“I know,” Keegan purred. “Your cell phone was ringing.”
Jessa dug her cell out of her tote. She had two missed calls from Myra. She dialed her back as she moved to the railing.
“Jessa! Thank God. You are not going to believe this, but I’m saving the best for last,” Myra said, her voice filled with excitement. “We got an offer for you to be on a popular reality show that I’m still getting details on because I know how you feel about those. A modeling agency for fuller-figured models is interested in seeing some test shots. A ton of interview requests have come in since the news of the lawsuit. But that’s nothing. Are you sitting?”
Jessa’s head was already flooded with everything Myra dropped on her. She barely had time to process any of it. “Actually, I’m standing by the rail of a beautiful yacht overlooking the Hamptons,” she said, trying to put a speed bump in Myra’s path.
“Well, sit your pregnant ass down before you fall overboard.”
Jessa turned and spotted the captain watching her with his arms crossed over his strong chest. She turned her back on him as she sat down on the lounge chair. “Go, Myra.”
“Several major publishers have contacted our firm about you doing a book, and we’re talking a six-figure advance or better.”
A book? Saying what? Who would read it?
Jessa shook her head to clear it. Speaking engagements? Interviews? Modeling? Reality TV? Books?
“Myra, this all is more than I was looking for,” Jessa said, feeling nervous about her new fame for the first time.
“I told you that I had big plans for you and I wasn’t kidding,” she said. “So you enjoy the night in the Hamptons and you get back to Jersey, because we got business to take care of. Big business.”
Click.
Was Aria right? Had this all become nothing but big business. Her own Mistress, Inc. or some shit? And if it was a fabulous by-product on her road to salvation, was it wrong?
Chapter 9
It was very early in the morning, before the sunset, as Jessa lay quiet and reflective in the middle of her bed with her eyes cast out the window at the full moon, when she felt her baby move for the first time. She gasped a little in surprise as her body went still and she waited—and wanted—to feel something again.
“Maybe it was gas,” she said into the quiet as she raised her silk pajama top and pressed her hands to her bared belly. Her baby bump was noticeable and she had begun buying new clothes one size bigger and looser flowing, but she had yet to really feel the baby move. At just under sixteen weeks, the doctor assured her all was well and she had plenty of movement she probably thought was gas, but she had been waiting for this moment. And so she lay silently waiting to feel that flutter again.
Moments later, she felt regret and a little stupid that she missed such a big milestone in her pregnancy or overestimated a gas bubble shooting through her intestines. All was well with the pregnancy, and Keegan was anxious to change one of the smaller bedrooms across from her suite into a beautiful nursery—once Jessa was safely out of her second trimester. She didn’t want to jinx the pregnancy.
Jessa Bell was sure with every passing day that she wanted this baby more than anything. Her life was going to change, but she was determined to maintain some normalcy. She refused to become one of the stained sweat suit, sneakers, and ponytail-wearing moms who smelled of nothing but Similac and dirty diapers.
Jessa planned to show all these biddies how to do Glamorous Mommy ... or die trying. She wanted to do this herself. She wanted to prove she could do it for this baby. Well, with a little assistance from a reputable nanny when business called her away from home.
“I promise I will be there for you and I will destroy anyone who tries to hurt you,” she swore into the cool darkness of the room as she turned over onto her side and pulled her knees up as far as she could.
She looked up to the skies. “I’m sorry, God, but I’m just being honest. If someone messes with this baby, then vengeance will be mine.”
She was ready now to be a mother. To wear the stylish flats to make sure she didn’t trip once her body defied balance at eight or nine months. To give birth. Jessa frowned deeply. Okay, I’m almost ready for that.
To bathe her baby. Coo to her babe. To smell her baby’s neck and plant kisses on its belly. To see every moment and milestone of their life as they grew. To do hair. Cook dinner. Help with homework. Pluck the heads of any bullies and stand strong to fight any parent. First dates. First heartbreaks. First jobs and first cars.
Jessa’s eyes filled with tears that were made up of happiness and past regrets.
And she wouldn’t have men in and out of her life. Jessa couldn’t count how many of her mother’s boyfriends had flittered in and out of her life. Some names she remembered. Some faces she forgot.
And the baby was already affecting her love life—or at least her sex life.
Jessa stretched her limbs in the satin pajamas she wore as she thought about the sexy captain. She bit her bottom lip and smiled as she remembered the heat of his hands on her body. His dick would have been just as hard and hot inside of her. And he wanted this pussy too, she thought. She remembered how his eyes had followed her for the rest of their day on the yacht.
If she hadn’t been pregnant—and promised the Lord she wouldn’t have sex until she married of course—Jessa would have pushed him down onto the nearest chair, step, or bed and rode him hard.
Hmmm. He said he could put my glass dildo to shame.
Jessa had always had a healthy sexual appetite. She was in tune to her body’s needs and wants. And right now she felt like she needed and wanted to cum. Sighing in frustration, and fighting the urge to lube up her glass dick, Jessa kicked off the covers and walked across the room to her balcony.
She wrapped her arms around herself because of the little bit of coolness in the air. She shifted her eyes about the many backyards of Richmond Hills. Nothing stirred. Nothing looked awry.
It was the epitome of upwardly mobile, high-end suburbia. Perfection ... to those who didn’t know any better. Jessa smirked and shook her head. The gossip mill was filled with stories of wives torturing their husbands because of their fears that sexy widow Jessa Bell had one or more of their husbands caught by the dick hairs.
Those dumb, insecure bitches didn’t have a clue.
She wasn’t looking for a man.
Not the warmth and security of a man like Henry from church.
Not the passion and promise of a powerful penis like Tyson the captain.
And definitely no married men.
Maybe once she had the baby and settled into motherhood, she would start to date and contemplate falling in love, but for now? None of these suburban saps had to worry. Not about me anyway.
That Friday was the annual Black & White Charity Ball benefiting the several charities the Richmond Hills community supported as a whole. Jessa had forgotten all about it until her tickets arrived last week. They could have saved the trees. She had no intention of breaking bread with people who hated or suspected her.
Aria, Renee, and Jaime glaring at her all night? Jessa felt like she’d rather fuck a tree root.
Sighing, she settled down onto the chair and crossed her legs just as she spotted a dark shadow exiting the Grayson’s home across from hers. She squinted her eyes and rose back to her feet as she watched the male figure cross the backyard. Tall trees and bushes blocked the figure from her sight, but Jessa—who was thoroughly enjoying the early-morning shenanigans that reminded her of Eric sneaking from her house back in the day—shifted her eyes to the break in the trees. Sure enough, the shadowy figured reappeared and entered the wooden fence surrounding the Regan’s backyard before scurrying across the yard and into the house through the patio doors.
So, Mr. Regan is fucking Mrs. Grayson. Hmmm.
Hypocrites. Cari Regan and Halle Grayson were some of the main women in Richmond Hills to make sure Jessa felt their cold shoulders.
“You know what.
I’m going to kill two dumb birds and a cock with one stone,” she muttered, entering her bedroom and picking up her cordless phone. She quickly dialed the Regan’s number.
It rang twice. “Hello,” Cari Regan snapped.
“Cari, hi, this is Jessa. Your neighbor around the corner—”
“Do you know what time it is?” she snapped.
Jessa strolled out onto her balcony again and watched as a light on the second floor of the Regan’s home suddenly came on. “Certainly too early—or maybe too late—for your husband to be sneaking from Halle Grayson’s home, especially since her husband is overseas on business,” Jessa told her with way too much pleasure.
“What?” Cari snapped.
“See, you’re so busy watching me that you are completely missing that he is definitely banging out Halle in her husband’s absence,” Jessa drawled, smirking as another light on the second level suddenly illuminated.
“Cari, what’s wrong?” Hunter Regan’s voice suddenly filled the phone line.
Were the Regans sleeping in separate bedrooms? Or was that his home office and he was pulling the whole “I worked late into the night and didn’t want to disturb you” bit?
“I don’t know what you are trying to prove calling me with this bullshit—”
“I bet his slippers are muddy, and if you walk out your back door and follow the footsteps from where they came, they lead straight to the back door of Halle Grayson,” Jessa said. “Oh, and you’re welcome.”
Beep.
She held the phone as she eased down onto the chair. Moments later, the Regan’s kitchen light came on and then Cari flew out the door looking down at the ground as she descended the steps of their deck and walked across the backyard to the door in the fence.
“You lying fuck, you!” she screamed as she turned and pointed her finger.
“Umph, umph, umph. Lookey here, lookey here.” Jessa’s eyes followed her line of vision and saw Hunter standing on the deck in his pajamas.
“Cari, come inside,” he said.
“Go to hell or, matter of fact, go back to bed with your whore,” she spat.
Jessa felt like she was watching a movie. And I’m the director.
She dialed Halle Grayson’s number. It rang four times before she answered with a heavy and groggy voice. “Oh please, you’re not sleeping, and if you look out one of your back windows, the Regans are putting on quite a show about you ... and Hunter,” Jessa said, as she watched Cari take off one of her slippers and begin to slap Hunter with it.
“Who is this?”
“Jessa. Jessa Bell,” she said, before hanging up.
She locked her eyes on the rear of the Grayson house and barely saw the curtain of one of the second-floor windows move.
“Hey, Cari,” Jessa called out.
Both of the Regans swiveled their heads in her direction.
Jessa pointed to the Grayson house. “Third window from the right. Second floor,” she called to them in the distance.
Cari’s head swung like the remake of the exorcist.
The curtain fluttered close.
Hunter gave Jessa the international hand sign for “fuck you.”
Jessa’s mouth fell open as Cari stormed through the opening in the fence and into the Graysons’ backyard. “Oh shit,” she muttered, as Cari tore off up the stairs to enter the Graysons’ home through the same door her husband snuck out of.
What if they fought?
What if one hurt the other?
What the fuck have I done?
“Oh shit,” she muttered, anxiously watching the Grayson house. She didn’t think either woman had the clit to confront the other.
Hunter rushed into the house. Lights came on. Voices were raised. Insults hurled. Something glass crashed.
“Oooooh shit,” Jessa moaned like she was sick, regretting her rash decision to dip into other people’s lives.
She could just see the image of Reverend Dobbins floating above her and shaking his head in shame.
Jessa rose to her feet as the door flew open and Hunter walked out carrying his wife in his arms. She was still fussing and fighting. Halle stepped out onto her back porch.
“I’m so sorry,” Jessa called behind them.
How dare they judge her.
“Judge not for yet ye be judged,” she said. “Or something like that.”
Jessa felt relief. The whole situation could have gone to the left like the night her ex-lover tried to kill her. If anything, she should have known better than to play with fire.
This whole getting right by the Lord thing was 24/7 and Jessa felt like she was always praying for forgiveness.
She went into the house, closing her balcony doors, before she dropped to her knees and prayed. “At this rate, I’ll have knees as black as asphalt,” she mused, before lowering her head for yet another talk with God.
Later that afternoon, Jessa was sitting at the island of her kitchen flipping through several glossy magazines that Myra sent her overnight. She was featured in each one—her inclusion in the interview on the emotional and physical dangers of being a mistress, and two articles detailing her scandalous story with little mention of her attempts at redemption.
Myra warned her that they couldn’t completely control the way the story—her story—was spun.
Next week, she was headed into the city for talks with the producers of the still unnamed reality TV show and to meet with the literary agent Myra secured to broker her book deal. Because of her pregnancy, she turned down the offer to model, but the agency owners still wanted to take her out to dinner while she was in the city.
But first, she had some business in Jersey to handle. Jessa and her attorney were meeting with Jaime and her lawyers for a preliminary hearing about Eric’s estate.
Ding-dong.
Jessa took another sip of her steaming cup of raspberry tea and closed the glossy magazine before she made her way out the kitchen and to her front door. In the days of old, she would have swung her door open wide, but now with The Furious Three (her three ex-friends) and The Insecure Ones (the suspicious wives) running around, the check of the peephole was mandatory.
Jessa hadn’t really seen much of any of her neighbors since she was so busy traveling with her new business ventures. She was surprised to see the wife of the perverted insurance agent standing on her doorstep holding a covered dish. “What the hell is this all about?” she wondered out loud.
Smoothing the deep green silk jumpsuit she wore over her figure, she opened the door and stepped back. “Yes?” Jessa said in greeting.
“Hi, I’m Dina. I live in Richmond Hills with ... I ... we’re neighbors ... and ... well, I,” the woman stumbled, looking very stylish in the wide-leg slacks she wore with patent-leather flats and a silk fitted tank.
“How can I help you?” Jessa stressed with just a tinge of irritation in her voice. The woman was stumbling like a village idiot.
“Can I come in?” she asked. “I brought you some homemade blueberry crumb muffins.”
Jessa stepped back and waved her in before closing the door and leading the woman to the kitchen. “I’ll be honest with you, I’m not really sure what you could want from me,” she said.
Dina sat the bowl on the island before she reached out and pulled one of the magazines to her. “You’re very pretty,” she said.
“Thank you,” Jessa said, still wary.
Dina looked up at her and there was sadness in her eyes. “I ... uh, know this sounds crazy, but I figured who do I know that would know better than you about this type of thing.”
Jessa said nothing else as she raised her cup and sipped her tea, watching the woman silently over the rim.
“How does a wife know when their husband is ... is ... seeing someone else?” she asked, looking as if she had to push the words out of herself with force.
Oh shit. Well, I’ll be damned. Jessa’s hands tightened on the cup and she sat it down to keep from snapping the delicate handle.
&nb
sp; “I really love my husband and I want to trust him, but things are so different, so forced with us lately. He travels more and stays out later. He hardly talks to me when he’s home, and even then it’s more arguing than anything. He’s so secretive about his phone calls,” she said in a rush. “And if he is cheating, I want to know. I want to move on with my life. I want to kick his doggish ass to the curb.”
Jessa sighed and cut her eyes upward. She remembered thinking if the woman asked she would tell her, and here she was.
“I wanted to know if I offered you a fee, money, could you—”
Jessa’s mouth turned downward and perfectly arched brows met in the middle.
Dina held up her hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I just—You’re so pretty and I could tell he thinks so because I caught him looking at one of your magazine articles when he was in the bathroom.”
That fucking perv! Jessa could just picture what his freaky ass was doing in that bathroom. He was a jerk off who jacked off.
Jessa walked over to her fridge and pulled out a bottle of white wine. She set it and a crystal goblet in front of Dina. “Sit down, sweetie,” she said, then paused at how much she sounded like Keegan. Jessa poured a full glass of white wine before coming back around the island to pick up her cell phone.
“Aren’t you pregnant?” Dina asked.
“It’s not for me.”
Dina’s eyes dropped down to the phone before she picked up the wine goblet with both hands and took a deep swig.
Jessa pulled up the video of her husband begging for her “killer pussy” and then handed the woman the phone.
“I really wish you would let me take you out, ” Vincent said.
“And I wish you would understand that I am not interested in you and you’re harassing me,” Jessa replied.
“I can’t stop thinking about fucking you. ”
Dina gasped deeply in shock, using shaking hands to push her auburn hair behind her ears as her eyes widened.
“And if you don’t leave me the hell alone, you pervert, I will take out a restraining order and then everyone—including your wife—will know that you dream of fucking me, you perverted ass.”
Mistress, Inc. Page 12
