Cindi Myers - Fear of Falling

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

About the Author

Coming Next Month

NATALIE BRIGHTON hadn’t planned on darkness arriving so soon. One minute the sun was a burning spotlight over the tops of the mountains, the next the world was all shadowed cliffs and the dark smudges of trees against the rock.

She hunched over the steering wheel, guiding the car up the twisting mountain road, the engine whining as it strained up the steep grade. If John Sartain was as rich and successful as everyone said, why had he built a house way up here on the back side of nowhere?

Not house, she corrected herself. Castle.

Artist John Sartain, apparently determined to add to his already eccentric reputation, had built a replica of a Scottish castle in the mountains of Colorado. In one article Natalie had read about her new boss, Sartain had explained he needed isolation to paint. But a gossip rag she’d also read had speculated the remote location allowed him to pursue his more scandalous activities away from the eyes of nosy reporters.

As to the nature of those activities…Natalie shifted in her seat and reminded herself that the conjectures of rumormongers were not to be believed. Just because some reporter had dubbed John Sartain “The Satyr” didn’t mean he attended orgies or had his own dungeon or engaged in S & M.

She shivered as she remembered the pictures she’d seen in his newest calendar of just such scenes. The evocative, erotic paintings had aroused her, even as she’d told herself she should be shocked.

Apparently no one was shocked by how much money Sartain’s art was making. His work appeared on everything from calendars and T-shirts to playing cards and rock CDs. He was a one-man money machine.

And she’d been hired to make sure the machine kept running smoothly. Not exactly something for which her previous work with the Cirque du Paris and six months of vocational school had prepared her, but Sartain’s agent, Douglas Tanner, had thought her capable of the job. And she’d been eager for this chance to succeed at something outside the claustrophobic world of traveling performers. In the Cirque du Paris, Natalie’s life had been directed by others, her worth measured by their opinion of her.

Here in the mountains of Colorado, her future was in her own hands—a frightening and thrilling thought.

She steered the car around yet another S-curve and the castle loomed into sight. Floodlights shone on the red granite facade and half a dozen diamond-paned windows glittered with the golden glow of electric light.

Natalie stopped the car under the portico and waited for her heart rate to return to normal after that harrowing drive up the mountain. If she’d made it this far, meeting the Satyr would be a piece of cake.

The front door opened, but rather than some liveried butler or servant, a short man in a gray business suit emerged. “Hello, Doug.” Natalie climbed out of the car and greeted the agent. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“I wanted to wait and introduce you to Sartain.” He followed her around to the trunk of the car and hefted out two suitcases. “How was your drive?”

“A little hairy after it got dark.” She lifted out a third suitcase. “I didn’t see a lot of other traffic.”

“No, there’s not much up here.” He led the way into the castle. “You see now why the job comes with an apartment. Making the commute every day would be impossible. Especially after winter sets in.”

He left the luggage in the large front hallway. “I’ll show you to your apartment later, but first I’d like you to meet Sartain.”

“He’s been your client for years and you don’t call him by his first name?” she asked.

“He prefers Sartain.” Doug shrugged. “It’s how he signs his paintings, how everyone always addresses him.”

“Maybe he thinks John is too plain for a celebrated artist.” After all, didn’t her own mother insist on being addressed as Madame Gigi wherever she went? As if plain old Ms. Brighton was too mundane for an artiste.

“What does Sartain think of this idea of having a business manager?” Natalie asked as she followed Doug past a wide, sweeping staircase and into a large, high-ceilinged room.

“Oh, he agrees it’s necessary. Trying to oversee the business side of things himself has seriously cut into his productivity.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Frankly, he needs someone to instill a little discipline in his life.”

She pinched her lips together. She knew plenty about discipline. At Cirque du Paris, the performers were reminded over and over again that the show, and in many cases, their very lives, depended on strict mental and physical discipline and self-control. A dictate Natalie had rebelled against once too often, and her mistake had cost her her career.

“This is the main salon,” Doug said, with a sweeping gesture that took in the room.

Natalie looked around at the heavy carved mahogany armchairs and settee, all covered in red-and-gold brocade. Red velvet drapes trimmed in gold fringe covered the windows, and a crimson-and-gold Turkish carpet cushioned the floor. A pair of stone gargoyles leered from the massive mahogany mantle over the fireplace, and the walls were crowded with framed artwork. Clam-shell-shaped sconces cast eerie shadows over the scene. “Not exactly homey, is it?” she said.

Doug laughed. “This is mainly for show. There are more informal rooms upstairs. In addition to Sartain’s living quarters and your apartment, there are apartments for a cook and the housekeeping staff. Try to make yourself comfortable and I’ll see if I can convince Sartain to tear himself away from his work and meet his new business manager.”

When Doug had left her, she focused her attention on the paintings lining the walls of the room. Apparently Sartain was a collector as well as a painter. In her spare time between performances, she had toured art museums all over the world—she recognized a Toulouse Lautrec, a Warhol and a Picasso on the walls around her. She was no expert, but she would wager they were real.

She stopped before a painting in the farthest corner of the room. The eleven-by-seventeen-inch canvas depicted two lovers in a romantic embrace. Romantic, that is, except for the whip the woman held coyly behind her back, and the lash marks across the man’s muscled shoulders. The man was naked except for a leather dog collar around his throat. The woman was wrapped in a diaphanous robe that left little to the imagination. Her body was lush in the style of Italian renaissance paintings, and the whole scene was rendered in rich shades of gold, red and pink.