Strictly Business
By
Aubrianna Hunter
Edited,
Produced, and Published by Writer’s Edge Publishing 2013
All
rights reserved.
©
2013 by Aubrianna Hunter.
rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Strictly Business
Siochain
Beyond The Flesh
Table of Contents
Chapter
1
Jessica stepped out of the shower and onto the rug, grabbing
her towel and quickly drying herself off. She spared a glance at the clock she
kept on her bathroom counter.
Good, plenty of time
. She bent down to
wrap the towel around her hair. As she stood up straight, she looked at herself
in the mirror. Typical girl thing, checking for flaws. She wondered if she
would start to see more soon. She would be thirty in less than six months.
Wasn’t that when everyone said your body started to go to hell?
For now at least, she saw what she always saw. Fair skin,
long legs, at least long for her height. She was only five-four after all. Her
hips curved out, always wider than she would’ve liked, topped by a tiny waist.
Way too small for the rest of her. Her boobs, on the other hand, were always
too large. She had the hourglass shape every woman wanted, just too much of it.
She turned backwards, looking over her shoulder. Her butt was still tight and
firm, thanks in large part to her workouts five days a week. Even with the
exercise, she was carrying about five pounds she would like to get rid of. She
knew she was fit and toned, she worked at it. She was not thin, not in the
classically elegant way her family was. Her family members were all built like
runway models. Even her sister Chantel, who had a slight problem with alcohol
lately, maintained that elegant, lithe appearance. Her family was all GQ and
runway models. Jessica was Penthouse.
She took a deep breath and sighed. Her face wasn’t really
any better. She had very sharp elegant features, very similar to that of her
family. Her mother called it ‘breeding’. Sharp and elegant except for her mouth
and her eyes. Her lips were always red and slightly puffy, like she’d just been
thoroughly kissed. And her eyes, well, her eyes were a problem. They were
silver. Not blue, like most of her family, not even light blue. Nor the green
that ran through her father’s side. Her doctor called them gray, as did her driver’s
license, but the God’s honest truth was silver. No one in her family knew where
they had come from, and it had always been an unspoken problem between her
parents. Not to mention, they were just weird looking. Since her face looked
more like her mother’s, there wasn’t much of her father in her appearance. She
did get his hair color, which was dark brown, all but black, but that was it.
And her hair was curly, not straight like his was. Speaking of hair, she pulled
hers out of the towel and tried to pat it dry a little more. She knew it would
take an hour to dry, and she needed time to put it up before she left for work.
Her hair was her one vanity. She knew that for practical
purposes she should cut it, but she loved it long. So, it hung down almost to her
waist in long, silky black waves. She always pinned it up into an extremely
tight bun before work, but she just couldn’t bear to cut it off. She ran her
brush through it, luxuriating in the feel of her damp silky hair swirling
around her bare shoulders, arms, and even across her breasts.
While it was still down, drying, she headed to the bathroom
sink to put in her contacts. She didn’t need them to see, her vision was
perfect, as was all of her family’s. That was the one thing she definitely had
in common with them. But she chose to wear brown colored contacts. She was
never without them unless she was home alone. She had been told her whole life
that her eyes drew too much attention. As she got older and filled in, along
with the dark hair, her mother had encouraged her to try to hide some of her
more startling characteristics. Since then she’d always tried to play down her
eyes, and her figure.
Once the contacts were in, she headed to her room to get
dressed. She reached into her lingerie drawer and smiled. If her hair was her
vanity, then her little secret was her lingerie. She always wore lacy, silky,
very sexy panties and bras. And they always matched. She just loved the feel of
the silk and lace against her skin. She had always been a little too sensual to
please her mother. Always reveled in touch, textures, tastes. Even little
things like playing in the mud. That was just not something a Wythe did! But
Jessica had loved it, sneaking away whenever she could to the trees just beyond
the stables. She’d loved to feel the wet Virginia clay squishing through her
fingers. Yet another way she had been too different for her family.
With her sassy red underwear in place, Jess reached into her
closet and pulled out a very boring, somewhat boxy gray suit. Slacks today.
Then she pulled out a black shell blouse and the matching black pumps. They
were low heeled and simple. She completed the outfit with the plain silver
necklace and hoop earrings. Nothing too fancy.
Her closet was a treasure. It was huge, bigger than either
of the guest rooms in her house. She’d had it customized inside so there was a
place for everything. Her wardrobe was divided into parts. She had her business
suits, all very bland and dull. Nothing particularly attractive. They were all
high quality, designed to scream success, while detracting from her figure. All
in neutral colors. Then there was the casual country club section. The clothing
she needed to wear whenever she saw her family. Mostly in pastels and very
girly. She always tried for elegant, but with her body it was tough to pull
off, so she usually ended up with simple pants suits and a few sheath dresses.
They tended to hide her curves a little bit. Her mother gave her less grief
over those outfits. She was always telling Jessica to be careful. That, due to
her curves, she had a tendency to look ‘loose’. The funny part was that Jessica
was anything but loose. In fact, she might be the only twenty-nine year old
virgin left in the United States.
There was also a section in her closet for her very casual
clothes. This was the type of thing she wore around the house, and also what
she needed when she was out on a construction site. Yes, next to the country
club attire, she did own flannel and construction boots!
The next section was evening gowns, formal wear, etc; her
closet was a weird jumble of things, that somehow represented her life
perfectly.
She took stock of her suit in the full length mirror and
headed to the bathroom to do her hair. She braided the top then twisted the
whole thing into a severe bun. She applied her makeup, which was minimal. Some
light concealer, mascara, brown eye shadow, and a peach lip gloss. She looked
at the overall finished product, decided she would pass muster and headed
downstairs for coffee.
Jessica’s appearance was not the only thing that didn’t fit
with her family. Her family was old Virginia money. There had been a family
member at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and they’d been in
Virginia ever since. There were Governors, Congressmen, Senators etc in her
family as far back as she could remember. Her father, Jonathan Wythe, was
currently gearing up to run for Governor. He also owned about half the state in
property. Her mother, Sharon Smith Wythe, was a debutante. She had gone to
college, a finishing school in Switzerland. Then she’d come home and had been
engaged to Jess’s father within a year. That was what was expected in her
family. College, only to say you were well educated, and then marriage to
another prominent family. It seems silly in modern times, but it was
essentially one step up from arranged marriages.
Sometimes you got lucky, like Jessica’s sister Dana. She had
just turned twenty-seven and was blissfully wed to Jason Sinclair and expecting
their first child, a boy, in four months. Jessica was truly happy for her
sister.
Other times, you ended up like her older sister. She married
her college sweetheart, David Darnell, another prominent family from South
Carolina. She still had no children, David cheated on her with multiple mistresses,
and Chantel had developed a bit of a drinking problem. Her parents were
considering sending her away ‘on vacation’ to dry her out. She was completely
miserable, and unable to leave him. Wythes do not divorce.
Jessica had taken her own road. She had gone to college and
pursued her Master’s Degree in architecture. She was now one of the most
successful and requested architects at her firm, Brundel and Schein. She’d
moved to Austin, Texas for two reasons. One was to work with this firm. They
were one of the top design firms in the nation, getting business from all over
the country. She designed and built a lot of large office structures, always
trying to make them attractive as well as functional, and she had earned a
reputation for excellence. Most of the men she worked with hated her, although
they all respected her as well. She had a reputation for being an ice bitch,
and when it came to work, she was. She was shooting to be the youngest partner
their firm had ever had. Hopefully within this next year.
The second reason was to be nearer her friends.
Her two best friends in the world were Cindy Shepard, an
interior designer, and Mike Jacobson. Mike was also the only construction
foreman Jess would use. He was the same age as her, from a middle class working
family in Dallas. They should have absolutely nothing in common, but he just
seemed to ‘get’ her. She’d met him and Cindy both in college. The three had
been friends ever since.
She had always been comfortable around Mike, even though he
flirted with her shamelessly. They’d tried dating for a few weeks one time, but
it had been incredibly awkward. She thought he felt the same way, because
they’d had no problem going back to being friends afterward. They were each
other’s standby dates for major events and work functions. The type of
functions where you needed an escort, but you didn’t want to bring your latest
fling. Or at least, his latest fling. Jess didn’t do flings.
Cindy was just shy of a sister, and really Jess was closer
to her than she was to either of her sisters. She was everything Jess wasn’t.
Tall, lithe, blonde and a little bit crazy. She was living, breathing color.
Vibrant. And Jess loved her. Whereas Jess avoided relationships, Cindy went
through men at the same rate most women bought shoes. She loved men, all of
them, although Jess didn’t think Cindy had ever truly been in love. Usually,
she left a string of broken hearts behind her.
Jess, on the other hand, wasn’t even in any relationship,
much to her mother’s chagrin. She had no interest in getting married, in giving
up her career and giving someone else control of her life. She also, foolishly,
hoped for Love. The Love with a capital L! She wanted someone to literally
sweep her off her feet, or it wasn’t worth the trouble. That was why she was a
virgin at her advanced age. She’d been too busy, trying to make her place in
the world, away from her family. And now, she just felt like it should be more.
She did regret that she might never have children, but luckily her sister was
working on that for her. She would get to be the greatest aunt in the world!
As she grabbed her purse and headed out the door for work,
she smiled. Life was good. And the meeting she had this morning might just make
it better. She was meeting with Mr. Brundel about a new, very promising,
personal residence for a very wealthy Wyoming rancher.