Pay Off: Accidental Marriage Mafia Romance (The Ferrari Family Book 5) Read online

I scoffed, but that was just an act of denial. When Megan’s face didn’t change, I knew I had to accept the truth.

  “Seems that way,” I said. “Fuck me.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “You think I’m happy about this?” I said. “You think I wanted to wake up and learn we got married black-out drunk?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No, because if I did, I wouldn’t have fucking put a rock on it!”

  “Fuck!”

  Megan got out of bed—even angry, her naked body was a beauty to behold—grabbed her clothes, and stormed to the bathroom.

  “We’re getting this shit annulled!” I shouted.

  “No shit, Sherlock!” she shouted.

  I would admit, if there were anyone that I wanted to wake up naked, hungover, and married to, it was Megan Adams.

  But that was the thing. There wasn’t actually anyone that fit those criteria. I liked being rich, hot, and single. And marriage immediately took away one of those and slowly drained on the other two.

  It felt like I’d made a fucking deal with the fucking devil. I’d gotten my dream girl last night.

  And in return, I’d woken up to the worst kind of fucking nightmare.

  Chapter 2: Megan

  This was a disaster.

  Single and flirting one moment, now suddenly married?

  Not just married, but married to Brad Nimico? My rival? The most handsome man I knew? The…the richest guy I knew?

  My life was…

  Perhaps…

  Perhaps not as ruined as I might have thought.

  I had stormed into the bathroom enraged, a tempest that wanted to strike down Brad for having us get married last night. Every girl grew up dreaming of finding the perfect man. Absolutely no one grew up dreaming about getting black-out drunk and forgetting their own marriage in Las Vegas. And even though Brad was hot as fuck, a man with brass balls, and the kind of guy that any woman with an active sex drive would chase after, that was a far fucking cry from wanting to get married to him.

  But when I had a moment in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the Roman tub, to think and collect my thoughts, a funny thing happened.

  If I were to wind up married right now, if I were to say “I do” on paper—if not in memory—if I were to commit myself to one person…

  It was him.

  In a weird way, this may have just been the ticket I was looking for. I couldn’t believe I was thinking that, but it was true.

  Life had put me in such a spot to consider how true that was.

  * * *

  One Year Before

  “Come on, Dad. You’re seventy. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life working in this building while everyone else your age goes golfing and travels?”

  My dad, with his plump cheeks, balding gray hair, and pimples and scars from far too many cancer treatments, scoffed as he crossed his arms.

  “I built this company from the ground up, and I will make sure that I build it as high as it can go before I die,” he said. “So first of all, no, if you think I’m giving up this business anytime soon, you should go find a new industry to work in. Maybe go be a nurse or something.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Second, if I were to give up the company—and that is an if that is not true, but I’ll humor you—it wouldn’t be to you. You aren’t ready to run the company.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What, you think I’m going to give it to you out of some sense of nepotism?” my father said, shaking his head.

  I did not expect it to be bestowed upon me like a Christmas gift. But I figured my father would have at least told me what I needed to do if I were to someday take over the business.

  “Megan, you can’t commit to anything, much less running a multi-billion-dollar business.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “You don’t even have a bachelor’s degree! Nor, for that matter, have you found yourself a good man with whom you can have my grandchildren.”

  I had to bite my lip. It was the only way to prevent me from launching into a very unprofessional tirade.

  “Dad, what I do with my home life has nothing to do with my business life,” I finally said after several seconds of awkward, tense silence.

  My father looked at me with almost bemused disbelief. This was far from the first time we had had this conversation, but this was easily the most intense one.

  “You know what my requests are, daughter,” he said.

  Daughter. I hated when he called me that. It was his dismissive way of not referring to me by name, as if doing so would somehow constitute him bending over backward to accommodate me. It was times like these when I would envision finding the worst guy possible to marry, just to spite him.

  Strangely enough, the “worst” choice wasn’t some tatted-up punk. It wasn’t some starving artist. It wasn’t someone who had a rap sheet that would make a nun faint.

  He knew who the worst person was. Someone in the business. Someone that he vowed to crush, and yet seemed to outmaneuver him at every turn.

  “And in any case, I don’t think it will matter. Women don’t run companies, anyway.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Dad, it’s the twenty-first century! Haven’t you seen the number of women in high-level positions? Marissa Mayer? Sheryl Sandberg?”

  “The exception that proves the rule. Notice how none of them are in our industry.”

  God, you piss me off so much.

  “And in any case, it won’t matter until you grow up. That’s step one. Grow up and commit to something.”

  “So, what, you want me to go back to school? Maybe take some classes at Columbia or something?”

  “It would be a start.”

  “And then maybe I can find some twenty-two-year-old to marry. I bet that would be really great, someone years younger than me. But hey, I’d be committing; isn’t that right, Dad?”

  “It would be a start.”

  Now he was just being sarcastic.

  “Jesus, you’re that fucking serious about me getting married, aren’t you?”

  “Watch your tongue, daughter.”

  “I’m an adult, Dad! Tell me what I need to do to have a chance at the company! You know I do great work here, no matter what archaic bullshit you throw my way.”

  “You want to know what you need to do?” my father said, suddenly losing his temper. I only felt mildly upset about this. His doctors had strict orders for him to control his temper so his heart would not suffer, but in a moment like this, the only thing I really cared about was my father not acting like he was from sixteenth-century Europe. “You need to go get married, or I need to drop dead. And that is my final order.”

  “But—”

  “You know what,” my father said, turning around. “Let’s make this legal. Since you seem so insistent on knowing what you need to do…”

  I stared at him in stunned disbelief. I’d heard the stories about how competitors had negotiated with him—they’d pushed and pushed until he got so aggravated that he just defaulted to ridiculous behavior. In some respects, maybe this would be the best way to do it. A contract didn’t have biases or emotional tendencies. It just said what needed to happen and nothing more.

  But even still, this was a little bit ridiculous.

  “You want my company?” he said. “You will sign a document that says I will give you the company when you marry someone or when I die.”

  “You cannot be serious.”

  “I am completely serious.”

  And I knew it to be true.

  An hour later, our lawyers—whom I could only imagine traded some jokes amongst themselves while drafting the contract—laid it out on my dad’s desk. He signed it after looking through it all. I should have taken a closer look at the document and the fine details, but I couldn’t believe my father was making my love life a legal obligation.

  I signed it with only a cursory glance at everything. I stood up, slammed the
pen down, glared at him, and walked out.

  Until he apologized, I vowed that I would not say a word to him for anything except business activities. He may have been my biological father, but he sure didn’t feel like a dad right now.

  * * *

  A year later and I still hadn’t spoken to him about anything other than work-related activities.

  But I began to think, as I stared at the ring, as I heard Brad cursing up a storm outside the bathroom, that my father would have no choice but to talk to me soon. And knowing how he felt about the Nimicos, he wasn’t going to enjoy talking to me very much.

  Yes, getting married like this sucked.

  But this would get me the role of CEO at my company. And, on top of that, if there was anyone that my father hated, it was a Nimico kid. Brad Nimico may very well have been the person that my father feared the most. I think he would have rather me married a gangster than Brad Nimico.

  Although, if the rumors about Brad’s family are true, that may not be that far off.

  “What the fuck are you doing in there?” Brad shouted. “How long does it take for you to get dressed?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Thinking? What the fuck about, where the best place to get a hangover cure is?”

  I didn’t respond. I had to think about if this was really a good idea or not.

  Yes, I’d become CEO. Yes, it would piss off my father. Yes, Brad and I had had an enormous amount of attraction to each other over the years, and so we had a solid ground to start on.

  But it went without saying that marriage forever, happily ever after, was an enormous fucking leap from having physical and social chemistry. We hadn’t skipped a step so much as we had skipped an entire flight of stairs—actually, more like we’d skipped up from the first floor to the hundredth in a New York City skyscraper.

  But I needed to get some space first.

  I got dressed, trying to ignore the headache that resulted from the hangover. I knew I’d look ridiculous in my black dress, but at least, as best as I could tell, we weren’t at the same hotel as the convention. At least I wouldn’t have other people gawking at us as we walked through…the Wynn, but I could not say for sure.

  I opened the door. Brad had gotten dressed. Somewhat.

  He had on his boxers, but it looked like he’d gotten too frustrated with the situation mid-dress to put on the remainder of his clothes. And my heavens, we may have fucked last night, but I didn’t remember anything of it, so it was like I was seeing Brad as seductive as I ever had. Yes, I’d seen him naked earlier, but the shock of the moment prevented it from being arousing.

  This, though…

  His abs were rippled and perfect, like something you’d see on the cover of Men’s Health or in a slow-motion shot in an action movie. He had that V-cut that tapered down, leading to the very thing that had likely pleasured me so well last night. Maybe I’ll get some of that sober soon.

  Above, he had cut shoulders. He was not a man of bulk, but he was very much a man who kept himself in shape.

  But even with all of that, it wasn’t the parts of him that I was seeing “for the first time” that were most attractive. It was those eyes.

  Those fierce, determined eyes.

  When he laid eyes on you, there was no escape. And you didn’t want there to be an escape. Whether romantically or in a business setting, when Brad turned those eyes on you, it was game over.

  But right now, those eyes only looked at me with annoyance and frustration.

  “We need to fucking go get this annulled right now,” Brad said. “I cannot be living in a world in which I am fucking married at my age.”

  “Oh, fuck off, you’re older than me,” I said.

  “Yeah, and men don’t need to lock it down before biology kicks their ass.”

  He ignored my middle finger as I went over to grab my purse.

  “I looked up what we need to do while you were taking your sweet fucking time in the bathroom. We have to file for an annulment. It seems like we can do that online, but for once in my life, I’d rather do it the old-fashioned way. I want our asses in front of a judge so that we can see in person that this is taken care of.”

  “Fine,” I said, mostly just to shut him up while I tried to figure out how to broach the idea of keeping this together. “Let’s at least get some fucking food first. I’m starving.”

  “No way,” he said. “I told you, we need to fucking get this taken care of, and I’m not negotiating.”

  “Well, neither am I,” I said. “We will grab something to eat, and then we will go. Otherwise, I will drag this sorry process out for you and make it hell.”

  Brad looked like he wanted to murder me. Or give me some good old-fashioned hate fucking—and I wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea.

  “Fucking hell,” Brad murmured, finally putting on the rest of his clothes. And damn if he didn’t look fucking great doing it. “All right, let’s go downstairs to the buffet. You get one pass of food.”

  “I’ll get as many passes as I want.”

  Brad rolled his eyes. He had no idea I was so used to dealing with stubborn assholes.

  We made our way to the elevator and waited silently for it to arrive. When we got on—thankfully, it was empty—I had a vague memory of being back in the elevator with him the night before, leaning up against him and pressing my ass into his crotch. I’d felt so aroused when I’d felt him stiffen, I’d almost just made the move to take him to the nearest hotel room so I could fuck his brains out.

  Even though I was trying to make the most of this situation, I still couldn’t tell if it was for better or for worse that that had not happened.

  We walked through the casino lobby, which was slowly waking up as some senior citizens played slots and a few true degenerates tried their hands at blackjack. We found the buffet, Brad threw a hundred bucks at whoever he could to skip the line, and we got in.

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “As long as it takes.”

  As soon as we got our table, Brad all but sprinted away, eager to get his own plate. And for the next twenty minutes, I had what could only be described as the most awkward brunch ever. We didn’t say a word to each other.

  I literally mean not a single word.

  Brad spent most of his time on his phone, probably looking up annulment lawyers and courthouses. Though peeved at first, I just used the chance to think about if I really wanted to pull the trigger on this.

  And by the time the check came, I did.

  “So—”

  “I have to think about this,” I said, standing up abruptly and leaving Brad.

  But I didn’t have to give it much more thought. I already knew what I wanted to do.

  Chapter 3: Brad

  So…

  What the fuck was that?

  Megan just stood up and left without any warning whatsoever. So now I was in even deeper than this morning somehow. I was now married, and my wife—fucking hell, can’t believe that’s what she is—was rushing away, delaying our inevitable divorce even further.

  I had intended to take her to the courthouse so we could do whatever the fuck we needed to end this shitty nonsense, but for now, since she apparently wanted to disappear into the wilderness that was Las Vegas in the morning, I knew I couldn’t accomplish anything without her, not anything that would happen immediately. So I took the elevator back upstairs, trying to fight the nausea rising in my stomach. I couldn’t tell if it was from the hangover or the bullshit.

  I got to the hotel room, opened the door, and looked at it with fresh eyes. The bed sheets were all over the place, the place reeked of sweaty sex, and my suit—which I’d struggled to find just an hour or so ago—was now visible on the side of the bed. Well, at least it looked like I’d had a good time last night.

  Too bad I couldn’t remember any of it.

  I took off my shirt and my pants and headed for the bathroom. But when I got inside, intending to just use it before a nap, I saw somethin
g.

  I saw Megan’s necklace by the bathroom sink.

  And that was when it all came rushing back to me.

  * * *

  Last Night

  We stumbled back into the bedroom, laughing, kissing, and touching each other in very inappropriate places for the public. But we weren’t in public anymore, and it was about damn time for me to get my hands all over Megan’s body wherever I could—and wanted.

  “Wait,” she said when she got inside. “Let me get my necklace off.”

  I obliged, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t make it fucking difficult. I followed her into the bathroom as she took off her necklace. I ran my hands over her breasts and squeezed as I kissed her neck. She moaned my name, her eyes closing, tilting back. I took one look at us in the mirror and loved what I saw.

  I was fucking making Megan Adams mine. No more guessing. No more trying to feel each other out. No more “maybe next time.”

  We were finally going to fuck, and nothing was going to stop me. Nothing Megan could say or do would change what would happen now.

  “Brad…”

  The way she breathlessly moaned my name had my cock roaring to burst out of my boxers. I spun her around and pulled her in for a hard kiss. I squeezed her ass, and our hands were practically clawing at each other.

  We stumbled toward the bed, barely able to keep our drunken selves from tumbling to the floor. And honestly, if that had happened, if we had made fools of ourselves, we still would have just fucked right there on the ground. I’d waited too damn long for me not to finally have a chance at having Megan Adams for myself.

  We collapsed on top of the covers, and I pushed Megan’s dress up until I could feel her panties with my hands. In a more sober state, perhaps I would have had more foreplay to the foreplay, but not fucking here. I grabbed those panties, yanked them down, and rubbed her clit. Her hips arched up, she pawed for my face, and her hand went to my cock as I continued fingering her.

  “Get those fucking clothes off,” she commanded.

  I usually didn’t take kindly to people telling me what to do. Well, most of the time. I tore off my dress shirt and unbuckled my pants. Megan didn’t even wait for me to get that off. Her hands had already gone down, her nails brushing against the tip of my cock. I pressed my fingers in deeper, adding a third one, as her moaning grew louder.