y midafternoon, business had not picked up at any of the stores, and Meredith was trying not to hover at the computers in her office. Mark Braden was due back from New Orleans at any moment, and she'd been expecting her father to descend on her since early morning. Phyllis's announcement that Parker was on the phone was a welcome diversion from her present worries. He'd called her once already to cheer her up, and she assumed this was another such friendly call. It dawned on her, not for the first time as she reached for the phone, that her feelings for Parker couldn't have been nearly as deep as she'd thought they were if she could shift from being his fiancee to his friend so easily. And the fact that Parker seemed to be adapting to that switch as easily as she made her wonder why on earth they'd ever considered getting married in the first place. Lisa's repeated jibes that Parker and Meredith's relationship lacked fire were obviously founded in fact. But Meredith now had good reason to wonder if Lisa's objections to their engagement hadn't been selfishly motivated. That possibility hurt a little, and if Meredith weren't so deluged with problems, she'd have called Lisa and tried to talk to her. On the other hand, it seemed to her that Lisa was the one who should initiate that talk, and she should have done so before now. Dismissing that problem for the time being, Meredith picked up her phone.

"Hi, beautiful," Parker said with a smile in his voice. "Could you stand a little good news for a change?"

"I'm not certain I'll know how to handle it, but give me a try," Meredith replied, and she was smiling too.

"I have lenders who'll make the loan to buy the Houston land, and who'll finance the whole building project for you when you're ready to go on it. They walked into my office like angels from heaven this morning, looking for loans to take off our hands."

"That's wonderful news," Meredith replied, but her enthusiasm was dampened by worry about how they were going to make payments on all three existing expansion loans six months from now if business were to stay bad.

"You don't sound very elated."

"I'm worried about poor sales in all our stores," she admitted. "I shouldn't be telling Bancroft and Company's banker that, but he's my friend too."

"As of tomorrow morning," Parker said a little hesitantly, "I'll be your friend—period."

Meredith stiffened in her chair. "What does that mean?"

"We need cash," he said with a reluctant sigh, "so we're selling your loans off to the same investors who are going to lend you the money for the Houston project. You'll be making your payments to the Collier Trust from now on."

Meredith wrinkled her nose, lost in thought. "Who?"

"A partnership called the Collier Trust. They use Criterion Bank right around the corner from you, and Criterion vouched for them. In fact, Criterion's people approached me on their behalf. The Collier Trust is a private partnership with plenty of capital to lend, and they've been looking for good loans to buy up. Just to be on the safe side, I checked them out with my own sources. They're solid and completely aboveboard."

Meredith felt vaguely uneasy. A few months before, everything seemed so stable and predictable—like Reynolds Mercantile's relationship with Bancroft & Company, and her personal life. Now all of it was in a state of sudden and complete flux. She thanked Parker for getting her the Houston financing, but when she hung up, something about the Collier Trust continued to bother her. She'd never heard it before, and yet it seemed almost familiar.

A minute later Mark Braden walked into her office, grim and unshaven, and she prepared to deal with the more urgent problem of the bombings. "I came here straight from the airport, just as you wanted me to do," he explained by way of apology for his appearance. He was shrugging out of his coat and tossing it over a chair, when there was a flurry of surprised greetings outside her office as secretaries exclaimed, "Welcome back, Mr. Bancroft!" and "Good afternoon, Mr. Bancroft!" Meredith stood up, bracing herself for the confrontation with her father that she'd been dreading.

"All right, let's hear it!" Philip began, slamming his office door. "The damn plane had mechanical trouble or I'd have been here hours ago." Taking over in his inimitable style, he walked forward, flinging off his coat, and demanded of Mark Braden, "Well? What have you found out about these bomb scares? Who's behind it? Why aren't you in New Orleans—that store seems to be the prime target!"

"I just got back from New Orleans, and all we have now are theories," Mark began patiently, then he paused as Philip marched over to the computer screens on the credenza behind the desk and punched in commands on the keyboard that brought onto the screen the total sales in all the stores for the day. When he compared that figure with last year's, on the other screen, his face turned an alarming shade of gray beneath his newly acquired tan. "Good God!" he whispered. "It's worse than I expected."

"It'll get better soon," Meredith said, trying to sound soothing as he belatedly pressed an absentminded kiss on her cheek. If things hadn't been so dire, she'd have laughed at his appearance. Never less than impeccably attired, her father now wore a suit wrinkled from the long transatlantic flight, he needed a shave, and his hair looked as if he'd been combing it with his fingers. "People are staying away from our stores right now," she added, "but in a couple of days, when the publicity about the bombs is over, they'll come back." She started to move away from his desk so that he could sit in the chair behind it, but he surprised her by distractedly motioning her to stay there. Walking over to one of the guest chairs, he eased himself into it, and she realized that he was more exhausted and strained than he looked.

"Start from the day I left," he told her. "Sit down, Mark. Before I hear your theories, I want to hear some facts from Meredith first. Did you complete the purchase of the land in Houston yet?"

Meredith froze at the mention of that particular project, then she glanced at Mark. "Would you mind waiting outside for a few minutes, Mark, while I discuss this with my—"

"Don't be ridiculous, Meredith," her father said. "Braden can be trusted, and you should know it"

"I do know it," she said, chafing at his tone, but she remained firm. "Mark, would you please give us five minutes?"

She waited until he left, then she came around the desk. "If we're going to talk about the Houston project, we're going to have to talk about Matt. Are you calm enough to listen without going into a rage?"

"You're damned right we're going to talk about Farrell! But first I want to try to salvage my business—"

Instinct told Meredith that this was the right time to tell him about everything, including her involvement with Matt—now, when he was distracted with business concerns and Braden was outside waiting to fill them in on whatever he knew. For one thing, he wouldn't have much time to rant and rave over each event. "You said you want to hear everything that's happened, and I'm going to tell you all of it—I'll keep it short and in chronological order, so it'll only take a few minutes, but you're going to have to understand that Matt is involved in some of it."

"Start talking," he ordered, scowling.

"Fine," she said, and reached out for the diary she'd kept at his instruction before he went on the cruise. As she flipped through pages she said, "We did try to buy the Houston land, but in the midst of the negotiations, someone else bought it." Glancing up, she said levelly, "Intercorp bought it—"

He half rose out of his chair, his eyes blazing with fury and shock. "Sit down and stay calm," she warned him quietly. "Intercorp bought it for twenty million and upped the price to thirty million. Matt did it," she emphasized, "in retaliation against you—because he discovered that you'd had his rezoning in Southville blocked. He also planned to sue you and Senator Davies and the Southville zoning commission." He paled at that and she quickly added, "It's all been settled already. There'll be no lawsuits, and Matt is selling us the property for the original twenty million."

She watched him, hoping to see some sign of softening toward Matt after that, but he was rigid with the effort to control his hatred and anger, and she dragged her gaze back to the business diary, flipping through the pages. Glad that the next matter didn't involve Matt, she said, "Sam Green said there's been an unusual amount of interest in our stock on the market. It drove the price up until this week, when the price began dropping because of the bomb scares. We should know any day now who the new shareholders are and how large a block they own—"

"Did Sam happen to use the word takeover?" he demanded, his voice tight

"Yes," Meredith said reluctantly, and flipped to the next page, "but we all agreed that's probably an imaginary worry, because we'd be a poor takeover target right now. As you already know, we had a bomb threat in the New Orleans store, which proved to be false. It slowed down sales for several days; then they returned to normal." For the next few minutes she continued leafing through the pages until she'd brought him up-to-date on everything, including Parker's call that morning about their new lenders. "That takes care of business," she said, watching him for signs that the strain was more than his heart could take. He looked like a stone statue in that chair, but his color had returned to normal. "Now let's take care of personal matters—Matthew Farrell in particular." Deliberately phrasing the question as a challenge, she said, "Can you handle a discussion of him now?"

"Yes," he snapped.

Gentling her voice, she said, "When I discovered he'd bought the Houston land, I went to his apartment to force a showdown. Instead of finding Matt there, I found his father, who warned me to stay away from Matt, and who accused me of trying to ruin his life and of having an abortion eleven years ago." His jaws clamped, and Meredith calmly continued. "I went to see Matt at the farm that weekend, and together we realized what you had done, including preventing him from seeing me in the hospital. When I had time to think," she said with a sad smile, "I realized you obviously thought you were protecting me from—from a man you believed to be a social-climbing gold digger, which is what you called him back then. You shouldn't have interfered," she added somberly. "I loved him, and I never got completely over the pain of believing he'd deserted me and the baby. In the end you caused me more hurt than he ever could have. But I know you didn't mean to," she added, searching his rigid face.

When he didn't move or speak, Meredith continued. "The week after I came back from seeing Matt at the farm, the bogus lawyer you hired was arrested, and he started naming his clients' names, which caused an uproar in the press about Matt, Parker, and me. Matt had him bailed out of jail and taken care of, then the three of us gave a joint press conference. We tried to pass the matter off as lightly as possible and to put up a show of solidarity. Unfortunately, last week four of us went out to dinner for my birthday, and Parker had too much to drink... and, well, there was a fight, and that got us in the newspapers again. About all I can say," she added, trying desperately to joke and find something positive from it, "is that our business had an upward surge for several days after the press conference, which probably came from all the publicity."

Her father didn't smile. When he finally spoke, his voice shook with angry disbelief. "You've broken your engagement to Parker, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Because of Farrell."

"Yes." Softly, but with absolute conviction, she said, "I love him."

"Then you're an idiot!"

"And he loves me."

That brought her father out of his chair, his lip curled with contempt. "That monster doesn't want you or love you—what he wants is revenge against me!"

His tone hurt as much as his words, but Meredith didn't falter. "Matt understands that I can't live with him for a few weeks—not after I stood in the auditorium downstairs and publicly announced that we scarcely knew each other and there was no possibility of a reconciliation. Now," she concluded with quiet finality, "the fact is that the two of you are going to have to learn to accept each other. I won't pretend that Matt isn't still angry with you for what you did, but he loves me, and because he does, he'll forgive you for the past eventually, and even try to find a way to be friends with you—"

"Did he actually tell you that, Meredith?" he demanded with biting scorn.

"No," she admitted, "but—"

"Then let me tell you what he told me eleven years ago," he grated out, leaning his fists on the desk. "That bastard warned me—he threatened me in my own home—that if I came between you and him, he'd buy me and then he'd bury me. He didn't have a thousand dollars to his name eleven years ago, so that was an empty threat, but it isn't now, by God!"

"What were you doing at the time to make him say such a thing?" Meredith demanded, already guessing at the answer.

"I won't hide it from you. I tried to pay him off to go away, and when he refused the money, I took a swing at him!"

"And did he hit you back?" she asked, knowing he wouldn't.

"He wasn't that stupid! We were in my house, and I'd have called the police. Besides, he didn't dare alienate you by attacking me. He knew you were going to inherit millions from your grandfather, and he intended to get his hands on all of that. He warned me what would happen if I got in his way, and now he intends to make it happen!"

"It wasn't a warning, it was an empty threat," Meredith said slowly, trying to put herself in Matt's place and think how he would have felt. "What would you expect him to do, stand there and let you humiliate and bully him, and then thank you for it? He had as much pride as you have, and he's just as strong-willed as you. That's why you two can't stand each other."

His mouth dropped open at her naivete, and he stared at her in speechless wonder, his anger draining. "Meredith," he said almost gently, "you're a very smart young woman, and yet you're still a gullible little fool where Farrell is concerned! You’ve been sitting here updating me on a series of dramatic events that are having dire effects on our business. And yet it hasn't seemed to occur to you they all, including these bomb threats, coincided with Farrell's reentry into our lives!"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" she said, shocked into laughter.

"We'll see who's ridiculous," he warned fiercely, and leaning across the desk, he picked up the intercom and said, "Send Braden in here. And tell Sam Green and Allen Stanley I want them to join us immediately."

As soon as the corporation's lawyer and its controller arrived a few minutes later, Philip launched into action. "We're not going to play games in this meeting," he told them. "I'm going to lay all my cards on the table, but nothing that is said in here is to leave this room. Is that clear?"

The three men nodded immediately, and Philip turned to Braden. "Let's hear your theory about the bomb scares."

"The police believe, and I agree," Mark explained, "that the bombs weren't meant to do actual damage to the stores. Just the opposite, in fact, because they were carefully placed where they'd be easily discovered before they could explode—and where they'd do minimal damage if they did. In every instance, warnings were called to the police, well in advance of the time they were set to go off. Also, here in Chicago, where it took the longest to locate the bomb, someone actually called in just before it was discovered, to give a hint where it was. It's as if whoever is behind all this was taking infinite care that no serious damage was done to the stores. It's bizarre," he said frankly.

"I don't think so," Philip jeered. "It makes perfect sense to me!"

"How?" Braden asked, staring at him in bewildered silence.

"It's simple! If you're getting ready to launch a takeover attempt at a department store chain, and you're vicious enough to put bombs in their stores so their stock will drop and you can buy it up cheaper, then you take great care that those bombs don't actually do any harm to the stores—because you're planning to own the goddamn stores!"

In the deafening silence he turned to Sam Green. "I want a list of the names on record of every person, every company, every institution, that's bought more than one thousand shares of our stock at a time in the last two months."

"I can get you that tomorrow," Sam Green said. "I'd just about finished drawing it up at Meredith's request."

"I want it first thing in the morning!" Philip ordered, then he turned to Braden. "I want you to run a thorough investigation on Matthew Farrell and get me every scrap of information on him that you can find."

"It would help if I knew what sort of information you're looking for," Mark said.

"For starters, I want to know the names of every single company he owns a major share in, and every single name he does business under. I want to know everything you can find out about his personal financial setup, where he keeps his money, and under what names. I want names. He'll have trusts set up and shelters—get me names."

Meredith already knew what he intended to do with those names—he was going to start looking for those names on the list of new stockholders that Sam was getting together.

"Allen," he said to the controller, "you work with Sam and Mark. I don't want anyone else involved in this hunt for information, because I don't want every damned clerk in this store finding out through the grapevine that we're hunting for information on the same felon my daughter is married to—"

"That's the last time you'll say anything like that about him unless you've already proved it," Meredith said furiously.

"Agreed," he said, so convinced he was right that he didn't hesitate. When the men left, Meredith watched in angry silence as he leaned over and picked up a paperweight, turning it over in his hand as if he were suddenly too self-conscious to look at her. What he said floored her. "We've had our differences, you and I," he began hesitantly. "We've been at cross purposes too often, and much of it has been my fault. While I was marooned on that ship, I thought a lot about what you said to me when I told you I didn't want to see you take over as president. You accused me of not"—he paused to clear his throat— "of not loving you, but you were wrong." He shot an uneasy glance at her, then he glowered at the paperweight and admitted, "I saw your mother for a few hours while I was in Italy."

"My mother?" Meredith repeated blankly, as if such a person were more myth to her than reality.

"It wasn't a reconciliation or anything like that," he quickly and defensively stated. "We argued, in fact. She accused me of blaming her for infidelities she never committed...." His voice trailed off for a moment, and from the preoccupied look on his face, it occurred to Meredith that he evidently thought that was possible. Before she could begin to react to that shock, he continued. "Your mother said something else too, something I thought about during the flight back here."

He drew a long, fortifying breath and lifted his eyes to Meredith. "She accused me of being jealous and trying to control the people I love. She said I place unfair restrictions on them because I'm afraid of losing them. Maybe in your case that's been true in the past."

Meredith felt a sudden, painful lump of emotion in her throat, but his next words were blunt and cold. "My feelings for Farrell at this moment have nothing to do with jealousy over you, however. He's trying to destroy everything I've built, everything I have, and all of this is going to be yours someday. I'm not going to let him do that. I'll do anything, anything to stop him. I mean that."

She opened her mouth to defend Matt, but he held up his hand and cut her off. "When you realize I'm right, you're going to have to make a choice, Meredith— Farrell or me—and I'm betting that you'll make the right choice despite your attraction to that man."

"There won't be a choice like that, because Matt isn't doing what you think he is!"

"You were always blind where he was concerned. However, I'm not going to let you close your eyes this time and pretend none of this is happening. You will continue to act as president of this corporation while we're investigating him. Bancroft and Company is your birthright, and I was wrong to try to stop you from taking control of it. You've acted wisely and swiftly from what I just heard from Sam and Allen Stanley. Your only mistake was an understandable one—you dismissed the possibility of a takeover attempt because you couldn't see a logical business reason for anyone to want to move in on us. The reason wasn't logical, and it wasn't business, it's vengeance, so you naturally overlooked it. When we have all the facts," he warned, "you'll have to take an official stand. You'll have to decide whether you want to side with our enemy or fight for your birthright as president of this corporation. And you're going to have to inform the board of directors of your choice."

"God, you are so wrong about Matt!"

"I hope I'm not wrong about you," he interrupted, "because I'm going to trust you not to alert him that we're on to him so he can cover his tracks." He reached for his coat, suddenly looking weary and old, and said, "I'm exhausted. I'm going home to rest. Tomorrow I'll be coming back in, but I'll use the conference room next door for now. Call me if Braden turns up anything before then."

"I will, but," she said with calm challenge, "I want a commitment from you now."

He turned with his hand on the doorknob. "What commitment?"

"I want you to agree that when Matt turns out to be innocent of all this, you will not only apologize to him for the things you've done, but that you will honestly and sincerely try to befriend him! Furthermore, I want you to promise that you will inform Mark and Sam and anyone else you've slandered him to that you were completely wrong." He tried to brush that unlikely event aside with an angry shrug, but Meredith was determined to strike a bargain. "Yes or no?"

"Yes," he bit out.

After he left, Meredith sank down in her chair. Not for one second did she think there was anything to warn Matt about, and yet she felt vaguely as if she'd been subtly manipulated by the need for silence into siding against him. And at the same time, she was profoundly touched by her father's tacit announcements that he loved her and approved of the job she'd done in his absence. But most of all, what she felt was hope—hope that when the facts all came out and her father apologized to Matt, Matt would be generous enough to accept the apology. The possibility of having the two men she loved become, if not friends, at least not foes, was heady stuff indeed.

Despite her optimism and confidence, one thing her father had said stayed with her, hovering at the edge of her mind. She had dinner with Matt that night in a dimly lit corner of a local restaurant. When he questioned her about her confrontation with her father, she told him about most of it, excluding her father's absurd belief that Matt was behind the bomb scares and a nonexistent takeover attempt. That much she was willing to keep from him in return for her father's promised apology when he was proven wrong. But she purposely waited until later that night, when they'd gone back to her apartment and made love, to ask him about the one comment her father had made that was bothering her. She waited because she didn't want it to sound like an accusation or a confrontation.

Beside her in bed, Matt leaned up on his elbow, idly tracing his finger along the curve of her cheek. "Come home with me," he whispered achingly, "I promised you paradise, and I can't give it to you when we're living in two different places and pretending we're only half married."

Meredith gave him a distracted smile, and it was enough to alert him that something else was on her mind.

Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he turned her face toward his. "What's wrong?" he said quietly.

Carefully keeping her tone nonjudgmental, Meredith lifted her eyes to his. "It's something my father said," she admitted.

His jaw hardened at the mention of her father. "What did he say?"

"He told me that years ago you threatened that you'd buy him and then bury him if he tried to come between us. You didn't really say that, did you?"

"Yes," he replied shortly, then he added more calmly, "When I said that, your father was trying to bribe and then bully me into leaving you. So I made threats of my own if he came between us."

"But you didn't really mean what you said, did you?" she asked, her gaze searching his.

"At the time I meant every word. I always mean what I say," he whispered as his mouth came down on hers for a long, deep kiss. "But," he murmured, his lips feather-light against her cheek, "sometimes I change my mind..."

"And by burying him," Meredith persisted, "did you actually mean kill him?"

"I meant that part of the threat figuratively, not literally, although, at the time, I'd have relished doing him serious bodily injury."

Soothed but not completely satisfied, Meredith put her fingers over his lips to stop him from distracting her with another kiss. "Why did you tell him you intended to buy him?"

He lifted his head, frowning at the doubt in her voice. "I'd just finished refusing his bribe and listening to him accuse me of being after your money, not you. I told him I didn't need your money, that I intended to have enough of my own someday to buy and sell him. I think those were almost my exact words. And I suppose by bury him, I meant the same thing—being able to buy and sell him." Meredith's expression cleared, and she drew his head down to hers, her fingers sliding caressingly over bis cheek. "May I have that kiss now?" she whispered, smiling.