Malta with My Best Friend's Dad: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 256)

by Flora Ferrari

  I’d be ready to take him, all of him, and he’d, he’d…

  I blot it all from my mind, cursing myself for letting my mind dance to those possibilities even now.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Lena asks.

  “I don’t think we should go to Valetta,” I say.

  She giggles, shaking her head. “That’s what we’re here for, silly.”

  She walks toward her bedroom with an aura I recognize well. It’s her determined walk, meaning there’s no way I’m going to be able to stop her from going to Valetta, short of blurting out the truth about her dad… or tackling her, or something equally drastic.

  I want to tell her about Kane – the need for it barrels through me – but I can’t do it without Kane’s permission. That would be a betrayal as much as the one I’m inflicting upon my best friend.

  Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and let it out shakily, willing for some of this to make sense.

  The only thing that flurries through me with complete certainty is the life Kane said he wanted for us – the family and the home and the sound of children’s footsteps singing through the walls, making every moment star-bright and perfect.

  “Lena,” I say, walking over to her bedroom door. “Before we go, can you tell me how your work is going? I know you like to talk through things sometimes. Plus I’d like to sit down before we head down to the bus stop if you don’t mind?”

  More guilt chews away at me, telling me this is wrong, so wrong, and yet her life is in danger. The best I can do is convince her to stay for as long as I possibly can, and then hope that Kane returns and…

  And what?

  And he leaps out in front of Lena with a grin on his face, maybe saying ta-da like he’s just pulled off a magic trick?

  Lena’s face lights up and she nods enthusiastically, causing her ponytail to dance around. “Yes, you know how much I love talking about my work. But if your plan is to try and get to stay in all day, you should know I’ve only done thirty pages. So, you see, you haven’t got enough ammo.”

  I laugh, forgetting for a moment about all the madness whirring around this situation. Then it slams into me and I have to fight to stop my lips from turning down into a frown.

  Lena drops onto the bed and wraps her hands around her knees, rocking slightly as her passion for her story moves visibly through her.

  “It’s a forbidden love romance,” she says. “Like my first book.”

  My belly swirls as the words forbidden love bounce around my mind, a whirlpool threatening to suck me in as I consider how horribly ironic this is. It makes me want to scream that I’m the one having the forbidden romance… with her father, just so I don’t have to contain it inside of me anymore.

  “A Maltese man studying chemistry and a traveler fall in love. She’s running from a tragedy in her past – she lost both her parents in a car accident when she was a kid.”

  The details are different, but the end result is the same. Lena is also running from a tragedy, constantly burying herself in her work so she doesn’t have to think about what happened to her mom when she was a girl and her dad when she was a teenager.

  “He’s collecting specimens on the beach one evening and she’s going for a walk after a fight she had with her boyfriend… and that’s when they meet. But the twist is her boyfriend is his childhood friend.”

  Suddenly my throat is dry and I feel like my legs have turned to jelly.

  I stumble across the room and collapse into the chair near the window, gripping the windowsill and letting out a shaky breath.

  “Kelly?”

  “Sorry. It’s the heat. What does the friend say when he finds out?”

  Again, the details are slightly different – it’s a friend instead of a parent – but the similarities are enough to send my mind into manic overdrive, skipping over the scenario with guilt throbbing in my chest.

  My heart thunders and my chest feels like it’s constricting, like it’s going to crush my heart and stop it from beating forever.

  She pauses, considering, as she eyes me with her head tilted slightly. “I’m not sure yet. I haven’t worked that part out.”

  “Is there any coming back from that?”

  “From cheating on your boyfriend?”

  “No, I don’t think there’s any coming back from that,” I say passionately, the thought causing a wholly different kind of sickness to stampede through me.

  A lot about this situation makes me uncertain, but loyalty to one’s partner is not one of those uncertainties.

  Loyalty to one’s partner, claiming them, choosing them, and sticking by them no matter what means a lot to me, perhaps because of the example my parents have set.

  “What then?” Lena asks.

  “Betraying a best friend like that,” I murmur.

  Lena takes a frustratingly long time to answer. She leans forward and strokes her chin slowly, letting my thoughts dance away from my reason, returning to the way Kane stared at me when I told him I was a virgin.

  I thought he was disgusted at the time. But then he told me it made him want me more. The word more charts a burning path across my mind, joining the words need and desire and wrong.

  Finally, Lena speaks, but her words don’t make me feel any better.

  “I’m not sure,” she says. “I haven’t gotten to that bit yet.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kane

  A Russian approaches me as I walk down the hill toward the village. He’s wearing a white vest that shows his tattooed arms, and his hair is jet-black and slicked to the side. I peg him for a member of the Bratva before we’re within a hundred yards of each other.

  He raises his hands as he comes to a stop in front of me. “No weapons. No violence. Sergey only wants to talk.”

  I gesture toward the village. A group of elderly Maltese women walk by with paper bags of bread, and a child rides by on his bicycle.

  The village is waking up. The world is waking up.

  “Where is he?” I ask in Russian.

  The man’s eyes widen. “You speak our language?”

  “My name is Konstantinov. It’s hardly a surprise.”

  “You are Russian?” the man asks.

  I shake my head. “Born in America. But my parents were Russian. Where is your employer?”

  “Waiting,” the man says. “Follow me. I’ll take you to him.”

  My survival instincts roar at me not to go with him, and I take a step back. “Tell him to come out in the open. I’m not being led to my death.”

  The man winces. “It is difficult to tell him anything right now.”

  I detect some distaste in his voice, even in the Russian, which I have rarely had cause to speak since I left the States and stopped associating with the Bratva. Perhaps Sergey’s men find it as ridiculous as I do, that he’d drag them all the way out here, that he’d forced them to come to Malta for a personal vendetta, instead of making money in New York or Moscow.

  “He knows me. He knows I’m not an idiot.” I nod to a nearby bench, next to the dusty road, which is empty at the moment. “Tell him I’m waiting here for him. We can talk like gentlemen.”

  Without waiting for a reply, I stride over to the bench, nerves buzzing up and down my body. Sergey has always been on-edge, but he was able to hide it for a time when I was working with him. But after what happened – after I told him no, fuck no – something seemed to snap in him.

  And then, as the saying goes, all hell broke loose.

  I curl my fist around my cell phone as I wait, watching people stroll by, my eyes tracking them to check for any sign of weapons. Jocko will call me if the situation with Kelly and Lena changes.

  Kelly.

  Her name alone sends thoughts rioting around my mind, hungry sensations surging through my body. I think of the way she stared, so wide-eyed, so receptive when I told her who she belonged to. I think of the blush which marked her gorgeous cheeks and the way she pursed her lips.

  I think o
f her, all the different shades of her, and how good it’s going to feel to make her mine.

  But thoughts of Lena slam into me a second later, and I glance over to Medina, to make sure she hasn’t somehow slipped Jocko’s watch.

  No, no damn way.

  Jocko’s never made a mistake in all the time I’ve known him.

  Small stuff, fine, but nothing as big as letting my daughter find out I’m just miles away from her.

  Luckily her balcony doesn’t afford her a view of my bench, because she might be able to tell it’s me even across the hazy Maltese air.

  Finally, the Russian emerges from the village, his eyes downcast. Drops of blood slide down his face and over his lips, and then Sergey swaggers up next to him.

  In Russian, he spits, “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

  The man turns and stalks back into the village.

  The years have not been kind to Sergey. He was lean when I left the states, but his belly has swollen now, making his new steroid-infused muscles look even more ridiculous. He’s five years younger than me but his face is creased with all the drugs he’s taken, all the liquor he’s abused himself with.

  I stand to greet him, looking him eye to eye. We’re the same height, around six and a half feet. His arms are bigger than mine. His shoulders are chunkier. But I can tell it’s from drugs. They have a swollen, balloon-like quality.

  “It has been a long time, brother,” Sergey says.

  The word brother sends hateful shivers moving through me, the beast in me making my fingers twitch as I resist the urge to go for his throat.

  I know what sort of business this man is involved in…

  Even if I didn’t before, even if I made a mistake by ever getting involved with him.

  “Whose fault is that?” I try to keep my tone civil, but rage boils up through it. “Why are you here, Sergey?”

  “Why do you think?” He laughs as he stuffs his hands in his pockets, aiming a sickening leer at me. “I heard your sweet daughter was leaving American soil and I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist. I sent a man… And I was right.”

  “But why?” I snarl. “I’ve kept to our arrangement. You exiled me and in exchange, you said you’d leave my family alone. You swore on the bonds of the Bratva.”

  “Because you offended me.” The man is deranged. His eyes glimmer and his lips peel back. “You told me no, Kane, and I can’t… I can not let this go, the way you looked at me like you were better than me.”

  My hand curls into a fist as I fight back the words, I am better than you, you sick fuck. I push them down and stare firmly into his eyes, trying to mask the message I so hungrily want to roar.

  “You came all the way to Malta for that?”

  “I swore I wouldn’t hurt you or your family on American soil. I didn’t say anything about Malta, did I?”

  I shake my head, letting out a savage peal of laughter.

  “Is something funny?” Sergey snaps. “Why are you laughing?”

  “Do you have any idea how much weaker this makes you look, traveling all this way on a three year vendetta? Do you have any goddamn clue how messed up that is? Your men don’t want to be sent on missions for personal revenge. Your men want to make money. This is a stupid play. That’s why I’m laughing.”

  His eyes flare and he lets out a shaking sigh. “You wouldn’t be laughing if you knew what we were going to do to your daughter.”

  Something snaps in me and I lunge forward, unable to stop my hands from lashing out for his throat.

  I squeeze down and lift him off his feet, his eyes bulging, as Russians emerge from the streets of Rabat and stalk toward me.

  “Call your men off,” I snarl, as his legs kick and his face turns red.

  “I… can’t… breathe…”

  I drop him and stare down hard at him, letting him know I’m not fucking around. “Call. Your. Men. Off.”

  He returns my gaze for a moment, as though debating telling them to attack me. My eyes scan over the Russians, counting six, seven, eight as they emerge from the village, all of them covered in tattoos, all over their necks and arms and hands and faces.

  “This isn’t New York,” I growl. “You don’t own the cops here. What do you think happens if you start some shit, eh?”

  He rubs at his throat, and then turns and barks instructions in Russian. “Back to the village. Now.”

  My gaze is drawn to the men’s faces, to the way they exchange glances, as though they’re tired of taking instructions from a man who’s so unhinged. But tired or not, it’d take a brave bastard to make the first move against Sergey. And the last thing I’m going to do is rely on the bravery of criminals.

  “That was a mistake,” Sergey snarls.

  “So was threatening my daughter.” I take a step forward. “The smartest thing you could do is leave, Sergey, leave and never come back. This grudge… can’t you see how insane it is? We compromised. I left. My daughter has lived three years of her goddamn life without me. What more do you want?”

  “I want you to correct your mistake,” he snaps.

  I shake my head, stunned at the delusions of this man, that he thinks I’d ever do such a thing. “That’s not going to happen.”

  His hand continues to rub his throat as he laughs, gravelly and rough. “Then you can’t hold me responsible for what happens next.”

  Turning away, he swaggers toward the city, my mind flooding with the thought of charging after him and ending this right here. But if I fall upon him like I want to – the fury thundering through me – I could be arrested.

  I won’t be here for Lena. I won’t be here for Kelly.

  Kelly.

  My chest tightens as her name punches through me, a primal reminder that I have to somehow get us all out of this.

  Alive, ready to face the future, ready to fill our lives with closeness and love and contentment and peace.

  My cell phone rings.

  Jocko.

  “What is it?” I ask, answering.

  “The girls are on the move.”

  Fuck.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kelly

  I tried to stop her from heading down to the bus stop for as long as I could, but without telling her the truth, there was only so much I could do. Now we’re walking down the hill with the sun blazing in the sky, not yet at its zenith but already burningly hot.

  The scent of suntan lotion rises around us, as Lena turns to me with a wide smile on her face.

  She sucks in a deep breath and claps her hands together. “This is what it’s all about, right? I can’t wait to see the capital. I’ve heard it’s gorgeous. We need to find the most romantic walk we can, a place that’ll give my characters time to really explore each other, you know? But it has to be secret too.”

  “Because of the whole best friend thing,” I say, a churning feeling moving through my belly.

  “Exactly.”

  My eyes scan the landscape as we get closer and closer to the bus stop, searching for any sign of Kane or the Russians. I have to struggle hard to fit that into my mind – the searching, the danger. Part of me still struggles to accept it, events seeming so surreal.

  “Make sure you tell me when you work out how the friend is going to forgive them.” We sit under the shadow of a tree, waiting for the bus to arrive, tourists milling around, half a dozen languages filling the air. “Because I’m really struggling to see it.”

  “You know I’m not that sort of writer.” She taps her nose with a grin. “There are plotters and pantsers, and you know what sort I am.”

  I laugh, nodding, even as a voice hisses inside of me that I’m a traitor. Lena is firmly in the pantser category of writers, which means she works out the story as she goes along, rather than working from an outline.

  My mind is a battlefield as we wait for the bus to arrive, leaping from the way Kane’s lips felt – both against my mouth and my sex – to the Russians, to how Lena’s face would warp if she discovered the truth.
>
  My fingers make paths across my belly, clawing onto my nerves.

  Lena is oblivious to it all, gazing around at the world with a content smile on her face, seeming at ease as she always does after a long writing episode.

  I study her and tell myself this will all work out okay, even if I’m not sure I believe it.

  Where the heck is Kane?

  I can’t think of a way of stopping us from getting onto the bus, but his words are bouncing around my head.

  He told me to keep her in Medina.

  But how?

  All too soon the bus is here and people start clambering on. Lena and I arranged a two-week ticket before we arrived, so we swipe our passes and head toward the back. Lena drops down with a huff, grinning over at me.

  “They didn’t mention the lack of air-conditioning in the brochure, huh?”

  I return her smile, shaking my head, as beads of sweat prick all over my body. But they aren’t fueled only by the heat – which makes the air thick and cloying – but also from how busy the bus is, how any one of these passengers could be employees of the Bratva.

  I tell myself they wouldn’t risk anything with so many people around, so many witnesses, but truthfully I have no idea.

  As the bus doors close and the driver leads us away from the city of Medina, panic begins to surge through me in oppressive waves, making my belly tighten and my skin tingle, and everything seems loud, close, on-edge.

  Lena watches the Maltese countryside as we pass, arid and yellow, dust kicking up into the air as the bus bumps its way along the uneven road. We jostle up and down and Lena lets out a giggle, grinning at me every few moments as if to say, Now this is traveling.

  I nod and do my best to enjoy the ride, the moment, without thoughts of Kane’s lips returning to me, making my skin sizzle.

  “Hey, why don’t you do an impromptu concert?” Lena gives me a playful dig in the side. “We’ve got a captive audience.”

  I roll my eyes, letting out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, sure. And then everybody will start cheering and telling me I’ve got the most beautiful voice in the world. And then maybe one of these people knows a big-shot record label owner, huh, and this is my chance at superstardom?”