Hard To Handle

Rory folded her arms, raised one eyebrow and gave her a direct look. “For how many people?” Her sister obviously knew a rat—even one with good intentions—when she smelled one.

Lauren nudged Mikki with her elbow. “Have you ever noticed how much she looks like Mom when she does that? Scary.”

“I always hated that look,” Mikki muttered.

“Because you knew she’d busted you cold,” Lauren reminded her.

“Well?” Rory impatiently prodded.

Mikki sucked in a quick breath that did nothing to alleviate the stab of guilt. “Five hundred.” She winced before adding, “Minimum.”

Lauren’s eyes rounded in surprise. “Mikki, you’ve always been pushy, but even you have to admit this time you just may have crossed the line.”

“I think I figured that one out, Lauren.”

“Are you for real?” Rory’s tone rose sharply, but contained no anger, only shocked disbelief.

Mikki couldn’t really blame her if she was angry. She had resorted to out-and-out manipulation, even if it was for Rory’s own good. Since she’d opened Lavender Field she’d been working too hard and it was time she let loose and had a little fun. Although whipping up baked goods for five-hundred-plus people didn’t exactly qualify as fun, she suddenly realized.

“I’ll help,” Mikki offered. She was a much better lawyer than a cook, and hoped her sister would forget that minute detail.

“Prepare baked goods and pastries for five hundred people or more with only four days’ notice?” Rory’s expression remained tough as nails even though she had an expert staff at her disposal. “You bet you will.”

“So will I,” Lauren added, leaning over to offer Mikki a sympathetic hug.

Rory shook her head. “Dammit, Mikki. I can’t believe you did this to me.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I should be shot. But think of all the great publicity for Lavender Field. With your fourth store opening soon, it can’t hurt.”

“Maureen’s really expecting five hundred people to show up for this thing?” Lauren asked.

“She’s hoping for twice that,” Mikki answered. “She’s sold five hundred tickets so far.”

“Impressive, but that’s hardly going to cover the cost of construction,” Rory pointed out.

“Maureen found a contractor willing to donate the work for free, and is arranging for subcontractors who’ll do the same. All she has to do is raise enough to cover the cost of materials,” Mikki explained. She turned to Lauren. “Could you do a story on the fund-raiser? This is San Francisco. You know how we love our causes. Who knows what kind of additional donations it might bring in for Baxter House. Maureen would love the free publicity.”

“Maybe,” Lauren said with a fair degree of hesitation, but Mikki could tell by her sister’s expression she was giving serious consideration to the idea.

“Maybe you should ask Maureen first,” Rory chided with a hint of sarcasm.

Mikki shot Rory an exasperated look. “I said I was sorry. Sheesh, do you want it in blood?”

Rory’s wry smile was slow in coming. “Flour will do just fine. And you’d better be here by six o’clock to start signing. Call it just deserts for volunteering my services.” She snorted. “And risking my dignity at a key party, of all things.”

Mikki she loved these women with all her heart. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact they never could say no to her.

BALANCING THREE DRINK glasses in her hands, Mikki nodded her thanks to the bartender then navigated the crush of charity-loving partygoers at Clementine’s to make her way back to the table where Rory and Lauren waited for her. A particularly attractive denim-covered ass caught her attention and she paused momentarily to check out the rest. Trim waist, wide shoulders and…oops. That little gold band on his left hand was more than enough of a deterrent for her to keep walking. Still, that ass definitely deserved a second glance and she shamelessly enjoyed the view as she passed.

A stocky guy with dark wavy hair sporting a small, twinkling diamond in his ear blatantly gave her the once-over as she moved closer to Rory and Lauren. Under normal circumstances, Mikki didn’t go out of her way to encourage men who came on to her, but she’d had a brutally disappointing day in court. She still couldn’t believe the judge had ordered the minor she’d been representing back into his junkie, trick-turning mother’s custody when the child’s paternal grandparents were willing to assume his care. Despite Mikki’s strenuous objections, the judge had ruled in favor of the boy’s biological mother, but Mikki knew from experience the kid would be back in the system within a few months, with who knew how many new emotional scars.

The guy with the earring winked at her. Maybe some safe but mindless sex would take the edge off, she thought. She usually preferred the role of the aggressor. Her party, her rules. As long as she called the shots, she stayed in control, which was the only way she liked it.

Diamond Jim did have a pair of gorgeous, clear green eyes that perhaps made him worthy of a pithy innuendo about locks and keys. At least until he nudged the guy next to him and made an obscene gesture about the generous size of her breasts.

She considered pouring her drink over his head as she passed, but couldn’t justify wasting a perfectly good diet soda on a classless jerk. Instead, she shot him a cold look and kept moving.

In an era where reed-thin models graced the covers of nearly every magazine on the stands, she had the kind of body that had gone out of fashion five decades ago. As one of her previous lovers had told her after she’d shown him the exit, she had a body made for sin, but the heart of an ice queen.

She’d laughed in his face as she held the door open for him, all because he’d kept pressing her for a commitment. She’d warned him she wasn’t into exclusive relationships, but he hadn’t listened. Why was the concept of a no-strings affair so difficult to grasp? Men did it all the time, but when a woman wanted to do the same, she was called coldhearted or worse. She’d already found and lost her one true love—if such a thing even existed—but it had ended badly and she had no desire to repeat the experience. Ever.

“Don’t you just love a good buffet?” Lauren said when Mikki reached their table, now laden with small oval platters, one of them heaped with various tidbits and a small sampling of the goodies from Rory’s shop—thankfully prepared by Rory and her competent staff. Rory had lightened up and hadn’t forced Mikki to actually keep her word when she’d arrived to help. She’d even added a prize of her own to the cause with a day behind the scenes at Lavender Field along with a month’s supply of baked goods.

“Who wouldn’t?” Mikki answered, carefully setting their drinks amid the array of food. “There’s always bound to be just the right combination to sate most any appetite.” She paused while handing Lauren her drink to blatantly follow the progress of a tall, athletically built Adonis with sun-kissed blond hair and a confident swagger striding toward the black-and-white-tiled dance floor.

Rory made a minor adjustment to the shimmering lilac shawl draped loosely over her shoulders before taking a tentative sip of her white wine. “I have a feeling she’s not talking about the food,” she said to Lauren over the din of conversation.

“Does she ever think of anything besides sex?” Lauren returned with a laugh, taking her drink from Mikki.

Mikki perched on the stool and carefully tugged down the hem of her short, black sleeveless dress. “Not really,” she said, before taking a sip of soda. God, what she wouldn’t give for a real drink. She’d even settle for one of Lauren’s favored frou-frou blended numbers—a sign of true desperation.

Lauren let out a weighty sigh. “Don’t you ever want more from a relationship than sex?”

“Sex is the only relationship I’m interested in, thank you very much.” A long and lean stud looked her way. She smiled at him and slowly lifted the delicate white-gold chain around her neck, the small suitcase charm Maureen had given her upon arriving swinging enticingly in front of her cleavage. His deep-set eyes filled with regret as he shrugged and displayed empty hands.

She let out a sigh. Damn. No key. Not every guest at Clementine’s had opted to purchase a lock or key ticket, although they had paid the rather steep entrance fee to the private party. The few moments she’d had to speak to Maureen upon arriving, her friend had been ecstatic about the money being raised for Baxter House. There’d even been a sizable donation from one of the wealthy and privileged Telegraph Hill set.

“Don’t you ever look at a guy—like him for instance—” Lauren inclined her head in the keyless stud’s direction “—and wonder if he could be the one?”

Mikki forced a laugh. She’d found “the one” once and, as a matter of self-preservation, she’d pushed him away. Hell would freeze over before she ever went there again. She had too many skeletons in her closet and preferred to keep them locked away, something a serious relationship wouldn’t permit, not when trust required a certain level intimacy she had no interest in exploring.

Keep it simple, keep it short, keep them from getting close enough to see what she kept hidden in the closet. That was her motto, and she was sticking to it—with the tenacity of a pit bull.

“The one to make me scream with pleasure?” she replied with her usual flippancy whenever Lauren started with the Cinderella propaganda. “All the time.”

“No,” Lauren said, her tone serious. “Settle down. Buy real estate.” She studied the creamy liquid in her glass, appropriately called a White Knight. “Have a family.”

“I don’t need a man for that,” Mikki said with more brittle laughter. “Just a better-paying job.” She let out a weary sigh. “I don’t have the intrinsic need most women do to nest. I’m a realist, Lauren. Not a romantic.”

Lauren lifted her clear hazel gaze to give her a pointed look. “What about a family?”

Mikki shrugged, but the unexpected weight settling on her shoulders refused to budge. “You, Rory and Mom are my family.” She downed a large portion of her diet cola. The sorry substitute did nothing to quell the sudden sharp craving for something a whole lot more potent than an innocuous soft drink.

“I meant a family of your own,” Lauren pressed. “You’d make a great mother, Mikki. I hope you realize that someday.”

No way. Not her. Never.

She knew exactly what her sister meant and she resented the reminder. She suffered with more sorrow than she’d ever admit to over her decision to never have children. But she couldn’t change the past. She was who she was—a Correlli. And the bloodline ended with her. Period. She’d learned to accept her fate—why wouldn’t anyone else?