att stood in the center of the mammoth conference room that adjoined his office, his hands on his hips, looking at everything through narrowed, critical eyes. In thirty minutes Meredith would be there, and he was desperately, boyishly, determined to impress her with all the trappings of his success. A secretary and the receptionist, whose names he'd heretofore never bothered to learn, had been summoned to the conference room so that he could seek their opinion of the overall effect. He'd called Vanderwild's office, too, and left him an urgent message to come up immediately. Vanderwild was closer to Meredith's age than Matt was, and he had good taste—it wouldn't hurt to get his opinion on things. "What do you think, Joanna?" he asked the secretary now, his hand on the dimmer switch that controlled the tiny spotlights high above in the ceiling. "Is this too little light or too much?"

"I—I think it's just right, Mr. Farrell," Joanna replied hastily, trying very hard not to show how shocked she was to discover that their formidable employer was actually subject to a human frailty like doubt, and that, moreover, he had finally put himself to the trouble of learning their names. The fact that he also had a devastating smile was not exactly a surprise. They'd seen him smile in meetings with his executives, in magazines, and newspapers, but until today, no woman at Haskell Electronics had ever had that smile focused upon herself, and both Joanna and Valerie were trying hard not to look as flustered or flattered as they felt.

Valerie stood back, studying the effect of the center-piece on the conference table. "I think the fresh flowers on the conference table are a lovely touch," she assured him. "Shall I arrange to have the florist bring a similar spray every Tuesday?"

"Why would I want to do that?" Matt asked, so absorbed in the matter of lighting that he momentarily forgot that he'd led both women to think his sudden interest in the appearance of his office and conference room was purely aesthetic and not related to today's guests in any way. "That looks nice," he said, watching Joanna arrange a $2,000 crystal water pitcher and matching glasses on one end of the rosewood conference table. When she straightened and backed away from the table, Matt passed a slow, critical glance over the vast room with its silver carpeting and burgundy suede sofas and chairs. Although his office and this conference room took up an entire side of the glass high rise and offered a breathtaking view of the Chicago skyline, he'd decided to close the opaque draperies. With the draperies closed and the room dim, the spotlights highlighted the satin sheen of the thirty-foot rosewood table and sent prisms of light flashing off the deeply faceted crystal on the table. Like the conference table, the interior walls were of rosewood, and a circular bar had been recessed into one of them. The doors to the bar were open now with light glancing off thousands of crystal facets on the gold-rimmed tumblers and decanters that stood upon the shelves.

Despite that, Matt continued to deliberate about the room. With the draperies closed, the room looked more lush, cozier. Or else like an expensive restaurant, he wasn't certain anymore. "Open or closed?" he asked the two women, then he pressed a button that sent eighty feet of draperies gliding open across the glass wall so that the skyline was revealed, and they could help him decide.

"Open," Joanna said.

"Open," Valerie echoed.

Matt looked out at the hazy, overcast day. The meeting with Meredith would go on for at least an hour, by which time it would be dark, and the view would be spectacular. "Closed," he said, pressing the button and watching the draperies whoosh across the glass walls. "I'll open them when it's dark out," he said, thinking aloud.

Brushing back the sides of his suit coat, he considered the coming meeting, knowing that his obsession with minor details was foolish. Even if Meredith was duly impressed with $40,000 worth of crystal and all the other trappings of his little kingdom—even if she was cordial and relaxed and gracious when she walked in—she sure as hell wasn't going to like her surroundings, or her host, once the meeting began.

He sighed, half eager and half reluctant for the battle to begin, then he absently remembered the two women who were waiting to see if he needed anything else. "Thank you both very much. You've been very helpful," he said, his mind going back to the appearance of the suite. He flashed a smile at both women, a warm smile that made them feel appreciated and noticed and admired at last, then he spoiled that utterly by demanding of the secretary, "If you were a woman, would you find this room attractive?"

"I find it attractive," Joanna said stiffly, "even as a lowly robot, Mr. Farrell."

It took a moment for her icy retort to register on Matt, but when he glanced over his shoulder, both women were walking through the double doors past Eleanor Stern. "What's she miffed about?" he demanded of his own secretary, whose sole interest, like his own, was on getting work done at the office, not socializing or flirting.

Miss Stern straightened her severely cut gray suit and removed the pencil she'd tucked behind her ear. "I assume," she said with unhidden disdain for the other secretary, "that she hoped you'd be aware that she is a woman. She's been hoping you'd notice that since the day you arrived here."

"She's wasting her time," Matt advised. "Among other things, she's an employee. Only an idiot fools around with his employees."

"Perhaps you ought to get married," Miss Stern sensibly replied, but she was flipping pages in her dictation notebook, looking for some figures she wanted to discuss with him. "In my day, that would have put a stop to female aspirations."

A slow smile broke across Matt's face and he perched his hip on the conference table, suddenly eager to tell someone his newly discovered truth. "I am married," he quietly said, watching for her stunned reaction.

Miss Stern flipped a page, and without looking up, said, "My heartiest congratulations to you both."

"I'm serious," Matt said, his brows pulling together.

"Shall I relay that information to Miss Avery?" she asked with a deadpan look. "She's called twice today."

"Miss Stern," Matt said firmly, and for the first time in their sterile working relationship he truly regretted that he'd never befriended her. "I married Meredith Bancroft eleven years ago. She's coming here this afternoon."

She looked at him over the top of her steel-rimmed glasses. "You have dinner reservations at Renaldo's tonight. Will Miss Bancroft be joining you and Miss Avery? If so, shall I change the reservations to a party of three?"

"I canceled my date with—" Matt began, then his mouth dropped open, and a lazy grin spread across his face. "Do I detect a note of censure in your voice?"

"Certainly not, Mr. Farrell. You made it very clear at the beginning that censuring your actions was not part of my job. As I recall, you specifically said that you didn't want my personal opinions, and you didn't want cake on your birthday; you merely wanted my skills and my time. Now, do you want me to be present at this meeting to take notes?"

Matt swallowed back a startled laugh at the discovery that his long-ago remark had evidently been rankling her for all these years. "I think it might be a good idea for you to take notes. Pay particular attention to anything at all that Miss Bancroft or her attorney agree to; I intend to hold them to every concession."

"Very well," she said, and turned to leave.

Behind her, Matt's voice checked her in midstep.

"Miss Stern?" She turned back, her posture primly erect, her pencil poised for his instructions. Teasingly, Matt asked, "Do you have a first name?"

"Certainly," she replied, her eyes narrowing.

"May I use it?"

"Of course. Although, I don't think Eleanor suits you quite as well as Matthew."

Matt gaped at her deadpan expression and swallowed a sharp bark of laughter, uncertain whether she was serious or making a joke. "Do you suppose," he said gravely, "you and I could be... a little less formal around here?"

"I assume you're suggesting a more relaxed relationship, the sort one might find more typical between a secretary and her employer?"

"Yes, actually I was."

She lifted a thoughtful gray brow, but this time Matt saw it—the gleam of an answering smile in her pale eyes. "Will I have to bring you cake on your birthday?"

"Probably," he said with a sheepish grin.

"I'll make a note of it," she replied, and when she actually did, Matt burst out laughing. "Will there be anything else?" she asked, and for the first time in all these years Eleanor Stern smiled at him. The smile had an electrifying effect on her face.

"There is one more thing," Matt added. "It's very important, and I'd like your complete attention."

She sobered immediately. "You have it."

"In your opinion, is this conference room extremely impressive, or merely ostentatious?"

"I feel quite confident," she replied straightfaced, after looking the room over, "that Miss Bancroft will be dumbstruck with admiration."

Matt gaped as she turned on her heel without asking if he wanted anything and practically fled from the room, but he could have sworn her shoulders were shaking.

Peter Vanderwild was pacing nervously in Miss Stern's office, waiting for the old bat to emerge from Farrell's office and give him permission to enter. She came walking out with unusual haste, and Peter braced himself to be made to feel a truant schoolboy facing the principal. "Mr. Farrell wants to see me," he told her, trying to hide his agitation over Matt's urgent summons. "He said it was very important, but he didn't say what it was about and I—I didn't know which files to bring."

"I do not think," she said in an odd, choked voice, "you will need your files, Mr. Vanderwild. You may go in."

Peter gave her a queer, curious glance, then he hurried in to see Mr. Farrell. Two minutes later Peter backed out of Matt's office, inadvertently banging into the corner of Miss Stern's desk in his state of preoccupied worry.

She looked up at him. "Were you able to answer Mr. Farrell's question without your files?"

Desperately in need of reassurance, Peter braved what he knew would be her scorn. "Yes, but I—I'm not certain I gave the right answer. Miss Stern," he implored, "in your opinion, is the conference room impressive or ostentatious?"

"Impressive," she said.

Peter's shoulders sagged with relief. "That's what I said."

"That was the right answer."

Peter stared at her in amazement; she was looking at him, her eyes positively glinting with sympathetic amusement. Shocked at the realization that there was actually some warmth beneath her glacial surface, he wondered if his own rigidity had somehow caused her to regard him with such disfavor in the past. He decided to buy her a box of candy at Christmas.

Stuart was waiting, briefcase in hand, when Meredith walked into the lobby of Intercorp's building. "You look wonderful," he said, taking Meredith's hand in his. "Perfect. Calm and collected."

After an hour's deliberation that morning, Meredith had finally decided to wear a jonquil-yellow wool dress with a contrasting navy coat trimmed in jonquil, for the sole reason that she'd read somewhere that men interpreted yellow as being assertive but not hostile. In hopes of carrying that assertive impression one step further, she'd twisted her hair into a chignon instead of wearing it loose.

"Farrell will take one look at you and give us anything we ask for," Stuart gallantly predicted as they walked toward the elevators. "How could he resist?"

It was the fact that Matt's last look at her had been when she was naked in bed with him that was making Meredith so excruciatingly uneasy about confronting him now. "I don't have a good feeling about this," she said shakily, stepping into the elevator in front of Stuart.

She stared blindly at the shiny brass doors, trying to concentrate on the memory of the laughter and quiet conversation she'd shared with Matt at the farm. It was wrong to think of him as her adversary now, she reminded herself. She'd cried in his arms over the loss of their baby, and he'd held her, trying to comfort her. That's what she needed to remember, so she wouldn't be so foolishly nervous. Matt was not her adversary.

The receptionist on the sixtieth floor stood up as soon as Stuart gave her their names. "Right this way, please. Mr. Farrell is expecting you both. The others are already here."

The poise Meredith was clinging to took a minor blow when she walked into Matt's office and didn't completely recognize it. The wall at the left end had been slid back so that his office opened into a conference room the size of an indoor tennis court. Two men were seated at the conference table, talking desultorily with Matt. He glanced up, saw her, and instantly arose, starting toward her with long, purposeful strides, his expression warm and relaxed. He was wearing a beautiful dark blue suit that fit him to perfection, a gleaming white shirt, and a handsome maroon and blue silk tie. For some reason, his formal business attire made her feel even more uneasy about this meeting. "Let me help you with your coat," he said, ignoring Stuart, who shrugged out of his own coat.

Too nervous and self-conscious to meet his gaze, Meredith obeyed automatically, turning slightly, trying to stop the compulsive shiver that ran through her as he lifted her coat and his fingers brushed her shoulders. Afraid he'd noticed her reaction, she bent her head and concentrated on stripping off her navy kid gloves and transferring them to the hand with her navy handbag. Stuart had walked over to the conference table to shake hands with the opposing counsel, so Meredith headed toward him, but when he would have introduced her to the other two attorneys, Matt suddenly arrived at her elbow and began to act incongruously, as if this were an intimate social gathering being hosted by him in her honor. "Meredith," he said with a smile in his eyes as he looked at her, "I'd like you to meet Bill Pearson and Dave Levinson."

Aware of the subtly possessive, protective way Matt was standing beside her, Meredith tore her startled gaze from his and looked at the two men, extending her hand to each of them. They were both over six feet tall, impeccably dressed in tailor-made three-piece suits with an aura of confident elegance and decisiveness about them. In comparison to their height and distinguished looks, Stuart, who was standing opposite them, appeared small in stature and insignificant in appearance, with his thinning brown hair and studious horn-rimmed eyeglasses. In fact, Meredith thought nervously as Stuart introduced himself to Matt, Stuart looked outnumbered, outflanked, and outclassed.

As if he sensed her thoughts, Matt said, "Bill and Dave are here to safeguard your interests as much as my own." That remark caused Stuart to pause in the act of sitting down, and to give Meredith a look of unabashed derision that warned her not to believe that for an instant. Meredith saw the look and felt vastly reassured. Stuart might be younger and shorter than the other two, but he was neither fooled nor outflanked.

Matt saw the look too, but he ignored it. Turning to Meredith, who was about to sit down, he put his hand under her elbow to stop her, beginning to execute his plan. "We'd just decided to have a drink when you arrived," he lied when she was standing again, looking at him in confusion. He glanced pointedly at his attorneys. "What will you have, gentlemen?"

"Scotch and water," Levinson promptly replied, understanding that he'd just been told to have one whether he wanted it or not, and obediently shoving aside the folder he'd been about to open.

"The same," Pearson echoed, taking his cue and relaxing back in his chair as if they had all the time in the world.

Turning to Stuart, Matt said, "What would you like to drink?"

'Perrier," he said succinctly. "With a lime, if you have it."

"We have it."

Matt looked to Meredith, but she shook her head and said, "I don't care for anything."

"In that case, will you help me carry the drinks?" he countered, determined to get the chance to speak privately with her. "These three men have faced one another across conference tables before, I'm told. I'm certain they'll be able to find something to talk about while we get their drinks." Having thus instructed Levinson and Pearson to keep Stuart occupied, he put his hand under Meredith's elbow. Behind him, Levinson was already launching into an animated dialogue about a controversial trial in the newspapers, with Pearson contributing additional remarks—all of it done in sufficiently loud voices to give Matt the cover of privacy they understood he wanted with Meredith.

The bar was a deep half circle made entirely of narrow, vertical strips of beveled mirror, and because it was recessed into a wall, Matt was out of sight of the men at the conference table the moment he stepped around the counter. Meredith, however, was stubbornly hovering on the opposite side of the counter, gazing fixedly at the beveled mirrors as if hypnotized by the reflection of colored light dancing off crystal glasses. Removing the top of the ice bucket, Matt put ice into five glasses, then he pulled the stopper out of a crystal decanter and splashed scotch into three glasses, and vodka into another. Glancing at the refrigerator that was beneath the counter on his side, he casually said, "Would you mind getting me the Perrier?"

She nodded, and he watched her move with visible reluctance around the bar to do as he asked. Scrupulously avoiding his gaze, she took out a bottle of Perrier and a lime, and put both on the counter, then she started to turn. "Meredith," Matt said quietly, putting a detaining hand on her arm, "why can't you look at me?"

She jumped at his touch and he let go of her arm, but she lifted her eyes to his, and when she did, much of the tension drained from her elegant face. She even managed a rueful little smile as she admitted, "I don't know why exactly, but I'm finding this whole ordeal excruciatingly awkward."

"It serves you right," he teased, trying to divert her with humor. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's not nice to leave a man in bed with nothing but a note to say good-bye? It makes him wonder if you still respect him."

She swallowed a startled giggle at his pointed quip, and he grinned back at her. "Leaving you that way was foolish," she admitted, and it didn't occur to either of them to wonder why, no matter how long their separation, or how tense the circumstances surrounding each meeting, they fell easily into conversation with each other. "I can't explain why I did it. I don't understand it myself."

"I think I do," Matt said. "Here, drink this." He handed her the vodka and soda he'd made for her. When she started to decline and give it back to him, he shook his head. "It will help make this meeting a little easier to endure." He waited until she'd taken a sip and then he said what he'd gotten her over there to say. "I'd like to ask a favor of you now."

Meredith heard the sudden solemnity in his voice, and she looked at him closely. "What sort of favor?"

"Do you remember at the farm—you asked me for a truce?"

She nodded, remembering with poignant clarity the way she'd stood beside his bed, watching his hand close over hers.

"I'm asking you for the same thing now—a kind of a truce, a cease-fire, from the time my attorneys begin talking until you leave this room."

Alarm tingled through her, vague and unfocused, and she slowly put her glass down, warily searching his unreadable features. "I don't understand."

"I'm asking you to listen to the terms of my offer and to remember that, no matter how—" Matt paused, trying to think of a suitably descriptive word for how his terms were likely to strike her. Infuriating? Outrageous? Obscene? "No matter how unusual my terms may seem, I'm doing what I honestly believe is best for both of us. My attorneys are going to explain my legal alternatives if you refuse my offer, and you're bound to feel backed into a corner at first, but I'm asking you not to get up and walk out of here, or to tell the three of us to go to hell, no matter how angry you become. Last, I'm asking you to give me five minutes in here alone with you, after the meeting, during which time I will try to convince you to go along with what I'm suggesting. If I can't do that, you're free to tell me to go to hell and walk out of here. Will you agree to that?"

Meredith's alarm escalated to new heights, and yet he was only asking her to stay there, and stay calm, for an hour or so.

"I agreed to your terms at the farm," he reminded her, "Is it so much to ask that you agree to mine now?"

Unable to withstand the quiet force of his argument, Meredith slowly shook her head. "I suppose not. All right, I agree. Truce," she said, then watched in surprise as Matt held his hand out to her just as she had held hers out to him at the farm, except that he turned his hand palm up. Her heart gave an inexplicable little bump as she laid her hand in his and his fingers closed tightly around it.

"Thank you," he said.

It hit her that she had said exactly that to him. Amazed that this moment at the farm had obviously seemed poignant to him, too, she tried to smile back at him as she echoed his former words: "You're welcome."

Fully aware of the ploy that Farrell had used to draw Meredith away, Stuart permitted the two attorneys to carry on their barrage of diversionary conversation while he mentally ticked off the amount of time necessary to fix five drinks. When that time had elapsed, he swiveled around his chair, rudely turned his back on Levinson and Pearson and, without bothering to hide what he was doing, he craned his neck to see the occupants of the bar. He half expected to see Farrell trying to badger Meredith; what he saw was a couple in profile, captured in a pose so thoroughly startling that Stuart felt momentarily disoriented. Far from trying to badger her, Farrell was holding his hand out to her, looking at her with a somber smile that struck Stuart as decidedly... tender. And Meredith, who was almost always completely composed, was putting her hand in his and looking up at him with an expression that Stuart had never seen on her face before: a vulnerable expression of naked caring.

Abruptly, he pulled his gaze from the couple and turned to the attorneys, but he still hadn't come up with a suitable explanation for Meredith's expression a minute later, when she and Farrell brought the drinks to the conference table.

When Farrell had seated Meredith, Pearson said, "Matt, shall we begin?" The seating arrangement had struck Stuart as odd from the minute he'd walked into the room: Pearson was deliberately positioned at the head of the conference table, where Farrell would normally have been. Meredith had been seated on Pearson's left, with Stuart next to her. Levinson was on Pearson's right, directly across from her, and now Farrell walked around the table, sitting down next to Levinson. Ever aware of subtleties, Stuart wondered if Farrell had deliberately put Pearson in the hot seat to make Meredith think that Pearson rather than himself was responsible for whatever she was about to hear. Either that, Stuart decided, watching Farrell angle his chair back and prop his ankle atop his knee, or else Farrell wanted to be able to observe Meredith throughout the proceedings without having to make it obvious, which it would have been if he'd been at the head of the table.

A moment later Pearson began to speak, and what he said was so unexpected, so incongruous that Stuart's brows drew together in wary surprise. "There is much to be considered here," he said, addressing his remarks to Stuart—remarks that Stuart instantly realized were deliberately designed to have an emotional effect on Meredith. "We have here a couple who took vows eleven years ago, solemn vows. They both knew at the time that marriage is an estate not to be entered into lightly or—"

Caught somewhere between annoyance and amusement, Stuart said, "You can dispense with reciting the entire wedding ceremony, Bill. They already went through it eleven years ago. That's why we're here now." He turned to Matt, who was idly rolling a gold pen between his fingers and said, "My client isn't interested in your attorneys' assessment of the situation. What do you want and what are you offering? Let's get down to business."

Instead of reacting to Stuart's deliberate provocation, Matt glanced at Pearson and, with a slight inclination of his head, he instructed him to do exactly that.

"Very well," Pearson said, dropping the role of kindly mediator. "Here's where we stand. Our client has sufficient grounds for a very ugly and damaging lawsuit against your client's father. As a result of Philip Bancroft's unconscionable interference in our client's marriage, our client was deprived of his right to attend the funeral of his child, he was deprived of his right to comfort his wife and be comforted by her after the death of that child, and he was misled into believing she wanted to divorce him. In short, he was deprived of eleven years of marriage. Mr. Bancroft has also interfered with Mr. Farrell's business by illegally trying to influence the Southville zoning commission. These are matters that can, of course, be dealt with in a court of law…"

Stuart glanced at Farrell, who was watching Meredith, who, in turn, was staring fixedly at Pearson, the color draining from her face. Angry that she was unexpectedly being subjected to this, Stuart looked at Pearson and said disdainfully, "If every married man with interfering in-laws could sue them for it, there'd be a fifty-year back-up on the dockets. They'll laugh him out of court." Pearson regarded him with brows raised in challenge. "I doubt that. Bancroft's interference was malicious and extreme; I think a jury would relish ruling against Bancroft for what were, in my opinion, indefensible actions of astonishing viciousness. And that's before we start talking about Bancroft's illegal attempt to influence the Southville zoning commission. However," he said, holding up a hand to silence Stuart, "whether we won our cases or not, the mere filing of those cases would create a storm of unpleasant publicity—publicity that would be damaging to Mr. Bancroft and very possibly Bancroft and Company as well. It's common knowledge that Mr. Bancroft is seriously ill, and, of course, the effect of such publicity and a trial might further jeopardize his health."

A knot of fear and panic was growing in Meredith's stomach, but at that moment her strongest feeling was one of betrayal. She had driven to the farm to tell Matt the truth about the baby and her father's telegram; now he was threatening to use it against her. Her spirits lifted, however, when Pearson said, "I've mentioned all that, Miss Bancroft, not to alarm or distress you, but merely to remind you of the facts and to acquaint you with our point of view. However, Mr. Farrell is willing to overlook all of those things I've been mentioning, and to waive his rights to all legal proceedings against your father for all time... for a few simple concessions from you. Stuart," he said as he handed a two-page document to Stuart and an identical copy of it to Meredith, "the verbal offer I am about to make is detailed in this document, and to relieve any doubts you may have about Mr. Farrell's sincerity, he has offered to sign it for you at the conclusion of this meeting. However, there is one stipulation, and that is that this offer must be accepted or rejected before your client leaves here today. If it is rejected, it is withdrawn forthwith and we will file legal proceedings against Philip Bancroft by the end of the week. Would you care to take a few minutes to look it over before I summarize it?"

Refusing to even glance at the document, Stuart tossed it on the table, leaned back in his chair, and regarded his adversary with a smile of acid disdain. "I'd much rather hear it from you. Bill. I never fully appreciated your flair for drama before this. The only reason I haven't told you to go to hell and meet us in court before now is that I can't bring myself to leave before I see the last act." Despite his apparent lack of concern over their threats, Stuart was not only worried, he was furious at Pearson's deliberate attempt to frighten and intimidate Meredith.

At a curt nod from Matt, Levinson suddenly stepped in, his voice conciliatory. "Perhaps it would be better if I summarize the offer contained in that document."

"I don't know about that," Stuart drawled insolently. "Are you the understudy or the star?"

"The star," the older man replied imperturbably. "I prepared the document." Directing his attention to Meredith, Levinson smiled and said, "As my associate has just explained, Miss Bancroft, if you agree to what your husband asks, he is willing to forgo taking legal action against your father, but he is also offering much more than that in this document: He is also offering to give you a generous settlement—a lump sum alimony payment if you prefer to think of it that way—in the amount of five million dollars."

That did it. The alarm Meredith had been feeling combined with shock; she looked at Stuart and said, "Agree to what? What is happening here?"

"It's just a game," Stuart reassured her. "First they threaten you with what they'll take away from you if you refuse to play. Now they're telling you what they'll give you if you do."

"A game?" she cried softly. "What game?"

"That's the part they're saving for the very end."

Her eyes clinging to his, Meredith nodded, gathered her wits, and looked at Levinson, studiously avoiding looking at Matt. "Go on, Mr. Levinson," she said, lifting her chin in a show of dignity and courage.

"In addition to the five-million-dollar settlement," Levinson said, "your husband will sell to Bancroft and Company a certain piece of property in Houston for the sum of twenty million dollars."

Meredith felt the room reel, and she turned her head then, looking at Matt, her face filled with confusion, gratitude, and misgivings. He held her gaze without flinching while Levinson added, "Last, if you agree to what your husband is proposing, he will sign a waiver on the usual two-year separation required by this state in order to obtain a divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. That will reduce the waiting period to six months."

Stuart dismissed that concession with a shrug. "We don't need a waiver from Farrell in order for the court to agree to reduce the waiting period. The law clearly states that if the couple has not cohabited for a period of two years, and irreconcilable differences exist, then the waiting period can be shortened to six months. These two people haven't cohabited in eleven years!"

Levinson leaned back in his chair, and Meredith had a sickening premonition of what he might be angling toward when he quietly said, "They spent last weekend together."

"So what?" Stuart said. He was no longer angry, he was stunned by Farrell's $5 million offer and completely preoccupied with discovering what concession Farrell wanted in return for it. "They did not cohabit in the marital sense of the word. They merely slept in the same house. No judge alive would think their marriage might be preserved, and insist on a two-year waiting period, merely because they managed to stay under the same roof for two days. What they did was certainly not cohabiting."

Deafening silence ensued.

Levinson lifted his brows and looked steadily at Stuart. Stuart, who was growing angry again, glared at Farrell. "You shared a roof, not a bed." But Farrell said nothing. Instead, he shifted his gaze and looked quietly and pointedly at Meredith.

Stuart knew then. He knew, even before he turned his head and saw the look of betrayal shimmering in Meredith's eyes and the angry, embarrassed flush on her pale cheeks as she yanked her gaze from her husband's and stared at her hands. Despite the disjointed thoughts whirling through his mind, he lifted his shoulders and said with convincing unconcern, "So they slept together. Big damned deal. I still repeat—why would your client consider refusing to sign a waiver on the two years? Why prolong the inevitable divorce?"

"Because," Levinson said calmly, "Mr. Farrell is not convinced a divorce is inevitable."

Stuart's laugh was genuine. "That's ridiculous."

"Mr. Farrell doesn't think so. In fact, he's willing to offer all the concessions we've discussed here—a five-million-dollar alimony settlement, the property in Houston, the dismissal of all legal action against Philip Bancroft, and a waiver on the two-year waiting period— all of that in return for only one concession for himself."

"What concession?"

"He wants one week for every year of marriage he was denied. Eleven weeks. Eleven weeks with his wife, so that they can get to know each other better..,"

Meredith half rose out of her chair, her eyes shooting sparks at Matt. "You want whaat!"

"Define how he intends to get to know her," Stuart snapped, convinced that the phrase carried blatant sexual overtones.

"I think we can leave it to them to work that out," Levinson began, but Meredith's furious voice interrupted him.

"Oh, no, you can't!" She stood up, her eyes alive with fury as she said to Matt, "You've subjected me to everything in this meeting from terrorism to humiliation. Don't stop now. Let's be specific, so they can write it all down with the rest of your offer. Tell them exactly how you intend to get to know me. This is nothing but blackmail, so stipulate your terms, you—you bastard!"

Matt looked at the attorneys. "Leave the two of us alone now."

Meredith, however, was past the point of caring who heard anything anymore. "Sit down!" she warned the attorneys. Nothing mattered. She was trapped; she'd understood the terms; she just hadn't anticipated the grotesque payment Matt was going to exact. Either she slept with him for the next eleven weeks, or he was going to drag her father through the courts, and very likely kill him with the stress. She saw something else then—the gray-haired secretary who'd slipped in and seated herself on a sofa and was busily taking down what everyone said. Like an animal who is cornered, Meredith struck out, mentally circling as she leaned her palms on the table, glaring at Matt, her eyes filled with contempt and hatred. "Everyone stays while you list your obscene terms. Either you kill my father with your lawsuits or you get your pound of flesh from me—that's it, isn't it? Now, start telling these lawyers of yours how you intend to take it! Tell them how often and which way, damn you! But you draw up receipts, you bastard, because I'll make you sign them."

Her gaze shot to the secretary. "Are you having a stimulating time over there? Are you getting this all down? This monster you work for is going to dictate how he wants his kicks, how often—"

Suddenly everyone was in motion. Matt jumped out of his chair and headed around the table, Levinson grabbed for his sleeve and missed, Stuart shoved his chair back and tried to thrust Meredith behind him, but Meredith flung him off. "Stay away from me!" she warned Stuart before whirling on Matt, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Bastard!" she hissed. "Start dictating your terms. How often do you want it—how—" Matt reached for her at the same moment Meredith swung, her palm crashing against his face with a force that snapped his head sideways.

"Stop it!" he ordered, grabbing her upper arms, but his gaze was on Stuart, who was heading forward, reaching for him.

"Bastard!" she sobbed, glaring at Matt. "You bastard, I trusted you!"

Matt yanked her against his chest, shrugging Stuart off. "Listen to me!" he said tautly, turning Meredith aside. "I am not asking you to sleep with me! Do you understand me? I'm asking for a chance, dammit! Just a chance for eleven weeks!"

Everyone was standing; everyone froze, even Meredith stopped struggling, but her whole body was trembling and she covered her face with her hands. Glancing at their spectators, Matt ordered sharply, "Get the hell out of here."

Levinson and Pearson gathered up their papers to leave, but Stuart stayed where he was, watching Meredith, who was neither returning nor resisting Matt's embrace. "I'm not going anywhere until you take your hands off her and she tells me she wants me to leave."

Matt knew he meant it, and since Meredith had stopped resisting, he dropped his arms, reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief to give her.

"Meredith?" Stuart said uncertainly to the back of her head. "Do you want me to wait outside or stay here? Tell me what you want me to do."

Humiliated past all endurance at the realization she'd jumped to erroneous conclusions and made such a scene, and furious because she'd been prodded into doing both, Meredith ungraciously snatched Matt's handkerchief.

"What she wants to do right now," Matt told Stuart with a grim effort at humor, "is throw another punch at me—"

"I can speak for myself!" Meredith gritted out, dabbing at her eyes and nose and stepping back a pace. "Stay here, Stuart." She raised liquid, angry, mistrustful eyes to Matt, and said, "You wanted this all legal and formal. Tell my attorney what you mean by wanting a chance, because I obviously don't understand."

"I'd rather do it in private."

Well, she said with a haughty glance that was spoiled by the tears still sparkling on her lashes, "that's just too bad! You're the one who insisted on doing this today, and in front of your lawyers! You couldn't possibly have spared me this and discussed it with me in private some other time—"

"I called you yesterday to try to do exactly that," he told her. "You instructed your secretary to tell me to deal with you only through your attorney."

"Well, you could have tried again!"

"When? After you flew to Mexico or Reno or wherever you intended to go on your sudden trip this week to divorce me?"

"And I was right to try," she said ferociously, and Matt bit back a smile of pride. She was splendid—already recovering her composure, her chin up, her shoulders square. She wasn't able to look the lawyers in the face yet, though, so he glanced over her shoulder at them. His own lawyers were heading out with their coats and briefcases, but Meredith's lawyer stubbornly remained where he stood, arms crossed over his chest, watching Matt with a mixture of antagonism, suspicion, and blunt curiosity. "Meredith," Matt said. "Would you at least ask your attorney to wait in my office. He can see everything from there, but he doesn't need to hear any more than he has."

"I have nothing else to hide," she said wrathfully. "Now, let's get this over with. What exactly do you want from me?"

"Fine," Matt said, deciding he didn't give a damn what Whitmore heard. Sitting down on the edge of the conference table, he crossed his arms over his chest. "I want a chance for us to get to know each other for the next eleven weeks."

"And just how do you intend for us to do that?" she demanded.

"The usual ways—we'll have dinner together, go to plays—"

"How often?" she interrupted, looking angrier than ever.

"I hadn't thought about it."

"I'm sure you were too busy refining your blackmail and thinking up ways to ruin my life!"

"Four times a week!" Matt snapped out the answer to her question about how often. "And I am not trying to ruin your life!"

"What days of the week?" she fired back.

His anger died, and he fought back another smile. "Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and—Wednesday," he said after a moment's thought.

"Has it occurred to you that I have a career and a fiance?"

"I don't want to interfere with your career. Your fiance will have to back off for eleven weeks."

"This isn't fair to him—" Meredith cried.

"Tough!"

The harsh word, his cold tone and implacable features, were so eloquent of his entire ruthless personality, Meredith finally realized nothing she said or did would dissuade him from accomplishing his goal. She was his latest target for a hostile takeover. "Every rotten thing they say about you—it's all true, isn't it?"

"Most of it," he bit out, looking like she'd slapped him again.

"It doesn't matter who you hurt or what you have to do to get what you want, does it?"

His face tightened, "Not in this case."

Her shoulders sagged, her bravado fleeing. "Why are you doing this to me? What have I done to you— deliberately, I mean—to make you try to tear my life to pieces like this?"

Matt couldn't think of an answer he could give her now that she'd accept without either laughing in his face or getting furious. "Let's just say that I think there's something between us—an attraction—and I want to see how deep it goes."

"God, I cannot believe this!" she cried, wrapping her arms around her stomach. "There is nothing between us! Nothing but a horrible past."

"And last weekend," he pointed out bluntly.

Meredith hid her chagrin in anger. "That was—that was sex!"

"Was it?"

"You ought to know!" she shot back, remembering something she'd overlooked of late. "If half of what I've read about you is true, you hold the world's record for cheap affairs and meaningless flings. God, how could you sleep with that rock star with the pink hair?"

"Marianna Tighbell?"

"Yes! Don't bother denying it! It was all over the front page of the National Tattler."

Matt swallowed a shout of laughter, watching her pace slowly back and forth, loving the way she moved, the way she clipped her words when she was angry, the way she clutched him when she was close to a climax—as if she weren't certain she could count on one. Maybe she wasn't always able to count on one with her other lovers.... She was gorgeous and innately passionate; he knew better than to hope she hadn't been to bed with dozens of men. He settled for hoping they'd all been selfish, inept, or dull. Preferably, all three. And impotent.

"Well?" she said, rounding on him. "How could you sleep with that—that woman?"

"I've been to a party in her home. I have never slept with her."

"Am I supposed to believe that?"

"Apparently not."

"It doesn't matter," Meredith said, giving herself a mental shake. "Matt, please," she implored him, trying for one last time to make him abandon his insane plan. "I'm in love with someone else."

"You weren't on Sunday when you and I were in bed—"

"Stop talking about that! I'm in love with Parker Reynolds, I swear to you I am. I've been in love with him since I was a girl. I was in love with him before I met you!"

Matt was about to brush that off as highly unlikely for the same reason he thought it was unlikely now, when she added, "Only he had just gotten engaged to someone else, and I'd given up."

That information cut him deeply enough to make him stand and brusquely say, "You heard my offer, Meredith, take it or leave it."

Meredith stared at him, aware that he'd suddenly turned aloof and hard. He meant it—the discussion was over. Stuart realized it too, and he was already putting on his coat and walking toward Matt's office, pausing in the doorway to wait for her. Deliberately turning her back on Matt, she walked over to get her purse, taking vengeful pleasure in making him think she was scorning his bargain, but her mind was whirling in panic. She picked up her purse from the conference table, feeling his eyes boring holes through her back, then she walked purposefully to the sofa to get her coat.

Behind her, Matt spoke in an icy, ominous voice. "Is this your answer, Meredith?"

Meredith refused to reply. She swallowed, trying for one last moment to think of some way to reach him, to touch his heart. But he had no heart. Passion was all he was capable of; passion and ego and revenge were what he was made of. She picked up her coat from the sofa and draped it over her arm, leaving Matt in the conference room without so much as glancing over her shoulder at him. "Let's go," she told Stuart, wanting Matthew Farrell to think, at least for a minute or two, that she'd thrown his ultimatum in his face... hoping against hope that he would call out to her that he'd only been bluffing, that he wouldn't do this to her father or her.

But the silence behind her was unbroken.

Matt's secretary had evidently gone home for the day, and when Stuart had closed the connecting door behind the two offices, Meredith stopped and spoke for the first time. In a suffocated voice, she said, "Can he do what he's threatening to do to my father?"

Angry about several different things, including Meredith's being put under this unreasonable pressure to make a decision, Stuart sighed. "We can't prevent him from filing the lawsuits, or bringing your father to trial; I don't think he stands much chance of gaining anything except revenge, if he does it. Win or lose, though, the day he files those lawsuits, your father's name will be all over the headlines. How is your father's health?"

"Not good enough to risk being put to the strain of that kind of publicity." Her eyes dropped to the documents he was holding, then lifted beseechingly to his. "Are there any loopholes in there we could use?"

"Not one. No traps either, if that's any reassurance. They're fairly simple and forthright, they say exactly what Levinson and Pearson said aloud." He put them on the secretary's desk for Meredith to read, but she shook her head, avoiding the sight of the words, and, picking up a pen from the desk, she scribbled her name on the bottom.

"Give them to him and make him sign them," she said, tossing the pen aside as if it were dirty. "And make that—that maniac write down the days of the week that he named and initial the changes. And make it read so that if he misses a day, he can't make it up with another!"

Stuart almost smiled at that, but he shook his head when she handed the papers back to him. "Unless you want the five million dollars or the Houston land more than you seemed to in there, I don't think you need to go through with this. He's bluffing about your father."

Her face lit up with eagerness and hope. "Why do you think so?"

"It's a hunch. A strong hunch."

"A hunch, based on what?"

Stuart thought of the solemn tenderness on Farrell's face when he was holding Meredith's hand. He thought of the way he'd looked when she slapped him and the lack of roughness in the way he'd restrained her afterward. And, although Stuart had originally thought that Farrell had some sort of eleven-week orgy in mind, the man had seemed genuinely taken aback by that accusation. Rather than tell her such nebulous things, Stuart said something more concrete: "If he's ruthless enough to do this to your father, then why is he being so generous in his offers to you? Why not simply threaten you with suing your father to make you give in?"

"I suppose he thinks he'll have more fun if I'm less resistant. I also think he likes my knowing—and my father knowing—that he can throw that kind of money around and not even miss it. Stuart, my father humiliated him terribly when he was twenty-six, and he's still trying! I can imagine the kind of malice Matt must feel for him, even if you can't."

"I am still willing to bet you that man won't lift a legal hand against your father whether you agree to this or not."

"I want to believe you," she said, calmer now. "Give me a sound reason to, and we'll walk out of here and throw those papers in the wastebasket."

"This is going to sound... odd... given what I've seen of Farrell today and the reputation he has, but I don't think he'd do anything to hurt you."

She laughed—a short, bitter laugh. "How do you explain intimidation and humiliation, not to mention blackmail? What do you call what he put me through in there?"

Stuart shrugged helplessly. "Not blackmail—he's paying you the money, not the reverse. I would call it pulling out all the stops, using every single means you have to get what you want because you want it so badly. I also think it got out of hand in there, thanks to Pearson's strong-arm tactics and flair for drama. I was watching Farrell most of the time, and every time Pearson got tough with you, Farrell looked angry. I think he picked the wrong attorneys for a gentle finesse attempt like this was supposed to be. Levinson and Pearson play the game only one way—they go for the throat and they play to win."

Meredith's heart sank at Stuart's flimsy rationale. "I can't bet my father's life on anything as flimsy as all that. And I'll tell you something," she added sadly. "Matt picked lawyers who think exactly like he does. You could be right when you say Matt doesn't want to hurt me personally, but you’re wrong about what he's after. I figured it out just as we left." She drew a shaky breath. "Matt isn't after me. He doesn't even know me. What he wants is revenge against my father, and he's figured out two ways to get it: Either he takes my father to trial, or he gets his revenge an even sweeter, better way—by using me. I'm the sweetest revenge of all. Forcing my father to see us together after all these years, making him think there's a chance we'll stay together—to Matt that's an eye for an eye. So," she said, putting her hand on his sleeve, "will you do me a favor when you take this in to him?"

Stuart nodded, covering her hand. "What do you want me to do?"

"Try to make Matt agree that this bargain and our marriage will remain a secret. He probably won't agree —that will deprive him of some of his pleasure, some of his revenge, but try."

"I will."

When she left, Stuart flipped to the second page, wrote in the terms he hoped to get Farrell to agree to, then he straightened. Rather than politely knock on Farrell's office door, Stuart opened it. When he saw that Farrell wasn't there, he headed quietly toward the conference room, hoping to catch him off guard, to see something— some expression—that would give a clue about the man's real feelings.

The draperies had been drawn back in the conference room, and Farrell was standing at the windows, his drink in one hand, staring out at the night skyline, his jaw rigid. He looked, Stuart thought with some satisfaction, like a man who had just suffered an enormous defeat and was trying to come to grips with it. In fact, standing in the vast conference room, surrounded by all the trappings of his wealth and power, there was an incongruous quality of isolation in the way he bent his head and stared at the glass in his hand. He lifted his glass then and tossed down the drink as if trying to wash away a bitter taste, and Stuart spoke. "Should I have knocked?" Farrell's head jerked around, and even in that unguarded instant of surprise, Stuart wasn't certain whether he saw profound relief—or merely tremendous satisfaction, so quickly did Farrell's guard go up. He'd been fairly easy to read when Meredith was present—now Stuart watched him become aloof and completely inscrutable as he flicked a glance at the papers in Stuart's hand to confirm what they were, then started toward the bar.

"I was about to have another drink," Farrell said, showing no apparent eagerness to get his hands on the signed documents. "Would you care for one, or would you rather get down to business?"

He sounded as if it didn't matter to him which option Stuart chose, but Stuart seized the opportunity to try to discover some clue to the man's feelings about Meredith. "The business part won't take long," he said, following him over to the bar. "I'll take you up on the offer of a drink."

"Another Perrier?" Farrell asked, stepping into the mirrored half circle.

"Bourbon," Stuart said succinctly. "Straight up."

That earned a dubious look from Farrell. "Really?"

"Would I lie to a clever, ruthless mogul like yourself?" Stuart said dryly.

Farrell flicked a sarcastic glance at him and reached for the decanter of bourbon. "You'd lie to the devil himself for the sake of a client."

Surprised and annoyed by the partial truth of that assessment, Stuart put his briefcase down and laid the documents on the bar. "You're right in this instance," he admitted. "Meredith and I are friends. In fact," Stuart continued, striving for a more relaxed atmosphere of confidence, "I used to have a huge crush on her."

"I know."

Surprised again, and half convinced Farrell was lying, Stuart said, "Considering that I don't think Meredith knew it, I have to say you're remarkably well informed. What else do you know?"

"About you?" Farrell asked casually.

When Stuart nodded, Farrell began fixing his own drink. Dropping ice cubes into his glass, he launched into a brusque, dispassionate recitation of Stuart's personal history that left him completely astonished and a little chilled. "You're the oldest son in a family of five," Farrell said. "Your grandfather and his two brothers founded the law firm where you're now a senior partner, carrying on with the family tradition of practicing law. At the age of twenty-three you graduated first in your class from Harvard Law School—also a family tradition—where you distinguished yourself by being president of your class and making Law Review. When you graduated, you wanted to work in the district attorney's office, specializing in prosecuting cases of landlord abuse, but you yielded to family pressure and joined the family firm instead, where you handle cases for wealthy corporate clients, mostly from your own social circle.

"You hate corporate law, but you have a genius for it; you're a tough negotiator, a brilliant strategist, and a good diplomat unless your personal feelings are involved, as they were today. You're thorough and you're meticulous, but you're lousy with juries because you try to sway them with dry facts instead of emotional logic. For that reason, you usually do the pretrial preparation, then you hand jury cases over to an associate and supervise them...."

Farrell paused in that recitation to hand Stuart his drink. "Shall I go on?"

"By all means, if there's more," Stuart replied a little stiffly.

Picking up his own glass, Farrell took a swallow and when Stuart had done likewise, he said, "You're thirty-three, heterosexual, with a penchant for fast cars, which you don't indulge, and a love of sailing, which you do. When you were twenty-two, you thought you were in love with a girl from Melrose Park whom you met at the beach, but she was from a blue-collar Italian family, and the cultural gap was too wide for both of you to bridge. You both agreed to call it off. Seven years later you fell in love with Meredith, but she couldn't reciprocate, so you became friends. Two years ago your family put on a push to marry you off to Georgina Gibbons, whose daddy is also a socialite lawyer, and the two of you got engaged, but you called that one off. You're worth about eighteen million right now, mostly in blue chip stocks, and you'll inherit another fifteen when your grandfather dies—less if he continues his junkets to Monte Carlo, where he nearly always loses."

Pausing in that recitation that had Stuart trapped somewhere between amazement and anger, Farrell gestured to the sofas near the windows, and Stuart picked up the documents and his drink and followed him there. When he was seated across from him, Farrell said blandly, "Did I leave anything important out?"

"Yes," Stuart replied with a sardonic smile as he lifted his drink in a mocking toast, "what's my favorite color?"

Farrell looked him straight in the eye. "Red."

Stuart choked. "You're right about everything but my thoroughness. Obviously you were better prepared for this confrontation than I was. I'm still waiting for the background check I ordered on you, and it won't be half so complete. I'm amazed and reluctantly impressed."

Farrell shrugged. "You shouldn't be. Intercorp owns a credit reporting bureau as well as a forge investigative agency that does a lot of work for multinational corporations."

It struck Stuart as odd that Farrell had said, "Intercorp owns," not "I own," as if he felt no real desire to be personally associated with the corporate empire he had created. In Stuart's experience, most entrepreneurs with newly amassed wealth were braggarts who were transparently proud of their accomplishments and embarrassingly eager to remind everyone of what they owned. Stuart had expected something like that of Farrell, particularly because the news media normally portrayed him as a flamboyant, international playboy-tycoon who led the completely sybaritic, richly satisfying life of a modern-day sultan.

Stuart had the feeling that the truth was far from that; that at best, Farrell was a guarded, solitary man who was difficult to get to know. At worst, he was a cold, calculating, unemotional man with a wide streak of ruthlessness and an iron control that was almost chilling. This was undoubtedly how his business adversaries thought of him. "How did you know what my favorite color is?" he asked finally, ready to try again to get a better reading on Farrell. "You didn't get that off a credit report."

"That was a guess," Farrell said dryly. "Your briefcase is maroon and so is your tie. Also, most men like red. Women like blue." For the first time, Farrell actually let his attention stray to the document Stuart had put on the table. "Speaking of women," he said casually, "I gather Meredith signed that."

"She added some conditions," Stuart replied, watching him closely, noting the imperceptible tensing of his adversary's jaw. "She wants the days you mentioned stipulated in the document and she wants it clarified that if you miss one, you can't make it up."

Farrell's expression softened, and even in the subdued lighting Stuart saw amusement glinting in those gray eyes. Amusement and... pride? He had no time to confirm that, however, because Farrell abruptly got up, walked over to the conference table, and returned with a gold fountain pen he'd left there. When he flipped to the signature page where Stuart had written in the added terms and uncapped the pen, Stuart added, "You'll see that she also wants it agreed that you will not publicly reveal either this marriage of yours or the eleven-week trial dating period to anyone."

Farrell's eyes narrowed, but just as Stuart opened his mouth to argue for Meredith's terms, Farrell looked down and quickly initialed all three stipulations, then he signed the document and tossed it across the table to Stuart. "Was secrecy your advice," he asked, "or Meredith's idea?"

"Hers," Stuart replied, and then because he was itching to see Farrell's reaction, he added smoothly, "If she'd have taken my advice, she would have thrown that agreement in the trash."

Farrell leaned back, studying Stuart with unnerving intensity and something that might have been a glimmer of respect. "If she'd done that," he countered, "she'd have risked her father's health and his good name."

"She wouldn't have risked anything," Stuart contradicted flatly. "You were bluffing." The other man lifted his brows and said nothing, so Stuart pressed harder. "What you're doing is unethical and extreme. Either you're a world-class bastard, or you're insane, or you're in love with her. Which is it?"

"Definitely the first," Farrell replied. "Possibly the second. Possibly all three. You decide."

"I already have."

"Which is it?"

"The first and the third," Stuart replied, suddenly enjoying himself, noting Farrell's slight, reluctant smile at Stuart's unflattering conclusion. "What do you know about Meredith?" Stuart asked after another swallow of his drink, determined to reaffirm his conclusion that Farrell was in love with her.

"Only what I've read in the magazines and newspapers in the last eleven years. I'd rather find out the rest by myself."

For a man who checked out an attorney right down to the size of his shoe, Stuart thought it was meaningful that Farrell, who was supposedly interested only in revenge, hadn't done an equally impersonal background check on Meredith. "Then you don't know the little things about her," Stuart said as he continued watching him over the rim of his glass, "like the fact that in the summer after her freshman year of college there was a rumor going around that she'd had some sort of tragic love affair, and that's why she wouldn't go out with anyone. You, of course, were probably inadvertently the cause of that." He paused, watching the flare of intense interest and emotion that Farrell belatedly tried to conceal by lifting his glass and taking a swallow of his drink. "And of course," he continued, "you wouldn't know that in her junior year a rejected fraternity boy started the rumor that she was either a lesbian or frigid. The only thing that stopped the lesbian thing from sticking to her was her friendship with Lisa Pontini, who was dating the president of the kid's fraternity. Lisa was so far from being a lesbian, and so loyal to Meredith, that she made the kid a laughingstock with the help of her current boyfriend. The part about being frigid stuck though. They nicknamed her the 'ice queen' at school. When she finished grad school, and came back here, the nickname got whispered, but she was so damned beautiful that it added to her allure because it made her a challenge. Besides, showing up with Meredith Bancroft on your arm, looking at that face of hers across a restaurant table, was such an ego boost that you didn't much care that she wouldn't sleep with you."

Stuart waited, hoping Farrell would finally take the bait and start asking questions, which would have been a tip-off about his true feelings, but Farrell either had no feelings for her—or else he was too smart to risk giving any hints that might cause her attorney to tell her that her husband was definitely in love with her and that she could tear up that document without risk of having him carry out his threats. Irrationally convinced the latter was still the case, Stuart said idly, "Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask," Farrell emphasized.

"What made you decide to double-team her today with two attorneys, particularly two attorneys whose methods are notoriously heavy-handed?"

For a second Stuart thought he wasn't going to answer, but then Farrell admitted with an ironic smile, "That was a tactical error on my part. In my haste to get the agreement drawn up in time for this meeting, I failed to make Levinson and Pearson understand that I wanted her convinced to sign, not bludgeoned to death." Putting his half-empty glass down on the table, he stood up, making it obvious that their little tete-a-tete was over.

Left with no choice, Stuart did likewise, but as he bent to pick up the papers, he added, "That was more than a mistake, it was the kiss of death. Besides bullying and coercing her, you betrayed and humiliated her by letting Levinson tell us all that she'd slept with you last weekend. She's going to hate you for that for a lot longer than eleven weeks. If you knew her better than you do, you'd realize that."

"Meredith is incapable of lasting hatred," Farrell informed him in an implacable voice that was tinged with pride, and Stuart had to hide his shock because every word Farrell was saying now was inadvertently confirming his own suspicion. "If she weren't incapable of it, she'd hate her father for spoiling her childhood and for belittling her success at work. She'd be hating him now for what she's just discovered he did to us eleven years ago. Instead, she's trying to protect him from me. Rather than hating, Meredith looks for ways to excuse the inexcusable in people she loves—including me, by telling herself I was justified in leaving her because I'd been forced to marry her in the first place." Oblivious to Stuart's stunned fascination, Farrell eyed him across the cocktail table and added, "Meredith can't stand to see people hurt. She sends flowers to dead babies with notes to tell them they were loved; she cries in an old man's arms because he's believed for eleven years that she aborted his grandchild, and then she drives four hours in a storm because she has to tell me the truth right away. She's softhearted, and she's overly cautious. She's also smart, astute, and intuitive, and those things have enabled her to excel at the department store without being devoured by back-biting executives or turning into one herself." Leaning down, he picked up his fountain pen and shot a cool, challenging look at Stuart. "What else could I possibly need to know about her?"

Stuart returned the look with one of his own— satisfied triumph. "I'll be damned," he said softly, laughing. "I was right—you are in love with her. And because you are, you wouldn't do a damned thing to hurt her by prosecuting her father."

Brushing the sides of his jacket back, Farrell shoved his hands into his pockets, spoiling some of Stuart's triumph by showing no concern over his conclusion. He spoiled the rest of it by saying blandly, "You think that, but you aren't sure enough to risk having Meredith put me to the test. You aren't even sure enough to broach the subject with her again, and if you were sure, you'd still hesitate to do it."

"Really?" Stuart retorted, smiling to himself. As he walked over to the bar to get his briefcase, he was already debating what to tell Meredith and how to do it. "What makes you think so?"

"Because," Farrell replied calmly behind him, "from the moment you realized Meredith slept with me last weekend, you haven't been completely certain about anything—particularly how she feels about me." He walked forward, angling toward his office and politely escorting Stuart out.

Stuart suddenly remembered the indescribable look on Meredith's face earlier, when she'd stood with her hand in Farrell's. Hiding his growing uncertainty behind a convincing shrug, he said, "I'm her lawyer—it's my job to tell her what I think, even when it's a hunch."

"You're also her friend and you were in love with her once. You're personally involved, and because you are, you're going to hesitate and contemplate, and in the end you'll decide to let this run its course. After all, if nothing comes of this, she's lost nothing by doing what I've required of her, and she gains five million dollars."

They'd reached his desk and Farrell walked behind it, but he remained politely standing. Thoroughly annoyed by the probable accuracy of Farrell's psychological summation, Stuart looked around for something to say to shake him up, and his gaze fell on the framed picture of a woman on Farrell's desk. "Are you planning to keep that picture there while you're trying to court your wife?"

"Absolutely."

Something in the way he said that made Stuart revise his original impression that the woman was a girlfriend or mistress. "Who is she?" he asked bluntly.

"My sister."

Farrell was watching him with that same infuriating calm, so Stuart shrugged, and with a deliberate effort to be offensive, he said, "Nice smile. Nice body too."

"I'll ignore the last part of that," Farrell said, "and politely suggest that the four of us have dinner when she's in town next time. Tell Meredith I'll pick her up tomorrow night at seven-thirty. You can phone my secretary in the morning and give her the address."

Summarily dismissed and duly cut down to size, Stuart nodded and opened the door, then he walked out and closed it. Outside Farrell's office he began to wonder if he was doing Meredith a favor by not warning her to ran, not walk, from the agreement she'd signed, whether she was in love with her husband or not. The man was like a machine; unyielding, detached, uncompromising, and completely unemotional. Not even a slur against his sister could rile the bastard.

On the opposite side of the connecting door, Matthew Farrell sank heavily into his chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. "Christ!" he whispered, heaving a long, shaking breath of relief. "Thank you."

It was the closest he'd come to a prayer in more than eleven years. It was the first easy breath he'd drawn in over two hours.