Strictly Business [Stud Service 3] (Siren Publishing Classic)

Stud Service 3

Strictly Business

As an heiress to a Texas oil baron, Susannah Gibson’s future is secure. A hefty trust fund has allowed her to live out her dreams and pursue every desire of her heart but one. All that money got in the way of finding love. She had a collection of fortune hunters that could stretch the length of Texas, but she wouldn’t settle for anything less than love.

Susannah needs a suitable stud fast. Time is running out for her parents' ultimatum—give them grandchildren or lose her trust fund.

Some guys have all the luck. On a business trip to the Caribbean, Colt Vance is propositioned by a beautiful woman, every guys’ dream date. Red. Hot. Sex. No strings attached. The problem? The more he knows about her, the more intrigued and less willing he is to keep things strictly business and let her go at the end of their bargain.

Genre:
Contemporary, Western/Cowboys

Length:
47,785 words
 

Stud Service 3

Missy Lyons

EROTIC ROMANCE

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

STRICTLY BUSINESS

E-book ISBN:
978-1-61926-824-1

First E-book Publication: June 2012

Cover design by Missy Lyons

All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers

Dear Readers,

If you have purchased this copy of 
Strictly Business
 by Missy Lyons from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

Regarding E-book Piracy

This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

This is Missy Lyon’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Lyon’s right to earn a living from her work.

Amanda Hilton, Publisher

www.SirenPublishing.com

www.BookStrand.com

Thank you so much for buying my book,
Strictly Business
. It is the third book in a series, which came into its existence after four writer friends got together for lunch one day and brainstormed this idea of four sisters who had to find a stud.

Writing isn’t easy. There are deadlines, and for the most part it is a very solitary and lonely existence.

Most days it is just me and my computer. I love my friends, and treasure their love and support and our friendship. Thank you Cherie, Sandy, and Tonya for allowing me to be part of this great series, and to everyone else I am sorry it took me so long to finish my Gibson sister story, but I hope you enjoy it.

STRICTLY BUSINESS

Stud Service 3

MISSY LYONS

Copyright © 2012

“Welcome home, honey!”

Dropping by without calling first was a risk, and Susannah felt lucky her parents were both home at the same time. Since the kids all moved out, they travelled a lot, spending six months out of the year on a cruise ship.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” Susannah stepped into the foyer of her parents’ home, taking off her rain-drenched coat and hung it on the nearby coatrack. She kissed her mom and dad on the cheek in turn, at the same time giving each one a quick hug. She could barely contain her enthusiasm and she was glad she could finally share her secret with her family. “I am so excited! I had to drop in because I have good news and I couldn’t wait to share with both of you.”

“Susannah, I am so happy you did. So what’s the big news?” Maria’s easy smile made Susannah nervous.

Susannah entered the house but waited to speak. She didn’t expect her mother to take her news well. Family was important to her mother, and Maria clung to her Mexican heritage, valuing every moment she could spend with her children. She also made it no secret that she expected every one of her daughters to become mothers. Soon.

“Are you finally going to get married and give us some grandchildren to fill our house again?” A smile tugged at her mother’s lips, but her voice was deadly serious.

Susannah tried to not let her mother’s constant prodding get to her, but she felt the weight of a stone drop to her stomach.

“Now, now.” William patted his wife on the shoulder, and stepped close to her side. “Let Susan tell us what’s so important that she had to drive here in the middle of a rainstorm.”

“Sí, go on and tell us, baby.” Her mom tried her best to be patient, fisting her hands at her sides.

Thunder rumbled from outside the home, and the gentle pitter-patter of rain suddenly became more intense as if the storm had waited just for Susannah to arrive before really beginning. It wasn’t unusual in the month of May to get some pretty heavy thunderstorms, including ones wild enough to spout off tornados, but no one could stop living their life because of the weather. Dangerous weather might slow a Texan down, but it would never stop her father or Susannah.

“I’m not going to let some water stop me from living my life.” She shook her dark hair from side to side, spraying droplets on the tile floor. “I had planned on trying to come see you two.”

“That’s not a little water, baby, you’re drenched!” Her dad helped her take off her jacket and hung it on the cherry-wood coatrack. “It’s raining cats and dogs out there.”

“Which is why I’m even happier to be in here.” Susannah laughed.

“Come on in and sit a spell. Whatever news you have can wait a minute.” Dad was always so much more easygoing than Mom had ever been, just happy to let things be. While she did encourage Susannah and her sisters in other things, she didn’t like that their career choices got in the way of them getting married, settling down, and giving her grandchildren. As if they couldn’t ever be truly happy or have a family without getting married and getting pregnant. The careers and success they experienced in other areas of their life just got in the way.

“Well, it is kind of important.” Butterflies took flight in Susannah’s stomach. She didn’t expect them to understand, but her life was changing dramatically and very soon.

“Life-changing important or forgot to get the coffee at the store important?” William asked.

“The life-changing kind of important.” Susannah swallowed hard. Under her parents’ scrutiny, she felt like she was the prime suspect at a lineup, but she needed to get this out. She needed to pursue her dreams.

“Well, then, tell us already!” Maria’s lips pinched together tightly as she tried to repress her smile. Her thinly plucked eyebrows waggled suggestively. “You aren’t…are you?”

Susannah could feel the heat of her mother’s scrutiny on her belly. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not pregnant, Mom.”

“I don’t want you to get pregnant without a father.” Maria’s thin, delicate eyebrows pulled together in a frown. She was tiny, her size-three body was barely over five feet tall, but every gesture was filled with excess drama, and Susannah was sensitive to her moods. Growing up was like a soap opera in the Gibson house. Her mother had tried to set up her four daughters with every eligible bachelor in the Yellow Rose Valley. “Don’t tell me that was the big secret you’ve been keeping from us—that you aren’t pregnant?”

“No, Mom.” Susannah rolled her eyes. She was twenty-six years old, but her mother never stopped mothering. She’d always be her little girl, no matter how independently she lived her life, and she understood her mother just wanted to see her happy. “I quit my job as a research assistant at the pharmaceutical company in Houston.”

“Oh, good!” Her mother’s brilliant white smile lit up the room. Maria wanted nothing better than for Susannah to quit her job. Her mother had been hounding Susannah to quit since the day she started working at the research facility. Maria would rather see her daughters settle down and have babies than to pursue careers. Susannah’s suspicions were confirmed when Maria spoke. “Now you can finally get down to business and begin dating again! Stop all that nonsense with the lab rats and monkeys and get yourself a man.”

Ugh. Here we go again.
Her mother had a one-track mind that wouldn’t give up.

It seemed pointless to argue, but she needed her mother to back up and give her some space. Nagging was not the way to get grandchildren.

“You have to trust that I’ll find the right man when it’s time. You can’t rush falling in love. It just happens.” Susannah shook her head. Living out her dream just didn’t include a man right now. She had gone to school to become a marine biologist and somehow ended up in a research lab testing new drugs on lab rats. She did not go to school for eight years so that she could be whacking rodents and dissecting them to examine what kind of affect a new drug had on their brain. She needed to be out in the field, and that meant being near the ocean. Not landlocked, living out of a laboratory and off vending machines.

“So what do you plan on doing with all this free time on your hands, now that you don’t have a job?”

“I am going to the Caribbean to study the declining population of predatory fish on the coral reefs.” She felt a sense of smug satisfaction telling them that little tidbit of information. She always dreamed of making a research trip to the Caribbean reef, and her dreams were going to be finally realized.