Her heart stuttered as he neared her bed, his eyes never leaving hers.
She sat straighter, suddenly breathless—not from pain this time, but from the heat building in the air between them.
Whatever storm had passed… another was about to begin.
Four weeks.
Twenty-eight days.
Six hundred and seventy-two hours.
…And she was this close to yanking out Alexandros’s hair by the roots. Or better yet, her grandfather’s. Or both. Possibly at the same time.
Dani sat cross-legged in the warm sand, the sun brushing her skin like a lazy cat. A salty breeze curled around her, teasing the ends of her messy braid and carrying the faint sound of waves kissing the shore. The private beach on Alexandros’s family island was paradise—powder-soft sand, a view straight off a postcard, and absolute serenity.
Too much serenity.
She was going stir-crazy.
The villa perched above her like a watchful chaperone, and she swore one of the staff probably had binoculars trained on her right now to report back to the Overprotective Greek Coalition—aka her grandfather and Alexandros.
She dug her toes into the sand and muttered under her breath, “I survived a plane crash, a kidnapping, a stab wound, and a lunatic with a vendetta… only to be smothered by two Greek mother hens the size of marble statues.”
She could still hear their voices echoing in her head from the hospital:
“You need to stay one more night.”
“The doctor said?—”
“Don’t argue,koutaváki mou, your stitches?—”
Ugh. The stitches.
She hadn’t even realized she’d been stabbed until the doctor explained they’d had to go in and close the wound properly. Apparently, in the middle of her adrenaline-fueled escape, Zayan had used the knife he had brought to cut the damn straps on her instead.
But that was weeks ago.
The stitches were out. The bruises had faded. She was stronger. Healing.
Physically, anyway.
The nightmares were another story.
But even those, she could’ve handled—if not for the emotional whiplash of waking up to find Alexandros holding her during the night, only to roll over again in the morning and find nothing but empty sheets. Every. Damn. Time.
She was going to combust.
She wasn’t even sure it was sexual frustration anymore—it was existential.
How could one man radiate that much smolder and still refuse to touch her?
Every time he looked at her, it was like she was the center of his universe. His gaze stripped her to the soul. And yet, every time she reached out, he pulled back with that tortured‘I can’t risk breaking you’look.
As if she were made of glass.
Newsflash: she was not.
She snorted, resting her chin on her knees and glaring at the horizon. The trawler bobbed just off the coast; the sun glinting off the rusting metal and peeling paint as if it was winking at her.
