Free Paradise by Judith McNaught Page B

to be."
    "Don't be anidiot," Shelly warned him. "Your father may like him as an employee, but he'll castrate you if you bring someone like that to Glenmoor ."
    "I know," Jon said with a tight smile, "but it would be worth it."
    "Just don't dump him on us if you bring him there," she warned after exchanging glances with Leigh. "We aren't going to spend the evening trying to make small talk withsome steelworker just so you can spite your father."
    "No problem. I'll leave Farrell all by himself and let him flounder while my father looks on, watching him try to figure out what fork to use. My old man won't be able to say a word to me either. After all, he's the one who told me to 'show Farrell the ropes' and 'look after him' while he's in Chicago."
    Parker chuckled at Jon's ferocious expression. "There must be an easier way to solve your problem."
    "There is," Jon said . "I can find myself a wealthy wife who can support me in my accustomed style, and then I can tell my old man to go fuck himself." He glanced over his shoulder and signaled a pretty girl in a maid's uniform who was passing a tray of drinks. She hurried over and he grinned at her. "You're not only pretty," he told her as he put his empty glass on her tray and took a fresh one, "you're a life saver!" From the flustered way she smiled at him and then blushed, it was obvious to Jon, and to the rest of the group, that she was not immune to his six-foot-one muscular body and attractive features. Leaning close to her, Jon said in a stage whisper, "Is it possible that you're only working for a caterer as a lark, but that your father actually owns a bank or a seat on the exchange?"
    "What? I mean, no," she said, charmingly flustered.
    Jon's smile turned teasing and sexy. "No seat on the exchange? How about some factories or some oil wells?"
    "He's—he's a plumber," she blurted out.
    Jonathan's grin faded, and he sighed. "Marriage is out of the question, then. There are certain financial and social requirements that the winning candidate for my wife will have to be able to meet. However, we could still have an affair. Why don't you meet me in my car in a half hour? It's the red Ferrari out in front."
    The girl left, looking both miffed and intrigued.
    "That was completely obnoxious of you," Shelly said, but Doug Chalfont nudged him and chuckled. "I'll bet you fifty bucks that girl is waiting in your car when you leave."
    Jon turned his head and started to reply, but his attention was suddenly diverted by the sight of a breathtaking blonde wearing a black sheath with a high collar and short sleeves, who was walking down the stairs and into the living room. He stared at her with slackened jaw as she paused to talk to an elderly couple, and when a group of people shifted and blocked her from his view, he leaned sideways, trying to see her. "Who are you looking at?" Doug asked, following his gaze.
    "I don't know who she is, but I'd like to find out."
    "Where is she?" Shelly asked, and everyone looked in the direction he was staring.
    "There!" Jon said, pointing with his glass as the crowd around the blonde moved and he saw her again.
    Parker recognized her and grinned. "You've all known her for years, you just haven't seen her in a while." Four blank faces turned to him, and his grin widened. "That, my friends, is Meredith Bancroft."
    "You're out of your mind!" Jon said. He stared hard at her but could find little resemblance between the gauche, rather plain girl he remembered and the poised young beauty he beheld: Gone was the baby fat, the glasses, the braces, and the ever-present barrette that used to hold back her straight hair. Now that pale golden hair was caught up in a simple chignon with tendrils at her ears framing a face of classic, sculpted beauty. She looked up then, somewhere to the right of Jon's group and nodded politely at someone, and he saw her eyes. Halfway across the room, he saw those large aquamarine eyes, and he suddenly remembered those same startling