Skin Read Free

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
    F rankie 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