Skin

by Karin Tabke

  Tony flashed his sister a narrow-eyed glare. “You’ll lose. You always have.”

  “Not this time.”

  He nodded as if contemplating an offer. “I’ll be around, Frankie — watching, keeping my eye on you and the family’s interests.”

  “Watch all you want, Anthony. Despite your delusions, at the very least, I’m still creative director here. Go back to running your strippers.”

  Anthony’s features hardened. “My girls turn a profit every night. You haven’t turned a profit since you gave up all your secrets the night Sean humped you dry.” Frankie gasped at his crudity.

  Anthony continued, “It makes me wonder what else you’ve done to drive this place into the ground.” He walked to the computer sitting on the bare desk. He ran his hand across the top of the monitor, then turned to look at her with a thoughtful, narrowed gaze. “Father finally woke up to your schemes, and lucky for the family he did it before he died.”

  Frankie fisted her hands at her sides. What she wouldn’t give for just one sucker punch. “Skin is mine.”

  He shrugged and moved to look out the window at the busy street below. “Maybe. For now.” He slid his hands into his trouser pockets and smiled his best weasel smile. “But in the meantime, I’ll take this office and make myself comfortable. Enjoy your job, sis, while you still have one.”

  “Like I said, Tony, give it your best shot,” Frankie said, and moved to the door. She was done with her brother. She’d made dozens of overtures over the years to close the gap between them, but he consistently refused. The gloves were off now. She’d fight tooth and nail for what was rightfully hers.

  Anthony laughed. “I play for keeps, sister.”

  “So do I. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have my magazine to run.” And oh, shit, she had a naked man in her office!

  Chapter Two

  Frankie sprinted down the hall, dismissing her brother’s threats and ignoring the hunks sitting impatiently, waiting to show her their stuff.

  She opened her office door just enough to slide in and shut it behind her. She pressed her back up against the smooth wood and her gut somersaulted when a very sexy Reese turned from her window to bestow her with a million-dollar smile. While her heart did a giddyup thump, she frowned, disappointed. He’d dressed. Not that this view was bad. Far from it.

  She’d dealt with scores of models over the last five years at Skin, and she was used to pretty faces, but Reese was more. He possessed that certain je ne sais quoi that only came along once in a blue moon. It could get a girl in trouble — big trouble. Trouble that could push her disjointed life off the edge. She took a deep breath. Tony’s reminder of her foolish behavior with Sean tore a festering wound wide open.

  She wasn’t a moron. She’d learned very early the opposite sex was more attracted to her father and his perceived glamorous life than to his daughter. The minute they met Santini Donatello, notorious don, their eyes glazed over with dreams of life as a goombah, the posturing began, and they were lost to her forever.

  All of them — except Sean. He wasn’t interested in her father, he told her, he was interested in her and her life. Yep, he was. That and getting her in bed to pump her for secrets. The more he pumped, the more she shared, until he had her blueprint of success for Skin. He took it, walked across town, and sold it to her competitor.

  It not only ruined her standing in the business community, it ruined what little respect she’d managed to garner from her father, and it also emotionally devastated her. She didn’t trust easy these days, especially her own instincts.

  “I apologize for my brother’s rudeness,” she breathlessly said, then strode past him to her desk. “He never grasped the concept of manners.”

  Reese shrugged it off. “No big deal. Every family has its problems.”

  He had no idea.

  “So when do I start?” he asked.

  Frankie sat down at her desk and looked up from the file she just opened. The intensity of his gaze nearly undid her. Warning bells shrilled in her head. “You don’t.” Her words startled her as much as him. But she’d learned a dear lesson after being so impulsive with Sean. Skin’s survival depended on the model she hired and how well she could or couldn’t work with him. She promised herself two years ago she would always without fail take slow, deliberate, informed steps the next time she felt a spark with a potential employee. And as much as she didn’t want to, she felt more than a spark with Mr. Hotshot Reese. He could wreck a woman with a smile. The man she chose to launch her magazine into the company of Cosmo and Playgirl would have to not only fit her stringent physical requirements, which Reese more than did, but also be a safe bet on all other fronts, which Reese definitely was not.

  Besides, she couldn’t afford him.

  She and her model would be spending too much time together, and most of that time would be her instructing him to take his clothes off while she got very close and very personal with her camera.

  Reese’s eyes widened in surprise. “I’m out because…?”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

  “Because you don’t have one.”

  “Consider my decision a calculated risk.”

  “So you calculate I’m too big a risk?”

  Reese walked to the edge of her desk and leaned against it. His warm, woodsy scent drifted below her nose. Her nostrils twitched. His moves stiffened her resolve.

  “What do I have to do to change your mind?”

  Not be so male? Frankie’s nether parts warmed. She snapped the folder shut, pushed back her chair, and stood up to face him on an equal plane. “Nothing.”

  He smiled slow and easy. “Are you afraid of me?”

  Her jaw dropped before she caught it. “Afraid of you? How?”

  “You must have ice for blood if you don’t feel the connection we have. Isn’t that a must between a model and his photographer?”

  Frankie couldn’t deny it in her heart. But she would deny it to his face. She’d made the right decision. The man was lethal to her senses, and she wasn’t up for more drama in her life. Skin meant everything to her, and part of taking it to the next level was having a model she felt comfortable with. She felt the complete opposite with this man.

  “I don’t mix business with pleasure,” Reese said. His eyes glowed and a playful smile toyed with his lips.

  Frankie’s lips twitched in response. And she felt a rush, a rush to rise to that challenge, to hire him just to break him. She moved away from him. She could hear her father now. “There you go again, Francesca. Have you learned nothing from your mistakes? By allowing your emotions to dictate business, you lose respect. You’re too much of a woman to rule with the iron hand of a man.”

  “Neither do I,” Frankie said. Setting the file down on her desk, she walked to the door and opened it. “Thanks for coming in, Mr. Barrett. If we choose to go with you, we’ll call you.”

  Reese headed for the door but stopped beside her. His blue eyes gleamed at a private joke. She fidgeted in her heels. He smiled and bent down to her ear and whispered, “Don’t take too long. Once I leave here, I’m on my way to Stag. I hear they’re launching a couples centerfold issue.”

  Frankie’s skin warmed, but she dug in. Her back stiffened. She’d heard that too, and what made it worse was Stag was the rag Sean sold out to. It was also where he was employed as editorial consult. She pulled the door open wider. “Good day, Mr. Barrett.”

  He gave her a short salute.

  “Frankie, that guy was gorgeous,” Tawny said, barging into her office the minute the door closed behind Reese Barrett’s very nice ass.

  Her instinct was to run after Reese just to keep him out of Sean’s hands. But she curbed the impulse. She might be a female, but she had the guts and tenacity of any male in her family. If there was one lesson she took to heart from her father, it was the virtue of patience. Skin was her priority, and she would make calm, cool, collected decisions to ensure its success.

  “Hello? Earth
to Frankie.” Tawny waved her hand in front of Frankie’s nose.

  “He’s no one we’re interested in.”

  Tawny’s brown eyes widened. “Are you telling me that hunk has a Mini Cooper?”

  Frankie made a lame attempt to smile, her energy suddenly drained. “Quite the opposite.”

  “Then what the hell are you thinking?”

  Frankie scowled. She wasn’t thinking, she was reacting. Her brain warred with her emotions. Her gut screamed Reese Barrett was trouble — too much of a distraction, a distraction her upside-down, inside-out life didn’t need. There was a room full of models waiting to jump through hoops, and if none of them mustered up, there were scores more in the wings.

  Rubbing her temples, Frankie groaned. Her father wasn’t dead two weeks, the family was coming undone, everyone pointing fingers at everyone else, and if she didn’t act now, Skin would go down the proverbial toilet.

  His words echoed in her head. “It’s just business, Francesca, never forget.”

  Skin was not only her business, it was her passion. She wanted to prove to herself and to the family that she, a woman, could take Skin from modest to record-breaking circulation. To do that, she needed the right centerfold. She was back to square one.

  “Did you see anything out there that did it for you?” she asked her trusty assistant.

  “Not like what just walked out of here.”

  Great. Frankie stepped out into the anteroom. A dozen sets of hopeful eyes zeroed in on her. She forced a smile and began her scan of the room. From left to right, her gaze paused at each hopeful, their smiles promising to deliver, but her radar instantly dismissed them. When she came full circle, she made another round, this one cursory.

  Nothing.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen, if I’ve wasted your time, but you’re all excused.”

  Before any one of them decided to take their frustration out on her personally, Frankie ducked back into her office and shut the door. She turned to wide-eyed Tawny.

  “Call Images and find out who else they have. If they’re dry, go to Models, Inc. If they can’t come up with the goods, find me an agency that can. We need a centerfold like yesterday. I was hoping to start shooting tomorrow.”

  “I’m on it, boss.” Tawny scurried out of her office, leaving the door wide open.

  Frankie shook her head. Tawny wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but she could type, trash talk, and cajole a fish out of water. She was also loyal in a business that didn’t recognize loyalty.

  Getting up, Frankie closed her office door. Impulsively she picked up her phone and pressed a number. She needed Anthony off her back, and there was only one person who could deliver that.

  “Donatello.”

  Just the sound of her father’s COO (the PC word for consigliere) warmed her. “Unk, I need your help.”

  “Anything for you, cara mia. What do you need?”

  “Get my brother off my back.”

  Deep laughter filtered through the airwaves. “What has he done?”

  Unk never gave Tony enough credit. Maybe now Tony was looking for some payback?

  “He thinks he can fire me.”

  Silence.

  Alarms rang in her head.

  “Unk?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “There seems to be a few gray areas with some of your father’s business.”

  Frankie felt as if her stomach just thudded to her feet. “Such as?”

  “Skin.”

  “Skin is mine!”

  “Si, cara, I know. I’ll settle things, do not worry.”

  A modicum of relief soothed her. She had complete confidence in Unk’s word. It was gold. However, she didn’t share his tactics in making it a done deal.

  “Look, I want what is mine because it’s right, not by default — or any other means.”

  “Of course, cara, I would expect nothing less. The last thing we want is more family distress.”

  By that, she knew he meant blood on his or her hands.

  “Any word on Father’s will?”

  “Aldo hasn’t produced it. But of course I can’t produce Aldo.”

  Another mystery. Her father’s personal attorney, Aldo Geppi. Gone. Disappeared. But then, with her family, nothing struck her as mysterious. People disappeared all the time. Some returned, but most didn’t.

  “But there is a will?”

  “There is a will. We’ll have to be patient a little longer.”

  And she could rely on her uncle to keep Anthony under his thumb. She needed time. “Can I meet you later?”

  “Of course. My office around five.”

  She chewed her fingertip. “Five is too early.” Knowing Carmine Donatello never left his office before eight on any given weeknight, she asked, “How about if I bring some of Gina’s cannoli for later. We’ll have dessert.”

  Rich laughter poured through the phone. Frankie smiled. The man she loved most in the world had returned. “You know I can never resist Gina’s cannoli.”

  And he had the belly to prove it. Since her first memory, Unk filled the shoes her father refused to step into. He was also the man who bridged the gap between father and daughter and brother and sister. It was Unk who stood quietly in the background in case she needed a hand up when she fell too hard. He had been a godsend after the Sean debacle, when her father fired her.

  It was Unk who threatened to divide the family if Santini didn’t reinstate Frankie as creative director. It was also Unk who stood by her decision to transform Skin from a women’s health and beauty magazine to a women’s eye-candy magazine. Sex sold, it was basic economics. And even though her father ran the family, it was his brother, Carmine, who was the quiet mastermind.

  She would be forever grateful for the round Sicilian’s protective arms and deep, soothing voice reminding her she was a Donatello and, with that, part of a long line of Italian aristocracy.

  She knew what that meant too. Her father was up to his eyeballs in nefarious business, and her brother relished following in his footsteps. More than once over the years, she wished she could blink and be a member of the Brady Bunch instead of the black-sheep daughter of the Sopranos.

  “Cara, have you gone to see your father?”

  Fear of breaking down paralyzed her. Somehow, Frankie knew if she hadn’t defied her father, challenging him as she had, he would have stayed in Carmel as he planned and would still be alive. Frankie let out a long breath. “No, I haven’t. We never got along in life, what makes his death different?”

  “He loved you.”

  “He loved Anthony. I embarrassed him.”

  “No, you challenged him.” Carmine chuckled, the sound comforting.

  “He fired me!”

  “That’s all water under the bridge. You learned the hard way to keep business and family secrets to yourself.”

  “No kidding.” She’d paid dearly for what her father called her “hormone-induced stupidity.”

  She had big plans for Skin the day she walked into the mail room as an intern. She worked her ass off, putting in fifteen-hour days and doing the grunt work no one else would touch, and asking more questions than anyone had patience for. But gradually she gained the respect of those in power. She found her niche behind the camera. Cello Margolise, the creative director at the time, took her under his wing. She was a quick study. When he retired, she was the obvious choice. It was also when she hired Sean, a too sexy, too slick, charismatic model. She fell hard and fast.

  The night he asked her to marry him, she confided in him. Then the bastard hung her out to dry.

  She’d learned her lesson, but in the process lost her father’s respect.

  So when she came up with the idea to convert Skin, she shared it only with her father and her uncle.

  “Francesca,” her uncle said, bringing her back to the present, “changing a ladies’ health magazine into a ladies’ eye-candy magazine was more than his ego could take. He wou
ld have lost respect in the family. You’re a good Catholic girl, maybe you shouldn’t be taking pictures of naked men and printing them for the world to see.”

  She sighed. “I always knew in your heart you sided with Father. Why can’t you understand for me it’s just business? A means to an end. Just like the rest of the family. And for the record, I didn’t approve of what Father did. At least Skin is legit.” So now in her mind they were even. An eye for an eye. It was the way of the family.

  “Listen to your words, Francesca, and try to understand your father. You claim Skin is just business, a business of selling sex.”

  “No, it —”

  “Don’t interrupt,” he sternly said.

  She pressed her lips together.

  “You use naked or near naked men as a commodity. A means to sell magazines. You use the oldest angle. Sex sells. Your father didn’t disapprove of the concept, he disapproved of his daughter’s involvement. Turn the tables, cara. You didn’t approve of your father’s business endeavors.”

  “But my business isn’t illegal.”

  “The family has many legitimate holdings.”

  “But his bread and butter wasn’t.” Frankie pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. Her temples throbbed. The feeling of walls closing in around her stifled her. “We can argue semantics later, I need a caffeine fix. See you at eight.”

  After hanging up the phone, Frankie called to Tawny through the open door. “I’m going to run a few errands, then hit Baccio’s. I expect an office full of models when I get back.”

  Chapter Three

  “Houston, we have a problem,” Reese said to his captain. He slipped into a chair in the field office of the San Francisco County organized crime task force. Propping his booted feet up on the desk, he not only met his captain’s scowl but scanned those of his team.