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

by Hazel Parker

  The funeral? What the fuck? Who’s fucking dead now?

  Now, facing the prospect of having had an employee die under my watch without me realizing it over the last ten days, I began to feel like a massive jackass. And let me tell you, that was a rare fucking feeling, considering I seldom bent to the rest of the world.

  “You haven’t heard?” Henry said, though he did so in a much friendlier tone than someone older would have. Maybe that’s why he’s the one they sent. Because they know how pissed off I am right now. “Mario Adams died last week.”

  Oh.

  Fuck.

  Megan’s father…

  The last fucking thing we need.

  “I know he is competition, but a few of the guys here used to work for him and liked him. So they want to know…”

  I could hear Henry speak. But I wasn’t listening. My attention was instead focused on Megan and wondering how she was handling all of this.

  I couldn’t even imagine how she was holding herself up right now. Fuck. For the week she’d had

  I had to call her and reach out.

  “Are you going to go?”

  I sighed. I wouldn’t have gone if not for everything. I couldn’t say I would have celebrated his death, but I certainly wouldn’t have been torn up by it. Not that I was now—but for Megan’s sake, I felt something.

  “Yeah, fuck it, I’ll go,” I said. “Can’t believe I didn’t know.”

  No, really, I can’t. I would have thought Megan would have said something. But I can’t even blame her.

  “When did this happen, exactly?”

  “Friday evening.”

  I bit my lip.

  Megan had suffered through this all weekend. And she’d never said a word to me.

  If that didn’t indicate that she was thinking the same thing my mother was, then nothing did. At least I hadn’t requested the annulment papers be sent yet. At least I hadn’t fired that bullet yet.

  But if things were going as they seemed, I wouldn’t even need to. Megan would fire said bullet for me.

  “Yeah, whoever wants to go can go. And I’ll be there too.”

  “Great, thanks, Brad.”

  I waved Henry off but was left sitting at my desk in stunned silence.

  I had to find Megan.

  That wasn’t just something I had to do so I could feel ethically good about myself. This was something that I fucking wanted to do. The more time that passed, the more I thought about our honeymoon. Those perfect three days. Not just the sex we’d had, but the time spent laughing and being with each other.

  I had to see her.

  I stood up, went to my door, and locked it shut. I returned to the window view, pulled out my cell, and let out a long sigh. Was I really going to call a woman who’d just lost her father, whom I had abandoned mere days ago, treated like complete shit?

  Not just any woman. Your wife. And until the law says otherwise, you need to act like a fucking husband.

  Yes. I was. I called her.

  “Hello?”

  She answered like she didn’t know who had called her. That was a really bad sign, like she’d deleted my number in her phone. I had to keep going.

  “Megan, it’s Brad.”

  There was silence. She was still there, but I could practically feel her cold gaze looking out a distant window, in disbelief she was hearing from me right now.

  “I just heard what happened to your father. I know what’s been going on has been a whirlwind—”

  “A whirlwind?”

  I knew that tone of voice all too well.

  “A fucking whirlwind? You say you had a whirlwind, Brad, but let me tell you what a whirlwind is. It’s when the man you married, the man you spent three blissful days on a boat with, suddenly just ghosts you without a word. It’s a whirlwind when you struggle to figure out why he might do that because he gives you no clues. And then your father dies on Friday. Your only family. Your only fucking family, Brad!”

  I cussed silently. I’d left her all alone in this world, and while she was no helpless damsel in distress, no one thrived with less friends than more.

  “And now he’s gone. Oh, and just when things started to look good this week, just when I finally started to feel like I was on the upswing, you know what I got this morning? The fucking annulment letter, Brad!”

  “Oh, fuck, look—”

  “Oh, fuck is right, Brad!”

  She thought I had sent that. She thought I’d initiated the process from afar. Oh, holy shit, that was a disaster. No, no, no, did she…how the fuck…

  “I didn’t send that, Megan, and—”

  “I know, some bitch named Laura Russo did, but it doesn’t matter.”

  I’m going to fucking kill you, Mom. You fucking sent that shit?

  “Even if this letter had not shown up at my desk, your actions clearly indicate a man who doesn’t want to be with the woman that he married. I’m sorry I put you in this spot and that you feel so uncomfortable with it, but I’ll make it easy—”

  “Megan, stop!”

  I spoke much more harshly than I meant to. It did, however, give me a moment to speak. I tried not to consider the fact that this might have been the last chance I would get to make things right—the only chance, really.

  “First of all, I did not send that letter, nor did I tell my mother to send that letter. Yes, my family pressured me to annul this marriage, and yes, I’ll even fucking admit that I told them I would consider it. But if that happened, that was my mother acting on her own agency to end it. I had no part in that. You can choose not to believe it, but I did not fucking send that letter.

  “Second, yes, I acted like a complete dick this week. I know there’s been a lot of shit, and…”

  I should have said, “I’m sorry.” But those were two words I sucked at saying, mostly because I wasn’t a particularly apologetic person. People either accepted who I was, or I pushed them the fuck out of the way.

  Just because Megan was my wife didn’t mean it was somehow easier to put that to the side.

  “What sort of shit, Brad?”

  The question wasn’t said in a condescending tone, but I nevertheless felt its wrath all the same.

  “Nothing, Megan, nothing.”

  “And there it is,” she said. “Either you’re trying to be polite and say it’s no big deal, or you’re lying to make it seem like you’ve got shit too. I’m willing to believe you’re dealing with some shit, but do you know what husbands and wives do, Brad? They talk. They fucking share what’s going on in their lives. And you’re not doing that right now.”

  “Megan—”

  “I’ve already talked to you much longer than I meant to, Brad,” she said. “The truth is, I don’t feel anything. Maybe if we’d had a really shitty weekend and a hard fight, we’d still have something, but you went absent on me for almost a full week. Nothing. It was like you died with my father and I had no one to turn to. And you know what? You ghosted me for longer than our honeymoon. That’s long enough for me to stop feeling things.”

  No.

  That can’t possibly be true. We’ve had eyes on each other for years now. And you mean to tell me that just one awkward week is enough to kill it?

  That’s fucking stupid. This is not ending like this.

  “Goodbye…Brad.”

  “Meg—”

  But she hung up before I could even finish saying her name. She’d made her point.

  We were done.

  Boy, that was a fucking disaster of a call. I looked at my cell and nearly threw it across the room before slamming it on my desk, the least damaging thing I could do right now. I leaned against the window sill and cursed loudly. For a few good seconds, I felt like I had no fucking choice but to accept that

  But that ended when I reminded myself I had a fucking choice.

  Was I going to be Brad Nimico, the man who got what he wanted and did whatever it took? Or was I going to let Mom and Megan decide without my input?

&
nbsp; Sure, that call had sucked. But the annulment hadn’t been finalized. Even if Megan signed everything and overnighted it, there was still a process that would take at least days to fulfill.

  I had to do something bigger than just a simple phone call that didn’t really mean anything. I had to really, genuinely, truly show Megan Adams that I cared about her. I had to make up for the last week in a big way.

  I had to take charge.

  I had to see her in person.

  Chapter 22: Megan

  I left home on that Wednesday a little earlier than normal, just after five. I’d spent the previous two days staying at the office until almost nine o’clock, but now, I had to take care of personal stuff with the funeral home. It wouldn’t necessarily require several hours of work, but it would require some time to decompress.

  I got to the lobby of my apartment complex and checked my mail. Wonder what sort of legal surprises I’ll get here today. But there was none of that, just a bunch of junk mail. I tossed all of them and headed to the elevator.

  Never had I felt so grateful to have an elevator ride all to myself. I leaned back against the wall, closed my eyes, and just took the brief moment of respite. I swore I could have fallen asleep right there. that probably would have been true even if my father hadn’t died. The new demands of the CEO position were exhausting.

  The elevator doors opened. I turned one corner, turned another, and a man—

  Brad?

  What…

  What the fuck was Brad doing standing in front of my apartment door?

  “Um?” I said, not even able to form a full question.

  He looked, frankly, awful.

  The handsome man that had won me over and charmed me on his boat now looked like he’d aged half-a-decade in the time since. Bags had formed under his eyes, which themselves could barely stay open, and he had a sluggishness to him that suggested someone struggling with his own form of depression. His face was expressionless.

  But as he locked eyes with me, beneath the ennui lay the eyes of a man who still felt fire for me and still felt desire for me. And if I were honest…

  Well, just because I felt it did not mean I had to follow through on it. Attraction did not mandate action.

  “How did you get up here?” I said before I caught myself. “Let me guess, you have connections.”

  “I buzzed a neighbor who let me up. I said I was your boyfriend. It wasn’t that difficult, to be honest. You had to figure I’d do something like this.”

  “I guess I’ll need to speak to my neighbors.”

  Brad shrugged. That was honestly more disconcerting than that Brad was here, but that was a problem I’d deal with later.

  “And how long have you been here?”

  My feet moved forward a bit. I still had a good deal of distance from Brad, I could not have reached out and touched him. But I did find myself walking closer and closer to him every time one of us spoke.

  “A couple of hours,” he said. “After our phone call on Monday, I knew I had to see you in person. So here I am.”

  “So you came unannounced to my apartment and relied on the luck of a careless neighbor to let you up?”

  “Pretty much,” he said. “When I want to see someone, I see someone.”

  Well, points for honesty, I suppose.

  “Megan, I know things went disastrously last week.”

  I hated that seeing him in person made it harder for me to reject his apology. I hated that seeing his face made me understand that he was genuine when he spoke.

  “I know I was a bit of a dick for disappearing as I did. I know—"

  “Brad, save your breath.”

  I hated that I was stopping him from going any further. But at least now I could see him less as a husband and more as just a dick.

  “I told you on the phone that it was over, and that’s something I have to stick to.”

  “You have to? Really? I’m pretty sure you don’t ‘have to’ do anything.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Because I can’t be with someone who refuses to open up.”

  I waited to see if he’d catch the hint.

  “You know I didn’t request the annulment papers.”

  No such fucking luck.

  “I know, Brad, I saw the name,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s why you’ve been this way. Are you going to tell me why you are acting this way?”

  Brad let out the longest sigh I’d ever heard a man give. All the while, his intense eyes never left mine. It was a good thing I’d come in determined not to give anything when I saw him, because he still had a way of winning.

  “My family is tough, I know,” he said. “They can suck. A lot. But I’m in it for you.”

  I shook my head. Not enough.

  “If that was the case, you wouldn’t have ghosted me last week.”

  “I know that, Megan,” he said. “And I know that everything I’ve done to this point has made me look like a real piece of shit. Anything you can say or could say about me that’s critical of me, that’s fair. But I would also say that now, I’m here to take ownership of this. I’m here to get you fucking back.”

  The longer I stood there, the better chance Brad would have of actually changing my mind. And the better chance he stood of changing my mind, the less likely I was to stick to my guns and give in. And if I gave in, then nothing from the past couple of weeks would have mattered.

  “You know, when I called Julia, she told me that I just needed to get an annulment myself, but I held on, thinking that maybe there’d be something worth saving in there,” I said. “And at first, there was. But people don’t show their true colors when they’re having a great time or getting laid. They do so when times are tough. And as best as I can tell, the minute that your family told you this was a bad idea, you gave up on it.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Knowing isn’t good enough, Brad.”

  I sighed.

  “I’m sorry, Brad. I had an absolute blast hanging out with you in Las Vegas. But for right now, as far as I can tell, this is over. We are done.”

  Chapter 23: Brad

  Megan shook her head, walked past me, unlocked her apartment, and walked inside. When I heard the click of the lock, I knew that I wasn’t going to get an invite inside. I waited another couple of minutes just to make sure, but I knew nothing was going to change.

  It fucking sucked.

  I got out to the street, leaving the apartment complex of…shit, the only person that I had ever known to be fully reliable.

  No, that wasn’t entirely true.

  The only living person I had ever known to be fully reliable.

  I couldn’t depend on my mother. The reasons were too fucking obvious.

  I couldn’t depend on Uncle Gio. Not when that very thought that he was actually my dad made me want to puke.

  The only person who had given me the unvarnished truth every time we had ever hung out, the only person unafraid to show how they really felt all the time, was Megan Adams.

  And the only other person that had ever made me feel that way was my father, Eddie Nimico.

  I found myself asking a simple question.

  What would Eddie do in this spot?

  It wasn’t a hard question. I’d seen my father and mother argue plenty of times, at times voices straining in argument. But every single time—I mean, every single fucking time—within just a couple of hours, they were hugging and kissing and telling each other that they loved the other. Their relationship might have taken punches. But it never fell to the mat.

  And that was what I had to do. We’d taken some nasty right hooks to the jaw. We were wobbling pretty badly, to the point where maybe a metaphorical coach would have thrown in the towel on our behalf.

  But I couldn’t let it happen.

  I had to make it work.

  And I would fucking make it work.

  * * *

  I went back to the apartment complex, buzzed the same neighbor, charmed my way
to the elevator, and made my way upstairs. I got to Megan’s door, took a breath, and knocked.

  She never answered the door, but I knew she was on the other side. I could hear her footsteps approaching the door and stopping, likely when she looked through her peephole and saw me standing there.

  “Megan,” I said after I knew she wasn’t going to open the door on her own. “It’s Brad. Open the door so we can talk.”

  Megan didn’t say anything. I heard her feet moving away. OK, if this was how it was going to be, I could still get my way. I could still tap into the side of me that demanded to have things my way.

  I knocked.

  I knocked.

  And I knocked some more.

  “What?” Megan finally said, albeit still without opening the door.

  “Give me one minute,” I said.

  “One minute to what?”

  I bit my lip. I knew what I’d have to talk about.

  “Discuss everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yes.”

  A few seconds passed. Finally, Megan opened the door. She nodded for me to enter and guided me to a chair by her kitchen table. She sat down across from me, distanced enough that I could not reach out and touch her.

  “The clock is ticking.”

  “OK, look,” I said, biting my lip. “I’m a bastard.”

  “You could say that again.”

  “I know I acted like one, but I mean literally.”

  “Brad, I am confused, and your minute is almost up.”

  “At first, our distancing was because my family had argued I should divorce you. They said that you had married me for political and business reasons. Their words created doubt.”

  Megan gave no visible reaction, but at least she wasn’t kicking me out right now.

  “A day later, I went to talk to my mom. My uncle in Vegas, the one who, well, you know this, the one has mob connections, he’d said something about taking care of my mother’s needs. Something financially related. And when I went over and saw a statement on her desk, I learned what it was. Turned out that she’d just gotten a ten-million-dollar lump sum. I was rather curious about this and asked why the hell this was the case. Well, that led from one thing to another. My mother revealed that my grandfather, who was supposed to have died before I was born, was actually the asshole that founded Ferrari Wines.”