Between the Covers
A Met His Match Spin-off Novel
Louisa Masters
Contents
Untitled
Readers love Louisa Masters
About Between the Covers
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
Epilogue
Hi from Louisa!
Also by Louisa Masters
About the Author
Readers love Louisa Masters
Charming Him (previously published as The Bunny and the Billionaire)
“Looking for a story that’s the very definition of sweet romance? Here it is.”
—Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words
“I really really loved this one and very much recommend it.”
—Diverse Reader
“The bottom line is that this book was incredibly entertaining.”
—Just Love: Queer Book Reviews
Offside Rules (previously published as The Athlete and the Aristocrat)
“…a good book. Laughter, a few tears, and happy ones too. A good read.”
—Love Bytes
“Would definitely recommend to readers who enjoy billionaire romance, or sports/athlete heroes.”
—Joyfully Jay
Between the Covers
Copyright © 2020 by Louisa Masters
Cover Designer: Booksmith Designs
Interior Design: RMGraphX
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
Paperback ISBN 978-0-6483374-7-8
For my grandparents:
Carmine and Angelina, Antonio and Giovanna.
I am so much richer for having known you. Your loss is an ache that will never go away.
About Between the Covers
Love is complicated. Do it anyway.
For two years, Dani Novak has lived vicariously through her best friend while slogging away at work and caring for her ill grandmother. But with her grandmother’s passing, a world of opportunity opens to her—if only she has the courage to seize it.
Publicly, Malik al-Saud is a wealthy, spoiled jet setter, but behind the scenes, he works hard at his vocation. Secretly a best-selling author, Malik struggles to keep his work separate from his playboy reputation—and above all, stay out of his disapproving father’s way.
They’ve been getting to know each other through his cousin and her best friend. Now, finally, it’s time for them to meet. It doesn’t take long for friendship to turn to more—but when Malik’s family issues interfere, things get ugly. Can they manage these unexpected complications? Dani fears that Malik’s lifelong antagonism with his family is insurmountable.
Chapter One
Dani wandered aimlessly through the house. From the kitchen into the living room, through the opening to the entryway, down the hall past the bedrooms, and back into the kitchen. And then she did it again, walking slowly, pausing every so often to touch or stare.
Her home had never felt so empty.
She’d lived in this house for three years and never had a roommate here, never felt lonely. She loved living alone. But after being surrounded by people for the last two days, being alone felt wrong.
Or maybe it was just that she’d never see her gran again.
Sinking into her granddad’s old armchair—the one her gran had given her when she first moved out on her own, and that they had spent hours together choosing new fabric for—she sighed. They’d—she’d—known for a long time that this day was coming. Gran had been poorly for years, and the last six months she’d needed actual full-time nursing care. It was only due to the generosity of Dani’s best friend that they’d been able to accede to Gran’s wishes and not have her admitted to a nursing home. Instead they’d been able to hire round-the-clock nurses to look after her at home.
Dani sighed again. She wished Ben was here and not halfway around the world in Monaco. When a girl lost her gran, she really needed her BFF.
Maybe she should go back to Gran’s place. Her mum was there still, with a steady stream of visitors dropping in to pay their respects. Dani had been there herself for over a week, ever since the nurse had told them to be prepared. The last two days, since… well, she’d wished herself anywhere else. Her mother had only sent her home an hour ago with a sharp order to get some rest.
She snorted. If only. Sitting down to rest meant giving herself time to think, to remember, to feel. She would a thousand times prefer to serve coffee to condolence-givers, talk with the priest, and sort through photos for a montage. Not to mention the dozens of other little details nobody even considered until they were necessary.
The doorbell rang, and she leaped to her feet with a rush of gratitude. She didn’t even care who it was—most likely her brother, but she’d happily welcome a salesman, evangelist, or axe murderer. It took only seconds to unlock the door and yank it open, and—
She burst into tears.
“Oh, hey now,” Ben said as he wrapped her in his arms. She clung to him, sobbing harder than she could ever remember. She’d been so proud of how she’d restrained her tears. She hadn’t wanted to burden her parents or siblings with her grief, not when they all shared it. But now she had her bestie’s shoulder to cry on.
“Take her inside. It’s cold.” The soft, French-accented words were her first indication that Ben had not arrived alone, and even as Ben ushered her back into the house—which was not much warmer, since she’d forgotten to turn on the heater when she got home—she sucked in a sob and raised her head.
Léo’s gorgeous face smiled kindly at her. “I am so sorry for your loss, Dani,” he said, following them through the door and closing it behind him. Sniffling, she swiped tears from her face.
“Thank you. And thank you so, so much for coming.” She leaned back against Ben and let him support her. She’d known she missed him, that she wanted him here, but not how much. Not until she’d opened the door and seen him.
“Like we wouldn’t have.” Ben snorted. “Please. I would have come months ago to nurse Gran Carol myself if you hadn’t told me no.” He took her hand and led her into the living room. “Jesus, Dan, it’s freaking freezing in here. Sit. I’m going to turn on the heater.” He pushed her down into the armchair and hustled back into the corridor, where the thermostat and controls were. Léo looked around and took a seat on the small—very small—sofa. He was dressed casually—for him—but still looked just as out of place this time as he had when they last visited, just before Christmas.
“How have you been?” she asked inanely, and instantly wanted to kick herself. She knew exactly how he’d been. She and Ben spoke, texted, or FaceTimed nearly every day. The moment anything vaguely interesting happened in a
ny of their lives, it got shared. She felt closer to Léo, his cousin, and their friends than she did to some of the people she saw and spoke to every day, even though she’d only met Léo in person twice and the others not at all.
But she just didn’t know what to say.
“I’m well,” Léo said gently. “Have you eaten? Rested?”
She shrugged, listening to the thumping sounds Ben was making as he went through her kitchen cupboards. Finally he came back out, glaring. “Call Malik,” he told Léo. “We need the car back to go grocery shopping. Dani, when was the last time you cooked?”
Dani traced a finger over the arm of her chair. “I’ve been spending most of my time at Gran’s the last few weeks,” she admitted, trying to block out exactly why. Wait…. “Did you say Malik?” She glanced over at Léo, who was talking softly into his phone. “Léo’s cousin Malik?”
“Yeah.” Ben perched beside her on the chair arm, crowding her in the best possible way. “He went with our luggage to check in to the hotel.” He stroked his hand over her hair, and she leaned into it.
The fog in Dani’s head was pretty thick, had been for days, but there was still something about Malik being there that didn’t compute.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? We didn’t want to just leave the car and driver sitting outside your house, and Malik thought it might be better for you if it was just me and Léo tonight.”
She shook her head. “No, I mean… why is Malik here at all? In Australia?”
Ben huffed, leaned over, and kissed the top of her head. “He came to offer his support, Dani. Because you’re my best friend, and he’s gotten to know you a bit and you’ve given us your support. Lucien and Si were coming too, but something came up with the charity like, literally two minutes before we boarded the plane. We left them at the airport.”
Her sinuses burned as tears welled up again. “Wha—?” she managed to choke out, and Ben slid into the chair properly, pulling her into his lap and wrapping his arms around her.
“Oh, baby. You do nice things for people, and they want to be there for you when you need it.” He held her close once more as she sobbed. She hadn’t cried at all in the past two days, not until Ben arrived and told her that people she hardly knew wanted to give her support. It made something in her chest burn, but in a good way.
Léo and Ben spoke quietly over her head, but even after she was done crying, she didn’t bother to listen, just lay limp against Ben’s chest and let her thoughts float through the numb gray fog in her head.
Eventually she felt herself being lifted, and she raised her head to find herself in Léo’s arms, being carried toward the door.
“What…?” Forming the entire question was too much work, but fortunately Léo understood.
“We are taking you to our hotel,” he said. “You can have room service and be looked after and Ben will stay with you. He is packing you a bag now.”
Some part of her wanted to protest at not being consulted, but oh, how lovely it would be to sleep in a big bed with her bestie and eat food she wouldn’t have to prepare and just forget this day and the ones before and those yet to come.
She laid her head against Léo’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “Okay.” They were outside now, but sometime when she hadn’t been paying attention, someone—Ben?—had draped a blanket over her, so the cold barely touched her. A moment later, she was being laid in the back seat of a car. She snuggled into the corner, pulling the blanket tighter around herself.
“Is she okay?” a voice asked quietly, and Dani wanted to open her eyes and see the face she knew went with that voice, but her lids were too heavy.
“Hi, Malik,” she muttered, the words a little slurred.
“Hello, Dani.” A warm hand stroked hair away from her face. “Rest. We’ll take care of you.”
Sleep enveloped her.
Her first awareness was of being warm. She was surrounded by soft, fluffy warmth, rested and comfortable.
Then it all came rushing back, and she opened her eyes. An unfamiliar ceiling came into focus, followed a moment later by Ben’s face.
“You’re awake. Want some breakfast?”
Dani nodded. If she spoke, she might cry again. She just needed a few moments to get herself together. The bed shifted and Ben disappeared, and a second later she heard a door close. Breathing deeply, she sat up and stared fixedly at the white sheets until the tears receded, then lifted her head and looked around.
Fuck me.
She’d never get used to the fact that Ben, her BFF who hated to spend a cent he didn’t need to and who until pretty recently considered twenty dollars for a pair of jeans “kind of expensive,” now was not only rich in his own right but had hooked up with a guy who redefined the term super-freaking-wealthy. Case in point, this hotel room that was almost the same size as her two-bedroom house, and definitely better decorated. Was it even allowed for a hotel to have real artwork instead of mass-produced prints?
Sighing, she got up, picked up her robe, which Ben had thoughtfully draped over the end of the bed, and wrapped herself in it. She must have been really out of it last night, because she’d been changed out of her clothes and into her flannel pj’s without ever waking. Not surprising, really, since she’d not been sleeping well. It was hard to switch her mind off and forget that Gran….
Well. It would get easier, she knew that, and until then, she just had to keep on.
She crossed the room and properly opened the drapes, which had just been cracked enough to provide dim light. Winter sunshine flooded in, momentarily blinding her. When her vision cleared, she gasped. The view! Whichever hotel they were in, they were on a seriously upper floor, and the view over the city and to the bay beyond was fabulous. She’d stayed in a few city hotel rooms in her time, and she only ever got a view of busy streets or the buildings opposite. If this was what money could buy, maybe she should get used to Ben having it.
The sound of a door opening had her turning to see Ben poke his head in. “You’re up! Breakfast should be here in about twenty minutes. Terry made coffee if you want some.”
“Sure, I just need— Wait. Who’s Terry?”
Ben pulled a face, came into the room, and closed the door. “The butler. It’s kind of weird having him here, but Léo and Malik are totally fine with it, like it’s normal.”
Dani tipped her head to the side, trying to make sense of that. “There’s a butler?” Had she misunderstood? Were they in a private home, not a hotel? But whose?
“Yeah, the suite comes with twenty-four-hour butler service. I probably wouldn’t ever have thought of using it, because… butler? But Léo called him before I was even up this morning. He makes really great coffee.”
Right. Of course. They were in a hotel suite that had twenty-four-hour butler service. She shook her head to clear it. “I just need to use the bathroom,” she told Ben, and he pointed to another door.
When she emerged from the bedroom, having used the facilities, showered, and dressed in the ratty old track pants and jumper Ben had packed for her, she was surprised to find herself in a corridor, not the main room of the suite. How freaking big was this thing? She peeked into doors as she passed them and found a small office and a dining room before she reached the living area. She could see another corridor at the other end.
“Dani.” Léo stood from the couch and crossed over to her, bending to kiss her cheek. He studied her face. “You look better rested.”
“I slept right through,” she told him. “Thank you for this.”
He smiled and took her arm, leading her over to sit in a comfortable armchair. “Anything we can do, Dani, is yours. Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, please.” It was all she could say. How did you respond when the superwealthy and influential son of a princess told you he’d do anything for you? If he weren’t gay and in love with her bestie, it would be a Harlequin romance novel come to life.
Léo looked around, and as if by magi
c, a tall, slim man appeared from the other corridor and asked for her coffee order. Presumably this was Terry, but Dani was too surprised by his seeming psychic ability to ask, and by the time her brain kicked into gear, he’d delivered her latte and disappeared again.
That was some trick.
“Ben has gone to fetch Malik,” Léo volunteered, watching as she sipped. “Breakfast will be here shortly.”
He’d barely finished speaking when there was the sound of a door opening somewhere in the suite, and a moment later Ben came in, followed by Malik.
“—being ridiculous. You always order that for breakfast,” Ben declared impatiently.
“At home, yes. But perhaps here I wanted something different. Or perhaps they will not make it the way I like it,” Malik argued, and Dani took a moment to study him. They’d spoken many times, since Ben often included his friends in calls to her, and she’d done extensive internet research on him and Léo’s friend Lucien when Ben had first started seeing Léo, but they’d never met in person.
He was just as ridiculously handsome as his cousin and was also a superwealthy and influential son of a princess. There should be a law against that—it just wasn’t fair to her poor, neglected girly parts.
Ben huffed and rolled his eyes, then spotted her and promptly abandoned the discussion. “Good coffee?” he asked, smirking.
“The best,” she replied drily. “Terry’s a genius. Good morning, Malik.”
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