The Marriage Mistake Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Table of Contents

  The Marriage Mistake

  Also By Crimson Vixens

  Dedication

  Description

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Baby Bargain

  Double Feature

  Now or Never

  Hard & Fast

  Hard Luck

  Hard Sell

  Painting Her

  Taste

  Authors’ Note

  The Marriage Mistake

  A Billionaire Hangover Romance

  By Natalie Knight & Daphne Dawn

  Copyright © 2018 by Crimson Vixens

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work is intended for adults only.

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  Also By Crimson Vixens

  Vivien Vale

  Mountain Man Baby Daddy

  Hard Pressed

  Hard Bargain

  Hard & Fast

  Hard Luck

  Big Package

  Daphne Dawn

  3 Men Of The House

  Baby Bargain

  Double Dealing

  Double Feature

  Double Stuffed

  Triple Pleasure

  Second Chance Baby Daddy

  Wanted

  Triple Taught

  Natalie Knight

  Taste

  Painting Her

  Caught On Tape

  4 Men of the House

  The Other Brother

  Dedication

  To Tim

  Description

  Putting the bang back in Bangkok…

  Sammi Brighton. Uptight. Brilliant. Driven.

  Total master of self-control.

  One look at those snarky lips and I'm rock hard.

  Imagining all the filthy things I want to do.

  Oh, did I mention?

  She hates my f^@%ing guts.

  But that doesn't stop me.

  Not when she shows up at the same conference.

  Determined to show me up yet again.

  But I know what makes Sammi tick.

  I'm going to make her come undone.

  Scream. Moan. Beg for more.

  The only thing I didn't plan on?

  Waking up married.

  Now I have to convince her of something else entirely.

  That this was no mistake.

  WAIT!

  Please use the TOC (Table of Contents located in the upper left area of your screen) to navigate your way through this book. If you’re zoomed out and you’re seeing a smaller version of the book and it is flipping through that way, please press the center of your screen to get you out of page flip mode.

  Thanks!

  Natalie Knight & Daphne Dawn

  Lock

  7:30 PM FRIDAY

  God, I love a woman who can throw a punch.

  Look. There aren’t many things in this world more unmanly than being socked in the face by your fiancée. Macrame, owning a vagina, and still enjoying Guns N’ Roses after Slash left all come to mind.

  But being sucker-punched by your fiancée…and then crying afterward?

  Mate, it’s up there.

  But it’s not my Aussie ass who’s sobbing into his Singha over a sucker-punch to the kisser. Oh, no—I’m not a dignified man by any means, but I’ve got more dignity than that.

  Generally speaking, if a woman hits me, I’ve done something sufficiently asinine to deserve it—and I know how to take my knocks.

  Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Eggbert Humphrey. And before you ask—yeah, that’s that’s his true blue, god-given name.

  Poor fucking bastard.

  Eggs and I grew up together, and I’ve known his problem from the fucking start, mate. You can say what you like about Lachalan Williams, but don’t say I didn’t earn my way in the world.

  Putting the swish boarding schools Eggs and I attended together aside—the second that I had a chance, I spat my silver spoon right out of my mouth and into the orange outback dirt.

  Eggs, though? Eggs has been sucking on his silver spoon like his life depends on it—only, of course, when he’s not taking it out of his mouth so he can suck on even more unsavory things.

  But we’ll get to that in a moment.

  See, my fucking issue with Eggsy isn’t that he’s a rich wanker with a stick up his arse the approximate size and length of a saltwater croc.

  It’s the way he carries himself. The way he talks, the way he walks. It’s his boy’s club attitude, the way he fucks about like he owns every building he enters and every person within it besides.

  And the real thing—here’s the kicker—the one thing about Eggsy that I can’t fucking stand…

  Is the fact that no matter how pissed off Sammi Brighton looks as she pulls her fist back again for a second swing, I can see behind that gorgeous snarl of hers that Eggs Humphrey is breaking her heart.

  “You broke my n-nose!” Eggsy sobs, looking up at Sammi like she just put a scratch in the custom paint job of his Ferrari.

  “You’re fucking welcome for it, too.” Sammi’s looking back down at him like she’s sizing him up, looking for more things to break. “It’s an improvement when you
think about, darling. You wanna pretend you’re some kind of bad boy marine biologist? Now you’ll look the part.”

  I thumb my own crooked nose self-consciously as she mentions it. ‘Course, I didn’t get mine from a woman scorned.

  I got mine from a Japanese shark fisherman who looked like he sumo wrestled in his spare time. Cheeky bastard clocked me right in the face with his harpoon gun—

  Which is exactly what it looks like Sammi is wishing she could to her cheating fiancé—soon to be ex-fiancé—next.

  Eggs’ one remaining ladyboy courtesan tries to shove her tits in his face to comfort him, but Eggs is proper pissed now. His sobs are subsiding into wounded little grunts, like he thinks he’s about to Hulk out and teach the gorgeous, leggy brunette before him some kind of lesson.

  “Listen here, cunt,” he growls, pushing the ladyboy onto the floor. “You’re my woman. If you think you can get away with this and still marry me—”

  Sammi fucking laughs at that.

  Fuck’s sake, it’s a gorgeous laugh.

  “Oh, honey,” she coos. “I ain’t fucking marrying you.”

  Then, to my fucking delight, Sammi Brighton turns to me and asks me for something that makes me fall in love with her all over again.

  She points to a bottle of tequila with a hooded cobra stuffed inside of it and tells me, “Pour me a fucking shot.”

  My cock goes stiff at the sound of her voice. Just like that.

  I do her one better. I pour us both a shot.

  She drinks both of them.

  Saucy bitch.

  Samira fucking Brighton. Busty, boozing goddess of the seven seas. Long, sexy legs that were made for wrapping around a lucky bloke’s hips. Long, dark hair that falls down her back in midnight tidal waves.

  She closes her green eyes as she grabs the bottle of cobra tequila, tipping the golden liquor down her throat like she was born without a gag reflex. She doesn’t stop until the cobra inside the bottle slides down to meet her lips—and when it does, she gives it a little tequila-flavored kiss.

  Truth be told, I always knew that Eggs wasn’t good enough for her.

  No one’s fucking good for her.

  Not a single goddamn person in this rotten fucking world.

  Sams and I go way back. First time I met her, I thought she was the most uppity bitch I’d ever had the displeasure of meeting in my entire fucking life.

  We were grad students out on the same research boat, and she had me hauled back to shore for forgetting my lifejacket. Pissed me off something fierce at the time. Hated her with every bone in my fucking body.

  Second time I met Sams was in the local sailor bar that night, bellies full of cheap tequila and somehow on the same losing side of a fist fight.

  Third time I met Sams was three years ago, right here in Bangkok. We snuck back into the aquarium our conference was held after an ungodly amount of tequila and I had her screaming my name and writhing beneath me. I made her come over and over again until she forgot both our names.

  And the fourth time I met Sammi was the morning after, when the tequila had all worn off and she’d forgotten everything.

  And that’s not even the end of it.

  I’ve fallen into bed with this fucking typhoon of a woman at least once a year for the last three years. And by the next morning, she’s forgotten about it. Every fucking time.

  So as Eggsy blusters and threatens in the background and Sammi drains her bottle of questionable cobra liquor, I can’t help but think how fucking fortuitous this all is.

  Now, like I said. I’ve always known Eggsy was wrong for her. When I found out that that little shitstain had proposed to Slammin’ Sammi Brighton, I put my fist through the bow of my yacht and nearly fucking sank the damn thing for the pleasure.

  No one’s right for Sammi Brighton.

  No one, that is…but me.

  If she could ever fucking remember, well…fucking me, anyway.

  “Okay, Kangaroo Jack.” Sammi slams the empty tequila bottle down on the counter and looks up at me with nothing but trouble in those gorgeous eyes. “You’re up. I’ve still got a few nights in Bangkok—wanna show me and my friends a good time?”

  I cast a glance across the bar where Sammi’s entourage of troublemakers is clustered together, watching us intently.

  There’s a little redheaded one, flanked by two blondes. She’s wearing a tiara that reads SLUT spelled out in rhinestones across the front of it. She’s got a tall, scruffy-looking bloke’s arm wrapped around her, and I can just barely make out part of a Union Jack tattoo on his chest.

  “You sure your friends can handle us?” I wave over the bartender and exchange a few words with him in Thai.

  Sammi narrows her eye and smiles. “Question is, Crocodile Dundee…can you handle us?”

  I’m just tipping back the first ounce of my own bottle of cobra tequila when fucking Eggbert wrongly decides that his opinion is needed again.

  “Sammi-poo, no.” He says it like he’s talking to a misbehaving housecat. “You’re my bride, dammit!”

  I ought to punch his fucking lights out for it, but Sammi does him one better.

  She grabs him by the balls and pulls her lips back in a snarl.

  “First off,” she says, “I’m not your bride. Second off…”

  Eggsy makes a strangled sound as I polish off the last of my own bottle of cobra liquor. It gives me the impression that Sammi’s not just grabbing his balls…she’s twisting them, too.

  “You know what you did,” she sneers at him. “And thirdly—don’t fucking call me Sammi-poo.”

  I slam my bottle of tequila on the bar, and she looks back at me again.

  “You ready?”

  I shrug. “Maybe. Think you’re gonna remember me this time?”

  Sammi throws her head back, twining her fingers between mine as she takes me by the hand.

  “What do you mean, this time? Seriously, Lock—if I’d ever had the bad sense to fuck you, I think I would’ve remembered it.”

  Ah. Won’t pretend that doesn’t sting a little bit. But that’s just part of being hopelessly in love with Sammi fucking Brighton.

  She’s all bark and all bite.

  “I’ll take that as a no, then,” I say as she drags me across the bar to meet her friends.

  “That’s a fuck no, Lock. I don’t want to remember anything about this awful fucking night.”

  When Sammi says shit like that, she usually means it. Hell, she even usually succeeds. But nonetheless, some small part of me still hopes that she might remember me come morning. That I can make her remember.

  Until then, I suppose there’s nothing left to do but give her the best night she’ll ever forget.

  Chapter 1

  Sammi

  10:07 AM SATURDAY

  The Bangkok heat beats down on my body like a toddler trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. The humidity hangs heavy on my skin like a fur coat on the 4th of July.

  Pretty much, it fucking sucks.

  It’s not just the sun or the humidity or the heat, though. It’s the fact that every cell of my being still feels full of tequila—except for my head, which feels full of spiders, and my stomach, which feels full of worms.

  “What the fuck did I do last night?” I mumble to myself.

  And then, it hits me.

  I don’t fucking remember.

  Oh god, no. Not again.

  See, I’ve learned my lesson about dancing with Jose Cuervo. I no longer patronize Patron. It might take two to tango, but it only takes one of me to tequila—

  And these days, I know better than to indulge in the devil’s happy hour. Give me a glass of wine with dinner or a nip of bourbon before bedtime, but dammit! I’m not in college anymore, and this isn’t Las Vegas, either.

  Slammin’ Sammi B. is dead and buried beneath a clinking mountain of empty bottles of silver label. And Samira Brighton—that’s me—she’s no longer the kind of girl who gets blackout drunk and ends up naked on
a dick-shaped pool floaty, adrift out in the middle of a hotel swimming pool.

  Unfortunately for me, it only takes two agonizing seconds of having my eyes open to realize that no, actually, that’s exactly the kind of girl I am right now.

  In fact, I’m probably going to have to hold onto this damn floaty’s big inflatable balls just to try and paddle my way back to shore.

  But even that much effort…that’s fucking beyond me now. My head hurts. My whole shoulder feels swollen and tender. And my mouth…my mouth is so goddamn dry that I’m feeling the surface of the pool lapping at my toes and thinking water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

  So I just fucking lay there for a while.

  Floating on an inflatable dick and hoping that if I keep my eyes closed for long enough, maybe—just maybe—when I open them again, I’ll be literally anywhere else.

  Doesn’t fucking work.

  Imagine that.

  I’m tentative to get too splishy splashy in this pool right now—and if you knew me, you’d know why. Last time I woke up like this, there was a shark in the pool with me.

  And I fucking like sharks. Love them, even. Hell, I’m spending my whole life trying to save the noble hammerhead from extinction, y’know?

  But I don’t want to get eaten by one.

  Imagine that.

  It takes me a while, but finally, I get there. With a lot of tentative little flutter kicks and a lot more holding my breath, I make it to the edge of the pool.

  I’m thinking I’m going to go into my hotel suite, drink some water, pop some aspirin, and see what my BFF Percy has handcuffed herself to this time. Maybe grab some sunglasses on the way—because while my future might be bright, right now, there are better reasons I could use some serious fucking shades.

  In fact, I’m shielding my eyes with my hand just to try and stop that nasty Thai sun beaming straight through my eyelids and into my soul.

  But then the weirdest fucking thing happens.

  Some big, hulking object shifts at the edge of the pool and eclipses that sunshine.

  And even though it fucking kills me to do it…