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