Risking It All (Rebels 0f Forbidden Lake Book 5)

by Elana Johnson

  She mimed her mind blowing up, and Declan laughed as she chewed. He ate the rest of her bite, and they continued sharing the food.

  An hour later, this had been their best date by far, and Mia felt herself falling for him all over again. No matter how hard she tried to grab onto something to keep herself on the ledge where she’d balanced, she was slipping. And slipping fast.

  “We should go,” he said right when Mia was about to ask what time it was. She hadn’t gone this long without looking at her phone in forever, and she actually liked it.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” she said, ready to be out of the dim lighting and vibrant atmosphere.

  Declan stood up just as Val appeared. “Sit down,” she hissed, and Mia glanced up at her, at the commanding tone of her whisper.

  “What’s—?” Declan sat down as two men approached the table, crossing that invisible line.

  Mia curled her fingers around his forearm, but he didn’t look at her. Her pulse pounded in the back of her throat, and she really didn’t want paparazzi or pictures or problems.

  Tonight had been perfect, and it was about to get ruined.

  “Send over crew three,” one man said as he slid onto the bench across the table from Declan and Mia. “Val stay right where you are until they arrive.” The man—clearly in charge here—looked at Declan. He wore a fatherly expression almost, and Mia started to relax.

  “Hey, Declan. It’s good to see you back in Chicago,” he said, definitely sounding less barky and more casual.

  “What’s going on, Harvey?”

  “Your step-father is here.”

  Everything inside Mia tightened again, and beside her, Declan sucked in a breath. “He’s been bothering you?”

  “From time to time.”

  “I’m sorry,” Declan said, casting a look out into the club, though Val stood right in front of him, obviously concealing him.

  Three more men crossed the line and came toward them, all wearing club gear and sweating like they’d been jamming on the dancefloor while Mia enjoyed her chips and guac.

  Everyone crammed into the booth, and Val turned to go.

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” Harvey said. “I have men who take care of him. He just drinks too much, and then we throw him out.”

  “Bad timing, me being here,” Declan said.

  “You haven’t been down in a long time,” Harvey said with a smile. “And heaven knows I can’t get my son to text me back.”

  “We’re not working right now,” Declan said. “Leon probably just doesn’t want to tell you he’s sleeping until noon and eating Ramen noodles for every meal.”

  Harvey laughed and said, “Please. I know my son doesn’t get up before five p.m.”

  “Like father, like son,” Declan said with a grin. He looked at Mia and added, “Tiff, this is Leon’s dad and the owner of Promontory, Harvey Simmons.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Mia said, glancing at the other men. But they didn’t seem interested in the conversation at all. Two of the club-goers had their phones out, and one finally tilted it toward another.

  “He’s going,” Harvey said, though he hadn’t looked at a device. Hadn’t even looked away from Mia.

  “Escalation in section ten,” the one with the phone said. “Shall I?’

  “Yes, Ivan,” Harvey said, and the man slid out of the booth and disappeared back into the throng. “Undercover security. They work miracles.” Harvey smiled at Mia again. “You get him back down here again soon, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” she said.

  Harvey knocked twice on the table and slid out of the booth. “We’re clear, guys. Declan, so good to see you.”

  Declan stood up too and hugged Harvey. Mia gaped openly at them. “Don’t worry about Leon,” Declan said. “I’ll tell him to text you.”

  “I don’t care,” Harvey said. “But my wife would love to know how he is.”

  Declan nodded, and the crowd that had appeared so suddenly, disappeared just as quickly, leaving Mia standing next to Declan as they surveyed the club.

  “Come on,” he said, taking her hand with a forceful grip. “Let’s go.”

  Mia let him stew in silence for the duration of the car ride back to the plane. Once they were belted in and the pilot was going through pre-flight checks, she asked, “Are you going to tell me why your step-dad was looking for you at that club?”

  Chapter Eight

  Declan bit back the sigh pressing against his vocal chords. Of course Mia wanted to know the situation—and she should. She should absolutely know what being with him truly meant. He hadn’t told her last time as they’d only dated for just over a month before her father had put his foot down.

  “He wants money,” Declan said. “And he thinks I owe it to him since he ‘raised me’ from the age of ten. And I use that term loosely.”

  A headache from the smoke in the club, the music in the club, too much rich food from the club, combined into a powerful pulse behind his eyes. “Somehow he found out I prefer that club, and he went there a lot in the beginning. I hadn’t realized he’d started going around again.”

  He hated that he’d created a problem for Harvey, though he supposed Harvey knew how to deal with drunks like his dad. Before he could say more, the divider between the front seat and the back one went down.

  “Sir, there’s a problem at the airport.”

  “A problem?” Declan asked, starting to wish he hadn’t left the house when he’d gotten Mia’s text.

  “Yes, sir. I just got a call from the security depot. Someone saw your plane, and they’re refusing to leave.”

  Declan pressed his eyes closed and breathed in through his nose. “Do we know who it is?”

  “A woman named Stacy Keyes, sir.”

  Declan frowned and leaned forward. “I don’t—”

  “She’s the woman with the restraining order,” Mia said, scooting over toward him. “Or you used to have one against her. My guess is it expired a long time ago.”

  At least it wasn’t his father.

  Yet, his mind whispered amidst the whirrings of trying to figure out what to do next. “Can we not get to the plane?” he asked. He could get a hotel, but he wasn’t sure Mia particularly wanted to stay the night in Chicago. Her family would notice if she didn’t come home, wouldn’t they?

  Then what would she say?

  Their secret wouldn’t be secret anymore, he knew that.

  “Yes, I think we can, sir,” James said.

  “I mean, if it’s just one woman,” Declan said. How big of a problem could it be? He turned to look at Mia, and he could see her becoming a big problem for him. He liked her too much already, and he’d do anything to keep her name and face out of pictures and headlines. Anything.

  James spoke quietly to someone over his headset, and a few minutes later, he said, “We’re going to circle the airport a couple of times while they remove her. Then we’ll be able to get through without a problem.”

  “Good,” Declan said. “I don’t want her to see Tiffany.”

  James met his eye in the rearview mirror. “Tiffany?”

  Confusion ran through his mind, and Mia started laughing. “We didn’t tell him I was Tiffany,” she said, and Declan relaxed against the back of the seat.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been kind of a crazy night, hasn’t it?”

  “A little,” she said. “But great. A really great night.”

  “Yeah?”

  The divider started to go back up, and Declan appreciated James even more in that moment. He wanted to kiss Mia until his lips bruised, but he didn’t even twitch toward her.

  “Yeah, you were right. Those macaroni and cheese bites were delicious. I learned a few things about you I didn’t know, and now I’m seeing all this security stuff you have to deal with. I mean, you’ve told me about it, but it’s totally different on this side of the glass.”

  Declan couldn’t smile. He didn’t want her to have to deal with any of the “sec
urity stuff,” and he realized now how right she’d been. If they went forward with this secret relationship, they’d basically be able to see each other in the tiny guest house or her office. After all, he couldn’t go traipsing down the lane where every other member of her family lived and expect no one to see him.

  He said nothing as the car circled and finally cleared the security checkpoint. He didn’t glance around when James finally opened the door. He just hurried up the steps and into the plane, his head bent low. Mia arrived a few seconds after him, and the door was closed.

  The end. No stalker sightings. No step-father drama. Just privacy.

  He sank into the captain’s chair he’d sat in earlier, but Mia said, “I’m going to check out these sleeping conditions,” and disappeared into the back of the plane where the bunk beds were.

  Everything inside him wanted to follow her. Do something with a woman he hadn’t done in a long time. No one would know, as Sandra wasn’t on the return flight. He clenched his fists around the armrests to keep himself in the chair, every muscle in his body tensed as if expecting a fight.

  A few minutes later, Mia came back out to the main room in the plane. “Do you want to come lay by me?”

  Oh, so badly. He glared at her instead. “No,” he said.

  Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “No?”

  “No, Mia.” He tracked her as she walked over to him and sat in the chair opposite him, a stormy look in those gorgeous eyes.

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” he echoed. “Are you serious right now?” He pointed to the back of the plane. “You want me to come lay in bed with you, but not six hours ago you told me there would be no kissing tonight.” He shook his head. “I stay up all night. I’m not tired. I’m fine right here.”

  And he wanted her to stay with him. Talk to him. Spend time with him, because he wasn’t sure when he’d get to see her again.

  But he wasn’t going to say that. Wasn’t going to act desperate, though every cell in his body desperately wanted to follow her into that dark room and kiss her.

  She nodded as she studied her hands. “I see how unfair I was being.”

  “Do you?”

  She lifted her eyes to glare into his. “Yes, I do.”

  He leaned forward, deciding to be bold about this. “You have no idea what you do to me,” he said, his voice a little choked. “And I guarantee you if I go with you back there, there will be kissing. And maybe more.”

  His fantasies ran wild, only curbed by the stunned look on Mia’s face. “We talked about sex last time,” she said.

  “I’m in the same place now as I was then,” he said. “But you’d never invited me to come lay by you in a bed. That’s completely unfair.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right.”

  Declan nodded and relaxed into his chair, pressing his eyes closed and just breathing. The lyrics to the song he was writing for Mia flowed through his mind, and he got up and collected the notebook he took with him everywhere. Sandra had taken it and stored it with his phone. He grabbed his and Mia’s devices, the notebook, and a handful of pens and returned to the seating area.

  “You want your phone?” he asked, and she took it from him.

  He started writing, just letting the thoughts and feelings and words come out through the ink. Songwriting had always been therapeutic for him, and this time especially so.

  “My sister called,” she said, her voice a bit robotic as the plane started to descend.

  “Yeah?” he asked. “Which one?”

  “Karly,” she said, looking up, tears in her eyes. “Then Sami. Then Jon. Phoenix is going to pick me up at the airport.”

  Alarm rang through him as her tears tracked down her face. “Mia, love,” he said, abandoning his lyrics in favor of kneeling in front of her and gathering her into his arms. “What happened?”

  “Karly’s husband died.” She sobbed into his shoulder, and Declan held her tight, tight against his chest.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered over and over, not sure what else to say.

  “I should’ve been there,” she finally said, pulling back. She sniffed and wiped her nose. Declan got up and grabbed the tissue box from the flight attendant area. He could feel Mia slipping farther from him with every second.

  She wiped her eyes and nose, shaking her head. “I’m the only one who didn’t know. The only one not there.”

  “I’m sorry,” Declan said again, this time a stab of guilt moving through him, piercing him right through the heart. He’d loved having Mia’s complete attention, and had she gotten the call at the club, everything would’ve been different about tonight.

  “How much longer?” she asked, glancing toward the door that led to the cockpit.

  “I’ll find out,” he said, moving to the side of the plane and lifting a phone out of the wall. “Yes, Captain, how long until we touch down?”

  “Fifteen minutes, sir.”

  “Thank you. And I need to clear Phoenix Addler through the private gate. There’s been a family emergency.”

  “Of course. I’ll radio security now.”

  “Thank you.” Declan felt like he said “thank you” and “I’m sorry” more than any other words in the English language. At least tonight.

  Misery lanced through him, when literally thirty minutes ago he’d had an amazing artistic breakthrough and a happy, sexy woman in front of him as the inspiration behind it.

  He sat beside her when he returned to the seats in the middle of the plane, and she didn’t look up from her phone. Her fingers flew over the screen as she texted four different brothers and sisters in different threads.

  “My dad wants to know where I’ve been,” she whispered.

  Declan looked at her, and their eyes met. “That’s your call, love,” he said, feeling like a complete jerk. “I want to be with you, and I think at some point you’re going to have to stand up to your father. But maybe now’s not that point.”

  She nodded, those beautiful tears glistening in her eyes. “I just can’t believe this is happening.”

  “I’m here,” he said, touching her face, glad when she leaned into his palm. “Right here, Mia. And I’m a phone call or a text away, and I’ll do whatever you need.”

  She nodded, blinked to let those tears out, and stretched up to kiss him. Declan received her kiss willingly, thinking it might be the last one he got in a while.

  Mia ran her hand along the side of his face and up into his hair, deepening the kiss and stealing his breath.

  He went with her, but he could feel the anguish in her touch, and he pulled back to break their connection before she did something she didn’t really want to do.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That probably wasn’t fair either.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, touching his mouth to hers again in a sweet, gentle way so she’d know he liked her for her. Liked so much about her.

  The jet shook a little as they went into full descent, and a few moments later, the wheels touched down in a smooth landing. “It was such a great night,” he said. “And really, I’m literally a text away. Just put in 911, and I’ll find you. Help you. Bring you those burritos from Mama’s you love.”

  She half-laughed and half-sobbed, clutching him tightly as the plane came to a stop. The captain’s door opened, and she sprang to her feet, practically beating him to the door to get off the plane.

  Declan indicated to the captain that everything was okay, and he got the door open. Mia flew from the plane, and Declan stepped into the doorway to watch her run to her big, bearded brother, who engulfed her in a bear hug.

  Somehow, across the distance and through the night, Phoenix’s eyes caught on Declan’s. He lifted his hand in a wave, and Declan returned it, hoping Mia would use her phone and text him or call him if she needed something.

  But as he turned to collect his backpack and his notebook, he knew she wouldn’t. So he’d figure out a way to see her, take her what she didn’t k
now she needed, until this crisis in her family ended.

  After all, though Mia had just kissed him like she needed him, he knew he was still second to her family.

  Chapter Nine

  Mia couldn’t figure out how to stop crying. It was a slow kind of weeping, the way the sky sometimes drizzled in the fall. The air was always wet, and her hair always frizzy and curly. Now, her tears burned her eyes and she couldn’t get her nose to stop running.

  Phoenix had been talking since he tucked her in the front seat of a car. She didn’t know whose it was, because her brother didn’t own a car. Probably Allegra’s. His girlfriend would definitely have a vanilla scented clip on her air ducts.

  “So,” Phoenix said after detailing the accident that had taken place on the lake. “He was in the hospital for about an hour, and most of us were there waiting to hear….”

  Mia hadn’t been there. She should’ve been there. Any other night of the week, and she’d have been there.

  “Where’s Karly?”

  “Still at the hospital,” he said. “Grams went back to the house and started cooking, and Mom and Dad want everyone over there in the morning. Karly’s going to stay with them until…I don’t know. She’s going to stay with them. Mom thinks she might not want to go back to her house now. Or something.”

  It was only four houses down the lane from Karly’s to their grandparents’, but Mia couldn’t imagine Karly going home—especially alone. “She can stay with me too,” she said.

  “She’s not sure what she’s going to do,” Phoenix said. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything about Declan, or the plane, or ask where she’d gone. “What are you going to tell Dad?” he asked instead. “He was pretty mad. I told him you were probably working.”

  “I was,” she said, keeping her eyes out the window as the rain sluiced against the glass. “Declan Phelps is my new client.”

  “Oh, sure,” Phoenix said. “That’s a good one.”