Prologue
Beyond the carved stone entryway to Castle in the Clouds, the shadows of a winter night bled and puddled along the edges of the snow-packed pathway. Rolling clouds churned across the face of the full moon and obscured the glimmer of starlight. The cloaking darkness suited the purposes of Gregory Rosemont, the owner of this stately manor situated on a high crest surrounded by glacial Colorado peaks. He was not ready to reveal himself. His flashlight beam hardly penetrated the tapestry of icy haze, yet he strode with confidence. He knew every inch of this rugged mountaintop, every stone, every tree. He had memorized the cliffs and precipices that isolated the castle, making it accessible only by a ten-person ski gondola hung from a tensile steel cable.
His light shone against the walls of the gondola house, constructed from locally quarried granite to match the crenellated ramparts. Tomorrow, the gondola car would make its last ascent. Tomorrow, he would mount his final revenge.
For years, he had arranged this event with compulsive attention to detail. He had amassed a fortune to finance his goal. And now, his plan was perfect, an exacting test for the remorseless specimens of humanity who were to be his guests.
Inside the gondola house, he slipped the backpack from his shoulders, took out his tools and went to work. Ignoring the huge metal cogs and wheels necessary to haul the weight of the car, he concentrated on a precision piece of machinery that would slice through the cable at exactly the right moment to send the gaily painted gondola car plummeting hundreds of feet into the chasm below.
In his vivid imagination, he heard the shattering of the fiberglass car, torn by jagged teeth of stone. Tomorrow, the screams of terror would echo endlessly against the cold, unforgiving mountains. It would be a spectacular crash.
As he adjusted the coils, the spring-loaded severing mechanism squealed, metal against metal. The gloves he wore to ward off the sub-zero chill impeded his efforts, but he was glad for the cold, the promise of snowfall. A January blizzard would hamper any rescue attempt.
His task completed, he allowed himself a smug grin. He’d thought of everything, left nothing to chance.
As he hiked back along the path, moonlight spilled through a break in the clouds, illuminating the turrets and sculpted ramparts of the fanciful medieval-style castle. The only light shone from the high window of the bridal suite above.
Chapter One
In the fading mid-afternoon sunlight, Thea Sarazin trudged uphill toward the small stone house where a ski gondola would transport her across an impossibly wide chasm to the Castle in the Clouds.
In addition to her small suitcase, she carried a garment bag containing a floor-length gown. After this weekend, she’d add this brocaded creation in sunrise orange—a color particularly unsuited to Thea’s olive complexion, hazel eyes and dark brown hair—to the other three godawful bridesmaid dresses that hung, swathed in dry cleaner’s plastic, in the back of her closet.
Though she’d sworn never again to be part of a wedding party, she couldn’t refuse when asked by Jenny Trevain, her co-worker at Lloyd Middle School in Denver. Not only was Jenny a good friend but the wedding meant spending a weekend at this fabled mansion where she would finally meet Jenny’s reclusive fiancé, Gregory Rosemont.
The whole event was simply too fanciful and romantic for Thea to resist, especially since Jenny was also thirty-four, and had likewise resigned herself to the odds against ever finding true love. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Jenny had been swept into every woman’s fantasy romance, a whirlwind courtship by a rich and mysterious captain of industry.
Rosemont was…okay, an eccentric multi-millionaire who had earned his fortune with one of the first online shopping Web sites. Just for this weekend of fancy, Thea preferred to think of it all as exciting and exotic. Jenny’s love affair rekindled the hopes and dreams of every almost-a-spinster like Thea. She sighed.
A dream come true. Thea knew better. She was sure she knew better. But an engagement ring from Tiffany’s! Marriage to the modern-day equivalent of a prince. The guy owned a castle, for goodness’ sake!
On the other hand, Gregory Rosemont also had the reputation of a genuine twenty-four-carat recluse. There were no existing photographs of him. Not even Jenny had one. He never gave interviews. He ruled his business from afar, keeping in touch through the highest of high-tech computer innovations. Privacy was a big deal to this man who chose to live on a mountaintop which could only be reached by a mile-long ride on a ski gondola. No doubt his communications with the outer world required satellites…or something. Computer technology wasn’t her forte.
The extreme cold bit at Thea’s nose. Around her, in the below-freezing chill of the clean, crisp mountain air, rose mountains as old as time. If she hadn’t just driven the wickedly iced-over access road several miles from an interstate highway, she could believe she’d crossed over into some frozen other-world, never to be seen or heard from again.
Where was Jenny’s car? Where was anyone?
Thea’s feet were freezing, her fingers already numb. She told herself to get a grip and keep going. Maybe the stone house for the gondola was heated. Thea was beginning to worry about the cold, the isolation and—most especially—about dear, sweet, naive Jenny who planned to change her fiancé into a marginally sociable human being after the wedding. Thea couldn’t believe it. Jekyll and Hyde belonged in fiction. Hoping for a metamorphosis on that scale was like hoping to transform Colorado’s rugged fourteen-thousand-foot granite peaks into foothills fit for an afternoon hike.
Pretty darned unrealistic.
She’d talked to Jenny, warning her about trying to transform her husband-to-be. Thea had been engaged herself once before and had hoped that her nurturing love would ease an arrogant, ambitious M.D. into a more sensitive human being. Talk about an impossible dream!
But Jenny was in love, and women in love fooled themselves every day. Twice on Sunday.
Why was the parking so dratted far from the only possible destination up here?
As she neared the rough-hewn stone gondola house, Thea noticed the coat of arms, depicting a single blooming rose—probably to represent the rose in Rosemont—two interlocking crowns and four daggers. She thought about what conceit it took for a computer whiz to invent himself a brand-spanking-new coat of arms, then scolded herself. She might get conceited too, if she ever even saw a million dollars.
She should really cut Gregory Rosemont some slack. After all, Jenny loved him. She unlatched the heavy wooden door and pushed it open. No one else was here. And if possible, the stone house was even colder than the outdoors.
Pushing up her parka sleeve, she glanced at her wristwatch. She’d made good time from Denver, considering that she’d driven under ten miles an hour on the scary stretch of snow-packed, winding road without even a guardrail. She’d arrived half an hour early. Still, she’d expected to find someone here to greet her. A butler, perhaps.
She deposited her suitcase and garment bag on the stone benches that lined the