rapped in a bathrobe, Meredith sat in her living room, the television's remote control in her hand. Sunday morning cartoons were on most of the local channels, and she passed them by with an impatient press of the button, looking for the channel that replayed the previous night's late news so that she could torture herself with what she was already certain would be news coverage of the debacle. On the sofa beside her, where she'd flung it down a minute ago, was the Sunday morning newspaper with its sensational front-page story and pictures of the brawl. The Tribune had taken a tongue-in-cheek approach by quoting Parker's remark from their press conference and putting it above the pictures of the fight:

"Matt Farrell and I are civilized men and we're handling this in the friendliest of ways. This whole problem is little different than a business contract that wasn't properly executed, and now has to have the T's crossed."

Beneath that, the caption read:

FARRELL AND REYNOLDS— "CROSSING THE T'S"

Below it were pictures of Parker swinging his fist at Matt, another of Matt's fist connecting with Parker's jaw, and a third of Parker lying on the floor with Meredith bending down to help him.

Meredith sipped her coffee as she watched the newscaster finish the national news and switch to his co-anchor for local coverage. "Janet," he said, grinning at the woman beside him, "I hear there's something new tonight on the Bancroft-Farrell-Reynolds menage a trois."

"There certainly is, Ted," she replied, turning full face to the camera, her voice filled with amused glee. "Most of you will recall that at their recent press conference, Parker Reynolds, Matthew Farrell, and Meredith Bancroft all seemed like a congenial little family. Well, tonight the three of them dined at the Manchester House, and it seems there was a little family fight. I mean, folks, a real, full-fledged fistfight! It was Parker Reynolds in one corner and Matthew Farrell in the other, husband against fiance; Princeton University versus Indiana State; old money squaring off against new..." She paused to laugh at her own wit, and then said wryly, "Wondering who won? Well, place your bets, folks, because we have pictures that tell all."

A picture of Parker swinging at Matt and missing flashed on the screen, followed by one of Matt leveling Parker.

"If you put your money on Matt Farrell, you won," she concluded, laughing. "Second place in the match goes to Miss Lisa Pontini, a friend of Miss Bancroft's, who, we're told, landed a right hook on Matt Farrell right after that picture was taken. Miss Bancroft didn't wait around to congratulate the winner or console the loser. We're told she made a hasty getaway in Matt Farrell's limousine. The three combatants left together in a taxi and—"

"Dammit!" Meredith exclaimed, punching the remote control's off button, then she stood up and headed into her bedroom. As she passed her dresser, she automatically turned on the radio. "And now for the nine o'clock local news," the announcer said. "Last night, at the Manchester House on the North Side, open hostilities broke out between none other than industrialist Matthew Farrell and financier Parker Reynolds. Farrell, who is married to Meredith Bancroft, and Reynolds, who is engaged to her, were reportedly both having dinner with her when—"

Meredith slapped the off button on the top of the radio. "Unbelievable!" she gritted out. From the instant Matt crossed her path at the opera, nothing in her life was the same. Her entire world was being turned upside down! Sinking down on the bed, she picked up the phone and called Lisa's number again. She'd tried until late last night to reach her, but either Lisa wasn't answering her phone or she wasn't home. Neither was Parker, for that matter, because Meredith had tried to call him too.

Parker answered on the fifth ring, and for a split second Meredith went blank. "Parker?" she uttered.

"Mmmm," he said.

"Are—are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he mumbled, sounding groggily as if he'd been up all night and had just fallen into a deep sleep. "Hung over."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Well, is Lisa around?"

"Mmmm," he said again, and a second later Lisa's husky whisper murmured sleepily into the phone, "Whosethis?"

"It's Meredith," she answered just as it hit her that they were both sleeping in such proximity that Parker could hand Lisa the phone. Lisa had two phones in her apartment—one in the kitchen, and one beside the bed. They weren't sleeping in the kitchen. Shock sent her to her feet. "Are—are you in bed?" Meredith blurted out before she could stop herself.

"Mmm-hmm."

With Parker? Meredith thought, but she didn't ask. She already knew the answer, and she clutched the headboard to steady herself in a room that seemed to tilt crazily. "Sorry I woke you both up," she managed to get out, and hung up. The world had spun off its axis... or she was spinning off hers. Everything was completely out of control. Her best friend was in bed with her fiance. Equally shocking, she didn't feel betrayed or crushed. She felt dazed. Turning, she glanced around at the bedroom as if to assure herself that it, at least, hadn't changed completely in the last few hours. The cream lace and satin bedspread was where it belonged with its ruffles cascading to a half inch above the Oriental carpet, like they always did. All ten of the matching throw pillows were artfully propped in exactly the order she always placed them. She was so shaken by everything else that she felt absurdly better knowing her bedspread hadn't picked itself up and left the room, taking all her throw pillows with it. But then she looked up and caught the reflection of her face in the mirror. Even that had changed.

An hour later Meredith picked up her keys, slid a pair of large, dark sunglasses onto her nose, and left her apartment. She would go to the office and spend the day working. That at least was something she could understand and control. Matt hadn't bothered to call, and that would have surprised her if she hadn't passed the point where anything could do that The elevator doors opened on the lower level parking garage beneath her apartment building, and she headed toward her reserved parking space. She rounded the corner, car keys in hand, and stopped dead.

Her car was gone.

Her car was gone, and someone had already parked a new Jaguar sports car in her space.

Her car had been stolen! Her parking space had been usurped!

That did it! She had finally reached her breaking point. She gaped at the shiny, dark blue Jaguar, and she had a sudden insane impulse to shriek with laughter, a mad urge to put her thumb to her nose and wiggle her fingers at fate. There was nothing else, absolutely nothing more that fate could do to her! She was ready to fight back— spoiling for it.

Turning on her heel, Meredith went back to the elevator, slapped the button for the lobby level, and walked up to the security clerk at the lobby desk. "Robert," she said, "there is a blue Jaguar in my parking space—L12. Please have it towed out of there, immediately."

"But it's probably just a new tenant who doesn't—"

Meredith picked up the phone on the desk and held the receiver toward him. "Now," she said in a dangerously strained voice, "call that garage on Lyle Street and tell them to get that car out of my space in fifteen minutes!"

"Okay, Miss Bancroft. Okay. No problem."

Partially satisfied, Meredith marched toward the lobby doors, intending to take a taxi to her office and call the police from there about her stolen car. Determined to flag down the taxi that was just pulling up at the curb, she rushed forward, then halted abruptly when she saw the throng of reporters milling around outside her building. "Miss Bancroft—about last night," one of them called, and two photographers took pictures of her through the glass windows. Unaware that the man climbing out of the cab wearing pilot's sunglasses was Matt, Meredith turned on her heel and stalked to the elevator. So what if she was now a prisoner in her own apartment building? No problem. She would go upstairs and phone for a taxi to pick her up at the delivery entrance, then she'd sneak out there, crouch down behind the trash cans, and leap into the cab when it pulled up. No problem at all! She could do that. Of course she could.

She had just picked up the telephone in her apartment when someone knocked on her door. Completely overwhelmed by the trials and tribulations of her recent life, Meredith opened the door without bothering to ask who was there, then she gazed distractedly at the sight of Matt filling her doorway, his sunglasses reflecting her own image back at her. "Good morning," he said with a hesitant smile.

"Oh, is that what it is?" she replied, letting him in.

"What does that mean?" Matt asked, trying to see her eyes behind the big round amber sunglasses perched on her small nose so that he could gauge her mood.

"That means," she primly replied, "that if this is a good morning, I'm locking myself in a closet so I don't have to see what tomorrow is like."

"You're upset," he concluded.

"Me?" she said sarcastically, pointing to her chest. "Me, upset? Just because I'm a prisoner in my own apartment building, and I can't go near a newspaper, radio, or television without finding us the main topic? Why on earth should that upset me?"

Matt bit back a wayward smile at her harassed tone. She saw it. "Don't you dare laugh," she warned indignantly. "This is all your fault. Every time you come near me, things start happening to me!"

"What's happening to you?" he asked in a laughter-tinged voice, longing to drag her into his arms.

She threw up her hands. "Everything is going crazy! At work, things are happening that have never happened before—I have bomb scares to deal with and our stock is fluctuating. So far this morning my car has been stolen, someone else is using my parking space, and I've discovered my best friend and my former fiance spent the night together!"

He chuckled at her logic about her problems at the office. "And you think all of that is my fault?"

"Well, how do you explain it?"

"Cosmic coincidence?"

"Cosmic catastrophe, you mean!" she corrected him. Putting her hands on her slim hips, she informed him, "One month ago I was leading a nice life. A quiet life. A dignified life! I went to charity balls and danced. Now I go to barrooms and get into brawls, and then I go careening through the streets in a limousine driven by a demented chauffeur who assures me that he—he packs a rod! We are talking about a handgun here—a murder weapon to shoot someone with!"

She looked so beautiful and so flustered and so irate that Matt's shoulders began to shake with laughter. "Is that all?"

"No. There's one more little thing I didn't mention about last night."

"What's that?"

"This—" she announced triumphantly, and pulled off her sunglasses. "I have a black eye! A shiner. A—a—"

Torn between laughter and regret, Matt lifted his finger and touched the tiny blue smudge at the outer corner of her lower lid. "That," he said with a sympathetic grin, "doesn't have the dignity of a shiner or a black eye; it's just a little mouse."

"Oh, good," she said. "I've learned a new term!"

Ignoring her jibe, Matt studied the well-concealed little bruise with thoughtful admiration. "It barely shows. What are you using to hide it?"

"Makeup," she answered, disconcerted by his question. "Why?"

Almost choking with laughter, Matt took off his sunglasses. "Do you think I could borrow some?"

Meredith gaped incredulously at the identical mark at the corner of his eye, and suddenly her emotions veered crazily to mirth. She saw the wry grin tugging at his lips, and she started to giggle. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, her eyes widened, and the giggles erupted into great gales of gusty mirth. She laughed so hard that her eyes teared, and Matt started laughing too. When he reached out and drew her quaking body against his own, she collapsed against him and laughed harder.

Wrapping his arms around her, Matt buried his laughing face in her hair, filled with the joy of her. Despite his surface nonchalance a few minutes earlier, the things she'd accused him of were mostly true. He'd been guilt-stricken when he saw the morning papers; he was turning her life upside down, and if she'd have raged at him, he'd have deserved it. The fact that she was seeing the humor while she recognized the dire consequences filled him with profound gratitude.

When most of her hilarity had passed, Meredith leaned back in his arms. "Did," she asked, swallowing another irrepressible giggle, "Parker give you your— mouse?"

"I'd be less mortified if he had," Matt teased. "The truth is, your friend Lisa nailed me with a right hook. How did you get yours?"

"You did it."

His smile faded. "I did not."

"Yes, you did." She nodded emphatically, her intoxicating face still flushed with merriment. "Y-you hit me with your elbow when I bent down to rescue Parker. Although, if it happened today, I'd probably jump on him with both feet!"

Matt's smile widened with delight. "Really? Why?"

"I told you," she said, drawing a shaky, laughing breath. "I called Lisa this morning to see if she was all right, and they were in bed together."

"I'm shocked!" he said. "I gave her credit for better taste!"

Meredith bit her lip to stop herself from laughing at his quip. "It's really terrible, you know—your best friend in bed with your fiance."

"It's an outrage!" Matt declared with sham indignation.

"Yes, it is," she agreed, grinning helplessly at the laughter gleaming in his eyes.

"You have to get even."

"I can't," she said on a suffocated giggle.

"Why not?"

"Because," she said, dissolving into fresh gales of laughter. "Lisa doesn't have a fiance!" She collapsed in his arms again, overcome with the absurdity of her own joke, burying her laughing face in his chest, her hands sliding around his nape as they used to—clinging to him as instinctively as they had during those long-ago nights of passion. Her body knew she still belonged to him, Matt realized. He tightened his arms around her, his voice turning low-pitched and suggestive. "You can still get even."

"How?" she chuckled.

"You can go to bed with me instead."

She stiffened and backed away a hasty step, still smiling, but more out of self-consciousness than mirth. "I—I have to call the police about my car," she said, launching into diversionary conversation and hastily starting toward her desk. She peered out the window as she passed. "Oh, good, there's the tow truck now," she babbled brightly, picking up the phone to rail the police. "I told the security clerk to have that car removed from my spot."

An odd expression flashed across his face at that announcement, but Meredith was too preoccupied by the fact that he was following her to her desk to wonder about it. When he reached out and firmly pressed down on the button to disconnect her call to the police, she eyed him with wary alarm. He wasn't finished trying to get her into bed, she knew, and her resistance was almost gone. He was so appealing, and it had felt so good to laugh with him... Instead of reaching for her, as she half expected him to do, he said mildly, "What's the phone number for the security desk?"

She told him, then watched in startled confusion as he called it

"This is Matt Farrell," he told the security guard. "Please go down to the garage and tell the tow truck to leave my wife's car where it is." When the security guard argued that Miss Bancroft's car was an '84 BMW, while the car in her parking space was a blue Jag, Matt said, "I know that. The Jaguar is her birthday present."

"My what?" Meredith gasped.

He hung up the phone and turned to her, a smile lurking at his mouth, but Meredith wasn't smiling—she was dumbstruck by the overwhelming generosity of the gift, panicked at the web he was weaving around her, and thoroughly alarmed by the treacherous leap her heart gave at the sound of his deep voice quietly saying "my wife." She started with the least important issues first, because she wasn't quite ready to address the others yet. "Where is my own car?"

"In the night clerk's space, one level below yours."

"But—but how did you start my car to move it? You said at the farm that even if you could start it without the keys, the alarm would disable it."

"That wasn't a problem for Joe O'Hara."

"I knew when I saw that gun that he was probably a—a felon."

"No, he's not," Matt said dryly. "He's an expert with wiring."

"I can't possibly accept the other car—"

"Yes, darling," he said, "you can."

Meredith felt it happening again, that awesome magnetic pull of his body and voice, the melting inside her when he called her darling. She backed away a step, and her voice shook. "I—I'm going to the office."

"I don't think so," Matt said softly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we have something more important to do."

"What is it?".

"I'll show you," he promised huskily, "in bed."

"Matt, don't do this to me—" she pleaded, holding her hand up as if to fend him off and backing away two steps.

He stalked her, step for step. "We want each other. We have always wanted each other."

"1 really do have to go to the office. I have tons of work."

She backed away again in the same avoidance waltz Matt had teased her about, but her eyes were warm and frightened because she knew.... She knew it was too late to dance out of his reach now.

"Give in gracefully, darling. This dance is over. The next one is ours."

"Please don't call me that," she cried, and Matt realized that for some reason she was truly frightened.

"Why are you afraid?" he asked, stalking her slowly around the back of the sofa, trying to head her toward the bedroom.

Why was she afraid, Meredith thought a little wildly. How could she explain that she didn't want to love a man who didn't love her... that she never wanted to be as vulnerable to being hurt as she'd been eleven years ago... that she didn't think he'd be satisfied with her for very long, and she didn't think she could bear it if she lost him again because he wasn't.

"Matt, listen to me. Stand still and listen to me, please!"

Matt stopped short, stunned by the terrified desperation in her voice.

"You said you want children," she blurted out, "and I can't have any. There's something physically wrong with me—it would be too risky."

He didn't miss a beat. "We'll adopt."

"What if I said I don't want any children?" she flung back.

"Then we won't adopt."

"I have no intention of giving up my career—"

"I don't expect you to."

"God, you are making this so hard!" she cried. "Can't you leave me just a little pride? I'm trying to tell you that I couldn't bear being married to you—not living as husband and wife, which is what you say you want."

His face paled as the sincerity in her voice hit him. "Do you mind if I ask you why the hell not?"

"Yes, I do mind."

"Let's hear it anyway," he said tautly.

She folded her arms protectively over her chest, absently rubbing them with her hands as if to ward off the sudden chill of his expression. "It's too late for us," she began. "We've changed. You've changed. I can't pretend I don't—don't feel something for you. You know I do. I always did," she admitted miserably, her gaze searching his shuttered gray eyes, looking for understanding and finding only cold impassivity while he waited to hear the rest of what she had to say. "Maybe if we'd stayed together, it would have worked, but it couldn't now. You like sexy movie stars and—and seductive European princesses, and I can't be those things for you!"

"I'm not asking you to be anything but what you are, Meredith."

"It won't be enough!" she argued miserably. "And I couldn't bear living with you and knowing that I'm not enough—knowing that someday you'll start wanting things I can't give you."

"If you're talking about children, I thought we just settled that."

"I don't think we settled it, I think you made a reckless concession because you're willing to say anything right now to make me agree with what you want. But I'm not talking about you wanting children, I'm talking about you wanting other women! I could never be enough for you. I know I couldn't."

His eyes widened. "I beg your pardon?"

"I tried to explain to you once before about—about how I feel when we make love. Matt," she said almost choking on her words, "people—men, I mean—they think I'm... I'm frigid. Even in college they thought that. I don't think I am exactly, but I'm not—I'm not like most women."

"Go on," he insisted gently when she stopped, but there was an odd light in his eyes.

"In college, two years after you left, I tried to sleep with a boy and I hated it. So did he. Other women on campus were sleeping around and enjoying it, but I didn't. I couldn't."

"If they'd all been through what you had," Matt said, so filled with tenderness and relief that he could hardly keep his voice steady, "they wouldn't have been very damned eager to do it again either."

"I thought that, too, but that wasn't it. Parker isn't a clumsy, oversexed college boy, and I know he thinks I'm not—not very responsive. Parker didn't mind so very much, but you—you would."

"You're out of your mind, sweetheart."

"You're not used to me yet! You haven't noticed that I feel awkward and inept. No, I am awkward and inept!"

Matt bit back a grin and gravely said, "Inept too? As bad as that?"

"Worse."

"And are those all the reasons you have for being afraid to pick up where we left off eleven years ago?"

You don't love me, dammit, she thought. "Those are all the important ones," she said dishonestly.

Weak with relief, Matt quietly said, "I think we can overcome those hurdles right here. I meant what I said about children. I also meant what I said about your career. That takes care of two out of your three concerns. The situation about other women," he continued, "is only slightly more complex. If I'd have known that this day was going to come for us, I'd have lived my life very differently while I waited for it. Unfortunately, I can't change the past. I can, however, tell you that my past isn't nearly as lurid or indiscriminate as what you've been led to believe. And I can promise you," he added with a tender smile at her upturned face, "that you are enough for me—in every way."

Helplessly affected by the husky timbre of his voice, the sensuality in his beautiful eyes, and the incredibly touching things he was saying, Meredith watched him slowly strip off his sport jacket and toss it over the back of the sofa, but the import of his action didn't register because she was absorbed in what he was saying. "As far as your being frigid is concerned, that is absurd. The memory of what it was like to be in bed with you haunted me for years. And if you think," he continued gravely, "that you're the only one who's harbored some insecurities about those times we spent in bed, then I've got news for you, darling. There were times I felt inadequate. No matter how often I told myself to slow down, to make love to you for hours and make us both wait for a climax, I couldn't seem to do it because being in bed with you made me crazy with wanting."

Tears of relief and joy burned the backs of Meredith's eyes; he'd meant to give her an expensive sports car for a birthday present, but the gift he was giving her with his words meant a thousand times more. Mesmerized, she heard him say, "When I got your father's telegram, I tortured myself for years, thinking you might have stayed married to me if I could have made our lovemaking better, longer, hotter..." A smile suddenly drifted across his handsome face, and his tone changed to one of amused gravity. "That takes care of the issue of frigidity, I think."

Matt saw the warm flush on her smooth cheeks— evidence that his words had affected her. "That leaves us with only one minor objection of yours about being married to me."

"What's that?"

"Your feeling that you're inept and—?"

"Clumsy," she provided, distracted by the way he was lazily stripping off his tie. "And... and inferior."

"I can see how distressing that might be for you," he agreed with sham gravity. "I suppose we'd better take care of that next" He began unbuttoning the top button of his shirt.

"What are you doing!" she demanded, her eyes widening.

"I'm getting undressed so you can have your way with me."

"Don't unbutton that second button—I mean it, Matt."

"You're right. You should be doing this. Nothing gives a person a greater sense of power and superiority than forcing another person to stand perfectly still while they're being undressed."

"You should know. You've probably done it dozens of times."

"Hundreds. Come here, darling."

"Hundreds?!"

"I was joking."

"It wasn't funny."

"I can't help it. When I'm nervous, I make jokes."

She stared at him. "Are you nervous?"

"Terrified," he said half seriously. "This is the greatest gamble of my life. I mean, if everything doesn't go perfectly in this little experiment, I might as well face the fact that we weren't meant for each other, after all."

Meredith's last vestige of resistance crumbled as she looked at him. She loved him: she had always loved him. And she wanted him so badly—almost as badly as she wanted him to love her. "That's not true."

His voice hoarse with tenderness at her words, Matt opened his arms to her. "Come to bed with me, darling. I promise you that you'll never have any doubts about yourself, or me, after this."

Meredith hesitated and then walked straight into his arms.

In the bedroom Matt did exactly four things to make certain his promise was kept: He made her drink some champagne to relax; he told her that any kiss or caress of his that she'd enjoyed, he would find just as exciting. And then he turned his body into a hands-on teaching instrument for a woman whose very voice excited him. Last, he made no effort to hide or control his reactions to anything she did to him. In so doing, Matt managed to turn the next two hours of his life into an agony of almost unendurable passionate torment, a torment which his wife, after overcoming her shyness, was now doing her gloriously effective damnedest to heighten.

"But I'm not completely certain you like this," she whispered, touching her lips to his swollen body.

"Please don't do that," Matt gasped.

"You don't like it?"

"You can see that I do."

"Then why do you want me to stop?"

"Keep doing it, and you'll know why in about one minute."

"Do you like this?" Her tongue flicked against his nipples, and he held his breath to stifle his gasp.

"Yes," he finally managed in a strangled voice. He reached up and grabbed the headboard, gritting his teeth as she mounted him and began to move, determined to let her do it all, have it all. "This is what I get for falling in love with a CEO instead of some nice dumb starlet—" he joked, so dazed with passion, he didn't know what he was saying. "I should have known a CEO would want to be on top—"

It took a moment to realize she had gone perfectly still.

"If you stop now, without letting me have a climax, there's every chance I'll die right here, darling."

"What?" she whispered.

"Please, don't stop, or I'll take over no matter what I promised," he gasped, already lifting his hips to get higher and deeper into her tight, wet warmth.

"You're in love with me?"

He closed his eyes and swallowed, his voice thick with lust and amusement. "What the hell do you think this is all about?" He opened his eyes, and even in the darkened room he could see the tears shimmering in her eyes.

"Don't look at me like that," he pleaded, letting go of the headboard and pulling her down against his chest. "Please, don't cry. I'm sorry I said it," he whispered, kissing her in helpless desperation because he thought she didn't want to hear how he felt, and he'd spoiled their lovemaking. "I didn't mean to say it so soon."

"Soon?" she repeated fiercely, her shoulders shaking with teary laughter. "Soon?" she wept brokenly. "I've been waiting almost half my life for you to say you love me." With her wet cheek pressed to his chest and her body still intimately joined to his, she whispered, "I love you, Matt."

The moment she said it, Matt climaxed involuntarily inside her, shuddering, clutching her fiercely, his fingers digging into her back, his face buried against her neck, helpless yet omnipotent because she'd finally said the words.

Her body lightened, holding him. "I've always loved you," she whispered. "I'll always love you."

The climax that should have been nearly over exploded with new force, his body jerking spasmodically, and he groaned long and low, twisting higher into her, brought to the most volcanic moment of his life, not by stimulation or technique, but words. Her words.

Meredith rolled over in Matt's arms and snuggled closer to him, sated and happy.

In New Orleans, a well-dressed man walked into one of the dressing rooms at Bancroft & Company's crowded store. In his right hand he carried a suit he'd taken off the rack. In his left hand he carried a Saks Fifth Avenue bag with a small plastic explosive in it. Five minutes later he left the dressing room, carrying only the suit, which he returned to the rack.

In Dallas, a woman walked into a stall in the ladies' room at Bancroft & Company, carrying a Louis Vuitton purse and a bag from Bloomingdale's. When she left, she was carrying only her purse.

In Chicago, a man took the escalator to the toy department of Bancroft's downtown store, his arms laden with packages from Marshall Field's. He left one small package stuck beneath the ledge of Santa Claus's

house, where children were lined up to have their pictures taken on Santa's knee.

In Meredith's apartment, several miles away and several hours later, Matt glanced at his watch, then he rolled to his feet and helped Meredith clear away the debris from the meal they had eaten after making love again in front of the fire. They'd taken her car out for a test drive, stopped at a little Italian restaurant, and brought their meal back because they both wanted to be alone together.

Meredith was putting the last of the dishes into the dishwasher when he came up silently behind her. She felt his presence like a tangible force even before his hands settled on her waist, and he drew her back against him. "Happy?" he asked huskily, brushing a kiss on her temple.

"Very happy," she whispered, smiling.

"It's ten o'clock."

"I know." Her smile wavered as she braced herself for what she suspected was coming next—and she was right.

"My bed is bigger than yours. So is my apartment. I can have a moving van here in the morning."

Drawing a long, steadying breath, she turned in his arms and laid her hand against his face as if to soften the blow of her refusal. "I can't move in with you—not yet."

Beneath her fingers she felt his jaw tense. "Can't or don't want to?"

"Can't."

He nodded as if accepting her answer, but he dropped his arms. "Let's hear why you think you can't."

Shoving her hands into the deep pockets of her robe, Meredith stepped back and launched her argument. "To begin with, I stood beside Parker last week and let him make a public statement that we were getting married as soon as the divorce was final. If I move in with you now, I'll make Parker look like an ass, and myself like a fool who can't make up her mind—or else a woman who's so shallow and silly that she goes with whatever man wins a fistfight."

She waited for him to argue or agree. Instead, he leaned a hip against the table behind him, his face impassive, and remained silent Meredith realized that his own disregard for public opinion was probably making him view her concerns as trivial, so she brought up another, larger problem. "Matt, I haven't wanted to think about the ramifications of that fight last night, but I can tell you right now, there's a ninety-percent chance I'll be called before the board of directors to give an explanation. Don't you understand the compromising predicament I'm in? Bancroft and Company is an old and dignified operation; the board of directors is rigid, and they didn't want me in the president's office in the first place. A few days ago I stood up in a news conference held at Bancroft and Company and said we hardly know each other and there was no chance of a reconciliation. If I move in with you right away, my credibility as an officer of Bancroft's will suffer just as much as my honesty as a person. And that isn't all. Last night I was part of, and the cause of, a public brawl—a fiasco that could have gotten us all arrested if the police had been called. I'll be lucky if the board doesn't threaten to invoke the morals clause in my contract and ask me to step down."

"They wouldn't dare invoke the morals clause over a thing like that!" Matt said, looking more contemptuous of the notion than alarmed by it.

"They could and they might."

"I'd get myself a new board of directors," he said.

"I wish I could," Meredith said with a wry smile. "I take it your board pretty much does what you want done?" When he nodded curtly, she sighed. "Unfortunately, neither my father nor I control our board. The point is, I'm a woman, and I'm young, and they weren't any too crazy about my becoming interim president in the first place. Can't you see why I'm worried about what they're going to think of all this?"

"You're a competent executive, that's all in the hell they need to be concerned with. If they call a meeting and demand an explanation, or threaten to invoke the morals clause if you don't step down, then take the offensive, not the defensive. You weren't pushing drugs or running a house of prostitution; you were present during a fight."

"Is that what you'd tell them—that you weren't running drugs or anything?" she asked, fascinated with his business methods.

"No," he said brusquely. "I'd tell them to fuck off."

Meredith swallowed a giggle at the ludicrous prospect of standing up in front of twelve conservative businessmen and doing such a thing. "You aren't seriously suggesting I say that?" she said when he didn't seem to share her humor.

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting. You can alter the words slightly if you think you should, but the point is that you can't live your life to suit other people. The harder you try, the more restrictions they'll put on you just for the fun of seeing you jump through their hoops."

Meredith knew he was right, but not in this instance or in her specific circumstances. For one thing, she wasn't willing to incur the board's wrath; for another, she was using her predicament as an excuse to stall before making the commitment Matt wanted. She loved him, but in many ways he was still a complete stranger to her. She wasn't ready to promise herself completely to him. Not yet. Not until she was absolutely certain the paradise he promised her—the part about the life they would have together—really existed. And from the expression on Matt's face, she had an awful feeling he suspected she was stalling. His next words confirmed that he knew exactly what she was doing and that he didn't like it.

"Sooner or later, Meredith, you're going to have to take a risk and trust me completely. Until you do, you're cheating me and you're cheating yourself. 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."

It was, she thought, a beautiful philosophy on the one hand and a terrifying one on the other—a philosophy, moreover, that was far better suited to him than her.

"How about a compromise," she suggested with a winsome smile that Matt reluctantly found irresistible. "Why don't I wade in—but stay in the shallow end for a while until I get accustomed to it?"

After a tense moment he nodded. "How long?"

"A little while."

"And while you're debating about how deep you dare to go, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to wait and pace and wonder if your father will be able to convince you not to live with me or to go through with the divorce?"

"I have plenty of courage to withstand my father regardless of whether he comes around and sees things our way or not," she said so forcefully that he smiled a little. "What I'm worried about is whether or not you'll try to meet him halfway if he does—for my sake?

She rather expected him to agree, for her sake, but she'd misjudged the depth of Matt's hatred, because he shook his head. "He and I have an old score to settle first, and it's going to be settled my way."

"He's ill, Matt," she warned, an awful feeling of foreboding shaking through her. "He can't take a lot of stress anymore."

"I'll try to remember that," Matt replied unanswerably. His expression softened a little, and he changed the subject. "Now, who is sleeping where tonight?"

"Do you suppose any of the reporters who saw you come up here this morning are still out there, watching?"

"Probably one or two of the tenacious ones."

She bit her lip, hating to have him leave, but knowing he shouldn't stay. "Then you can't really stay all night, can you?"

"Evidently not," he said in a tone that made her feel like a coward.

Matt saw her eyes darken with consternation, and he relented. "All right, I'll go home and sleep alone. It's nothing less than I deserve for participating in that adolescent fight last night. While I'm on that subject," he added more gently, "I'd like you to know that while I was guilty of saying something that undoubtedly caused your drunken fiance to take a swing at me, I didn't realize what was happening until after it was over. One second I was looking at you, and the next I saw a fist coming at me from the corner of my eye. For all I knew, it was some drunk at the bar who'd decided to pick a fight, and I reacted instinctively."

Meredith suppressed a shudder, a delayed reaction to the lethal swiftness, the easy brutality, with which Matt had leveled Parker... the savage look on his face in that split second when he realized he was being attacked. Then she firmly shoved the thought aside. Matt was not now, and was never going to be, like the fastidious, urbane men she'd known. He had grown up tough, and he was tough. But not with her, she thought with a tender smile, and she reached out and smoothed his dark hair back from his temple.

"If you think," he said wryly, "that you can smile at me like that and make me agree to almost anything, you're right." And then he abruptly reverted to his usual, more indomitable self by adding, "However, while I'm willing to practice extreme discretion in our relationship —read that as sneaking—I'm determined that you're going to spend as much time with me as possible, and that includes some nights together. I'll arrange for a pass so that you can get into the parking garage in my building. If I have to, I'll stand out in front and talk to the damned reporters to divert them every time you drive in."

He looked so irked at the prospect of having to pander to public opinion that she said in a voice of exaggerated gratitude, "You'd do that? Just for me?"

Instead of laughing, he took the question seriously and pulled her tightly to him. "You have no idea," he said fiercely, "how much I'd do—just for you!" His mouth opened over hers in a rough, consuming kiss that stole her breath and robbed her of all ability to think. When he was finished, she was clinging to him. "Now that you're almost as unhappy with tonight's sleeping arrangement as I am," he said with grim humor, "I'll get out of here before the reporters out in front decide to go home and say we spent the night together anyway."

Meredith walked him to the door, exasperated because he was right—after that kiss she wanted to spend the night in his arms so badly that she ached. She stood while he shrugged into his jacket and put on his tie. When he was finished, he looked at her for a moment and quirked a knowing brow at her. "Something on your mind?" he teased.

There was—she wanted to be kissed. The memory of the stormy, uninhibited hours she'd just spent in bed with him washed over her then, and with a deliberately provocative smile Meredith Bancroft reached out and caught her husband's tie. Slowly and forcefully she pulled on it, smiling daringly into his smoky gray eyes, and then, when he was close enough, she leaned up on her toes, wrapped her arms around him, and gave him a kiss that left him breathless.

When he left, Meredith shut the door and leaned against it, smiling dreamily, her eyes closed. Her lips were tender from his last stormy kiss; her hair was tousled because he'd shoved his hands into it while he kissed her; and her cheeks were glowing. She felt like a woman who had been made love to very thoroughly and who had enjoyed it tremendously. And it was all true.

Her smile deepened as she thought of the sexy, tender things he had said to her, and she could almost hear his deep voice saying them....

I love you, he had whispered...

I’ll never let anyone hurt you...

You have no idea how much I'd do for you!

Forty miles northeast of Belleville, Illinois, another squad car screeched to a halt behind those already parked beside a wooded stretch of lonely county road, their red and blue lights revolving with frantic eeriness in the night. Overhead, the blinding searchlight of a police helicopter moved restlessly over the pines, lighting the way for the teams of searchers and dog handlers who were combing in the dark for clues. In a shallow ditch beside the road, the coroner crouched beside the body of a middle-aged man. Raising his voice to be heard over the whistling roar of the helicopter blades, he called out to the local sheriff, "You're wasting your time with that search party, Emmett. Even in the daylight you won't find any clues in those woods. This guy was dumped out of a moving vehicle and he rolled down here."

"You're wrong!" Emmett shouted triumphantly. Beaming his flashlight at something in the ditch, he bent down and picked it up.

"The hell I am! I'm telling you somebody beat the hell out of this guy and then dumped him out of a moving vehicle."

"Not about that," the sheriff replied, walking forward. "I did find somethin'. I found a wallet."

The coroner tipped his head toward the body. "His?"

"Let's have a look," the sheriff replied, and after beaming his flashlight at the picture on the driver's license, he bent down and pulled the blanket off the victim's face, studying it for comparison. "His!" he pronounced emphatically. Holding the license up to his light, he said, "He's got one of them foreign names you can't hardly pronounce. Stanislaus... Spyzhalski."

"Stanis—" the coroner uttered. "Isn't he that fake lawyer they busted down in Belleville?"

"By God, you're right!"