Judith McNaught (79 page)

Since Paul couldn't spend the night at Julie's house, even platonically, without causing a storm of local gossip on top of the gossip about her aborted relationship with Benedict, he'd started staying at Ted and

Katherine's new apartment at their insistence when he came to Keaton.

The front door was unlocked when he got there after taking Julie home, and Ted was sitting in the living room, obviously waiting to talk to him. "This thing between Julie and Benedict has to be brought to a head," Ted said as soon as Paul sat down across from him. "Personally, I wish he'd drop off the face of the earth, but Katherine thinks that until Julie makes some sort of peace with him, she's not ever going to find peace with herself. Or with you, if that's what you're hoping for. Is it?"

Surprised and momentarily irritated by Ted's prying, Paul hesitated, then nodded curtly. "I'm in love with her."

"Katherine said as much. She also said that Julie's conscience is tearing her to pieces, though if anyone deserves to feel guilty it's that bastard, Benedict. All Julie did was offer him a ride because she thought he'd fixed her tire. As a result, there are 200 million people in this country who've seen that film of him being beaten in Mexico City, and now they blame her for it. The same people who applauded her courage for turning him in now think of her as some sort of scheming witch who brought an innocent man

down on his knees. At least the people around here don't feel that way, and that's something. Not much, but something. The press still hounds her, trying to get her to talk, and their questions are vicious."

Katherine walked out of the bedroom in a robe and slippers, obviously determined to join the discussion, and sat on the arm of Ted's chair.

Disregarding the subject of public opinion, which she felt

was a trivial problem, she brought up the main issue.

"Julie wrote letters to him when he was in prison, and he returned them unopened. Since he got out, she's written to him in care of his attorneys—simple, polite letters, this time asking him how to return the car he gave her. He won't answer those either. Until he does—until she or someone else can make him understand that Julie did not lie about wanting to join

him in Mexico so that she could spring your trap, she's not going to let herself care for you or anyone else. Nor will she let any man care for her. Among other things, she's punishing herself."

Paul stared at her in frowning surprise. "That's all that's stopping her from going on with me … with her

life? She needs absolution from Benedict?"

"As far as I know for certain," Katherine hedged.

"Fine," he said curtly after a moment. "If that's what it takes, I can get it for her, and she won't have to wait another six weeks or even six days." He stood up looking like a man with a mission. "I'll get it for her

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within forty-eight hours. Tel! Julie something came up and I had to cut our weekend short."

Twisting around, Katherine watched him walk toward the guest bedroom. "But, he won't even talk to

her, Paul."

"He'll talk to me!" Paul said over his shoulder.

"What makes you think he'll talk to you?" Ted said when Paul emerged from the guest bedroom a few minutes later carrying his overnight bag.

"This," Paul said, flipping his identification badge into Ted's lap and getting his suit coat from the closet.

"That may get you into his house, but it's not going to make him believe you."

"The son of a bitch doesn't have to believe me. Who has the letter that Julie was going to leave for you when she ran away with him?"

"I do," Katherine said, getting up to look for it, "but that's not going to convince him either. You can't prove to him she didn't write this yesterday," she added when she returned from the bedroom with the letter and gave it to him. "Remember, he's rich and famous now; he'll be doubly suspicious of anything that looks like an attempted reconciliation on Julie's part."

"Maybe so. But I have something in my office in Dallas that he'll
have
to believe!"

"What?"

"Videotapes," he said shortly, holding out his hand to Ted for his ID badge. "A videotape of that press conference she gave when she was trying to sway the world to his side."

"That won't do it either. He'll presume it was all part of her grand scheme to trap him for you."

"And," Paul added, shoving his tie into his coat pocket and picking up his overnight bag, "a confiscated

videotape of what really took place in Mexico City

—the part showing Julie's reactions when Benedict was being taken into custody. Any man who can watch her in that film without feeling torn up has a stronger stomach than I do. In case you haven't already figured it out," he added wryly, reaching for the

door, "I'm driving to Dallas to pick up what I need, then I'll fly to L.A. in the morning. We'll have his California address somewhere in our files."

Ted grinned sardonically. "Surely you aren't going to crash his party?"

"Screw his party. He's fouled up my life and Julie's for months, and I'm fed up with it. And if this fails,"

he added to Ted, "if he still won't listen to me or look at the evidence I give him, then I suggest you file a civil suit against him for kidnapping Julie and for the mental torment she's been under as a result of that. If Benedict won't listen to me, he can listen to you in court and pay up with a nice, fat check!"

"Thank you, Paul," Katherine said, kissing him after he shook hands with Ted. "Good-bye," she added with a catch in her voice. "Call us after you've seen him." She watched him walk down the sidewalk for a

moment, then she closed the door and found Ted watching her with an odd, speculative look. "You sounded very sad when you said goodbye—like you were telling him good-bye forever. Why?"

"Because," she said with a guilty look, "I am a truly terrible person who does not deserve to be loved by
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a man as wonderful as you."

"Translation?" he asked with a wary smile.

"There's something I didn't mention to you or Paul,"

she admitted. "You see, Julie may think all she wants is Zack's forgiveness, but what she really wants is the man. She always did. Even when he was a hunted

fugitive. If Paul accomplishes his goal, Julie will get more than peace. She'll get Zack Benedict,"

"The guy's a hotshot movie star again. You saw him on television tonight with women hanging all over him. You saw the mansion he lives in. He doesn't have to settle for little Julie Mathison."

"I read the letter he wrote her," Katherine said with absolute conviction as she blandly studied her manicure. "That was love, the real thing. At least I think it was." Looking up, she added with a smile,

"And if he did love her, then he'd better hope 'little Julie Mathison' is still willing to settle for
him
after what he's put her through. She's angry, Ted. Deep down inside, she is furious, really
furious
at the injustice done her. She blames herself for losing faith in Zack, but she blames him for everything he's deliberately put her through, starting with taking her captive and lying to her about how his brother died and refusing to read her letters or see her when she went to talk to him in prison."

"She laughs all the time and most of it's real," Ted argued, because it worried him to think otherwise.

"She had us in stitches tonight, telling us that story about accidentally dumping glue down the

principal's

suit."

"She's angry," Katherine insisted, "and she has every right to be. In fact, I rather hope I'm around when she gives him what he deserves. It'll be a test of his merit if he can take it and overcome it."

"And if he can't or doesn't want to bother?"

"Then she'll have gotten it out of her system, made her peace with him, and she can still have Paul."

Standing up and turning out the lamp, he asked,

"Who are you rooting for, Richardson or Benedict?"

"Julie."

Seated in the sunny solarium, Zack worked his way carefully through the sheets of data that Matt had provided to bring him up to date on his financial holdings. Outside, beyond the glass walls that were tinted to prevent anyone from being able to see into the solarium, someone called his name, and he looked up, not to answer, but simply to luxuriate in being home again and to pleasure himself with the familiar view. On the other side of the glass, a lush expanse of green lawn sloped down to an enormous curving swimming pool with graceful Roman columns and marble statues. At the edge of the yard were

guest pavilions in the same Roman architecture as the main house—all of them filled with people now.

Zack's tenants had kept his gardener on during his absence, and the results of the aging man's painstaking

care were evident in the colorful flowers that bloomed ecstatically beneath carefully pruned shrubbery

and shade trees.

The thick glass surrounding the solarium muffled the sounds of the party in full swing a few feet beyond,
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where a hundred people were cavorting in his pool, using his tennis courts, or sunbathing. The remaining three hundred guests would return tonight for the second night of festivities, and the caterers were already

setting up beneath a white tent on the east edge of the lawn.

"Where is Zack Benedict?" a woman in a green string bikini called to her friends, without realizing Zack

could see and hear her. "I've been here all day and I still haven't laid eyes on him. I'm starting to think he's

a legend who doesn't exist." It wasn't surprising she hadn't seen him, since this wing of the house was off limits to all but Matt and Meredith Farrell. They were Zack's only actual houseguests, the only people he

permitted into his inner sanctum. For that reason, he scowled when he heard another woman's voice calling from the hallway just beyond the solarium,

"Hey, has anyone in here seen Zack?" He was going to

have to put in an appearance out there, he realized, or that chant, which had been escalating for the last hour, would continue unabated until someone came to find him.

Behind him, Meredith Farrell's soft, cultured voice laughingly said, "Have
you
seen Zack Benedict?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Zack joked, politely coming to his feet.

"Everyone seems to be looking for him," she teased, putting her hand in his outstretched palm.

Zack leaned down and kissed her cheek, slightly startled by the instantaneous affection he'd felt for Matt's wife. Until he actually met her two days ago, Zack had been inclined to dismiss most of Matt's praise of his wife as uncharacteristic infatuation, but having met her, he was completely impressed.

Meredith Bancroft Farrell had the poise and beauty that the society columns always credited her with, but none of the cool hauteur Zack had expected.

Instead, she had a gentleness, a gentility, and an unaffected warmth that both disarmed and touched him. "I hear," he confided, "that Benedict is an antisocial sort who doesn't particularly like big, sprawling parties very much, at least not this one."

She sobered, her eyes searching his. "Really? Why do you suppose that is?"

He smiled and shrugged. "I guess I'm not in the mood right now."

Meredith considered bringing up Julie Mathison, as she'd considered often during the last two days, but Matt had not only asked, he had instructed her not to mention Julie's name. "Am I interrupting your work?" she said instead, glancing at the thick folders on the table beside his chair.

"Not at all, I'd enjoy the company." Zack looked around her for the Farrells' enchanting two-year-old daughter, who he rather hoped would come flying into the room with her usual demand for a hug from him. "Where's Marissa?"

"She's having a tea party with Joe before her nap."

"The little flirt," he said, glancing toward the antique Sevres china tea set he'd had his housekeeper put on the coffee table a while ago, "she promised to have a tea party with me!"

"Do not even consider," Meredith warned, "letting Marissa touch those exquisite cups. Lately she seems

to think you drop teacups on the floor when you're finished."

Matt strolled in on the end of that conversation looking rested, relaxed, and amused. "She obviously does that because I told her she's a princess. Which she is. Where's Joe?" he added. "I need to send him—"

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As if the mention of the good-natured chauffeur's name had conjured up the man, Joe O'Hara strode purposefully into the solarium, but he wasn't smiling. "Zack," he said, "your housekeeper just stopped me

in the hall. It seems you've got yourself a visitor who flashed his badge at her and put her in a tizzy. He's FBI. Name's Paul Richardson. She put him in the library."

Swearing under his breath at the thought of having to talk to an FBI agent, Zack started out of the room,

"Zack?" Matt called behind him. When he turned, Matt asked, "Alone? Or with witnesses?"

Zack hesitated, "Witnesses, if you don't mind."

"Are you up to this, whatever 'this' is?" Matt asked Meredith.

She nodded and they both caught up with Zack, walking alongside him down the long hall and into the

mahogany-paneled library.

Rudely ignoring the tall, dark man who'd been looking at the books on the shelves, Zack waited until

Matt and Meredith were seated, then he sat down behind his desk and snapped, "Let's see your identification." The FBI agent, who Zack had already recognized from Mexico City, removed a leather

case from his inside jacket pocket and held it out.

Zack glanced at it and then at him. "It's a lousy picture,

but it looks like you."

"Let's skip the games," Paul countered with equal discourtesy, testing for the best way to deal with his adversary. "You knew damned well who I was the minute you saw me just now. You recognized me from Mexico City."

Benedict dismissed that with a shrug. "Either way, I have no intention of speaking to you or anyone else from the FBI without the presence of my attorneys."