The Other Brother_A Billionaire Hangover Romance

by Natalie Knight

  “I don’t know, Dan. She’s a smart girl.”

  “Oh, fuck off. Look, I think maybe she doesn’t remember my little incident. I think she thinks that she’s the one who fucked up. So I need you to do something for me.”

  Where’s a fucking strong cup of coffee when you need one?

  “Not likely.”

  “I need you to look after Becky for me.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  This wanker has no fucking clue.

  “Rest assured, Dan, my man. She’s more than taken care of under my watch.”

  “Whatever. You’ll smooth things over with her for me?”

  “I’ll smooth things over all night long if I have to.” I emphasize the ‘smooth’ and am already picturing Becky naked in my huge king size bed, maybe tied to the bed post and totally at my mercy.

  “You better, Liam. Don’t mess this up. I’m fucking counting on you.”

  When he ends the call, I look at my phone in disbelief. I didn’t imagine the conversation, did I?

  Helping that fucker was the last thing I was going to do. A girl like Becky does not deserve someone as boring and dull as Dan.

  No. I vow to make sure Becky does not marry Dan on Saturday—or any other fucking day, as a matter of fact.

  What I need to do is come up with a plan to make sure Becky sees the light before doomsday.

  I sigh and put my hands in my pockets. I look around my office, shifting my weight onto my heels and then forward again. This rocking motion sets off a train of thoughts.

  One thing I’ve discovered is that Becky is headstrong. It’s going to take some convincing on my part. I’m pretty fucking sure that if I just come out and tell her, she won’t fucking believe me.

  Thoughts tumble over one another. I don’t want to lose Becky. Now that I’ve found her and married her, I want to fucking keep her.

  It’s not just a matter of making sure she doesn’t marry Dan. Oh no, it’s so much more now.

  Slowly, a plan builds in my mind. I go to my desk and pull out a green velvet box. I slip it into my pocket and leave the office.

  “Good luck, Liam,” Dahlia calls after me, and I pause. “You look like you’re on some kind of mission.” She’s smiling.

  I nod. “I guess you could say that.”

  “I hope you snatch her away from that asshole brother of yours.”

  “May the best man win,” I say and head out the door.

  Chapter 32

  Becky

  7:01 PM THURSDAY

  Somehow, it’s time to eat again.

  By Sammi’s standards, alcohol is food right now, and I’m just not hungry. But Percy and Mysti May have determined that, since I didn’t eat fuck all at dinner with Liam, it’s time to hit up a Vegas buffet instead.

  With my energy levels at an all-time low, I don’t complain. I just tag along. Today has been, hands down, the worst day of my life, so I’m letting them take the wheel. I’m just a passenger.

  “This one,” Percy says and points to the façade of a restaurant with a giant lobster over the door. “This is it. I can feel it.”

  She looks at me like I’m supposed to applaud or something. I just nod. My heart’s not into it right now—my heart is torn between the man that I’m supposed to be marrying and the brother that I married instead.

  I really don’t fucking care where we eat. I still don’t think I’ll be able to get even a mouthful down.

  At best, I might settle for a coffee. Some caffeine might help shake me up.

  We sit at an eight-seater booth, mostly because of the table size than the number of seats. All around the walls are mirrors, which makes me feel sick, seeing my reflection multiple times.

  Even from this distance, I can see the bags under my eyes. God. I’m pretty fucking sure I’ve lost some weight over the last two days alone.

  I watch Percy and Mysti May trot off and return a few minutes later with oversized dinner plates piled up with lobster and shrimp cocktail.

  Just looking at the food makes me want to fucking puke.

  “You going to get something?” Percy asks between mouthfuls.

  I shake my head.

  Sammi returns with—inexplicably—a beer. She puts a small plate in front of me. On it are some pastries and chocolate.

  “Food,” she says, pointing to it like I don’t know what that is anymore.

  I know they’re just trying to look after me, but I doubt I’ll be able to keep anything down.

  “I’ll get some coffee,” I reply with a forced smile and walk past all the food and happy couples to the caffeine station.

  I hope the hit of caffeine will give me a much-needed boost. My eyes are heavy, like they’re filled with sand. I might need matchsticks to keep them open.

  As I walk along, my jelly legs do their best to hold me upright. From time to time, a wave of dizziness washes over me, and I grab onto the buffet bar to steady myself.

  If I keep going like this, my problem will be solved another way—I’ll waste away into nothing.

  When I return to our table, the girls stop talking.

  I try not to take offense. They’re no doubt working on some plan to cheer me up. I appreciate that they’re on my side and not against me. If they turn, then I’ll be all on my own.

  I slide in beside Mysti, who puts an arm around me. Even though I don’t feel like smiling, I force my lips to curl up just a little. In the reflection, I can see it looks more like a snarl. Ugh.

  “Come on, babe,” she says. “You need to eat something. You can’t keep going the way you are. You’re just like a car, babe. Your body needs fuel.”

  She’s right, of course, but I shake my head.

  “I don’t think I can.” I sob and wipe my face with the back of my hand. Fucking tears again.

  Since last night, I’ve been feeling twice as bad. I shouldn’t have taken my frustration out on Liam. It wasn’t his fucking fault I’ve made a mess of things.

  So far, he’s only treated me kindly, and how did I repay him? By storming out on him during dinner like a spoiled child.

  Maybe I was no better than a five-year-old girl who throws a tantrum because she doesn’t get her way. Well, okay, I didn’t really throw a tantrum, but walking out on someone because they don’t tell you what you want to hear is a close second.

  Maybe I just need to communicate my feelings better. If I had approached the issue a little differently, Liam might have been more inclined to give me answers.

  For some reason, he seems convinced I know what happened. And that right there is a fucking worry. If I know what happened, was it so bad that I’m deliberately not remembering it?

  I sigh again. My fucking head’s hurting from all the fucking thinking.

  I take a sip from my coffee mug. Ooooh, that feels fucking good. The hot, thick liquid glides down the back of my throat and assaults my nerve cells with gunpowder-like caffeine.

  Of course, everyone’s right: I won’t last much longer if I don’t start eating. But I’m sure if I put anything in my mouth, I’ll puke it out straight away. And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s vomiting.

  Nothing is worse than vomit. I’m okay with blood, bruises, sprains, and breaks, but I can’t fucking stand vomit.

  “What I can’t understand,” Percy starts between mouthfuls of food, “is how Sammi remembered about the Celine Dion concert.”

  I nod. It was fucking strange. Like something had drawn it from her mind all of a sudden—I’m assuming so, because it would be a dick move if she was holding out on us about it this entire time.

  But does it really matter? I fucking doubt it. I don’t need to know why someone remembers something.

  I need to be able to remember what happened—or at least have one my BFFs remember.

  “Who could we ask?” Mysti looks expectantly at Percy.

  Instantly, Percy pulls out her phone and flicks through her list of contacts.

  “Let me see,” she mumbles and takes another mo
uthful of lobster. “There must be someone here I can call.”

  I watch in amazement. Percy is the only woman I know who has access to nearly every kind of specialist in her contact list.

  Want a lawyer? Ask Percy—she’s fucking three of them. Want a surgeon for breast implants? No fucking worries, ask Percy. I bet Percy would even set me up with a hit man.

  Briefly, I toy with the idea of asking her. But then I dismiss it. Who would I use the hit man on anyway?

  Although…maybe I should table that idea until I figure out what exactly it is that Dan the Man did to send me spiraling so bad last night.

  I sigh and put my head in my hands.

  Don’t cry, I tell myself. Pull yourself together and stop being a fucking victim. Take control of your thoughts and emotions.

  Unfortunately, none of the positive psychobabble seems to work on me. I’ve read the books, I’ve heard the lectures, and I’ve tried my hardest to be fucking positive, but it never seems to be fucking working.

  “Bingo,” Percy shouts and presses the dial button.

  I knew she’d find someone.

  The two go back to their food while I turn back to my coffee, waiting for answers.

  When she hangs up, she is grinning from ear to ear.

  “Dr. Phil,” she says with a giggle. “Don’t worry, Becks. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “The Dr. Phil?” I ask with a gasp.

  “Nah. A different one. Highly regarded expert shrink, though. First of all, he agrees that you’re repressing—”

  “Yeah, no shit,” Sammi says, eating cake out of her hand like a fucking animal while Mysti May shushes her.

  “―and he thinks that there are these things, right? Memory triggers,” Percy continues. “He says that if you go back to the state you were in at the time of the incident, your memories might come back.”

  “Study drunk, take the exam drunk,” Sammi muses. “It makes sense.”

  “Fuck,” Mysti May swears. “We were all drunk when we went back up at the suite yesterday.”

  “I wasn’t,” I pipe up. If I’m being totally honest here, I’m not keen to hop back on the booze horse right away. I’m still hungover from our last meeting with Jose Cuervo, thank you very much.

  “But we were,” Percy says, her face lighting up. “If you can’t remember, Becks…maybe we can.”

  I shake my head. Is this fucking shrink even qualified or did he get his diploma out of a Coco Pops box? Getting drunk so you can remember what you did the last time you were drunk—sounds like a solid recipe for alcoholism to me.

  “It would explain why shit keeps triggering Becky’s memory,” Mysti May says with a coy little smile. “I’m in.”

  “And when Sammi got drunk earlier, she remembered being drunk at Celine Dion’s sex dungeon,” Percy adds.

  The two of them look at Sammi for her opinon.

  “Well, I’m not, like, opposed to getting drunker, am I?” Sammi slurs.

  They all look at me.

  After a few seconds, I cave. “After the day we’ve had, I do probably need a drink.”

  Sammi, Percy, and Mysti May don’t need any further invitation to get a fucking move on.

  Together, we head to the all-you-can-drink mimosa station.

  I see a bunch of elderly gentlemen side-eye the fuck out of us as we return to the table, mimosas in each hand.

  I take as large a sip as I can.

  If my girls are getting sloshed, then fuck it. So am I.

  Chapter 33

  Becky

  8:01 PM THURSDAY

  If we remember anything tonight, I’ve got this nagging feeling that we won’t remember it for long.

  Yeah. We just got that drunk.

  Sammi leans over the roulette table. A mountain of golden Royale poker chips scatter from between her tits.

  “A billion dollars on…purble,” she announces, sticking a single finger up in the air and waving it around in an exuberant circle.

  And never mind that she’s laid down maybe a cool million, tops.

  And never mind that purble isn’t exactly, well, a color.

  “Is that, uh…red or black, ma’am?” The fresh faced blond man running the table asks.

  “Yes,” Sammi says unhelpfully.

  I turn my back to them as Sammi begins to explain—in drunken detail—how color is an illusion of the way our eyes process light. I don’t turn away because it’s not interesting or anything. In fact, the look on the poor guy’s face is already pretty fucking priceless.

  But it’s been a while since I’ve been this drunk.

  Shit, it’s been like, an entire day.

  I actually need a minute.

  On the bright side, I’m feeling better. What an entire day of sleuthing around couldn’t cure, bottomless mimosa took care of in an hour.

  I feel alive. I feel unstoppable!

  And, okay, I feel a little like I might have just consumed too much orange juice, but I hear that vitamin C is good for your hair or your soul or something, so it’s all good.

  I find Percy at a corner booth, building castles out of all the poker chips we bought with Dan’s black card. I should probably feel bad that Dan the Man is footing the bill for this little endeavor, but I talk myself out of it before I do.

  At this point, I don’t think I can wallow in denial anymore. Dan the Man fucked up last night. He fucked up bad enough that I ended up fucking and marrying his evil step-brother.

  We’re past the point where I have to feel bad about gambling on Dan the Man’s black card, I think.

  I hide with Percy behind her palace of poker chips for a while. We giggle and sip gin and spy on Mysti May as she sensually shows a cute little brunette woman how to play the slots.

  We play poker with a group of starry-eyed rotund Russian businessmen.

  We arm wrestle a barrel-chested dude named Mike, whose t-shirt claims he’s a pussy inspector (I’m not buying it, but Percy takes him to the bathroom to find out for sure).

  We dance to the sound of a thousand quarters’ worth of winnings tumbling out of an elderly woman’s slot machine and then hug her as she triumphantly throws her fists in the air.

  We have fucking fun. This is what this whole trip was meant to be about—getting a little wild, running around a casino, and draining the bar of all its fine liquors.

  Or, it was until Dan the Man and his rules got in the way.

  Eventually, we reconvene at the roulette table where I left Sammi. To my shock—and awe—and amazement—and total disbelief—she’s quadrupled the poker chips that she shook out of her top earlier.

  “How are you doing this?” I ask her, pushing through a wall of anxious admirers and onlookers she’s accumulated.

  Sammi just shrugs. “Drunk Sammi knows things.”

  Everyone crowded around her gasps as she leans in to make her next bet.

  “Put it all on bloob,” she tells the casino employee with a knowing smile.

  I don’t want to fucking touch that one, but as I emerge from Sammi’s swarm of fans, I hear them erupt into celebratory cheering—so she must have won, I guess.

  Unfortunately, I should have known that all the fun I’ve been having wouldn’t last. I might be feeling better, but we haven’t actually gotten anywhere in terms of remembering anything yet.

  And when I nearly spill my rum and coke on the suit jacket of a tall man with a face like a fist, I can’t help but feel like things are about to go downhill again.

  “Hey there, little lady—whoa, careful now.” He takes me by the shoulders as I reel back, trying to steady myself without spilling my drink. “You all alone here?”

  I giggle, not because he’s being funny, but because dammit, I’m drunk and in a good mood. Plus, nervous laughter has always kind of been my thing.

  “I’m not,” I say with an awkward Drunk Becky smile. “My friends are…uh. Somewhere…”

  But of course, as I start looking aro
und for Sammi and Percy and Mysti May, they’re nowhere to be seen.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” the big, meaty dude tells me. Now he’s rubbing my shoulders, which, ew. “We could be friends. Nobody wants to be all alone in the City of Sin, right?”

  Now the awkward giggling is even more awkward on my end.

  “That’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m, uh…god, I’m actually married.”

  Which, holy fuck, is actually true.

  “You don’t sound so sure about that,” a second male voice says.

  Ugh. God. Nooooo. Now there’s another one, and unbelievably, he’s even bigger and fistier-looking than the first.

  “Don’t see a ring on your finger, sweetheart,” the first one says. He’s blond and handsier than the second. He smells like he got in a fight with a bottle of cologne and won—but at a fucking cost.

  “We eloped,” I say, stepping back.

  Before I can, the blond reaches around my waist and grabs my ass with both hands.

  I don’t even think about it. I slap him as hard as I can—but his face is like the love child of a brick wall and a second, bigger brick wall.

  I think I end up hurting my hand and his ego more than I actually end up hurting him.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” he growls.

  “Not at all,” adds the second one.

  “If you want nice, find yourself a prostitute,” I snap back at him.

  His hands grope my ass like my butt is a stress ball.

  “I think I’ve already found one,” he sneers, and suddenly, being drunk isn’t fun anymore.

  I see Mysti May’s handbag make contact with his face before I think he realizes what’s just happened. At least this time, it seems like he felt it.

  I almost feel bad for the guy. I’m pretty sure Mysti May keeps rocks in that thing.

  “Why don’t you boys take a hike,” she says, putting her hands on her hips like she’s Wonder Woman, while my aggressor—thankfully—unhands my ass.

  But the second dude is apparently doubtful of how bad it feels to take twenty pounds of Sephora makeup in a vintage Louis Vuitton purse to the face.

  “So you do have friends,” Dude #2 chuckles, rubbing his hands together like some kind of cartoon super villain. “Feisty ones. I like that.”