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

  Contents

  Malta with My Best Friend’s Dad

  NEWSLETTER

  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

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  NEWSLETTER

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS

  BRATVA BEAR SHIFTERS

  LAIRDS & LADIES

  RUSSIAN UNDERWORLD

  IRISH WOLF SHIFTERS

  Collaborations

  About the Author

  Malta with My Best Friend’s Dad

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 256

  FLORA FERRARI

  Copyright © 2021 by Flora Ferrari

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  Malta with My Best Friend’s Dad

  I’ve had a crush on Kane Konstantinov for as long as I can remember. Six and a half feet tall, insanely muscular, with intense eyes and an animalistic aura, he’s hard to resist.

  But there’s a problem. This hulking alpha is my best friend’s dad.

  And three years ago he went missing, presumed dead.

  I’ve tried my best to be there for Lena without pining after her dad, but I can’t stop the dreams which flood my mind every night – steamy and compelling, impossible to ignore.

  It’s so silly. Even if this forty-two year old Army veteran wasn’t missing, he’d never be interested in a shy inexperienced twenty year old virgin like me. Especially one who’s got my natural curves.

  My only solace is knowing I’ll never have to embarrass myself by sharing my desires. But then Kane Konstantinov returns from the dead.

  In Malta, when I’m on vacation with Lena, he confronts me one morning in the most primal and possessive way a man can. He tells me I belong to him. He came back from the dead to make me his.

  I’m shocked and I know it’s wrong. We can’t betray Lena. But the taste of his lips and the firmness of his body are so, so hard to resist.

  As if things weren’t already complicated, the Bratva show up to take vengeance on Kane. Apparently, he did a bad thing, a terrible thing, and that’s why he’s been on the run these past three years.

  As things get hotter and crazier, events threaten to spin out of control. I usually find solace in my singing, but this is all too tangled and complicated to make a song of it.

  What happens when Lena finds out?

  What if the Bratva catches us first?

  Do Kane and I even have a chance?

  * Malta with My Best Friend’s Dad is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  Chapter One

  Kelly

  “You know I worry about you two,” Mom says, standing in the doorway of my bedroom with her arms crossed over her middle. She’s wearing her concern plain on her face. “I don’t want you getting into any trouble over there.”

  “Mrs. J, honestly, we’re going to be fine.” Lena shoots Mom a smirk as she stuffs a fresh handful of clothes into her suitcase.

  I giggle at the way my best friend packs, and I can’t help but think how good it is that she’s able to laugh, she’s able to enjoy herself, and let herself go after all she’s been through.

  First, her Mom died when she was only nine years old, stricken down by lung cancer, a cruelty that couldn’t be stopped no matter how hard she cried. And then her dad – tall, handsome, rugged Kane – went missing just three years ago.

  I try not to let myself think about Kane Konstantinov too much because my mind always goes to steamy and unfair places. Lena has enough to deal with without me pining over her six and a half foot tall ex-Army dad, with his gleaming silver hair and his stark blue eyes.

  Crushing on him was my biggest hobby growing up, and every time I practiced singing – in my room, in the park – I always imagined I was singing for him.

  Guilt twists through me.

  What would Lena say if she knew how badly I’d crushed on her father, especially after he went missing?

  I can’t tell her, ever.

  Mom paces across the room and stares at Lena.

  They could be mother and daughter as they gaze at each other. Lena and Mom are both thin, tall, with sculpted features. The only difference is Lena wears her hair up in a tight black ponytail, whereas Mom lets her brown locks spill down to her shoulders.

  I try not to let my mind dance off to unhelpful places as I study the two women, try not to curse myself that I didn’t inherit Tamara Jones’ genes. I’m more like my dad in build, wider and stockier and less wraith-like.

  Telling myself I don’t care doesn’t really work.

  Even if Kane Konstantinov had stayed around long enough to see me become a woman, he never would’ve looked twice at me. Nobody looks at me like that, so I don’t know why I’d ever think the man of my dreams would be any different.

  Stop it, I cry out in my mind.

  I should think about how good is it that Mom and Dad have let Lena stay here since Kane went missing. I should focus on hoping that Kane returns, yes, but not for me, never for me. For my best friend.

  “Do you call that packing?” Mom laughs. “You’re not going to have enough to wear at this rate, young lady. Have you ever heard of folding?”

  Lena grins and warmth shimmers in my chest. I love how close they’ve become ever since Lena moved in, finding refuge in my home when hers was shattered into a million pieces.

  Where are you, Kane? Where did you go?

  “We’re only there for two weeks,” Lena says. “If I run out of clothes, I’ll just traipse around in my underwear.”

  “Can you believe her?” Mom says, turning to me with a smile.

  I push away my stampeding thoughts and return her smile, shaking my head with a giggle. “Yes, yes I can. She’s been like this ever since we were kids. But if you look at my suitcase, you’ll find a picture of perfect order.”

  “I raised you right,” Mom says, with another of her wicked grins.

  Then
she flinches and turns to Lena. Lena’s smile has dropped.

  For a second, I wonder what she’s thinking. And then it hits me.

  Mom raised me right. But the person who raised Lena isn’t here anymore. We have no idea where he is. He could be dead.

  My belly twists and my mind riot at the thought of Kane being dead, of my man being dead…

  No, no, no.

  Just because I wrote ‘I love Kane Konstantinov’ in my diary over and over again, and just because I wished and prayed for it to be true, it doesn’t mean he’d ever want me.

  “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine.” Lena waves a hand. “Honestly, it’s just the last time I went on vacation abroad, it was with Dad. I guess this trip is sort of bringing it all back. Three years. You think I’d be over it by now.”

  “Lena.” I walk over to her, placing my hand on her shoulder. “You’re allowed to feel what you want for as long as you want. You don’t have to get over it, or just deal with it, or anything. Kay?”

  She reaches up and touches my hand, squeezing softly. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

  I try my best to smile at her, try my best to convince myself I don’t sometimes dream about her father. But it’s a lie, a dirty rotten stinking lie, because almost every night he’s there, watching me from inside my mind.

  Vignettes assail me constantly, taken from before he went missing, of him pulling himself out of the pool and the water dripping down his hard muscled body, honed from years in the Army and then his work at the gym. I remember the way his eyes would pass over me like I wasn’t even there, and how I’d wish for them to settle on me for just a moment.

  Of course, they never would.

  I was seventeen when he disappeared. He was thirty-nine. But he’s forty-two now – at least if he’s not dead – and I’m twenty. Mom and Dad have an age gap of twenty years and they met when she was around my age.

  Maybe we could be the same.

  “Let’s focus on the good stuff.” Lena grins, stuffing another handful of clothes into the suitcase. “Like how you’re going to stand on top of our Medina apartment and serenade the whole silent city.”

  My tourist guidebook tells me the old hilltop city – with a population of only about three hundred – is called the silent city because they have strict noise pollution laws there. It’s a beautiful place, with yellow stone buildings looking down upon the village of Rabat, glittering brightly in the guidebook.

  “It wouldn’t be very silent then, would it? Plus I don’t want to get us kicked out.”

  “I’m going to get us kicked out then,” Lena declares. “I’m going to type so loudly they send in the cavalry to drag me out.”

  I giggle and shake my head. She’s always been able to make me laugh, no matter what’s happening, no matter what crazy avenues my thoughts are dancing down.

  “Make sure you do some sightseeing too,” Mom says. “And some sunbathing. You know, normal touristy things.”

  “We will,” I say. “But you know Lena. If she goes two days without writing she turns into a madwoman.”

  “Turns into?” Lena giggles. “I’m always a madwoman, Kelly. I just hide it well. Anyway, this is a work trip as well as a holiday.”

  I nod, pride blooming in my chest. Lena is the same age as me, and yet she’s already landed a contract with a publisher for her second romance novel. Her first was set in Miami, a sexy sun-fueled adventure that had me tearing through the pages, and she’s decided to set her next in Malta after reading all about it on the internet.

  “You’re just going to keep setting your books in more and more exotic places, aren’t you?” I tease her. “Just so you can have an excuse to go there.”

  “Well, duh. I think maybe I’ll do Fiji next or Majorca.”

  I shake my head, stunned at the love and support moving through me. There’s no resentment nestled within, which is a constant source of amazement for some. She’s much further along in her dreams of being a writer than I am in my singing career, but she’s my friend, my best friend, and I don’t begrudge her a single second of it.

  “What are you going to do if Lena becomes a writing machine?” Mom asks, turning to me.

  “Oh, there’s loads to do and see there.”

  I smile as I think about having two weeks free of my waitressing job, especially since I’ve been working double shifts to save for this vacation. Mom and Dad said they’d happily pay for it, but I wanted to do it myself, to prove to them – and myself – that I could be a proper grownup.

  Because when Kane returns, he’s going to want a woman, self-sufficient and mature, not a silly little girl.

  I stomp on that thought.

  “I want to see Valetta,” I murmur. “Apparently when you stand at the top, you can see right down to the ocean. They designed it that way so it was easier to spot invading ships.”

  I don’t mention the ships invading my heart, every second of every day when I think about my best friend’s dad.

  Chapter Two

  Kane

  Dead men tell no tales.

  That’s how the saying goes, and it fits me like a damn glove. There’s no way I’ll speak about why I had to leave the States, why I had to shatter my daughter’s heart, why I’ve become a nomad roaming across Europe, working odd jobs here and there, unable to access my cash reserves since it would involve reemerging stateside.

  Maybe I could ask my military buddies to help me siphon off some cash, but the risk is too high. I can’t give them a reason to go back on what we agreed.

  But still, I can’t complain on a day like this.

  The sun is baking Medina, the silent city so that the sand-colored bricks seem to shine like golden panels. I’m wearing a polo shirt and shorts and yet a fine layer of sweat still hugs onto my hulking body.

  It’s hulking because I still work out like a demon any chance I get, even if it’s in some grimy gym down a forgotten alley in Paris, or a hotel’s exercise room in Turkey, grunting and growling as I throw the weights around.

  Sitting under the shadow of a tree, I keep my eyes on the road that snakes up the hill toward the city.

  I know what car my daughter and her friend are taking. I know what room they’re staying in. I know what time they’re arriving.

  Even if much of the world thinks I’m dead, I’ve kept in contact with a couple of my military buddies so that I can keep tabs on Lena. I have access to her laptop and I’m able to track her purchasing history, meaning I can see where she’s going to be.

  I know she’d kick my ass if she ever found out about any of this. I can’t help but chuckle at the thought of my daughter brimming with rage, ready to take on the whole world.

  I’ve purposefully not allowed myself to see photos of her, because I know it would trigger my parental need to be with her. The thoughts would creep into my mind, telling me the only way to keep her safe is to return to America, and then the whole thing would come crashing down.

  But since she’s in Europe, I can take a look, just one look to assure myself she’s doing well, she’s safe, she’s alive. I know all of this, of course. I know about her book deal and how she’s here to research her second novel.

  Knowing it and seeing it are two different things, especially when it’s my blood we’re talking about.

  Scanning the cars that pass by – my eyes focused on their license plates – gives my mind too much time to wander. This is a dangerous game when you’ve lived through what I have.

  First, there was the war, three tours served in Iraq, and then there was my martial arts business. I was doing damn well at that before I decided to try and get a bit of extra cash, getting greedy instead of letting my business build slowly, methodically…

  Hell, it’s in the care of my business partner – Jocko – right now, just waiting for me to reclaim my share once I return, and it’s doing amazingly well, meaning Lena wants for nothing. She could have her own apartment if she liked, but I think she
enjoys living with her best friend.

  Shame pricks at me when I struggle to remember her name. I should be able to remember something that’s so important to my daughter.

  What was it?

  Clara? Kitty?

  No, Kelly, that was it.

  Kelly Jones.

  She was a fixture at my house when Lena was a kid, a nervous smile on her lips, always with a blush on her cheeks. I remember her as a frumpy little thing with a pink karaoke machine she never let go of like it was a part of her.

  Most of the cars which drive into the city head straight up the hill, but suddenly one stops in front of me. A quick glance at the license plate sets my heart thundering in my chest.

  It’s the same make and model that my contact said it’d be.

  Standing up, I dart behind the tree, for once cursing how big I am. But luckily the thick tree trunk is just about big enough to shield me from view. Even so, I can’t resist peering around the corner to see just what the hell they’re up to.

  And there she is…

  There’s my daughter, still wearing her jet-black hair in a tight ponytail, still with that conquer-the-world smirk on her face. People say she shares my smirk, that we’re similar in many ways… at least, they used to before I had to disappear off the face of the earth.