Paradise
Page 168

"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?"