t five o'clock the following afternoon, Meredith was summoned to the boardroom where an emergency board of directors meeting had been under way for several hours. When she walked into the room, she was surprised to see that the head of the table had evidently been reserved for her. Trying not to feel overly alarmed by the cold, grim faces that watched her as she sat down, she looked around at everyone, including her father. "Good afternoon, gentlemen." In the chorus of "good afternoons" that answered, the only really friendly voice belonged to old Cyrus Fortell. "Afternoon, Meredith," the old man replied, "and may I say you're looking lovelier than ever."

Meredith looked terrible and she knew it, but she flashed him a grateful smile when normally his patently transparent references to her sex during meetings like this had annoyed her. She'd assumed that part of the reason for this emergency meeting had to do with Matt and that they were going to insist on explanations from her, but she'd also assumed they were going to ask for updates on other matters. So she was completely taken aback when the board's chairman, who was seated on her right, nodded to the folder on the table in front of her and said in an icy voice, "We've had those documents prepared for your signature, Meredith. At the conclusion of this meeting, we'll file them with the appropriate authorities. Take a moment to look them over. Since most of us participated in drafting them, there's no need for us to do likewise."

"I haven't seen them," Cyrus protested, opening his folder at the same time she did.

For a second Meredith couldn't believe what she was seeing, and when she did accept it, bile rose up in her throat, strangling and sickening her. The first document was an official complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that she had personal knowledge that Matthew Farrell was deliberately manipulating Bancroft's stock, that he was using the insider information that he'd gleaned from her to make his transactions, and demanding that he be halted and investigated. The second complaint was to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to the chiefs of police in Dallas, New Orleans, and Chicago, stating that she believed, and had reason to believe, that Matthew Farrell was responsible for the bomb scares in Bancroft & Company's stores in those cities. The third complaint was also directed to the police department; it stated that she had overheard Matthew Farrell threaten the life of Stanislaus Spyzhalski during a phone call with his attorney, and that she was waiving her right to silence as Matthew Farrell's wife, and herewith issuing a public statement that she believed he was responsible for Spyzhalski's murder.

Meredith looked at the grotesque words, the carefully phrased and damning half truths, the vicious accusations, and her entire body began to tremble. A voice screamed in her mind that she'd been a fool and a traitor to ever believe there was a shred of truth in the garbage pile of circumstantial evidence against her husband. The daze of helplessness and suspicion that had held her in a kind of stupor for the two days since she left Matt suddenly evaporated, and she saw everything with crystal clarity—her mistakes, the board's motives, her father's handiwork.

"Sign it, Meredith," Nolan Wilder said, shoving his pen at her.

Sign it.

Meredith made her choice, an irrevocable choice— perhaps even a choice that was already too late. Slowly she stood up. "Sign it?" she repeated contemptuously. "I'll do nothing of the sort!"

"We had hoped you'd appreciate this chance to exonerate yourself and to disassociate yourself from Farrell as well as to see the truth brought out and justice done," Wilder said icily.

"Is that what you're interested in?" Meredith demanded, leaning her palms on the table and glaring at all of them. "Truth and justice?" Several of the men glanced away as if they weren't entirely comfortable with the documents she'd been told to sign. "Then I'll tell you the truth!" she continued, her voice ringing with conviction. "Matthew Farrell had nothing to do with those bomb scares, and he had nothing to do with the murder of Stanislaus Spyzhalski, and he is not guilty of violating any SEC rules. The truth," she said with scathing disdain, "is that you're all terrified of him. In comparison to his triumphs, your successes in your own businesses are puny, and the thought of having him as a major shareholder of this company, or on this board, makes you feel insignificant! You're vain and you're terrified and, if you honestly believed I'd sign these papers because you've ordered me to do it, you're also fools!"

"I suggest you reconsider your decision very carefully right now, Meredith," another board member warned her, his face stiff with affront over what she'd said. "Either you are going to act in the best interests of Bancroft and Company, and sign those documents, which is your duty as acting interim president of this corporation—or we can only assume your loyalties lie with an enemy of this corporation."

"You're talking to me about my duty to Bancroft's and, at the same time, telling me to sign those papers?" she repeated, and suddenly she felt like laughing with the sheer joy of having taken her stand—the right stand. "You're dangerously incompetent if it hasn't occurred to you what Matthew Farrell will do to this company in retaliation for slandering and libeling him with that folder full of garbage. He'll own Bancroft's and all of you when he's finished suing you!" she finished almost proudly.

"We'll take that risk. Sign the papers."

"No!"

Unaware that the expressions of some of the board members were exhibiting definite signs of doubt about the wisdom of provoking Farrell, Nolan Wilder looked at her and said frigidly, "It appears that your misplaced loyalties are preventing you from fulfilling your responsibility as an officer of this corporation to act in its best interest. Either tender your resignation here and now, or prove me wrong and sign the papers."

Meredith looked him right in the eye. "Go to hell!"

"Good for you, girlie!" she heard old Cyrus shout in the taut, shocked silence as his fist hit the table. "I knew you had more than just great legs!" But Meredith scarcely heard him; she was turning her back on all of them, walking out of the boardroom, slamming the door behind her. Slamming it closed on a lifetime of cherished hopes and dreams.

Matt's words came back to her, cheering and forceful, as she walked swiftly toward her office. She'd asked him what he would do if his board pressured him unreasonably, and he'd replied, I'd tell them to fuck off The memory almost made her laugh. She hadn't quite said that to them, in fact she'd never said that to anyone, but what she had said amounted to the same thing, she decided proudly. Matt's party was tonight, and she was in a hurry to go home and change. The phone on her desk was ringing when she got back to her office, and since Phyllis had already left for the day, Meredith answered it automatically.

"Miss Bancroft," a cool, arrogant voice informed her, "this is William Pearson, Mr. Farrell's attorney. I've been trying to reach Stuart Whitmore all day, and since he hasn't yet returned my calls, I'm taking the liberty of calling you directly."

"That's fine," Meredith said, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear as she opened her briefcase and began putting all her personal things from her desk into it. "Why are you calling?"

"Mr. Farrell has instructed us to tell you that he no longer has any desire to continue with the rest of the eleven-week trial period you agreed to. He has further instructed us to tell you," he continued in his nastiest, threatening tone, "that you are to file for divorce no later than six days from now, or else we will file in his behalf on the seventh day."

Meredith had already been subjected to all the coercion and threats she was willing to endure. Pearson's ominous, autocratic tone was the last straw! She took the phone away from her ear, glowered furiously at the receiver, then she spoke two crisp, emphatic words into Pearson's ear, and slammed the phone onto its cradle.

Not until she sat down to write out a hasty resignation did the full impact of Pearson's call truly hit her, and her feeling of triumph gave way to burgeoning panic at Matt's action. She'd already waited too long. He wanted a divorce. Immediately. No, that couldn't be true, she told herself desperately, writing faster. She signed her name to her resignation, and stood up, then she looked at what she had written. For the second time in moments she felt the terrible force of reality. Her father walked into her office right then, and it hit her yet again that she was severing herself from everything. Even him.

"Don't do this," he said, his voice harsh as she shoved the resignation toward him.

"You made me do it. You convinced them to draw up those documents, then you led me in there like a lamb to the slaughter. You forced me to choose."

"You chose him, not me, and not your heritage."

Meredith leaned her damp palms against the desk, her voice anguished. "There shouldn't have needed to be a choice. Daddy," she said, so distracted that she called him by the name she'd stopped using as a little girl, "why did you have to do this to me? Why did you have to tear me apart like this? Why couldn't I have loved you and him?"

"This isn't about that," he said angrily, but his shoulders were sagging and there was desperation in his voice. "He's guilty, but you won't see it. You'd rather believe I'm guilty of jealousy and manipulation and vengeance—"

"Because," Meredith interrupted, knowing she couldn't bear any more, "it's true. You are. You don't love me, not enough to want me to be happy. And anything less than that isn't love, it's nothing but selfish ownership of another human being." Snapping the locks closed on her briefcase, Meredith picked up her purse and coat and headed for the door.

"Meredith, don't!" he warned as she started past him.

She stopped and turned, looking at his haggard face through eyes swimming with tears. "Good-bye," she said aloud. "Daddy," she whispered in her heart.

She was partway across the reception area when Mark Braden called out to her, his face lit with a triumphant grin as he drew her off to the side. "I need you in my office right away. Gordon Mitchell's secretary is down there, crying her little heart out. I've got Mitchell cold! We were right—the bastard's on the take."

"That's confidential company business," she said quietly, "and I no longer work here."

His face fell and his angry dismay was so genuine, and so touching, that Meredith had to fight even harder for composure. But all he said was an embittered, "I see."

She tried to smile. "I'm sure you do." When she turned to go, he put his hand on her arm and drew her back. For the first time in fifteen rigid years of safeguarding Bancroft's interests, Mark Braden broke his own rule; he divulged company information to someone other than the appropriate manager in charge. He did it because he felt she had a right to know. "Mitchell's been taking big kickbacks from several suppliers. One of them blackmailed him into refusing the presidency."

"And his secretary found out and turned him in?"

"Not exactly," Mark said sarcastically. "She's known for weeks. They've been having an affair and he's been reneging on his promise to marry her."

"And that's why she turned him in," Meredith concluded.

"No, she turned him in because he gave her an annual performance review this morning, and rated her adequate. Can you believe it!" Mark snorted. "The stupid ass rated her adequate and then he reneged on his promise to promote her to an assistant buyer. That's why she turned him in. She'd already figured he was lying about wanting to marry her, but she was damned determined to become an assistant buyer."

"Thanks for telling me," she said, pressing an affectionate kiss on his cheek. "I would always have wondered."

"Meredith, I'd like you to know how sorry—"

"Don't," she said, snaking her head, afraid her control would shatter if someone was kind right now. Glancing at her watch, she reached out and pressed the elevator button, then she looked at Mark. With a winsome smile she explained, "I have a very important party to attend, and I'm going to be late. Actually, I'm going to be an uninvited, unwelcome guest—" The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. "Wish me luck," she added as the doors slid closed.

"I do," he said somberly.