. Magic ... At least, that's how he'd felt at the time—very probably, he decided now, because he'd been so insane about her he didn't know the difference between imagination and reality. She had captivated him at eighteen, but at twenty-nine she was far more dangerous to his peace of mind because she had changed, and the changes intrigued and beckoned to him. Her youthful sophistication had acquired the added gloss of elegance, yet that same soft vulnerability still glowed in her eyes, and her smile still changed from provocative to sunny, according to her moods. At eighteen she possessed an unaffected candor that had charmed and surprised him; at twenty-nine she was a successful businesswoman, and yet she seemed as natural and unaffected as she had before. Equally surprising, she seemed completely indifferent to, or unaware of, her own beauty. Not once yesterday had she stopped to primp at the mirror in the dining room, nor had she glanced at it in passing. Unlike other beautiful women he'd known, she didn't pose or posture or run her fingers through that gorgeous hair of hers to draw attention to it. Her beauty had matured and her figure had acquired a lush ripeness that enabled her to look as alluring in jeans and a sweater as she did in the mink coat and black dress she'd worn to lunch the other day.

Matt's blood stirred hotly, and his hands itched to explore and caress those new curves she'd acquired. Suddenly his treacherous mind presented him with a tantalizing solution: Perhaps if he had her just one more time, he could quench this thirst for her and get her completely out of his system.. .. Swearing under his breath, Matt got out of bed and pulled on his robe. He was insane to even consider being intimate with her again.

Again? He stopped cold. For the first time since she'd arrived, he was able to think without being weakened by the after effects of illness or those damned pills. Why in the hell had she come to the farm in the first place?

She'd answered that question herself:
I
want a truce...

Fine, he'd agreed to her truce. So why was she still there? Meredith hadn't come to play house with him, that was for damned sure—so why was she hanging around, bringing him coffee in bed, and doing her very effective utmost to charm and disarm him?

The answer hit him like a bucket of
icewater
, leaving him dumbstruck by his own stupidity:
I
wanted that
Houston property for Bancroft's,
she'd said,
but we can't afford to pay thirty million.

Christ, she was like a narcotic! She completely drugged his mind. Meredith wanted that
Houston land for the original price, and she was obviously willing to do anything to get it, including pandering to him. Her abject apology, her alleged desire for a truce, her wifely vigilance this weekend—it was all a sham designed to lull him into capitulating! Thoroughly revolted by her duplicity and his gullibility, Matt walked over to the window and shoved the curtain aside, looking out at the snow that had piled up in the drive, while in his mind he saw her standing meekly beside his
bed:
I'll
accept that as a sort of penance...

Penance? he thought furiously. Meekness? Meredith didn't have a meek bone in her body; she and her father ran roughshod over anyone who got in their way, and they did it as if it were their divine right! The only thing that had changed in Meredith was that she'd learned tenacity. No doubt, she'd climb into that bed with him if she thought it would get her that land, he thought with revulsion, not lust.

Turning on his heel, Matt picked up his briefcase from the floor, opened it, and yanked out the cellular phone he always kept in it. When Sue O'Donnell answered his call at the neighboring farm, Matt impatiently replied to her inquiries about his family, then he said, "I'm snowed in over here. Would you ask Dale to plow the drive right away?"

"You bet I will," she agreed at once. "He's due home this afternoon, and I'll have him come right over."

Angry with
the delay, but unable to come up with an alternative, Matt hung up and treaded into the bathroom for a shower. Before his lust drove him to do something that would cost him what little pride and self-respect he had left, he was going to get Meredith out of there! All he had to do now to accomplish that was find her keys. He had a dim recollection of seeing her get out of her car the night she arrived, and then bend down near the car's front tire on the driver's side. He'd find her keys near there. The prospect of groping around in the snow was far less distasteful than having her under his roof for another day. Or another night. If he couldn't find them, he'd hot-wire her car to start without the damned keys. Reaching into the tub, he turned on the water, wondering if she had an electronic alarm on the car that would disable the vehicle if he tried that. If she did, he'd think of something else, but one way or another, he was getting her out of there. As soon as the drive was plowed, he was going to give her five minutes to pack up and get out.

Still buttoning his shirt, Matt strode purposefully down the stairs. Meredith whirled around as he stalked past the kitchen doorway, pulling on a leather flight jacket, heading for the front door. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going outside to find your keys. Do you remember where you dropped them?"

Her lips parted in surprise when she saw the granite determination that hardened his jaw. "I—I dropped them as I walked around the front of the car, but there's no reason for you to go out there now—"

"Yes," he said flatly, "there is. This charade has gone on long enough. Don't look so surprised," he snapped. "You're as bored with this pretense at marital bliss as I am." She drew in a sharp breath as though he had slapped her, and Matt added coldly, "I admire your tenacity, Meredith. You want the
Houston property for twenty million, and you need a quick, congenial divorce with no publicity. You've spent two days catering to me so that I'll be more agreeable to both. You tried and you failed. Now, go back to the city and behave like the competent executive you are. Take me to court over the
Houston property and file for divorce, but knock off this nauseating farce! The role of humble, loving wife doesn't suit you, and you must be as sick of it as I am."

He turned on his heel and strode out the front door. Meredith stared at the place where he had stood, her heart twisting with panic, disappointment, and humiliation. He'd suddenly decided these last two days were a
boring
charade! Blinking away frustrated tears, she bit down on her lip and turned back to the frying pan. She'd obviously passed up her best opportunities to tell him she hadn't had an abortion, and she didn't have the slightest, the vaguest idea why his mood had suddenly turned so hostile. She hated that volatile unpredictability that was Matt; he'd always been that way. You never knew what he thought or what he was going to do next! Before she left this house, she was going to tell him the truth about what had happened eleven years ago, but now she wasn't certain he was going to care, even if he believed her. She picked up an egg and hit it so hard against the side of the frying pan that the yolk slid down the outside.

For ten minutes Matt pawed through the snow near the BMW's front tire in a futile effort to find Meredith's damned keys; he dug and sifted until his gloves were soaked and his hands were frozen, and then he gave up and checked out her alarm system, looking through the window. There was no sign of a keypad, which probably meant hers could be disabled only with her car key. Even if he jimmied her door lock and got in to hot-wire the damned car, an alarm system like hers was designed to disable the vehicle so it couldn't be driven.

"Breakfast is ready," Meredith said uneasily, walking into the living room when she heard the front door slam. "Did you find the keys?"

"No," Matt said, striving to keep his temper under control. "There's a locksmith in town, but he isn't open on Sunday."

Meredith served the scrambled eggs she'd made, then she sat down across from him. Desperately trying to restore some semblance of the relationship they'd shared yesterday, she asked in a quiet, reasonable voice, "Do you mind telling me why you've suddenly decided this whole weekend has been a boring plot on my part?"

"Let's just say my faculties have returned along with my health," he said shortly. For ten minutes, while they ate, Meredith tried to engage him in conversation, only to have him rebuff her attempts with curt, brief replies. The moment he was finished eating, he got up and said he was going to start packing up the things in the living room.

With a sinking heart, Meredith watched him go, then she automatically began to tidy up the kitchen. When the last
dish had been washed and put away, she went into the living room. "There's a lot to pack," she said, determined to find a way to make him more receptive. "What can I do to help?"

Matt heard the soft plea in her voice and his body responded with a fresh surge of lust as he straightened and looked at her.
You could go upstairs with me and offer me that delectable body of yours.
"Suit yourself."

Why, Meredith wondered fiercely, did he have to be so damned unapproachable now, and why did he suddenly find her boring and irritating? His father had said Matt had been wild with grief over her alleged abortion and that, when Meredith had refused to see him, it nearly killed him. She'd thought at the time Patrick must be grossly exaggerating Matt's feelings for her, now she was certain of it, and the certainty made her feel strangely, inexplicably, despondent. It didn't surprise her though. Matt had always been capable of shouldering great responsibility, but it was impossible to know what he was really thinking and feeling. Hoping against hope his mood would improve if she left him alone, she went upstairs and spent the morning packing away linens and bedding and the contents of the closets, most of which he'd told her at breakfast were to be donated to a charity. Only the family mementos were being kept, and she carefully sorted through his parents' closet, making certain that nothing of sentimental value went into the boxes destined for charity. When she took a break, she sat down on the bed and opened a photograph album that had evidently belonged to Matt's mother. It was filled with pictures that were so old, most of them were fading. Many of them were of relatives in the old country: sweet-faced girls with long hair and bonnets, and handsome, unsmiling men with Irish surnames like
Lanigan
, O'Malley, and
Collier. Beneath each picture was the date it was taken and the name of whoever was in the photograph. The last picture in the album was the most current—it was a wedding photograph of Matt's mother and father.
April 24, 1949
was written beneath the picture in her neat script. Judging from the variety of names in that album, Elizabeth Farrell had lots of cousins and aunts and uncles in the old country, Meredith thought with a soft smile, wondering wistfully what it would be like to come from a big family.

At
noon
she went downstairs. They had sandwiches for lunch, and although Matt wasn't friendly, at least he answered her questions and comments with aloof courtesy, and she took that as an encouraging sign that his mood was improving. When she'd finished cleaning up after lunch, she gave a final satisfied glance at the gleaming kitchen, then she walked into the living room, where Matt was methodically packing books and knick-knacks into boxes. She paused in the doorway, watching the way his chamois shirt stretched taut across his broad, muscled shoulders and tapered back whenever he lifted his arm. He'd taken off the jeans that had gotten damp while he was searching outside for her keys, and in their place he was wearing a pair of gray slacks that molded themselves to his hips and the long length of his muscled legs. For one hopeless moment she actually considered walking up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist, and laying her cheek against the solid wall of his back. She wondered what he'd do. Push her away, probably, Meredith decided dismally.