Fear of Falling

Laura hunched her shoulders and her voice assumed a simpering quality that made Natalie’s ears hurt. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Sartain. I’ll call right away and have them trace the order.”

“I don’t give a damn about the order. I need that paint now! Find some, if you have to drive into Denver and get it yourself.”

“Yes, Mr. Sartain. I’ll certainly do that.” She scurried away.

Sartain turned to Natalie. “What are you staring at?” He gestured after the other woman. “Go help her find that paint.”

Natalie shook her head. “Oh, I think one person can handle that job all right.”

“I didn’t ask you what you thought!” Sartain roared. “I’m not paying you to think.” He stepped toward her, his voice menacing. “Find. Me. That. Paint.”

She brought her hands up between them and began clapping. “Bravo. You do that very well. And if I hadn’t already seen dozens of better tantrums I might even be intimidated.”

The muscles of his jaw bulged as he ground his teeth together, and the pulse at his temple pounded. Natalie’s heart sped up, though she held her ground and forced herself to remain calm. How she responded to this outburst would set the tone for all such future interactions. She intended to maintain the upper hand.

Sartain took a step back, and when he spoke again his voice was softer, though still with an edge of menace. “I don’t frighten you?”

She shook her head. “No. And despite what you think, the world won’t end if you have to wait until tomorrow for a tube of cadmium yellow.”

“How can you say that? I have a painting to complete that is due at the printer’s next week. I’m not some machine. I can’t turn talent on and off according to a schedule. I can’t be expected…”

As his voice rose he began to flail his arms, in full rant mode. Natalie folded her arms across her chest and nodded, waiting for him to wind down. There was something impressive about his passion for the subject, something almost sexual about the way his eyes dilated and his breathing deepened, the muscles of his arms and shoulders knotting beneath his plain dark cotton shirt.

As he was winding down, she noticed Laura hovering in the doorway. “Yes, Laura, what did you find out?” she asked.

Laura’s gaze darted to Sartain, then back to Natalie. “I tracked the shipment and it should arrive this afternoon. But there’s a store in Denver that has it in stock. I could drive in and get it.”

“And by the time you got back, the other shipment would probably have been delivered,” Natalie pointed out.

Sartain studied her. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

Natalie shrugged. “You could show me your castle.”

He blinked. “You want me to play tour guide?”

“Or you could return to your studio and practice for your next outburst.”

Amusement edged out anger in his eyes, though his expression remained stern. “Perhaps you can give me some pointers while I show you around.”

He turned and started out of the room, but Natalie put a hand out to stop him. “First, you need to apologize to Laura for shouting at her and thank her for tracking the shipment.”

His eyes widened. “You want me to do what?”

“You need to apologize to Laura and thank her for tracking the shipment.”

His jaw tightened and for a moment she feared he would launch into another tantrum. Instead, he shook his head and turned to Laura. “Thank you for tracking down the shipment,” he said, with more feeling than Natalie had expected. “And I apologize for making you the target of my wrath.” He shifted his gaze to Natalie. “Next time, my business manager will be the one to answer to me.”

This time, Natalie followed him from the office. He said nothing until they were in the hallway leading to the main salon. “I suppose you’re proud of yourself, scolding me like a schoolboy in front of my secretary.”

“She told me she was your personal assistant.”

“She prefers that title.” His lips quirked up in a partial smile. “Given the opportunity, I believe she’d like to place the emphasis on personal.”

Natalie glared at him. “Do you expect me to be impressed that some bimbo is throwing herself at you?”

He stopped abruptly, so that she stumbled into him. She braced her hands against his chest, aware of the taut muscle beneath the thin fabric of the shirt, and pulled back as if burned.

“What does impress you?” he asked. “What kind of man impresses you?”

She frowned. “I don’t think that’s really any concern of yours.”

“No, but I’m curious.” He closed the gap between them. “You were very cool and collected in the office just now, but I sense something more beneath the surface. Feelings a great deal…warmer.”

She raised her eyes to meet his, silently warning him to back off. “Doug warned me you like to pretend you know what people are thinking. In my case, you’re wrong.” She’d had years of practice at keeping her passions tamped down. There was no reason that should change around John Sartain, a man who seemed not to know the meaning of self-control.

She wanted to slap the smile from his face, even as her body responded to the invitation in his eyes. From the articles she’d read and the few minutes she’d spent in his company, he came across as someone who was both exasperating and fascinating. He was handsome, intelligent, talented, powerful and entirely unpredictable. The combination was almost irresistible to a woman who had spent her life in a world where every routine was choreographed down to when to take a breath.

“I like that you won’t answer all my questions,” he said. “I never know these days if people are agreeing with me because they truly share my opinions, or because they want to stay on the good side of a very rich man. But you don’t leave any doubt as to your opinion of me.”

“I didn’t say anything about you,” she protested. “I only refused to answer a personal question.”

“You said everything I need to know with your eyes and the way you hold your head. In fact, your whole body is communicating what you think of me.” He laughed. “You think I’m a spoiled, selfish, intemperate hedonist.”

Give the man an A for perceptiveness. But how much of a stretch had it been, anyway? “As far as I can tell, you go out of your way to promote that image of yourself—as the satyr your detractors call you.”

He nodded, then turned away. “Come, I’ll show you my studio. Maybe you’ll see another side of me there.”

He led her through a maze of hallways to a massive space at the very back of the castle, in a wing opposite the offices. A wall of windows along the south side flooded the studio with light, and the sharp aromas of oil paint and turpentine permeated the room. Canvases in various stages of completion lined the walls, competing for space with framed posters, oversize art books and discarded pallets.

An easel in the middle of the room drew her eye. She walked over to it and bit back a smile when she saw the subject matter of the work—American Gothic with whips and chains. The stern father wore black leather instead of overalls, and carried a devil’s trident, while the somber woman wore a dog collar and studded wrist cuffs and a black leather bustier.

“It’s a commissioned piece for a CD cover.” Sartain joined her in front of the easel. “I’ve done a whole series of them based on classic paintings.”

“It’s amusing. Quite like the original.” The resemblance was really uncanny.

“I try to stay true to the original work in the details. For instance, the old barn in the background, and the position of the subject’s hands. Here, let me show you.” He leaned over and shuffled through a stack of canvases and pulled out what Natalie at first thought was the original American Gothic.

“I did this copy as a study before I painted my original work,” he said.

“Do you often do that? Copy originals?”

He put the canvas back in the stack. “Sometimes. Part of my training was copying original work. But I prefer my own ideas.”

He took her elbow and guided her to another easel in the corner of the room, this one covered by a drape. He removed the drape and she found herself face to face with a portrait of a half-naked woman eating a cherry from a man’s hand. The body of the man was in shadows to the left of the picture. Golden light flowed from an overhead window onto the woman’s face and the bunch of cherries. The lush fruit might have just been picked from the tree, and the tip of the woman’s tongue darted out toward the delicacy, thepassion on her face speaking of a hunger for far more than the fruit.

Natalie’s breath quickened and heat washed over her as she studied the woman’s face. She had never in her life allowed herself to express such open wanting for anything. She felt the loss all the more keenly now.

Sartain’s hand rested heavy on her shoulder. She knew she should shrug him away, but she could not. The warm, human contact was strangely comforting, reminding her she was in a different world now—a world where she might explore all the emotions and desires she’d denied herself for so long.

“I’d like to paint you like that some day,” he said, his voice a soft caress beside her ear.

The meaning behind the words pulled her from her stupor, and she startled. “Wh-what do you mean?”

His gaze held hers, his expression without judgment or guile. “You’d make an interesting subject for a portrait. You have a very expressive face, yet there’s such a strong sense of holding back.”

She moved away from him and forced a sharp laugh. “There you go psychoanalyzing me again. Did you want to be a therapist before you became an artist?”

“I never wanted to do anything but create art. But I’ve learned a lot from the hours I’ve spent with my models.”

Remembering some of the rumors about the Satyr and the women he painted, she bit back a tart remark about the sort of things he’d learned. “I’m not interested in posing for you.”

“Most women are very flattered when I tell them I want to paint them.” He picked up a brush and tapped it against his hand. “Some people even see it as a way of making themselves immortal—their essence captured for all to see, for centuries to come.”

She rolled her eyes. “How poetic. How many times did you rehearse that line before you tried it out on some gullible female?”

“Do you think it’s a line?”

“Your reputation is well known. I assume they don’t call you the Satyr for no reason.”

He set the brush aside. “I’m a man who enjoys beautiful women. And they enjoy me.” His eyes met hers again. “You would enjoy me, I promise.”

Her heart fluttered, and heat rose to her face as she struggled to keep her composure. “Are you propositioning me? Your business manager?”

“Do you want me to?”

“No.” Yes. Maybe. She couldn’t deny her strong attraction to this man, and the chance he presented to explore so many things that had been forbidden to her in her old life.

But he was her boss. Not the person to do her exploring with. “That would be unprofessional,” she said. “As would my posing as your model.” She nodded toward the easel.

He shrugged and turned to cover the painting once more. “This isn’t IBM. You’re living here as well as working here. You can expect a certain informality at times.”

Did he really consider having her pose—most likely naked, judging from the paintings she’d seen—to be merely informal?

He turned to her again. “Despite what you think, I can be a professional, especially when it comes to my work.”

The question was, could she remain a professional around this man who stirred so many feelings she wasn’t sure it was wise to explore?

All her life, her mother and those who had trained her at the Cirque du Paris had berated her for her rebellious nature. When she would race across the back lot before a performance, Gigi would command her to walk to conserve her energy for the show. When she tried to incorporate a new move into her act, the choreographer would lecture her on the need to do everything exactly as scripted, for the safety of the other performers and herself.

When she had risked a love affair with a member of the crew who set up the tents for each show, her mother had raged about her throwing her life away for a man, and had had her lover fired from the show.

In time, Natalie had learned to restrain her wilder impulses. But now, she was free to indulge herself as never before. Except that the world outside show business had its rules, too: She wasn’t supposed to get involved with the man who hired her. She wasn’t supposed to feel so drawn to a man she’d only just met. She wasn’t supposed to want these things, and yet she did.

Maybe all the more so because they were forbidden.

SARTAIN WAS a man who enjoyed puzzles, and his new business manager presented him with an intriguing one: how had a woman who had been a member of one of the elite performing troops in the world ended up in his employ? Why would she want the job, and why had his agent, a meticulous businessman, hired her?

Of course, considering how she had handled his fit of anger this morning, perhaps Doug knew more than Sartain gave him credit for. Natalie’s refusal to wilt in the face of his fury had startled him out of his rage. Her courage—or foolishness, depending upon one’s point of view—captured his imagination.

She pretended to be indifferent to him as a man, but he sensed a heat between them he wanted to explore further. How much of her resistance was due to ideas about proper behavior between employer and employee and how much was because of some inhibition within herself?

With the idea of exploring the question further, he continued the tour of the castle, taking her quickly through the public rooms and down to what one writer had dubbed “evidence of Sartain’s wickedly twisted outlook.”

“This is the dungeon,” he said, swinging back an iron gate at the bottom of a narrow flight of stairs.

Natalie let out a shaky laugh. “A dungeon? You’re kidding.”

“I wanted an authentic castle. That includes a dungeon.” He flipped a switch and electric torches fastened along the walls flickered yellow light onto a macabre scene: a man clamped in stocks, another on a rack, a third chained to the wall.

Natalie gasped, and recoiled at the sight. He put his hand on her shoulder to steady her. This was why he’d set the scene this way, wasn’t it? To shock people? To distract them from probing too deeply into his private life? Reporters who visited the castle and saw the dungeon left convinced that the more scandalous rumors about him were true and didn’t bother to question anything else.

The tension in her shoulders eased and she turned to stare at him. “Mannequins?”

He nodded. “Without people in the scene, it was just another room with a lot of rusty chains.”

“That’s a very odd way of looking at it.”

“People have said I have an odd way of looking at a lot of things.”

She moved to stand in front of the rack. “Where did you find this?”

“From a place that makes props for movies and haunted houses.” He stood beside her and ran his hand along the metal wheel that, when turned, forced the opposite ends of the frame farther apart. “It’s supposed to be an authentic copy. I used it in a painting once—a commissioned piece for a collector.” Last he’d heard, the painting was hanging at a very exclusive S & M club in Los Angeles.

He felt her eyes on him and shifted to meet her gaze. “Why do you paint the scenes you do?” she asked. “What is the attraction of bondage and sadomasochism and all that?”

“Other than the fact that it’s set me apart from other artists and made me a lot of money?”

“I doubt that’s reason enough for an artist to keep working in one area for so long. Doesn’t creativity require more to feed it than the promise of a big paycheck?”

“Don’t tell Doug that. The man relates everything to money.”

“That’s because he’s not an artist. So what is it about this…this kinky stuff, that interests you?”

He lifted a loose manacle and fastened it around his wrist.

Natalie gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry. I have a key.” He admired the fit of the metal around his wrist. “Art explores emotion. When I paint, I want to elicit some emotion from people. And some emotion from myself.” His eyes met hers, daring her to look away. “Take, for instance, bondage. People resist the idea of being tied up. Of having their freedom taken from them. But the restraints offer another kind of freedom. There’s freedom in surrendering completely to another. Freedom in not having to be in control, in allowing yourself to enjoy an experience totally without having to be in charge of what happens next.”

She swallowed, her tongue flicking out to wet her lips. “Are you speaking from personal experience?”

“Perhaps.” He took an ornate iron key from a peg at the end of the rack and fitted it into the lock. When he was free once more he took a step toward her.

“What about…the other? S & M? Pain as pleasure?” Her mouth twisted in an expression of distaste.

“I’m interested in exploring sexuality from a lot of different angles. The endorphins released as a response to pain can be related to the endorphins induced by pleasurable experiences. Different people respond to different things—fetishes, being dominant or submissive, role-playing. They’re all ways for people to get out of themselves, away from the things that limit them, to something purer.”

Her breathing grew more irregular, her eyes dilating. They were playing a dangerous game here, a kind of foreplay he enjoyed perhaps more than he should. She could stop him anytime, but he would take this as far as she let him. He wanted a glimpse at the core of the woman. Was she the innocent girl Doug had described, or a woman who felt the pull of attraction the way he did? He stepped closer still, reaching for her, even as he prepared for her to push him away.

The lights flickered, then went out, plunging them into the darkness of the blind. Natalie’s scream pierced the silence. He reached to comfort her, but she wasn’t there.

3

SARTAIN FOUND Natalie huddled against the wall, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She flinched when he touched her, but didn’t try to run away. “What is it?” he asked, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. Her fingers were icy, and he could feel her trembling.

“I—I’m afraid of the dark,” she said. “I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it, I—”

“It’s all right.” He released her hand but kept his arm around her as he felt along the wall until he came to a niche that held a candle. He located the lighter next to it, and flicked it open.

She began to relax as soon as the candle was lit. “What happened?” she asked. “Why did the lights go out?”

“Probably the storm we’re having. Lightning could have struck a transformer, or a tree could have fallen on the lines.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Enough that we keep candles in every room.”

“Why candles? Why not a flashlight?”

“Flashlight batteries corrode if left too long unused.” He looked around at the shadows cast by the candle across the stone walls. “Besides, the candlelight adds a certain atmosphere, don’t you think?”

“Damn your atmosphere. Just get me out of here.”

“In a moment.” He turned to look into her eyes. They were black in the dim light, the pupils enlarged. She’d stopped shaking, her body warm against his. All his better judgment told him to move away and lead her to the door, but then, when had he ever let judgment rule his decisions? He was a man used to indulging his passion and right now he wanted to know if Natalie felt the heat simmering between them.

Slowly, half prepared for her to slap him away, he bent toward her, and covered her lips with his own.

She stiffened, and he held still, not pressing his advantage, waiting for her to decide how far this would go. Then her breath, like a whisper, escaped in the slightest sigh, and she relaxed against him, her eyes closed, her lips parted.

He pulled her closer still, the pressure of his lips on hers increasing. Her mouth was soft and sensuous; the velvet feel of it sent desire surging through him.

Her lips parted farther and he plunged his tongue between them, tasting a faint sweetness. She gripped his shoulders, fingers digging into his skin, and he shut his eyes, surrendering to the hot wanting that engulfed him. Every nerve was alive to the feel of her, the sweep of her tongue across his teeth, the points of her breasts pressed against his chest, the tiny moans of pleasure escaping from her throat.

Light flashed behind his closed eyes, and he opened them to see that power had been restored. Once more the electric torches flickered in their sconces.

Natalie pulled away. He resisted the urge to hold her and reluctantly released her. She pressed back against the wall, one hand to her lips, confusion warring with accusation in her eyes. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, her voice breathy.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” He had expected her to, up until the moment her mouth opened to him, and he felt her body melt into his. He had the sense that Natalie was a woman who was used to denying herself, and that her brief surrender to him both horrified and fascinated her.

She looked away. “I wasn’t myself. I was upset. I—”

“Shhh.” He brushed her hair back from her forehead. She trembled at his touch, but didn’t push him away. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”

“Of course I do.” She straightened and fixed him with a stern look. “I work for you. What just happened between us—”

“It was a kiss. You don’t have to be afraid to say it.”

Her cheeks were a deep pink, and he sensed her struggle to continue to meet his gaze. “It was highly unprofessional behavior,” she said.

He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s okay to do something simply because it feels right.” Kissing Natalie had felt more right than anything he’d done in a long while.

She shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t?” He grinned. “Then I’ll do my best to teach you.”

Her expression hardened and she marched past him, out the door. Her high heels sounded a sharp retort as she hurried up the stairs.

He followed at a slower pace, still on edge from that amazing kiss. Something was definitely going on between the two of them and though he’d never admit it out loud, this sudden and intense connection had left him every bit as unsettled as she was.

NATALIE STOPPED in the hallway outside the suite of offices and tried to regain her composure. Her lips still burned with the feel of Sartain’s mouth on hers and the memory of the fierce desire he’d raised in her left her shaking.

Was it the man himself or only the situation in which they’d found themselves that had affected her this way? She’d been shocked at her first sight of the dungeon—as he’d no doubt intended. Then she’d recognized the black humor of the moment—the juvenile fun of scaring oneself that made haunted houses and horror movies so popular.

She’d wondered about the connection between Sartain’s appreciation for the dungeon and his rumored sexual proclivities, and had been bold enough to ask him about it. His answer had stirred her more than she cared to admit. All his talk of the freedom to be gained by surrender spoke to her own longing to rebel against the restrictions she’d operated under all her life. Self-control and mastery over her own body had kept her safe when she was performing on the high trapeze, but how often had it held her back from the pure joy of her art?

Then the lights had flickered and the familiar terror had overtaken her. Vertigo made her head swim, as if she was falling, and a scream tore from her throat before she could bite it back. Part of her mind knew she was in no danger but that part held no sway over the fear that had been a fixture in her life since her accident.

She’d welcomed Sartain’s arms around her, so solid and comforting. His strength and calmness wrapped around her like a blanket. Then on the heels of her retreating panic came fierce desire, the need to revel in everything that made her feel so alive.