Blurb
A smokin’ hot British player…
A jilted girl…
One night of mistaken identity…
Two weeks before her
wedding, Remi Montague’s fiancé drops her faster than a drunken sorority girl
in stilettos. Armed with her best friend and a bottle of tequila, she hops a
plane to London to drown her sorrows before fall semester begins at Whitman University.
She didn't plan on
attending a masquerade party.
She sure didn’t plan on
waking up next to the British bad boy who broke her heart three years ago—the
devastatingly handsome and naked Dax
Blay. Furthermore, she has no clue how they acquired matching tattoos.
Once back at Whitman
together, they endeavor to pretend they never had their night of unbridled
passion in London.
But that’s damn hard to do
when you live in the same house…
One night. Two damaged hearts. The passion of a lifetime.
*A modern love story inspired by Romeo and Juliet*
**no one dies in the
writing of this novel**
Chapter 1
Remi
Plain and
simple, this night sucked.
Sadly, it
was my honeymoon.
I sighed
heavily and gazed around Masquerade, an
intimately lit London nightclub where
everyone wore black
domino masks, some elaborate and some plain, to hide their
identity. A few die-hards even sported dark clothing with long,
loose cloaks.
Not me though. I’d gone modern with a slinky
little number and three-inch
heels, putting my height at nearly
six feet. Yep, I’m the giant in the blue
dress, towering over
every girl and some guys at the bar.
My top
teeth dug into my bottom lip as I gazed around the
smoky club, my eyes bouncing
off random faces. Even in a
room full of party people, music, and strobe
lights, I was
lonely.
My groom
was missing.
That’s
right. Hartford Wilcox, Jr., aka Mr. Nice Guy at
Whitman University in North
Carolina, had jilted me two
weeks before the big wedding day as we had dinner
at our
favorite Italian restaurant, Mario’s.
And now
here I was—on my honeymoon and getting trashed
with my best friend Lulu who’d
decided to skip her beach
vacation and come with me at the last minute.
She poked
me with her finger as we sat in front of the heavy
wooden bar of the club.
“Hey, Earth to Remi, get that glazed
look out of your eyes and order a drink
already. I’m thirsty.”
She fluffed her pixie-cut pink hair and straightened her
black
tutu, eyes scoping out the club. “Dang, the men in here are
hotter than a
billy goat with a blow torch,” she said in her
honeyed southern drawl
.
I
half-heartedly agreed, not really caring, more intent on
scanning the bottles
behind the bar. “I want tequila,” I
murmured. “A whole bottle.”
Her face
snapped back to me and her green eyes widened.
“Uh-uh. No way. I know what
happens when you drink that
crap. You either eat a ton of tacos and puke, or
you wrap
yourself around some cocky bastard with a well-developed
tush.”
True. I
did love a tight muscular ass.
But I
wouldn’t get one tonight.
A short
laugh burst out of me, one of those I’m-miserable-
but-pretending-to-
be-okay-laughs that I’d been doing a lot of
lately. For the past two weeks, I’d
vacillated between a
sobbing mess and an angry woman who became so
incensed
that “fuck” was the only word that seemed
appropriate in any given situation.
Going to the post office to
mail he
dumped me, but thank you anyway cards. Fuck.
Going to the wedding venue and
not getting the ten
thousand dollar deposit back. Fuck. Realizing I was
homeless fall semester—which was in two weeks—fuck.
Listening to my mother tell
me it was my fault. Fuck, fuck,
fuck.
The
bartender delivered my bottle and poured me a shot. I
sucked the tequila down
while Lulu watched me warily. It
tasted like bad decisions and gasoline, but
tonight was about
forgetting. The sooner the better.
A few
minutes later, Lulu went out to dance with a British guy
she’d been making eyes
at. I sat glumly at the bar, fiddling
with my diamond tennis bracelet, rubbing
it like rosary
beads. I needed to forget Hartford, and according to Lulu,
that
meant hooking up with someone.
Was she right?
Fate
answered in the form of a beautiful man—and by
beautiful I mean drop-dead sexy
with a backside so
delectable and muscular my mouth plopped open.
I snapped
my lips shut and adjusted my velvet half-mask—
the annoying feathery plumes on the
sides kept sticking to
my red lipstick—and turned ever so slightly to check him
out,
not wanting to appear obvious. He slid into the seat next to
me, tall and
broad with rippling shoulders and a massive
frame.
I checked
my appearance in a mirror behind the bar, mentally
analyzing the odds of a girl
like me snagging a hottie like
him.
Although
no one had ever called me beautiful, I did have two
—okay, maybe three—things
going for me in the looks
department. My shiny, golden-brown hair that hung
down in
waves to my shoulders, my fluffy “pillow lips” as Lulu
described them,
and lastly, I had an itsy bitsy space between
my two front teeth which were
otherwise white and perfect.
Lulu claimed the gap lent me an exotic look, like
Madonna or
Sookie Stackhouse. Whatever. I was a True Blood fan. I went
with it.
He
shifted on the stool, leaning closer to me. His cologne
swirled in the air, the
smell of expensive Scotch and musk
mingling together to create a heady,
slightly dangerous
scent. I paused, goosebumps rising on my bare arms. The
spicy whiff triggered a distant memory just out of reach.
As slyly
as I could, I studied his profile from top to bottom.
Like me he wore a black
mask, although his was more
masculine, not hiding his chiseled, movie star
jawline. His
lips were carnal and luscious, the bottom more plump than
the top
with a slight indentation in the middle. As I watched
, his tongue swept out and
caressed it, his top teeth biting it
as if he were deep in thought. He raked a
hand through his
dark, longish messy hair, held it suspended above his head
for
a few seconds and then released it, letting it swish back
into its tousled yet
perfect place.
I tore my
eyes away.
Something
about him sent loud warning bells ringing in every
atom of my body.
Danger, danger. Don’t touch that.
But my
gaze would not be denied as I took in the tight black
shirt and sculpted chest
that was obviously used to the
inside of a gym, right down to an arm that
looked like it could
snap a board in half—or me.
Nice biceps, Mr. Beautiful.
The pièce de résistance was the vivid blue
and orange
dragonfly tattoo displayed on his left arm. It was larger than
my
hand and took up most of his bicep. My eyes traced the
contours of the design
from the papery wings to the multi-
faceted eyes. A bold black color outlined
the insect, giving it
a masculine feel.
Gorgeous.
True
Religion jeans stretched down long legs and ended in a
pair of black Converse
without socks, giving him a boyish
quality that was in direct contrast to the
crazy-sexy-bad-boy
vibe he had going on.
Him tonight?
Maybe. He
was the polar opposite of Hartford who was
blond, lean, and tattoo-free.
I nibbled
on my fingernail. How do I get him to
notice little ol'
me?
Just then
a redhead with fluffy Farrah Fawcett hair strode up
to his stool, bold as
brass, wearing a tight, white mini-skirt
that barely covered her booty. She
brought with her the
smell
of sweet, cloying perfume, the kind I always got
spritzed with
at the mall.
She
flicked her hair over her shoulder, casually rubbed her
finger down his arm and
struck up a conversation. Her fake
, black lashes—which she’d somehow managed to
get
outside the eyeholes of her mask—batted. She puffed out
her well-developed
chest
.
He smiled
back at her with a wicked grin, his relaxed body
language telling me he was
confident when it came to
women. She whispered in his ear, boobs right in his
face, but
whatever he said back wasn’t what she wanted to hear
because a few
ticks later, she crossed her arms, glared at
me, and stalked away.
I blinked. What had I done?
Then he
turned and pointed his devastating smile at me.
Shit,
he’d made eye contact—as much as you could with a
claustrophobic mask on.
But wait…
Was he crazy?
Because
if he’d turned down her flirtation, I
didn’t have a
shot.
I didn’t
know how to do the fingers-tip-toeing-up-his-arm-thing
and sexy hair flicking.
I didn’t know a thing about applying
fake eyelashes. I didn’t know how to make
my breasts sit up
that high. I looked away from him and took another shot,
feeling anxious and strangely off-kilter.
Mr.
Beautiful ordered a drink from the bartender, his British
accent smooth as silk
as it washed over me. I froze. I almost
knew
that voice—deep with soft rounded vowels that made
you tingle in your lady
parts.
What was
it about this guy that had me all jacked up and hot
for him?
Hello, tequila, my inner
voice said. But it was more than
that.
Getting
brave, I pivoted on my barstool, and found Mr.
Beautiful’s eyes on me once
more, searching my face. As if
he too recognized the pull between us.
My heart
played hopscotch, jumping against my chest. My
skin prickled. I shivered.
Did I know him?
It
clicked.
Dax Blay?
It was his voice, the same deep quality, the
kind of voice that
made you want to hop into his bed and ride him like a
cowgirl.
My breath
hitched, and I swallowed down the emotion that
zipped up my spine whenever I
thought of him. He was my
one
mistake, the time I’d tossed inhibitions and carefully laid
plans aside and
went with my instincts, only to have them
tossed back in my face.
But the
man next to me wasn’t Dax. Thank God.
Last
spring at the campus-wide end of the year fraternity
party with Hartford, I’d
seen Dax, and he’d had shorter hair,
like always, and zero tattoos. Yeah. No
way.
Plus,
last I heard, he was in Raleigh where his father lived.
Yet…
Dax was
British. He could have family here. Maybe he got a
tattoo?
Nah. I mean,
what were the odds of us both being at the
same club on the same night in a
country where neither of
us lived?
I tore my
eyes off Mr. Beautiful and waved at a bartender for
more limes, but somehow my
tennis bracelet snagged on
the
bodice of my dress, leaving my wrist dangling
like a wet
dishrag in a most inappropriate place.
I wiggled
my arm.
Jiggled
it.
Even went
so far as to jerk, but it wouldn’t separate.
Sweat
popped out on my forehead. Holding my breath, I
twisted and tugged the
bracelet, forcing the delicate material
in my bodice to stretch beyond normal
limits.
“Well, hell,” I
breathed, pausing to assess.
Skin-tight
with a plunging neckline, the dress was mostly a
stretchy fabric held together
by sequined straps and a zipper
on the side. Slated as part of my honeymoon
wardrobe, it
was a Tory Burch and had cost four hundred dollars, the
most I’d
ever paid for a fun outfit, and no way did I want to
damage it. I might have to
return it to rent an apartment at
Whitman.
Lulu. I
needed Lulu. She was a whiz with wardrobe
malfunctions.
I spun
around on the barstool and used my free hand to
wave at her, but she was
slinging herself around dancing,
having a great time and completely oblivious.
I resorted to
flapping both hands at her, one high and one low. Several
people
waved back with baffled expressions, but Lulu didn’t
notice. Dammit.
I groaned
and slumped down in my seat, ready to scream
.
Now what? Go to the bathroom and
repair it there? Good
plan.
But the
club tilted when I stood, the strobe lights making me
squint as they flashed in
my face. I wobbled in my leopard
print heels—that Lulu had insisted I wear—and
grabbed the
stool to keep my balance.
`
I sucked
in a breath to gather myself, but I couldn’t think
straight. The room spun, and
I was suddenly queasy, and
why did I slam all that tequila, and oh my god, my wrist is
currently
attached to my tit like a T. rex arm.
I had to
get out of here before someone noticed what an
idiot
I was.
Trying to
be stealth like, I reached across the bar to get my
beaded clutch, but because
it was my left hand and not my
right that I used most of the time, I got off
balance and
stumbled—and my ankle folded in on itself. I yelped as my
shoe
catapulted off my foot and vaulted off toward the dance
floor, while I fell
forward, straight into Mr. Beautiful’s lap.
Filthy
English (unedited excerpt)
Copyright
Ilsa Madden-Mills
The British are HERE!
Are you ready for Filthy
English?
About the Author
New York Times and USA
Today best-selling author Ilsa Madden-Mills writes about strong heroines
and sexy alpha males that sometimes you just want to slap.
She's addicted to all things fantasy, including unicorns and
sword-wielding heroes in books. Other fascinations include frothy coffee
beverages, dark chocolate, Instagram, Ian Somerhalder (seriously hot),
astronomy (she's a Gemini), Sephora make-up, and tattoos.
She has a degree in English and a Master's in Education.
When she's not pecking away on her computer, she shops for cool
magnets, paints old furniture, and eats her weight in sushi.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
You can stalk her on her website as well as get signed books:
http://www.ilsamaddenmills.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorilsamaddenmills?pnref=lhc
IG: https://instagram.com/ilsamaddenmills/
Twitter: @ilsamaddenmills
Ilsa Madden-Mills’ other books:
VERY BAD THINGS
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1RH9CJY
iBooks: http://apple.co/1gl5Yaj
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1D0BVw5
VERY WICKED BEGINNINGS
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1K5NvX8
VERY WICKED THINGS
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1NvRIr5
iBooks: http://apple.co/1mVS3Wo
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1C9EZt3
VERY TWISTED THINGS
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1cvvkkh
iBooks: http://apple.co/1eN7Clh
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1BHcK4R
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