"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.