Elite 03 Simply Irresistible Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  plaza suite

  cram session

  beautiful stranger

  rewriting history

  multiple choice

  make up and make out

  three, two, one . . . blast off

  it’s only rawk and roll, but i like it

  let’s get it on

  london calling

  cold as ice

  the breakfast club

  california dreaming

  uncomfortable silences

  the first cut is the deepest . . .

  candy stripping

  i’m dreaming of a green christmas . . .

  secrets and lies

  coffee . . . date?

  guess who’s coming to dinner . . .

  ménage à trois

  slipping and falling

  uptown lounge

  british invasion

  silver bells

  what comes around goes around

  crushed

  revelations

  de-luxe

  Berkley JAM titles by Jennifer Banash

  THE ELITE

  IN TOO DEEP

  SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Banash.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  BERKLEY® JAM and the JAM logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley JAM trade paperback edition / July 2009

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Banash, Jennifer.

  Simply irresistible / Jennifer Banash.—Berkley JAM trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: With rivals Casey and Madison set to star in their own reality show, Madison ponders just how much of her life of privilege she wants to reveal, while Casey wonders how much of her luxurious New York City lifestyle is an illusion.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-08213-3

  [1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Wealth—Fiction. 3. Reality television programs—Fiction. 4. Identity—Fiction. 5. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 6. New York (N. Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B2176Sim 2009

  [Fic]—dc22 2009011230

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

  —OSCAR WILDE

  plaza suite

  Madison Macallister tossed her platinum blond hair back from her shoulders and snuggled more deeply into the cable-knit, ivory cashmere sweater that hung to her thighs. Her legs, encased in dark-washed skinny jeans so tight they appeared painted on, looked even longer and more stemlike than usual due to the stretchy denim that hugged every morsel of flesh from her nonexistent waist to her delicate ankles. Skinny jeans are better than a fucking corset, Mad thought as she leaned ever so slightly across the table and reached for the gleaming white and gold porcelain teapot. Not that she needed one. With her statuesque figure, glowing skin, green, slightly upturned eyes, and endless legs sheathed in winter white, knee-high suede Marc Jacobs boots, Madison Macallister was an icon of Upper East Side teen perfection—and she intended to keep it that way. And now that there were cameras in her face on a daily basis, obsessively roaming over and recording every inch of her envied and celebrated body, she couldn’t afford to be careless about what she shoved in her mouth . . .

  Madison poured the fragrant Lapsang souchong tea into a thin Spode teacup and raised it to her cranberry-glossed lips, ignoring the tall silver tray of tiny cucumber sandwiches and perfectly plump petit fours iced in sugary shades of lavender and rose, and looked around at the Plaza Hotel’s freshly revamped dining room, sighing happily. When she was little, she’d read the Eloise books over and over again until their pages were stained and tattered, entranced by the antics of the precocious six-year-old who ran the lavish Upper East Side hotel as if it were her own private three-ring circus. After all, one of Madison’s most beloved games as a child was pretending she was Eloise and that her stuffed monkey, Binky (who’d been loved so hard that his fur was missing in clumps), was Eloise’s nanny. Madison would sit on the floor of her bedroom, a Fisher-Price telephone in her lap, and make pretend calls to room service, ordering—in a voice that was already slightly imperious—a cup of tea for Nanny and two sunflower seeds for her turtle Skipperdee, “And charge it, please. Thank you very much.” Ever since Madison was five years old, Edie would take her to the Plaza each December for a “girls’ day out,” which usually included a long afternoon tea with plenty of sandwiches and cake, and then a mani-pedi at Elizabeth Arden, where Edie would proceed to pop Valium like a maniac, then babble nonsensically to Madison, the manicurist, the chair across the room—until Madison finally peeled Edie’s Amex from her wallet and handed it over to the receptionist, who’d most definitely seen it all before.

  Even though the Plaza had been freshened up a bit, Madison was relieved to see that nothing had really changed—there were still the same opulent, enticingly fragrant bouquets of flowers on every available surface; still the same garden- themed dining room with its airy, muted fabrics; still the same oil portrait of Eloise that hung just off the lobby, her small, mischievous face framed in softly glowing gold leaf. And December was the perfect time for a visit since the hotel was draped every holiday season without fail in sparkling white fairy lights and sweet-smelling pine garlands. A huge Christmas tree sat in the center of the dining room, snow-colored lights twinkling merrily, red velvet bows and gleaming silver balls affixed to its towering branches. Going to the Plaza with Edie for their holiday ritual was the only time Madison actually looked forward to spending with her annoying and Valium-obsessed mother all year long—until now.

  Ever since P
ulse TV had begun filming De-Luxe, a new reality show that was being touted as “a look inside the lives of the Upper East Side’s REAL Gossip Girls,” she’d barely had a moment to herself. Each day was filled with school, and then shoots that often stretched on well into the evening. Even now, the bright halogen lights shone in her face, making her glisten in a way she hoped wasn’t too obvious on camera. Mad bit her bottom lip and prayed that the droplets of sweat that were threatening to make their way out of her pores wouldn’t begin slowly rolling down her face. She wrinkled her brow as she remembered last week’s shoot on the front steps of Meadowlark, how they had to constantly pause so the makeup artist could repeatedly blot Casey’s disgustingly sweaty face. At least I only sweat when there’s some obnoxious, nuclear-powered light in my face, Mad thought, wrinkling her brow and running the tip of her tongue surreptitiously over her teeth to be sure they were lipgloss-free. Casey was such a total disaster in every way possible that it was hard not to look good next to her on camera.

  But if Mad had learned anything from seeing herself on tape, it was that the camera, with its sweeping, meticulous gaze, noticed absolutely everything—not to mention the fact that De-Luxe had no script to speak of. Not that it was a problem. If there was one thing that Mad knew she excelled at, it was inventing drama—and Madison Macallister practically had a Ph.D. in creating her own real-life soap operas. But she had always assumed, much like everyone else in the world, that the reality shows on Pulse were completely scripted, so she’d been surprised when the producer, Melanie, had been so hands-off with their dialogue from the very beginning,

  “Why would we script it?” Melanie had barked the day Madison and Casey had arrived at the Pulse offices to sign their contracts. Melanie had pushed her tangle of red curls away from her pale face with exasperation before continuing, slamming her hand down on the table for emphasis. “Your real life is better than any crap we could make up!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Madison snapped, reaching over and grabbing the pen from Casey’s hand and scrawling her signature at the bottom of the stack of pages piled in front of them.

  Needless to say, the late nights and the grueling schedule were really screwing with both her social life and her academic performance, which as of late had been less than stellar—not that she was all that worried about it. Madison’s problems, academic or otherwise, usually had a way of working themselves out—in her favor, of course . . . There was also the added headache of having to see the insufferable Ms. McCloy both in and out of school on a goddamn daily basis. Actually, she wasn’t really that bad . . . Madison shook her head rapidly, trying to wipe the thought from her brain. God, all this holiday cheer and ho-ho-hoing was really getting to her. Well, at least she hadn’t said it out loud . . .

  Madison watched as her mother, Edith Spencer Macallister, brought her teacup to her lips, her expert maquillage and freshly blown-out blond shoulder-length mane obscured by a cloud of sweet-smelling white steam. Edie had taken to the cameras like a debutante to couture, and as a result her face looked tighter and even more plasticky than usual—thanks to the increasing visits to her dermatologist’s office. Now that she and Antonio were officially an item, Edie, paranoid and random as ever, had decided that she needed all the help she could get in order to “keep up” with not only the TV cameras, but her younger man as well. To make matters worse, Edie had just embarked on some ridiculous detox diet where the only thing that would pass her seriously augmented lips for the next two weeks would be bottles of pee-colored lemon water mixed with cayenne pepper and maple syrup. The thought of such a regime was enough to make Madison almost regurgitate her Lapsang souchong all over the spotless white tablecloth.

  Actually, she didn’t know what was more nauseating—Edie’s diet, or the fact that Edie and Antonio, a gorgeous Italian scout from Verve Model Management who had stopped Madison on the street in October, were now an item. Even though she’d decided pretty quickly that the life of a super-model wasn’t for her, what made the whole thing even harder to take was that she hadn’t exactly felt the same way about Antonio. The night of Sophie’s sweet sixteen he’d ended up going home with her mother, of all people. The thought was enough to make her gag reflex stop working permanently from bouts of constant dry heaving.

  “Darling.” Edie beamed, placing her cup back onto its saucer. “I don’t want to ruin our time together today. But we do need to talk about something rather serious.” Edie’s smile was replaced by a worried look as the camera moved in for a closeup. Crap, Mad thought, exhaling loudly and looking down at her tea. Here we go . . . “I’ve spoken to your academic advisor at Meadowlark and your recent grades are completely unacceptable.”

  Edie’s voice was suddenly as brittle as the icicles hanging from the tops of the buildings lining Fifth Avenue—and every bit as cold. The gold Kenneth Jay Lane bracelets lining her wrists jingled with a tinny, metallic sound as she waved her hands expansively for emphasis. “If you’re going to have even the faintest shot at getting into Harvard, you are going to have to step things up. And if you don’t,” Edie paused to dig in her beige Chanel tote for an amber-colored prescription bottle, swallowing a small, yellow pill before continuing, “then I’ll be forced to pull you from the show—no exceptions. You need to concentrate on your future for a change.”

  Madison rolled her eyes and picked up a small, pink cookie, biting down angrily. Screw calories. As the shiny icing broke between her teeth like crusted snow, Mad knew that as much as it killed her to admit it, for once her mother was actually right. She had been ignoring her schoolwork—along with most everything else in her cluttered, jumbled, seriously over-committed life. But it was kind of hard to concentrate on the pointlessness of world history or algebra when total stardom was waiting just around the corner . . .

  “Edie, cara. There you are.” Madison whipped her head around at the sound of Antonio’s mellifluous Italian accent, her cheeks bulging with unchewed pastry. Mad swallowed hard, brushing the crumbs from her jeans. This was clearly just what she needed: Wasn’t it bad enough that her own mother had stolen her almost-maybe-potential-boyfriend right from under her nose, but did she really have to sit here and watch these two over-the-hill lovebirds moon all over each other in broad daylight?

  “Antonio!” Edie trilled, holding out her cheek for Antonio to kiss as he slid into the chair beside her. “So glad you could make it.”

  “Bella,” Antonio said softly, looking over at Madison, his dark eyes the color of the ultra-decadent chocolate truffles at La Maison du Chocolat. “So good to see you again.”

  Even with a massive case of five-o’clock shadow obscuring his chiseled jaw and wearing a rumpled, navy velvet Gucci blazer, Antonio was still annoyingly hot. Mad rolled her eyes and looked away as Antonio took Edie’s hand in his own, kissing it lightly.

  “Oh my God,” Mad said sarcastically as Antonio pulled himself away from Edie’s overly manicured paw. “Am I hallucinating? Edie, what is he doing here?”

  “Well, I just thought that he could—” Madison cut Edie off by putting her palm in the air and raising one eyebrow in disbelief.

  “Antonio?” Madison trilled sweetly. “Have you suddenly grown a vagina? Because we’re supposed to be having a girls’ day out.”

  Madison’s sweet smile turned into a satisfied smirk as she watched Antonio’s smile fade, and his face became suffused with color as he looked quickly away from her gaze and over at Edie helplessly. Don’t count on it, Madison mused smugly as she watched Edie reach for Antonio’s hand again, grasping it firmly in her own, her heavily outlined eyes widening in disbelief.

  “Just ignore her,” Edie said smoothly to Antonio, smiling widely as if a million-watt bulb had just been switched on in her brain. “Madison gets positively insufferable around the holidays.”

  “It’s not the holidays, Mom,” Madison snapped, pulling her phone from her Cesare Paciotti black calfskin bag and checking for missed calls—if only to distract herself from the
overwhelming sense of annoyance and anger that was making her blood boil like a steaming Jacuzzi. “It’s the fact that you thought it was appropriate to invite Ricky Martin here to the one family tradition we have left.”

  “Look, cara.” Antonio turned back to Madison and stared at her, his expression neutral as Switzerland. “I do not mean to cause any problems between you both, and I certainly do not wish to be where I’m clearly unwanted.” Antonio stood up, pulling a pair of black Gucci aviators over his eyes.

  “At least he can take a hint,” Madison muttered under her breath as she drained the rest of her tea, making a face as it was now ice-cold. As Antonio turned around to leave, Edie jumped from her seat and grabbed onto his arm. Madison’s mouth fell open as she watched Edie hanging on Antonio’s arm like a three-year-old in a bakery begging for more bon bons. Desperate much? Mad thought disgustedly as she rolled her green eyes and popped another heavily frosted petit four into her mouth. God, it was bad enough that Antonio was about a million years younger than her cradle-robbing mother, but did she have to make such an embarrassing spectacle of herself in public? Not to mention on camera?

  “Antonio, darling,” Edie said, reaching up and twining her arms around his neck, “You simply must stay for a while. I won’t take no for an answer!” Madison watched in horror as Antonio smiled down at Edie then bent his lips to hers, brushing them lightly. When their lips broke apart, they stood there gazing into each other’s eyes like they were hypnotized. Am I still here? Mad thought in disbelief, her mouth falling open. She watched as Edie led Antonio back to the table and sat down next to him, reaching for the silver tray and popping a hunk of cake into his mouth while they cooed nonsensically at each other like a pair of demented, designer-clad lovebirds.