The Waterfall by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online

headed back to the bathroom. This time she didn’t throw up. She washed her hands, closed the lid on the toilet and sat down. She was risking everything. She had a stimulating career, a nice apartment, a fabulous set of friends. There were men who wanted her. Good, successful men.
    She didn’t have to let a scummy Darren Mowery fondle her in her own living room.
    After Jack had dispatched her, so politely, as if she were pathetic, she’d learned he was seeing Sidney Greenburg, a curator at the Smithsonian—fifty years old, never married, no children. Why her? Why not Barbara?
    Sidney was one of Lucy’s Washington friends.
    I could have married Colin. I didn’t have to wait for Jack.
    â€œBarbara?”
    Darren was outside the door. She didn’t move.
    â€œHere’s how it’s going to go down,” he said. “I’ll approach Jack. I’ll put the squeeze on him. He’s not going to risk his own reputation or sully his dead son’s reputation. He’ll pay. And you’ll get ten percent.”
    She jumped up and tore open the door. “Ten percent! Forget it. I’ll call the police right now. You’d have nothing without me. I had the affair with Colin. I have the pictures.”
    â€œYou won’t call the police,” Darren said calmly.
    â€œI will. You’re threatening a United States senator.”
    â€œBarbara. Please.” He was cold, supercilious. “If you make one wrong move once this thing gets started, I’ll be there. Trust me. You won’t want that.”
    Her stomach turned in on itself. She clutched it in silent agony. What if Lucy went crying to Sebastian Redwing because of her harassment campaign? “Bastard.”
    â€œBingo. You got that one right.”
    Barbara held up her chin, summoning twenty years of experience at using other people’s arrogance to her own advantage. And to Jack’s. “Jack couldn’t survive a week in this town without me, and he knows it. When he comes to me, you’d better be far away. That’s your only warning.”
    â€œOh, is it? Get this straight, Barbie.” Mowery leaned in close, enunciated each word clearly. “I don’t care if you fucked Swift father and son at the same time. I don’t care if you made up the whole goddamn thing. We’re putting this show on the road, and we’re doing it my way.”
    Acid rose up in her throat. “I can’t believe I let you touch me.”
    He laughed. “And you will again, Barbie. Trust me on that.”
    He swaggered back down the hall. She spat at his back, missing by yards. He laughed harder.
    â€œFifty percent,” she yelled.
    He stopped, glanced back at her.
    She was choking for air. Dear God, what had she done? “I want fifty percent of the take.”
    â€œThe take? Okay, Dick Tracy. I’ll give you twenty-five percent.”
    â€œFifty. I deserve it.”
    He winked at her. “I like you, Barbie. You got the short end of the stick with the Swifts, and you keep on fighting. Yep. I like you a lot.”
    â€œI’m serious. I want fifty percent.”
    â€œBarbie, maybe you should think this through.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m not a very nice man. I expect you know that by now. My sympathy for you only goes so far.”
    She hesitated. Her head was spinning. This wasn’t a time for cold feet, any sign of weakness. “Twenty-five percent, then,” she said.
    Â 
    Jack Swift poured himself a second glass of wine. It was a dry apple-pear wine from a new winery in his home state. He toasted Sidney Greenburg, who was still on her first glass. “To the wines of Rhode Island.”
    She laughed. “Yes, but not to this particular bottle. I love fruit wines, Jack, but this one’s pure rot-gut.”
    He laughed, too. “It is, isn’t it? Well, I’ve never been much of a wine connoisseur. A good