Taste Me. Carrie Alexander

no. I always go for the best.” Oh, her parents would choke if they could hear her! While both of them had always preached modesty, they’d also wanted her to make something of herself—or at least marry very well. She’d disappointed them on all counts.

      “Hmm. I’ll keep that in mind for next year, when the new list is released.” Julian sighed and rubbed his chin. “It’s a tough task, but I’ll take it on. Wining, dining, kissing and seducing my way up the list…”

      If he was trying to make her jealous, he was succeeding.

      Nonsense. She tossed her head. “Whatever. As long as it’s not with me.”

      “Certainly not. I may never make it to the Number One slot you require. But a man’s got to try.”

      She picked up the heavy toolbox, lugged it toward the door, then thought better and set it down. “Here,” she said, digging into her pocket for another tissue. She handed it to Julian. The crooked purple numbers had dried on his forehead. He didn’t seem to mind, and he carried them off with a certain slapdash style, but she was feeling petty.

      “Reconsidering my offer?” Julian said, smirking at her like a cocky bastard as he scrubbed away the brand.

      She snapped to. “Absolutely not.”

      “Till next year, then,” he called after her as she wrapped her arms around the toolbox and hauled ass for the door. Show a guy like that one inch of vulnerability and he’d have her naked between the sheets before she could wrap her lips around a No, Thanks.

      “Have fun,” Mia muttered as the heavy metal door clanged shut. She stopped, shuddered as if a train had just whizzed past, then hefted her materials and headed for the street, making a mental note to invest her spare change in a condom factory now that Julian Silk was on a mission to seduce. If his reputation was correct, he’d already cut a swath through Manhattan. She’d better put out a warning bulletin to the boroughs.

      3

      A WEEK LATER, with many schemes regarding his seduction of Mia Kerrigan conjured and abandoned, Julian was still trying to figure out his next move when his kid sister, Nikki, came into the office looking for a job. Serendipity, he thought. She might be useful, for a change.

      Nikki was twenty-three, a recent college graduate, just returned from a grand tour of Europe—two months sunning in Ibiza, partying in London and wining and dining in Venice. When he’d asked about museums and landmarks, Nikki talked about power-boating with Guiseppe and lashing Simon at the Dungeon. Julian shuddered to think.

      “Jules, luv, you’ve got to give me a job!” In full drama princess mode, Nikki threw herself horizontally onto the new leather sofa that had replaced his dad’s old leather one. She swung her feet onto the armrest, kicking away a pillow needlepointed by their mother, beloved by their father and sneered at by the designer who’d “done” the office when Julian moved in.

      “Why?” he said, even though he already had an idea of how to combine their objectives. But Nikki had to think she’d persuaded him into giving her a real and valuable position in the company. She would treat a make-work job like the rest of her gifts—from the first edition Little Women left out in the rain to the Aston Martin she’d crumpled on the gatepost of their country house when she was applying lipstick in the rearview mirror while practicing her British accent.

      “I can’t be a decorative but useless heiress forever. Maybe for another few years, but what happens then?” Nikki waved her arms, happily chattering away while Julian listened with one ear while paging through his stack of messages. “Nobody cared about Stella McCartney until she started designing for Chloé. Gloria Vanderbilt had her jeans, Paloma Picasso did perfume….” She paused, reflecting on her ancient predecessors. And he’d thought she knew nothing about history.

      “Look at Sofia Coppola.” Nikki sighed. “I want to be my own person. I want respect. I mean, I didn’t go to all the trouble of hiring a look-alike ringer to take my college finals only to hang the degree on a wall and never use it. But does anyone—”

      Julian interrupted more forcefully. “Nikki, tell me you didn’t.”

      She grinned at him from her supine position, her long dark hair spread across the cushions. “You’re so easy to tease.”

      He rolled his eyes upward to ask his dad for forbearance, much as he had when Nikki had first informed him that she was getting a journalism degree so they could work side by side. If Jim Silk was watching, he was getting one helluva kick out of Nikki’s latest idea. Nothing would have made him happier than to see his girls kept safe and close under Julian’s protection. He’d said so, in fact, over the beep of heart monitors and the sobs of his wife. How could Julian decline the chore?

      But there were limits. “Nik, do you really think you can just march in here and be handed a plum job?”

      “Why not?” Nikki wrinkled her nose. “That’s the point of being the boss’s sister. And a shareholder. Anyway, who died and made you king?” She giggled at her wit. “Besides Dad.”

      “I worked my way up.” At his sister’s age, Julian had also hoped to choose his own career. Race-car driving, he remembered with some embarrassment. But he’d been the good son and had done as his father wished, starting as an intern at one of the Silk publications and moving from position to position until he knew all aspects of the business. When his father had died unexpectedly with the company in disarray, Julian had been well prepared to take over the reins.

      Nikki sat up and flung back her hair. Uh-oh. She must be serious.

      “I’m willing to do that,” she said. Quite earnestly. “I’m not asking to be the next Anna Wintour by tomorrow. I can start as a columnist.”

      Julian humored her. “What kind of columnist?”

      His sister scowled, distorting her pretty face. “I don’t want to tell you because I know you’ll say no.”

      “Oh god. Not Leather & Chrome,” he said, citing the motorcycle magazine that was one of their smaller, more obscure publications. Nikki had gone through a rebellious biker-chick phase when she was seventeen. Their father’s death had curtailed it before she could crack her head open or fall in with a truly dangerous crowd.

      “Julian! You know I’m a vegan now. Leather is cruel. Plus, it really stinks and it made me sweat like a pig.”

      “Of course. I forgot.” If something was a trend, Nikki would follow something.

      Aha. Trendy. Which of their magazines was hottest right now? That was where his sister would want to go.

      The answer came instantly: Hard Candy. Home of bikini-clad bimbos and tips on oral sex.

      Nikki would be employed there over his dead body.

      “How about a fashion magazine?” he suggested. That way, she’d only do damage to her credit cards.

      She shook her head. “High fashion is for rich old white women.”

      He wanted to ask her how much she’d paid for her spike-heeled boots, distressed jeans and the skimpy snipped-silk top that showed off her navel ring, but he resisted. The last time he’d questioned Nikki’s look, she’d come home with a tattoo that had sent their mother into a week-long dither. If he let her loose at Hard Candy, she’d be researching sex toys in a week. Or worse—posing for a spread wearing edible undergarments.

      “Watch out. I may start you at Puppy Monthly.” Julian turned over a page in the ad sales projections for next spring. “What ever happened to Frodo, anyway?” Frodo was the teacup Chihuahua Nikki had carried in a designer bag everywhere she went…for about a month.

      “He’s Mom’s now. She took him with her to the Vineyard while I was vacationing and got attached.”

      “So that’s who was yipping in the kitchen last time I visited. I thought the cook had gone off her Zoloft again.”

      “Are