he smile was still lingering in her heart the next morning when she reached for the newspaper lying outside her apartment door. The headline almost sent her to her knees:

MATTHEW FARRELL QUESTIONED IN MURDER OF STANISLAUS SPYZHALSKI

Her heart hammering, she picked up the paper and read the accompanying story. It began by rehashing the entire fiasco of the sham attorney who'd provided them with falsified divorce documents and ended with the ominous statement that Matt had been questioned by the police late yesterday afternoon.

Meredith stared at that sentence in cold shock. Matt had been questioned yesterday. Yesterday. And he'd not only kept it secret from her last night, he hadn't looked or acted as if anything at all was wrong! Dumbstruck by this incontrovertible proof of his ability to hide his emotions, to deceive even her, she walked slowly into her apartment to get ready to go to work, intending to call him from the office.

Lisa was pacing back and forth when she arrived.

"Meredith, I have to talk to you," she said as she closed the door to Meredith's office.

Meredith looked at her childhood friend, and her uncertainty about Lisa's loyalty showed in the hesitancy of her smile. "I was wondering when you were going to get around to that."

"What do you mean?"

Meredith looked blankly at her. "I mean about Parker."

That seemed to hurtle Lisa into distracted despair. "Parker? Oh, God, I've wanted to talk to you about that, only I hadn't gotten up the courage yet. Meredith," she implored, raising her hands and letting them fall helplessly, "I know you must think I'm the biggest liar and phony in the world for the way I made fun of him to you, but I swear I didn't do it to try to stop you from marrying him. I was trying to stop myself from wanting him, trying to convince myself he was nothing but a—a stuffy banker. And, dammit, you weren't really in love with him—look how quickly you fell into Matt's arms when he came back." Her defiant facade crumbled. "Oh, please, don't hate me for this. Please don't. Meredith," she said, and her voice broke, "I love you more than my own sisters, and I've hated myself for loving the man you wanted..."

Suddenly they were two eighth-graders again who'd had a quarrel and were confronting each other on the school playground at St. Stephen's, but they were older now, and wiser, and they knew the value of their friendship. Lisa looked at her, tears shimmering in her eyes, her hands clenched into helpless fists at her sides. "Please," she whispered. "Don't hate me."

Meredith drew a shattered breath. "I can't hate you," she said, her smile wobbling. "I love you too, and, besides, I don't have any other sisters—" With a choked laugh Lisa flung herself into Meredith's arms, and as they had that long-ago day when they'd worn eighth-grade uniforms, instead of chic designer fashions, they hugged each other and laughed and tried not to cry. "Does it seem a little—incestuous—to you though?" Lisa asked with a sheepish grin when they were standing apart again. "My being with Parker?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact it did—the morning I called you, and you were both obviously in bed. Together."

Lisa started to laugh, then she sobered abruptly. "Actually, I didn't come up here to talk about Parker. I came to ask you about the police questioning Matt yesterday. I saw it in the morning paper and I"—she looked away, her gaze shifting about the room—"and I, well, I guess I came up here looking for reassurance. I mean—do the police think he killed Spyzhalski?"

Fighting down a surge of angry loyalty, Meredith said calmly, "Why should they? More important, why should you?"

"I don't," Lisa protested miserably. "It's just that I keep remembering the morning of your press conference, when he was talking to his attorney on the speaker phone. Matt was furious with Spyzhalski, anyone could see that, and desperately determined to protect you from scandal. And then he said something that seemed sort of... odd and... threatening even then."

"What are you talking about?" Meredith demanded, more impatient than upset now.

"I'm talking about what Matt said when his attorney warned him that Spyzhalski was a crank who wanted to put on a big show in the courtroom. Matt told his attorney to change Spyzhalski's mind and get him out of town. And then Matt said that he'd 'take care of him' after that. You don't think," Lisa finished, her apprehensive gaze searching Meredith's face, "that Matt's way of 'taking care of him' might have been to have him beaten up and dumped in a ditch, dead, do you?"

"That is the most absurd, the most outrageous thing I've ever heard!" Meredith said in a low, explosive voice, but her father's words brought them both whirling around.

"I don't think the police will find a remark like that absurd," he announced from the connecting doorway of the conference room. "Furthermore, it's your duty to inform them of it."

"No," Meredith said, starting to panic at how the police might construe Matt's remark, and then inspiration struck. She was so relieved, she smiled. "I'm Matt's wife, I have no duty to repeat that, not even in a courtroom."

Philip looked at Lisa. "You heard it, and you're not married to the bastard."

Lisa looked at Meredith and saw the pleading in her eyes. Without further hesitation she took her side. "Actually, Mr. Bancroft," she lied with an apologetic smile, "I don't think that's what Matt said after all. No, I'm sure it wasn't. You know how imaginative I am," she added, backing out of the office, "that's why I'm such a brilliant designer here—a very vivid imagination."

When her father transferred his frustrated glower to her, Meredith pointed out something to him that had just occurred to her. "You know," she told him quietly, "in your desperation to blame Matt for everything, you're tripping on your own faulty logic. On the one hand, you're accusing him of having no feelings for me, and of using me merely to get revenge against you. If that's true, how can you possibly believe he'd actually have Spyzhalski murdered to protect me from scandal?" She scored a point with that one, she knew, because her father swore under his breath and walked out, but an instant later Meredith's heart missed a beat as something else Matt said came back to haunt her. The same night Spyzhalski's body was found, she'd been teasing him about his offer to divert the reporters while she drove into his apartment garage. You'd do that? Just for me? she'd joked, but his reply hadn't been joking, it had been said with deadly earnestness. You have no idea, he'd answered, how much I'd do—just for you.

Meredith walked over to her desk and shook her head, shoving the thought aside. "Stop it!" she warned herself aloud. "You're letting everyone else's suspicions get to you!"

At six o clock, however, it became almost impossible not to do exactly that. "Here are your first two pieces of evidence, Meredith," her father announced, walking in with Mark Braden, and furiously tossing two reports onto her desk.

Filled with sudden foreboding, Meredith slowly shoved the advertising budget she'd been reviewing aside, glanced at the grim faces of both men, and pulled the reports over in front of her. The first report was a lengthy background check that Mark had run on Matt. On it, Mark had put red circles around the names of every company Matt owned, every legitimate business enterprise he was involved in, and there were dozens of them. Eight of the names had large red X's beside them. She looked at the other report, which contained the names of the people, institutions, and companies that had recently acquired more than a 1,000-share block of stock in Bancroft's, and her heart began to thud with dread: Those eight names with the red X's on the investigative report about Matt also appeared on the list of new shareholders. Combined, Matt had already acquired a gigantic block of stock in B & C, all of it purchased in names other than his own or Intercorp's.

"That's only the beginning," her father said. "That shareholder list isn't up-to-date, and the investigative report on Farrell is incomplete. God knows how many additional shares he's bought or in what names. When our stock prices went up, Farrell obviously decided to put a few bombs in our stores to drive them down, so he could buy them cheaper. Now," he said, leaning his flattened palms on her desk, "will you admit that he's behind what's happening to us?"

"No!" Meredith said stonily, but God help her, she wasn't certain whether she was denying that he was right or denying her ability to admit it. "All this proves is that he—he decided to acquire shares of our stock. There could be several reasons for that. Perhaps he realized we're a good long-term investment and it—it amused him to make money on your own company!" She stood up, her knees shaking, and looked at both men. "That's a far cry from having bombs planted in our stores or having people murdered!"

"Why did I ever think you had sense!" Philip said in frustrated fury. "That bastard already owns the property we want in Houston, and God knows how much he owns of us! He's already got enough shares to vote himself a seat on our board right now—"

"It's late," Meredith interrupted, but her voice was taut with strain as she shoved work into her briefcase. "I'm going to go home and try to work there. You and Mark can continue this—this witch hunt without me!"

"Stay away from him, Meredith!" her father warned as she started for the door. "If you don't, you may end up looking like a co-conspirator in all this. By Friday at the latest we'll have enough proof put together to turn him over to the authorities—"

She turned, trying to look scornful. "What authorities?"

"The Securities and Exchange Commission, for starters! If he's acquired five percent of our stock, and I'm damned sure he has by now, then he's in violation of the SEC rules because he hasn't notified them he's done it! And if he's violated that law, then the police won't think he's as pure as the driven snow when it comes to the death of that lawyer, or bomb threats—"

Meredith walked out and closed the door behind her. Somehow she managed to smile and say good night to the other executives she passed on her way to the parking garage, but when she slid into the front seat of the car Matt had given her, her composure broke. Clutching the steering wheel with both hands, she stared at the cement wall of the parking garage, shivering uncontrollably. She told herself she was panicking needlessly, that Matt would have a logical, reasonable explanation for all of this. She was not, absolutely was not going to convict him in her head on such circumstantial evidence. She said it over and over again like a chant. Or a prayer. Slowly, the trembling subsided, and she turned the key in the ignition. Matt was innocent, she knew it with every fiber of her being, and she wouldn't dishonor him by doubting him for one more second.

Despite that noble resolve, her fears and misgivings could not be so easily banished, and by the time she'd changed clothes she was so miserable she couldn't concentrate on anything else. She opened her briefcase, listlessly took out the advertising budget, and realized it was pointless to try to work while her mind was in this state. If she could just see Matt, she told herself, see his face and his eyes, and hear his voice, she'd be reassured that he hadn't done the things her father was accusing him of doing.

She was still telling herself that her only reason for needing to see him was for the reassurance of his company and to stop her imagination from running away with itself when she pressed the buzzer beside the double doors of the penthouse. Matt had already put her name on the permanent guest list at the security desk, so he had no idea that she was coming. Joe O'Hara opened the door, his homely face splitting into a wide grin when he saw her. "Hiya, Mrs. Farrell! Matt's gonna be glad to see you! Nothin' could make him gladder," he predicted as he lowered his voice and peered around her, "except if you happened to have suitcases with you?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Meredith said, smiling helplessly at his outrageous gall. In Matt's bachelor household, Joe seemed to be a jack of all trades—not merely chauffeur or bodyguard, but in his off hours he answered the door, the phone, and he even cooked an occasional meal. Now that she was more accustomed to his bulk and that dark, sinister face of his, he reminded her more of a teddy bear—albeit a lethal one.

"Matt's in the library," he said as he closed the door. "He brought a load of work home with him from the office, but he won't mind the interruption, not a bit! Want me to take you to him?"

"No thanks," she said with a smile over her shoulder. "I know the way."

"I was just leaving for a couple hours," he added meaningfully, and Meredith suppressed a silly surge of embarrassment at what he obviously thought was the reason for her visit.

In the doorway to the library she paused, momentarily cheered and reassured by the sight of Matt. Seated on a leather chesterfield, his ankle propped on the opposite knee, he was reading some documents, making notes in the margins. More documents were spread out on the coffee table in front of him. He glanced up, saw her standing there, and the sudden glamour of his lazy white smile made her heart leap. "This must be my lucky day," he said, getting up and walking toward her. "I thought you weren't going to be able to see me tonight— something about your needing to work and get an uninterrupted night's sleep. I suppose it's too much to hope," he added with another grin, "that you brought some suitcases with you?"

Meredith laughed, but it sounded hollow to her own ears. "Joe asked the same thing."

"I definitely ought to fire him for impertinence," Matt teased, pulling her into his arms for a hungry kiss. She tried to respond, but her heart wasn't in it, and he sensed it almost at once. Lifting his head, he studied her for a puzzled moment. "Why do I have the feeling," he asked, "that your mind is on something other than what we're doing?"

"You're obviously more intuitive than I am."

His hands slid down her arms, then he let her go and stepped back, frowning slightly. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I'm not nearly so good at guessing what's going on in your mind," Meredith replied with more force than she'd intended, and she realized with a jolt that she hadn't come to reassure herself with the sight of him.

She'd come for some answers.

"Why don't we go in the living room, where it's more comfortable, and you can explain the meaning of that remark."

Meredith nodded and followed him, but once they were there, she was too restless to sit down and too self-conscious to face him with her unspoken accusations. Uneasy under his steady scrutiny, she let her gaze drift over the room... past the collage of old photographs of his sister and father and mother framed on a splendid carved marble table, past the leather-bound photo album lying beside it. Sensing her tension, he remained standing, and when he spoke his voice was both puzzled and a little curt. "What's on your mind?"

Startled by his tone, her gaze snapped to his face, and she told him exactly what was on her mind. "Why didn't you tell me last night the police questioned you about Spyzhalski's death? How could you spend most of the night with me and never show a sign that you're a—a suspect in it!"

"I didn't tell you because you had enough to deal with without that. Secondly, the police are questioning many of Spyzhalski's 'clients,' and I am not a suspect in his death." He saw the relief and uncertainty she was trying to hide, and his jaw hardened. "Or am I?"

"Are you what?"

"A murder suspect—in your eyes."

"No of course not!" Raking her hair off her forehead in a nervous gesture of confusion and frustration, she looked away from him, unable to stop herself from continuing to prod and hating herself for the mistrust that was making her do it. "I'm sorry, Matt. I've had an awful day." Turning, she studied him with renewed intensity, watching for his reaction as she said, "My father is convinced that someone is about to launch a takeover attempt on us." His expression remained unchanged, unreadable. Guarded? "He thinks that whoever is putting the bombs in our stores might be the same person or group who's planning to take us over."

"It's possible he's right," he said, and from his cool, clipped tone, she knew he was beginning to realize that she suspected him, and that he was going to despise her for it. In profound misery she looked away again, and her gaze fell on the framed photograph of his mother and father smiling at each other on their wedding day. A similar photo had been in one of the albums she'd packed away at the farm. The photographs... The names beneath them... The names. His mother's maiden name was COLLIER. The Collier Trust had bought up Bancroft & Company's loans. If she hadn't been so beset with other problems, she'd have made the connection before.

Her gaze shot to Matt's face, while the dawning pain of betrayal slashed through her like a thousand jagged knives. "Your mother's name was Collier, wasn't it?" she said, her voice ragged with anguish. "You are the Collier Trust, aren't you!"

"Yes," he said, watching her, as if almost uncertain of how or why she was reacting like this.

"Oh, my God!" she said, backing away a step. "You're buying up our stock, and you've bought up all our loans. What are you planning to do, foreclose and take us over if we're late with a payment?"

"That's ridiculous," he said, but there was urgency in his voice as he started toward her. "Meredith, I was trying to help you."

"How?" she cried, wrapping her arms around her stomach and jerking back out of his reach. "By buying up our loans or buying up our stock?"

"Both—"

"You're lying!" she said as everything fell into place, and her blinding obsession with him gave way to agonizing reality. "You started buying our stock the day after we had lunch—right after you found that my father blocked your rezoning request. I've seen the dates. You weren't trying to help me!"

"No, not then I wasn't," he answered with desperate sincerity. "I bought the original blocks of stock with every intention of accumulating enough to gain either a seat on your board of directors or possibly a controlling interest."

"And you've kept right on buying them ever since," she flung back. "Only now the shares you're buying are costing you a lot less, aren't they, because our stock has dropped after those bomb threats! Tell me something," she demanded shakily, "just this once, tell me the truth—the complete and entire truth! Did you have Spyzhalski killed? Are you behind those bomb threats?"

"No, goddammit!"

Shuddering with fury and anguish, she ignored his protest. "The first bomb scare took place the same week we had lunch and you found out my father had your rezoning request denied! Don't you find that just a little bit coincidental?"

"I'm not responsible for any of that," he argued urgently. "Listen to me! If you want the entire truth, I'll give it to you." His voice gentled. "Will you listen to me, darling?"

Her treacherous heart slammed against her ribs at the sound of his voice calling her darling and the expression in those gray eyes. She nodded, but she knew she'd never be able to believe he was telling her the complete truth, not when he'd already hidden so much from her, and so skillfully.

"I've already admitted I started buying shares of your stock to retaliate against your father. Later, after we were together at the farm, I began to realize how important that department store is to you, and I also knew that when your father came home and found us together again, he'd pull out every stop to dissuade you from staying with me. I figured that sooner or later he'll make you choose: him or me. Bancroft and Company and the presidency of it, or nothing, if you choose me. I decided to keep buying up your stock so that he couldn't do that. I was prepared to buy however much stock it would take to gain control of the board of directors so that he couldn't threaten you with the loss of the presidency, because I'd control the board."

Meredith stared at him, her trust demolished by his secrecy over this and all the other things. "But you couldn't confide your noble motives to me," she said, glaring her disdain.

"I wasn't sure how you'd react."

"And yesterday you let me make a fool of myself telling you about our new lender—the Collier Trust, when you're the Collier Trust."

"I was afraid you'd see it as—charity!"

"I'm not that stupid," she retorted, but her voice was trembling and tears were burning the backs of her eyes. "It wasn't charity, it was a brilliant tactical move! You promised my father you'd own him someday, and now you do! With the help of a few bombs, and my unwitting cooperation."

"I know it looks that way—"

"Because it is that way!" she cried. "From the day I came to the farm to tell you what really happened eleven years ago, you've been ruthlessly using everything I've told you to manipulate things until they happen the way you want them to. You've lied to me—"

"No, I haven't!"

"You've deliberately misled me, and that's the same thing! Your methods are all dishonest, and yet you expect me to believe your motives are noble? Well, I can't!"

"Don't do this to us," he warned, his voice hoarse with angry desperation as he realized he was losing her. "You're letting eleven years of mistrust color everything you've discovered I've done."

In some part of herself Meredith wasn't sure he was wrong. All she was sure of was that a bogus lawyer who got in Matt's way was dead, and her father, who'd gotten in his way, would soon be little more than a puppet dancing on the end of Matt's financial strings. And so was she. "Prove it to me," she cried on the verge of hysteria. "I want proof."

His face tightened. "Someone has to prove to you I'm not an arsonist or a murderer, is that it? You have to have proof that I'm not guilty of all the rest of that, and if I can't give it to you, you're going to believe the worst?"

Battered by the truth of his words, she looked at him, feeling as if her heart were being torn to pieces. When he spoke again, his deep voice was aching with emotion.

"All you have to do is trust me for a few weeks until the authorities find out the truth." He held out his hand for hers. "Trust me, darling," he said tenderly.

With uncertainty clawing at her, Meredith looked at his outstretched hand, but she couldn't move. The bomb threats were too convenient... the police weren't questioning all Spyzhalski's clients, because they hadn't questioned her.

"Either give me your hand," he said, "or end it now, and put us both out of our misery."

Meredith wiled herself to put her hand in his and trust him, but she couldn't do it. "I can't," she whispered brokenly. "I want to, but I just can't!" His hand fell to his side, his face wiped clean of all expression. Unable to endure the way he was looking at her, she turned to leave. Her fingers closed around the keys in her pocket, the keys to the car he'd given her. She pulled them out and turned, holding them toward him. "I'm sorry," she said, fighting to keep her voice from shaking, "I'm not allowed to accept gifts of over twenty-five dollars from anyone with whom my company has business dealings."

He stood unmoving, a muscle leaping in his clenched jaw, refusing to reach for the keys, and Meredith felt as if she were dying inside. She dropped them on the table and fled. Downstairs she hailed a cab.

Sales at the Dallas, New Orleans, and Chicago stores picked up surprisingly well the next morning; Meredith felt relief but no particular joy as she watched the figures change on the computer screen in her office. The way she'd felt eleven years ago when she'd lost Matt could not compare to the anguish she felt now—because eleven years ago, she'd been helpless to change the outcome of events. This time, the choice had been entirely hers, and she could not shake the agonizing uncertainty that she might have made a hideous mistake, not even when Sam Green brought her an updated report that indicated Matt had bought even more shares of Bancroft stock than they'd originally realized.

Twice during the day, she made Mark Braden phone the Bomb and Arson squads in Dallas, New Orleans, and Chicago, hoping against hope that one of them might have turned up a lead and failed to notify her. She was looking for something, anything, that would justify her changing her mind and calling Matt, but there were no leads in the bombings.

After that, she moved listlessly through the rest of her day, her head aching from a sleepless night. The afternoon paper was lying outside her door when she got home that night and, without bothering to take off her coat, Meredith scanned it anxiously, looking for some news that the police had a suspect in Spyzhalski's murder, but there was none. She turned on the television set to catch the 6 o'clock news for the same reason—and with the same result.

In a futile effort to stop herself from wallowing in her misery, she decided to put her Christmas tree up. She'd finished decorating it and was arranging the little nativity scene beneath the tree at 10 o'clock, when the late television news came on. Her heart pounding with hope, she sat on the floor beside the tree, her arms wrapped around her knees, her attention riveted on the screen.

But although the Spyzhalski murder was mentioned, as were Bancroft's bomb scares, there was nothing said that might exonerate Matt.

Despondent, Meredith turned off the television, but remained where she was, staring at the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. Matt's deep voice spoke in her mind, tormentingly familiar, quietly profound: Sooner or later, you're going to have to take a risk and trust me completely, Meredith. You can't outwit fate by trying to stand on the sidelines and place little side bets about the outcome of life. Either you wade in and risk everything to play the game, or you don't play at all. And if you don't play, you can't win. When the time had actually come for her to make the choice, she hadn't been able to take the risk.

She thought of other things he'd said to her too, beautiful things spoken with tender solemnity. If you'll move in with me, I'll give you paradise on a gold platter. Anything you want—everything you want. I come with it, of course. It's a package deal...

The poignancy of his words made her chest ache. She wondered what Matt was doing now and if he was waiting, hoping she would call. The answer to that question was in his parting words last night. Now, for the very first time, the import of his words, the finality of them, actually hit her, and she realized he wouldn't be waiting for her to call now or ever. The choice he'd forced her to make last night had been irrevocable in his opinion: Either give me your hand, or end it now, and put us both out of our misery.

When she left him standing there last night, she hadn't completely understood that her decision had to be permanent, that he had absolutely no intention of giving her another chance to go back to him if—when—he was proven innocent of the things she believed he'd done. She understood that now. She should have realized it then. And even if she had, she still wouldn't have been able to trust him and give him her hand. The evidence was against him, all of it.

Permanent...

The figures in the little nativity scene wavered as scalding tears filled her eyes, and she put her head in her arms. "Oh, please," Meredith wept brokenly, "don't let this happen to me. Please, don't."