“Tee sto gha-MO-to?!” What the hell?! Theo muttered, staring back and forth between Stuart and Alexandros. “I thought you said Dani was a mechanic.”
Stuart chuckled again and nodded. “Let’s get the coffee, and I’ll explain.”
Several minutes later, Alexandros sat with his back against the wall at a corner table in the cafeteria, waiting as his brother and Stuart finished ordering a meal. His mind was shattered, trying to connect how Dani, his barefoot mermaid who cooed to her leather tool bag, was in reality the granddaughter of one of the wealthiest men in the world. Even wealthier than he was!
Bouras Internationalwasn’t just powerful—it was a trillion-dollar behemoth. How the hell had Stuart allowed his only heir to live unprotected on a rusting trawler, working as a marine mechanic?
Anger churned inside him, hot and sharp. The more he thought about the dangers Dani must’ve faced, the tighter his chest became.
“Take your blood pressure down a notch, son,” Stuart said, sliding into the chair across from him.
“How could you allow her to be in this kind of danger?” he demanded, sitting back.
He knew his brown eyes were spitting fire. He didn’t care. Even he and Theo—who had spent years in Special Operations—kept a security detail on standby. That was why Theo had two of his team with him before he even made the call.
Stuart shook his head. “Dani had security. It didn’t mean that sheknewshe had security, but she had it.” He nodded at him. “Carlos, the man who found your guy, is one of them. Maria, is another. She is acting as Carlos’s girlfriend. I knew you had a guy watching over Dani, so I told Carlos to pull back so it wouldn’t cause trouble. That was my mistake.”
“The man who-who kidnapped Dani—,” Alexandros started.
“His name is Zayan Alaoui—or it was four years ago,” Stuart said, his voice dropping deeper with regret.
“You know who he is?” Theo demanded.
Stuart nodded, wrapping his hands around his coffee cup and releasing a deep sigh. He stared down at his uneaten food before he pushed it away, sat back, and studied Alexandros.
“Has Dani told you anything about her past?” Stuart suddenly asked.
Alexandros frowned. “Not much. She just told me that her parents died in a small plane crash when she was fifteen.”
Stuart sat forward, resting his elbows on the table. “You must mean something to her if she told you that much. She doesn’t talk about it—ever. Not to me. Not to the therapist I hired.”
“What does this have to do with Zayan Alaoui?” Theo asked with a frown.
“After the accident, Dani withdrew deep into herself. She barely talked. For almost a year, she just stared into space. It was as if she had lost all desire to live. It scared the hell out of me. No one could get through the walls she had erected.” Moisture glazed Stuart’s eyes before he blinked them away. “As a last resort, I packed Dani up and we took off with no destination in mind. We spent time in Ireland, hiking in the highlands. Spent a month in England before we decided we didn’t like the food. Took the train to France—where we liked the food a little too much.” Alexandros’s lips twitched when Stuart patted his belly and smiled.
“Did that help her?” Alexandros asked in a quiet voice.
Stuart sniffed and rubbed his hand under his nose. “Yeah. She slowly began to blossom. It didn’t happen overnight, but I could see the change. She really opened up when we made it to Italy. One day we were down at the docks. We were just going to watch the sunset. As we were sitting there, we were watching a fisherman on this old fishing trawler. He was working on the engine and cussing up a storm. Out of the blue, Dani stands up, walks over to him, and asks if she can help him. I don’t know who was more shocked, me or that damn Italian!”
Stuart chuckled, sniffed, and wiped a dot of moisture from the corner of his eye. Alexandros couldfeelthe emotion vibrating within the older man. In his mind’s eye, he was picturing a very young,shattered Dani, reaching out, a wrench in her hand, a smidge of grease across her cheek, her beautiful auburn hair piled in a messy bun and held in place by a colorful scarf.
I’m falling for her. No—I’m already gone. I am in love with her.
The realization struck him like one of Zeus’s lightning rods. He swallowed, pushing his new discovery into a corner of his mind until he could unpackage it later—when he was alone.
“I’m still waiting for the Alaoui connection,” Theo said.
Stuart snorted and looked at Theo with amusement. “Impatient, are you? You did good, going in after Dani. That was some Class A military maneuver.”
“Thank you,” Theo responded in a dry tone. “Alaoui?”
“Shortened version, I bought the trawler from the fisherman who was more than happy to sell it for a profit, Dani and I fixed it up, and we decided we’d do a bit more exploring. We ended up in Morocco. Zayan was a dock rat. He made his living off of finding beautiful young foreign women who were looking for romance or who were vulnerable. He targeted Dani. If they were lucky, Zayan would seduce them with promises of love and adventure while stealing them blind. I found out later that he would also pick certain young women for human trafficking. Dani was marked for that. Her hair and physical beauty made her unique—and valuable,” Stuart said in a blunt tone.
Alexandros hissed while Theo cursed under his breath. Horror gripped Alexandros at the thought of what could have happened to Dani. That horror grew when he wondered if Zayan had?—
“How old was she?” Alexandros bit out.
“Seventeen. Dani never knew about the other stuff Zayan was involved in. She also didn’t know that I had security monitoring the situation. I knew she was vulnerable. And as much as I hated it, I had to give her space. The report I received said that Dani caught Zayan working his charms with other young tourists. Not all of them were women.”
