Skin (12 page)

Reese leaned over her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “That one is my favorite. I’ll take Frankie the kitten over Frankie the hellcat any day.”

“So you don’t like your woman with claws.”

“Only if they’re in my back.”

She turned and caught her breath; they were eye to eye, his warm breath caressing her face. She had planned to bare her claws and ask if he wanted a demonstration. Instead, she bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes, willing the heat that pooled between her thighs to chill and the sudden fullness of her breasts to evaporate. Her chest rose of its own volition toward him, her lips following. Santa Maria, this man was dangerous.

Reese backed away and stood straight. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

“Frankie?” Tawny barged in as usual. “Oh, um, sorry.”

Frankie smoothed her hair back over her shoulders and straightened. “Sorry for what? Barging in — again?”

Tawny blushed. “Um, yeah, sorry, I need to work on that.”

“Start now,” Frankie snapped. Her tone surprised both her and Tawny. The little blonde skulked out of the office. Frankie felt bad; she didn’t normally chip off on her employees. Especially the loyal ones like Tawny. But for the love of God, didn’t the girl have any manners?

Frankie walked to the door Tawny left open and slammed it shut. She turned to a bemused-looking Reese. “What’s so funny?”

He shook his head. “You have more moods than a mood ring.”

“Get used to it. I have a lot on my mind.”

“Let me help you.”

“You’ll help me, all right. We start shooting today.” She laughed. “Hell, I started this morning.”

“Delete the ones you took of me in the shower.”

“Are you kidding me? Those shots are going to quadruple my subscriptions.”

“You’re not going to print those.”

“The hell I’m not! Those shots would heat up a corpse.”

Reese stood his ground, just as determined. “I decide what goes to print. You invaded my privacy this morning, you had no right to do that, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to have half the world seeing pictures of me jerking off.”

Frankie stepped close. “Don’t give me that, Reese. You wanted me in that bathroom, you made it so I had to break in. Don’t tell me you didn’t. Besides, I own your ass — you signed the contract last night. I took the pictures this morning.”

Reese’s eyes flashed bright blue; the color deepened beneath his dark skin. “You know as well as I do, that was for your eyes only. No one else’s.”

“They’re going to production as we speak.”

“I see how it is with you, Frankie. Just business, huh?”

“You learn quick.”

He nodded, his anger seething just below the surface. “I’ll remember that. And when I remind you when it comes back to bite you in that pretty little ass of yours, don’t come crying to me.”

“I’m glad you understand. Now, hopefully Tawny can keep her hands off of you long enough to take you downstairs to Stella to work out a color scheme.”

He cocked a dark brow.

“You’re a model, don’t tell me you don’t know about schemes.”

“I’m a summer.”

“The hell you are. Winter all the way. Now, I have a few things to do. I’ll meet you downstairs in fifteen.”

Reese didn’t cotton much to being dismissed, but he played the obedient model, grateful for such a big break. Besides, he had a call to make.

He exited the office, told Tawny he had to make a quick call and then he’d be back up. He hurried downstairs to the front lobby and the pay phone there. He glanced around. All clear. Not wanting to be conspicuous, Reese turned his back and dialed.

“Guido’s,” a voice answered.

“Yo, Guido, I have a bug. I need an exterminator.”

“We can kill whatever you got, mister.”

“Dust my ride with powder, then get me a new one.”

“You got it, man. I’ll call you with the info on your new buggy.”

“I also need a 24/7 shadow on Princess Daisy.”

“Got it.”

When Reese hung up, he saw Anthony standing by the front doors of the building, staring straight at him. Reese ignored him and jogged up the three flights of stairs to the offices of
Skin.

F
rankie stood, arms crossed and looked out the window up at the sky. White puffy clouds floated like sailboats on the ocean across the powder-blue plane. She wondered if her father was up there, watching, laughing. She scowled, and looked down at the ugly gray concrete sidewalk. If Santini Donatello was anywhere it was beneath that hard cement, not up in the clouds. The thought neither upset her or warmed her. She never kidded herself about her father and what he did. In his profession there was only one way: Down. Returning to her desk, Frankie sat down, her elbows on the surface, and stared hard at a crack in the ceiling.

As much as she wanted to locate her father’s will, she resented the intrusion. If anyone had the latest will or at the very least a notarized copy, it was Mr. Geppi. First he was missing, now he was dead. She shook her head and groaned. When had life become so complicated?

None of this made sense.

Was her father playing with them all from the grave?

It wasn’t like him to be so negligent. Or was it? The codicil dated last year was BS. She knew it in her bones. It made no sense. Not only was Anthony nowhere near ready to take over any of the family’s business, he had shown no interest in
Skin
until last month. There would be no reason for her father to leave control of it to her brother.
He promised it to her.

Santini knew how much the magazine meant to her, and despite their differences, he, along with Unk, had given her more and more responsibility. Besides, her father held no interest in the rag. It was Unk who acquired it for the family, her father not caring as long as he received his cut of the action. Had Father’s sense of old-world honor driven him to take it from her? No — while Father hadn’t wanted her to turn
Skin
into a skin rag in the truest sense of the term, she knew there had to be more to it than that. There was no fiscal reason to leave the magazine to Anthony. He knew nothing about publishing. He’d drive it into the ground.

A worm of a thought niggled inside her brain. What if Father didn’t want Carmine, Aldo, or Anthony to know in advance of his death what was in the will? Maybe Aldo didn’t have the will after all. But who would he entrust the document to? And why
not
his trusted attorney or brother?

The only reason he would do that was because…Her brain immediately rejected the thought. Reality pushed right back. Her skin chilled at the implication. Didn’t he trust them with the content? The only feasible reason anyone would keep the contents secret was because there was something the main players would object to. What on earth could Anthony, Carmine,
and
Connie object so vehemently to?

“No,” she said, “none of this makes sense.” Not all of it anyway.

Okay, she could understand not trusting Anthony to handle the bulk of the family business at this stage, and maybe Papa wised up to Connie. They had seemed rather distant from each other this past year. Didn’t matter. Papa doted on Anthony. And despite her brother’s immaturity, Papa’s eyes lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree when his only son walked into the room.

And Unk? He was not only her father’s right-hand man, but his older brother and the one who always covered Santini’s messy tracks. There was no one wiser or more trustworthy than Carmine. So, what about Aldo? The Geppis had been the Donatellos’ personal attorneys since both families came to the States in the late nineteenth century. Hell, the families shared great-great-grandchildren. It didn’t make sense for her father not to entrust his will to the older man.

Maybe Father did see Anthony for the lame-ass he was and because of that kept his will a secret. She dismissed that thought. Without a will, the business would fall apart. He would never leave the family in such turmoil.

She sat back in her chair and contemplated other possible reasons why the will hadn’t turned up.

Obviously the contents. Anthony felt he was going to get their father’s personal property and Uncle Carmine would be named interim don until Anthony proved himself. Or, she shivered, what if Unk, not feeling Anthony was ready, refused to step aside? Did Anthony suspect? Was it Anthony who took a shot at him? No. She couldn’t see Unk preventing Anthony from stepping up. Well, as long as he proved himself. And he had a lot of proving to do.

Tears stung her eyes. She refused to believe her father had disinherited her! Sniffing hard, she looked up toward the door, relieved that for once Tawny respected her privacy. It hurt deeper than she cared to admit that her father gave so little of himself over the years to his eldest child. And her mother? Frankie’s mood softened despite her mother leaving her to Connie and her father. Lucia had put up with Papa’s women for years. Even when he had the audacity to bring them home to his table, Lucia endured. Frankie remembered watching her mother drop a plate of steaming spaghetti in her father’s lap while his “friend” shrieked next to him at the dinner table. “I hope your balls fry,” she’d said, and that was the last time Father brought a “friend” home.

It was when Connie the showgirl/stripper came into Father’s life that Lucia realized she might lose what she had a tenuous grip on. Her husband, her daughter, her standing in the community, and her beloved home in Carmel.

In the years after the “annulment” her mother fought for her. Father refused to allow her mother in the house when Connie was present. And Connie had the uncanny ability to show up when it was Lucia’s turn to visit. Finally, Sonny told his ex-wife she was disrupting his household and that she was no longer welcome. It wasn’t until years later that Frankie understood you did not go up against Sonny Donatello, not if you wanted to live, and that included ex-wives who wanted to see their daughters. Lucia Donatello dried up and blew out of Frankie’s life like an autumn leaf on a breezy day.

Frankie straightened her shoulders. If anything, her parents’ abandonment made her stronger. She’d learned early on to look out for herself, understanding full well that in her family it was survival of the fittest. If you were born with a penis, the family smiled on you. If you were born with a vagina, you were a second-class citizen. It wasn’t until the women of her family matured and took on matriarch status that they gained power, and only a precious few managed to do that.

With the back of her hand she wiped away a tear. The turmoil in her head mushroomed, spawning a headache. Something was very wrong, and she had no idea what it was.

On an impulse she called her mother. Lucia Analise Fazzio. Once a beautiful tigress of a dancer, now a former shell of herself. Santini did his work well. Once he forced Lucy from the family she came to love, she never recovered.

Her mother answered the phone on the first ring, her voice listless.

“Hello, Mama.”

A long silence followed Frankie’s greeting. “Mama, I need your help. Someone shot me last night.”

“Bella,
no!” Lucia’s voice resonated with shock — and life.

“Si,
last night at Unk’s. I took stitches in my arm.”

Anger sizzled across the airwaves. “Who? And why? What has your father done, the putz? From the grave, no less.”

What on earth had changed her mother from a reclusive divorcée into this spitfire? “Mama!”

“I’m over the bastard, darling, may he rot in hell.”

Had Frankie been standing, she would have fallen over.

“Bella,
I knew I should have called you earlier. I had a feeling something like this would come up. Get out of that town now. There’s no telling what rats will chew themselves out of the woodwork and come after you. Santini had more enemies than Mussolini, and I don’t want to see you caught up in it. Let them get hold of that rat-fink half brother of yours and his whore mother too! Come to Scottsdale with me.”

Jaw agape, Frankie held the phone in front of her and blinked. Who
was
this woman?

“I was quiet all of these years while that bastard nailed anything that wasn’t nailed down. Lord only knows how many little bastards he has, and no doubt they’ll be climbing out of the sewer for a piece of the action. Get away from them,
cara,
they’ll kill you like they did him.”

Finding her voice, Frankie coughed, then said, “Actually, I think the hit last night was on Unk, and I just happened to be in the way.”

“Another snake. Stay away from him.”

Frankie shook her head. “No, Mama, Unk is my only hope to hang on to
Skin.
Connie produced a codicil leaving everything to Anthony.”

“I doubt it’s authentic. That family has been known to pull the bait-and-switch routine. It’s how Santini ended up with my brother’s two houses in there in the city. You’d think the prick would have left them to you instead of that whore’s spawn.”

Frankie coughed so hard that tears filled her eyes. Once again, she wondered who this woman was. “Um, Mama, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years for your sake, to keep peace, to keep you in your father’s sights, but he always put that bastard son of his first, not his legitimate daughter.”

“He did marry Connie.”

“After
she gave birth to a son and he proved it was his through blood tests. I know for a fact last year he had a DNA test done to be one hundred percent certain.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“I have eyes and ears everywhere,
bella,
and it pays for me to know these things. I can assure you if there was any doubt about Anthony, I would have made a big stink about it. Sadly, he is the bastard’s little bastard.”

“Mama, where would Father have put his will? Or at the very least a notarized copy?”

“Carmine doesn’t have it?”

“No.”

“What about Aldo? He did all of your father’s personal paperwork.”

“Aldo turned up dead.”

“Ah, yes, how convenient for all parties involved. I smell a fish.”