Meredith froze, the magazine still in her hand as those penetrating gray eyes locked onto hers. Abruptly he pulled his gaze away and looked at the men seated around his desk. "It's later than I thought," he said. "We'll resume this discussion after lunch."
Within moments the men were filing out, and Meredith's throat went dry as Matt came stalking toward her. Calm, tactful, businesslike, she reminded herself in a nervous chant as she forced her gaze upward, past the smoothly tailored gray trousers that hugged his long, muscled legs and hips, and looked into his shuttered eyes. No recriminations... Ease into the problem, don't blurt it out.
Matt watched her stand up, and when he spoke his voice was as completely impersonal as his feelings toward her. "It's been a long time," he said, deliberately choosing to forget their brief, unpleasant meeting at the opera. She'd apologized for that on the phone; she'd proved her desire for a truce by coming here, and he was willing to meet her halfway. After all, he'd gotten over her years ago, and it was foolish to nurse a grudge over something—and someone—who no longer mattered one damn bit to him.
Encouraged by his apparent lack of animosity, Meredith extended her black-gloved hand and struggled to keep her own nervousness from showing in her voice. "Hello, Matt," she managed to say with a composure she didn't at all feel.
His handclasp was brief, businesslike. "Come into my office for a moment; I have to make a phone call before we leave."
"Leave?" she said as she walked beside him into a spacious silver-carpeted office with a panoramic view of the Chicago skyline. "What do you mean leave?"
Matt picked up the telephone on his desk. "Some new artwork has arrived for my office, and they're going to be hanging the paintings in a few minutes. Besides, I thought we could talk better over lunch."
"Lunch?" Meredith repeated, thinking madly for a way to avoid it.
"Don't tell me you've already eaten, because I won't believe you," he said, punching out a number on the telephone. "You used to think it was uncivilized to eat lunch before two in the afternoon."
Meredith remembered saying something like that to him during the days she spent at the farm. What a smug little idiot she had been at eighteen, she thought. These days, she normally ate lunch at her desk—when and if she had time to eat at all. Actually, lunch in a restaurant wasn't a bad idea, she realized, because he wouldn't be able to curse or shout or make a scene when she told him her news. Rather than stand there while he waited for the person he was calling to come to the phone, Meredith wandered over to inspect his collection of modern art. At the far end of the room, she noted and identified the only piece she liked—a forge Calder mobile. On the wall beside it was a huge painting with blobs of yellow, blue, and maroon on it, and she stood back, trying to see what anyone found to like in such stuff. To her, the painting looked like fish eyes swimming in grape jelly. Beside it was another painting which appeared to depict a New York alley ... she tipped her head to one side, studying it intently. Not an alley—a monastery, perhaps—or possibly upside-down mountains with a village and a stream running in a slash diagonally across the entire canvas, and trash cans ...
Standing behind his desk, Matt watched her while he waited for his call to go through. With the detached interest of a connoisseur, he studied the woman standing in his office. Wrapped in a mink coat, with a gold choker glittering at her throat, she looked elegant, expensive, and pampered—an impression that was at striking variance with the madonnalike purity of her profile as she gazed up at the painting, her hair sparkling like minted gold beneath the spotlights overhead. At nearly thirty, Meredith still projected that same convincing aura of artless sophistication and unconscious sex appeal. No doubt that had been a major part of her allure for him, he thought sardonically—her heart-stopping beauty combined with a superficial but convincing air of regal aloofness and a touch of nonexistent sweetness and goodness. Even now, a decade older and wiser, he would still find her exquisitely appealing if he didn't already know how heartless and selfish she really was.
When he hung up the phone, he walked over to where she was studying the painting and waited in silence for her comments.
"I—I think it's wonderful," Meredith lied.
"Really?" Matt replied. "What do you like about it?"
"Oh, everything. The colors... the excitement it conveys ... the imagery."
"Imagery," he repeated, his voice incredulous. "What specifically do you see when you look at it?"
"Well, I see what could be mountains—or gothic spires upside down—or..." Her voice trailed off in sublime discomfort. "What do you see when you look at it?" she asked with forced enthusiasm.
"I see a quarter of a million dollar investment," he replied dryly, "which is now worth a half million."
She was appalled, and it showed before she could hide it. "For that?"
"For that," he replied, and she almost thought she saw a glint of answering humor in his eyes.
"I didn't mean that exactly the way it sounded," she said contritely, reminding herself of her plan: Calm, tactful... "I know very little about modern art, actually."
He dismissed the subject with an indifferent shrug. "Shall we go?"
When he went to get his coat from the closet, Meredith noticed the framed photograph on his desk of a very pretty young woman sitting on a fallen log with her knee drawn up near her chest, her hair tossing in the wind, her smile dazzling. Either she was a professional model, Meredith decided, or judging from that smile, she was in love with the photographer.
"Who took the picture?" she asked when Matt turned toward her.
"I did, why?"
"No reason." The young woman wasn't one of the famous starlets or socialites Matt had been photographed with. There was a fresh, unspoiled beauty to the girl in the picture. "I don't recognize her."
"She doesn't move in your circles," he said sardonically, shrugging into his suit jacket and coat. "She's just a girl who works as a research chemist in Indiana."
"And she loves you," Meredith concluded, turning in surprise at the veiled sarcasm in his voice.
Matt glanced at his sister's picture. "She loves me."
Meredith sensed instinctively that this girl was important to him, and if that was true—if he was possibly thinking of marrying her—then he would be as eager as she to get a swift, simple divorce. Which would make her task this afternoon much easier.