Page 26 of At First Flight (Coral Bell Cove #1)

The drive back to my house is quiet. Even the kids are so tuckered out they’re not asking for endless baths or stories like usual.

Lila stares out the window as the sky shifts from oranges and reds to navy.

From the corner of my eye, I take her in, the way she sighs every so often, and how a small lock of hair keeps tickling her beneath her chin, and she tries to brush it away.

I was so close to kissing her when we left her family’s home.

Not just because I want to press my lips against hers more than my last breath but because she allowed me to be a part of something so sacred.

Despite the less-than-warm welcome from her brothers, her mother, father, and sister took me in immediately. Her brothers eventually warmed up.

God, does she know how lucky she has it?

“Eyes on the road, Mr. Harrington,” she demands with an edge of teasing as she catches me glancing at her. Apparently, I’m not as discreet as I think.

“Sorry.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” I say, while internally I’m bracing myself for whatever flaw Lila will point out. With my own family, that’s what I’m used to.

“Earlier, you thanked me for sharing my family with you. What…um…did you mean by that?”

Shrugging, I twist my hands on the steering wheel, the leather easing some of the ache in my fingers as I clench unknowingly.

“It’s not worth reading too much into, Lila. I was simply thanking you for letting me be a part of your family tonight. Once we arrived, you could have told me to turn around, but you didn’t.”

“It was just dinner, and you’re the one who set it up.”

“Yeah, but it still breaks that boss/employee category we find ourselves in.” Lila mumbles something under her breath, so I continue.

“Before you, the only glimpse I had at seeing a semi-normal family was with my friend, Talon. And even his family is considerably fucked up by societal standards, except for his grandma GiGi. But when he married Rory, I got to see how a family could be. Her family is large like yours, and they have dysfunctional moments like we all do, but there is a lot of love there, too. The first time I met them, I knew that was what I wanted out of life. It was everything I never had.”

“Dean,” she says, reaching out to rest her hand on my arm. The warmth of her palm immediately soothes my racing pulse. It’s not often I open up to people, but something about Lila has me telling her everything.

“It’s okay. I know what I’m missing out on, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hope for it for the future, especially for those two,” I add, my gaze flicking up to the rearview mirror to glance at the two kids barely able to keep their eyes open.

Soon, we’re back at the house, the porch lights shining on either side of the door like little beacons in the night.

Off in the distance, the white, green, and red lights from boats and docks shimmer their reflections on the bay.

Any sort of tension I carried with me after dinner instantly melts away.

Just as I’m getting out of the vehicle, I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket.

Grabbing the device, I read the name flashing on the screen as my heart pounds.

It’s the PI I have looking into the Hoolihans.

He’s doing me a favor after I invested in his daughter’s company.

Not that I needed quid pro quo. She had a solid business plan, and her idea is already creating waves in the tech world.

But I’m not too prideful to call in a favor when it’s needed.

“I need to take this,” I say to Lila. “Can you grab the kids?”

“Of course.”

I watch her lean into the car and undo the seat belt holding Evelyn in her seat. Oliver scrambles out of his and then rushes up the porch steps and into the house.

“Talk to me,” I say without a smidgen of a greeting.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Mike says as he chuckles like a man who’s smoked one too many packs of cigarettes in his life.

“Yes, hello. What did you find?”

“Loads. This family has so many skeletons in their closets that they could open their own haunted house.”

I dash into my office and close the door, not wanting Lila to hear my conversation. Over the past week, I’ve learned that she doesn’t like people snooping in her business. Too bad for her, I always protect those I care about.

“More than what we already know?” The Hoolihans have a very public and sordid history in politics.

“The newspapers haven’t even scratched the surface. It seems they have some heavy hitters in their back pocket keeping their reputation intact.”

“What does this asshole want with Lila?”

My feet squeak against the hardwood floors that cover the outskirts of the room as I pace, the center only covered in a dainty cream, pink, and blue floral rug. I’d rather wear away the wood than the pretty accessory.

As Mike goes on about homicides, missing wives and mistresses, and one fatherly figure with a disgustingly peculiar taste for the underage, I catch myself grasping the back of my office chair. My stomach roils at the thought of Lila being caught up in their mess. She’s so…innocent. So good.

“Do you know what they wanted with my Lila?”

“Yours?” he asks, catching the slip of my tongue.

"My employee… and wife one day. Hopefully."

The words come out quieter than I intend, but they slip out anyway, calm and certain. I hear Mike chuckle.

“That so?” he asks, not bothering to hide the amused disbelief in his voice.

I shrug even though he can’t see, running a hand over the back of my neck, but my lips tip up just slightly. “Yeah. That’s so.”

Thinking about that day at the airport eases the clenching in my stomach.

There’d been something about her, something more than just the chaos, the running mascara, or the wild way she filled up the space beside me like a storm I didn’t know I’d been waiting for.

Even then, before I knew her name or the weight she was carrying on her shoulders, I’d had this abstract, unshakable sense that she would change everything.

The more time I spend with her, the more I watch her with the kids, listen to her laughter drifting down the hallway, or find one of her mugs left on the counter like she’s always been here, the more I understand the profound truth behind that gut feeling.

She hasn’t just changed my life. She’s become the best part of it.

And if she’ll let me, if she’ll take one look at all my flaws and still say yes, I plan to marry her one day.

Not because I need to save her. But because somewhere along the way, she started saving me.

“Does she know this?”

“She’s in denial.”

Mike’s chortle echoes through the phone until a coughing fit takes over. It’s a minute before he finally replies.

“I don’t know the full details yet. I’m working on it. But it appears the marriage wasn’t going to be for love. He is on his fourth at this point. Prescott’s wives all mysteriously disappear.”

“And no one has gone looking for them? I’ve never even heard about the other three. And what about the current one?”

“The current wife wants to be a first lady someday, so she’s become a bit of a socialite in her own right. Seems she’s a bit harder to get rid of. She was aware of Lila’s existence, thinking it was nothing more than a fling for Prescott.”

“But why Lila? Why the pomp and circumstance around their wedding? It wasn’t a well-kept secret in their circle. What does she have that they want?”

“Her research. Lila’s the patent holder for at least a dozen items regarding her recent research on food allergies, all funded under a lab they sponsor. They want the rights to all of it even though her contract states otherwise. We’re talking about life-changing research, Dean.”

“But what do they want with it?”

“They don’t want the patents. They want them to disappear. Pharmaceuticals only make money when someone has to stay on meds for life. And what easier way than to convince someone of that than to become their power of attorney?”

“So what you’re saying is they were going to get rid of the current wife, and he was going to marry Lila?

Then…God, I don’t want to think about it…

and harm her in some way so that he becomes power of attorney, then takes over the patents himself.

Then he pretty much allows any pharmaceutical companies to nullify the patent. ”

“That about sums it up.”

My heart races as I sit and dip my forehead to the edge of the desk, trying to calm my erratic heart.

“But what about the current wife? She’s still around.”

“From the evidence I found, she’s already on an extended vacation a.k.a.

missing and has been since Lila ran off.

The Hoolihans have quite a mess on their hands if this gets to the right kind of people.

I’ve given all the evidence I’ve found over to the police, but you know how slow these things can take.

“Sorry for the bad news, my friend, but at least she’s there with you. Prescott was seen leaving a club over the weekend, but if I see he’s on the move, I’ll give you a heads-up.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

I hang up the phone and toss it onto the desk, the weight of Mike’s words anchoring deep in my chest. Prescott is still out there, still breathing the same air as Lila. And now that I know the lengths that bastard and his family went to in order to control her… hell, I can’t sit still.

My fingers curl around the edge of the desk, knuckles going white as I stare out the round window that overlooks the backyard.

The early light spills over the grass, golden and peaceful, but the tension in my body doesn’t ease.

If anything, it tightens, every muscle coiled with the need to do something. Anything.

She’s inside right now with the kids, probably chasing Oliver with the toothbrush or convincing Evelyn that her stuffy is magic. And she doesn’t know. Just one more weight added to her already heavy load.

Not anymore.

Not while she’s under my roof. Not while I’m breathing.