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

  But everything else about it seemed terrifyingly appropriate. Compelled, perhaps.

  “Brad…”

  “I will not repeat myself.”

  I went from desperately hoping something funny was about to be said to now feeling fucking terrified. I was about to die, wasn’t I? I hadn’t agreed to the divorce quickly enough, and now Brad was going to kill me and bury my body somewhere in the Nevada desert, wasn’t he?

  He tilted his head to the limo. I knew I had a choice, but the way my body felt, the way my heart leaped, it felt like I actually didn’t. It felt like I was under his command, even if said command was to walk myself to the plank and jump off at his will.

  With a gulp, I grabbed my suitcase and walked over. He grabbed the suitcase for me, handed it off to the white-gloved driver, and waited for me to get inside. As soon as I did, he followed suit, shutting the door behind him. Through it all, he said nothing and showed me nothing. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

  “Brad, where the hell are we going?”

  He didn’t answer me as we pulled out of the Wynn valet, merging onto Las Vegas Boulevard and driving south. I tried to grab his attention, but his eyes were looking out the window, refusing to engage me.

  And goddamnit, he looked so fucking hot. If he wasn’t about to kill me, I would have found him looking the part of handsome, rich, young stud. Ferocious, determined, and tasty.

  But, unfortunately, I was damn well sure he was going to kill me.

  It didn’t help matters when we left the Strip to merge onto the freeway. I knew what this meant—the further we got from densely populated areas, the easier it would be to dispose of me. The easier it would be to kill me and have no one figure it out until days later. Not that that would matter since I’d be fucking dead.

  “Brad, please, tell me what’s going on!”

  He still didn’t answer. His eyes briefly darted to me, but his expression was unchanging. He revealed nothing.

  “Look, I’ll get an annulment, OK? I’ll do whatever you want! Brad, I’m sorry it got to this point, and I didn’t want you to think I was forcing your hand. I just…I just…I just thought it was worth it to give it a shot; why not? You know?”

  Still, nothing.

  “Brad, please! Please talk to me. Where are we going? What are you going to do to me?”

  Still, nothing.

  I couldn’t contain myself anymore. I looked out the rear of the limo. The Strip was still visible, but it was now so small it looked like a Lego set, not an actual street of numerous casinos. This was how I was going to die—in the limo with the man I had always admired but not feared enough.

  “Brad, please, just tell my father before you kill me—”

  “I don’t like being taken advantage of,” he growled. “Or being made a fool.”

  His words…they didn’t sound ominous. I couldn’t place them, but I didn’t get the vibe of “these are the last words you will ever hear.” It sounded like he was about to make me an offer of some kind.

  Whatever it was, I was going to take it if it meant I would live.

  “Tell me, Megan,” he said.

  Now he looked at me. Damn him and his fucking beautiful eyes. Even though I was scared shitless, I could not pull away from them. I could not escape their magnetic gaze. If anything, the harder I tried to look away, the more I found myself locked into him.

  “Tell me, was this your plan the whole time? Were you planning all along to get me wasted and convince me to marry you in a drunken stupor?”

  The car took a right turn, but that only merged us onto a different highway.

  “No, Brad, no, I swear!” I said, nearly on the verge of tears. “I’ve liked you, I’ve really always liked you, and things got a little out of control last night. I don’t remember anything after we went to Marquee, but I can promise you I never thought to marry you. I’m sorry, Brad, I’m so sorry.”

  Brad pursed his lips and looked out onto the highway ahead. We were moving toward a hilly area, but an area that also seemed…somewhat nice? It was too early to say, but I was seeing gated communities all of a sudden.

  “I never wanted to get married,” I said. “I wanted you, but I didn’t want to do anything like this. I mean, look at where we are. I just…I just wanted to hook up with you and see what happened from there.”

  Brad nodded. He pulled out his phone, typed something in, and then looked back up at me.

  “I believe you.”

  I…wait, what?

  I stared at him, waiting for him to follow it up with something crass, like, “I believe you are full of shit.” But he didn’t. He didn’t smile, he didn’t laugh, he didn’t lean over to kiss me, but he sure seemed…genuine?

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  I guess he was serious. I still felt nervous, but, my God, could it really be true? My panic subsided a bit.

  “So…what are we doing then?” I said.

  And Brad went back to his quiet ways, not really answering me, choosing instead to look out the window of the limo as we continued east.

  The area continued to get nicer. I saw signs advertising Lake Mead. OK, if we were in this part of Las Vegas, I definitely didn’t think I was going to be killed now. I hoped.

  Until I was back in my bed in New York City, I still wasn’t going to be fully convinced that I was safe. Well, maybe some things could happen along the way that would make me change my mind, but I wasn’t especially high on the likelihood of any of them.

  “Brad,” I said softly. “Can you please tell me what we are doing?”

  He still didn’t answer. Finally, the limo pulled up to an area full of ritzy yachts and boats. It wasn’t the Strip by any stretch of the imagination, but there were more than enough people here that I didn’t think I would have anything worse than a forceful command given to me.

  The limo parked. He got out first. The chauffeur pulled out my suitcase—and Brad’s, strangely enough—and put them on the sidewalk. He leaned forward back into the car.

  “I’m giving this a shot.”

  Wait…for real?

  I smiled cautiously, still afraid that at any moment, he’d pull the rug he’d made a show of placing under me. He didn’t smile back. But it sure seemed like a part of him was fighting that urge for some reason. Carefully, I scooted out of the limo and looked at the boat before me. I read the name of it. “Pegasus.”

  “What…where…what is this?”

  And now, finally, Brad did what I’d wanted him to do since we woke up this morning.

  He smiled.

  “It’s our honeymoon.”

  Chapter 9: Brad

  I fully understood that Megan was freaking the fuck out.

  In her defense, she had plenty of good reasons to. I had deliberately played it coy, and I knew she knew my family’s background. I even felt a little bit of…well, not sorry, but maybe a little bit of sympathy that I was putting her through so much of a nightmare. There were some people I wouldn’t have minded making think they were about to die, but Megan wasn’t one of them.

  But, nevertheless, I had to make sure she was being honest. I had to get the full truth out of her. And if her thinking that she was going to die was going to get the truth out, it would have made the divorce much easier.

  What Megan didn’t know, though, was that once I had called Uncle Gio and he’d reminded me about my father, I’d already decided to give it a shot. I wasn’t sold yet that this would work. I wasn’t even sold yet that we’d wind up being a happy monogamous couple. I had no plans of settling down and acting married, no matter what a legal document in the state of Nevada may have said.

  And yet, all the same, I recalled how much my father and mother loved each other. Not a day went by, even when they were at each other’s throats, where they didn’t express their love for each other in some fashion. Sure, I could be a cold-hearted bastard, but I knew what warm, genuine love looked like. If I was forced into a spot w
here I had to try it, why the hell not? It wasn’t like I had anything else to lose.

  And if there was anyone in this world who could make an accidental marriage turn into a lifetime one, it was Megan Adams.

  No, Megan Nimico.

  That…that was still fucking odd to think. That was going to take some time to get used to.

  When I got Megan out of the limo, I started to walk her to our boat, but she was clearly still nervous. Now that I knew that she was in it for real and not just looking to use me for business purposes, I needed to act like a gentleman. Not a businessman.

  Well, as much of a gentleman as an asshole like me could.

  I reached out, took her hand, and gave it a gentle but firm squeeze. Megan looked at me with diminishing fear, but it didn’t quite go away completely.

  “Welcome to the Pegasus, Mrs. Bradly Nimico,” I said as we took one step on. “You are now mine here.”

  “Thank you,” she said, more out of uncertainty as to what else she could say than anything else. “But what…what is this? This thing is giant.”

  “It’s a yacht,” I said. “Fully equipped with a kitchen, bedrooms, a lounge, not to mention all the other luxury options. I booked it for three days.”

  “OK, but—”

  “But what?”

  “It’s just…I was scheduled to go back to New York later today, and I don’t have clean clothes, and—”

  I put a hand on her cheek and gently caressed her face. I think she thought I was going to kiss her. I was—eventually.

  We may have rushed into marriage, but if we were going to do this right, I was going to slow play it a bit. We may have crossed the finish line early, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have a marathon we still needed to run.

  I was still doing things my way, damnit.

  “We’ll go back home, together, in three days,” I said. “And you won’t be needing any clothes when you’re with me.”

  She blushed. I actually hadn’t meant it quite like that, but now that she was thinking it, I sure was. And all it took was a brief flashback to the memory of last night for hormones to kick in hardcore and make me want to fuck her right there on the deck of this yacht.

  Alas, I had promised myself I’d tease her some, and the whole being visible to the public eye was a bit of a deterrent. Not as much as it would have been for some, but preferred not to start this honeymoon in the cuffs of a cop.

  “Now go inside and make yourself comfortable,” I said. “I’m going to work with the chauffeur and other members of my staff to get this boat ready to set out on Lake Mead for a bit.”

  “OK…” she said.

  She was clearly expecting me to take her there. Good. I liked a little bit of pent-up arousal from unfulfilled expectations.

  I waited until she went inside of the yacht before I shut the door behind her and worked with the valet to unload the supplies onto the deck of the boat. The whole process took about ten minutes, for which I gave the valet a hundred-dollar tip. I then headed upstairs, revved the engine, and set sail for Lake Mead.

  I got the boat out about a thousand feet from mainland, killed the engine, and let it sit on the water. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, pretty content with how things were. Las Vegas might have been the worst place to begin a marriage, but Lake Mead was a pretty damn good place to start one.

  I headed out to the front of the boat, where I observed the early afternoon sun. Megan walked out to me, looked at me in confusion, and cautiously got close to me. She looked like she wanted to touch me but feared the consequences of doing so.

  It was kind of fun, in a way.

  “Is this…is this a joke?” she said. “I keep thinking—”

  “Not a joke, no,” I said. “This is our honeymoon, babe.”

  Babe. I didn’t even mean to call her that. It just slipped out naturally, like now that I’d accepted her for this role, I was more prone to giving flirtatious names like this. I kind of liked it.

  Not that I was going to admit that to her yet.

  “It just seems so surreal,” she said.

  “I know it is,” I said, slapping her ass. “Go make yourself a drink. I’ll be inside.”

  She looked at me like she was still expecting me to surprise her with something else, but at this point, as far as I was concerned, the only “surprise” had already taken place—picking her up from the casino without any advance warning. She left me eventually, and I took in a few minutes from the view, relaxing.

  After all, she wasn’t the only one who had suffered through a “what the fuck” dozen or so hours.

  Eventually, when my mind settled and I felt like I’d found some semblance of peace on the boat, I decided to go check on Megan inside. I wasn’t sure what would happen right there, but I did know I’d eventually just take her and fuck her so I could finally have a sober sex memory. I wanted to see her body again. Remember what her tits felt like, what her pussy tasted like. I was getting hard just thinking about it.

  But when I went into the lounge, I saw Megan sitting on the couch looking so exhausted that I wondered if she was beginning to doubt her decision. I bit my lip, told myself to act like a husband and not a boss, and walked over to her.

  Again, as much of a “husband” as you can be.

  “You all right?” I said. “You look like shit.”

  She looked up at me, smiled, and leaned back into the couch. I sat by her side, put my hand on her knee, and gave a gentle rub.

  “It’s been a whirlwind twenty-four hours, and I just spent the last half hour thinking you were going to murder me and bury me in the desert.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s…”

  I almost just told her to get over it. But when I saw Megan look at me with hesitation, I reminded myself that we were, in fact, on our honeymoon and not in a boardroom. I could afford to not be a hard ass.

  Somewhat.

  “You know what,” I said, putting my arm around her. “Contrary to popular belief, my family doesn’t go around killing people left and right. And that’s most especially true for my fucking wife.”

  Megan looked up at me and smiled. She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. And then she collapsed onto my lap, so much so that I wondered if she was actually joking.

  “It’s going to take some getting used to, being called your wife,” she said. “It’ll be fun while it lasts.”

  While it lasts? What, you mean it won’t?

  Why the fuck would I care about that?

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  But I didn’t, actually. Now I was just confused by what she’d said. Did she think I only wanted this to last for a short spell? And why was the thought of this not actually lasting bothering me so much?

  Just get through the next three days. And figure out the rest from there.

  “If you need a nap or a shower, you should go take some time for yourself,” I said, needing some space to figure out what she’d actually meant. “You probably could use a rest after the way the last little bit has gone.”

  “Understatement of the year,” she said with a chuckle. “But sure, good idea.”

  She got up, using my knees to boost herself. There was again a moment where I thought she might kiss me, but there still seemed to be some weird, invisible force between us, like neither of us really wanted to take the risk of seeing if this was real or just a play we were acting out.

  “Care to join me in the shower?”

  Oh, well, there was a thought.

  But…

  “I’ll make you wait,” I said with a smirk. “If you’re lucky, I’ll fuck your brains out tonight when you can remember it.”

  Megan laughed. I was completely serious.

  And I was also serious about how I was feeling much more than just a desire to get my dick wet again.

  Chapter 10: Megan

  What.

  A.

  Day.

  It was safe to say that there had never, ever been a day like this, and it was
probably safe to say that there would never, ever be a day like this in the future. I had to make some quick texts and calls to let everyone in the office know I wouldn’t make it back until Monday, but no one seemed to mind too much. It being Friday afternoon, I think everyone else wanted to get the hell out and enjoy their weekend.

  Even my father didn’t mind. My father thought I couldn’t commit to anything, so this was, in some ways, just keeping in character. His text back simply said “OK” as if he had already anticipated it. But you sure as hell won’t anticipate what I bring back after this weekend.

  And I sure as hell am anticipating your reaction to it.

  I put my phone down and headed to the bathroom. I slipped off my clothes and stood there naked. The last time I’d been like this, I had been in bed, staring up at Brad’s naked profile. Back then, hot as it was, I couldn’t focus on anything sexy because, well, of everything.

  But now, standing in front of the mirror, I had a bit of a flashback.

  Last night was still hazy, but I had a vague memory of starting the sexy parts in front of a mirror. I remember preparing for bed, Brad playing a joke about how we’d come this far and now he was going to make me wait. He sure had a fucking thing about that, didn’t he?

  But then, just as I’d started to take my earrings out, Brad had come up behind me, started kissing on my neck, grabbing my chest, and pressing his hard cock into my ass. I’d practically melted against his body, and it was only seconds later that we were having some of the best sex of my life. Well, I chose to remember it that way, at least.

  Now, as I leaned forward and looked at myself a little closer in the mirror, I could see the subtle hickies on my neck. I could remember how he’d squeezed my breasts. I could practically feel him, shivers going up and down my body, even if he wasn’t literally doing that right now.

  He’d already refused my first offer of a shower, and yet if last night had indicated anything, perhaps he would surprise me here with more of the same. What was better than some good shower sex, after all?