“So, now, tell me, Miss…?” Pierre said to her, waiting for her name.
“Daniela,” she answered, immediately wishing she’d been quicker on her feet and given him a fake name.
“Daniela. Beautiful name. Tell me, what are you doing here? Had he found a way to communicate with you? I need to know what damage has been done, and please, please don’t lie to me. I’m not in the mood.”
“I…” She needed to think fast. “I came looking for him. For my…fiancé. I didn’t believe the stories that he was dead. I would have known. I would have felt it.”
“That’s quite the bond you have.”
It may not have been quite the truth, but the idea that he was dead never sat right in her stomach.
“And the letter?” he asked.
“I never even got the chance to read it before your goons over here found us.”
Maurice and Louis glared. Good. She hoped she offended them.
Pierre eyed her curiously then turned his gaze toward Theo. “Well, now that she knows you are alive, my whereabouts, and what you’re doing here, I’m sure you understand, Dr. Galanis, that I simply cannot let her go. She’ll need to stay here with you in Greece.”
“Please,” Theo said, taking back his arm from Dani’s waist and moving a few steps toward Pierre. “If you let her go, I’ll do whatever you say. You don’t need her here.”
“She knows I am alive.”
“She won’t say anything,” Theo assured him.
“I’ve trusted someone with that promise before, but I’ve learned my lesson. She’s staying here.”
“What about my family?” Dani asked, her voice trembling. “And the tour group I was with? People will know I’m missing.”
“We’ll handle that,” Pierre said.
Dani pictured another headline:American Tourist Missing in Greece.After Theo had already disappeared, their families would be shattered. Eveniftheir families put their disappearances together and sparked a manhunt, would that honestly be any better?
“Please,” she pleaded. “Please, I don’t want my family thinking I’m missing. Or dead. It will destroy them. We already lostso much after Theo…” Her voice cracked and her throat seized up.
Theo looked down at her, his worried eyes bouncing around trying to read her face. Dani’s eyes welled with tears. Tears of fear. Of sadness. Of…she wasn’t going to go there.
“I’ll tell you what,” Pierre said after a moment, tearing their attention from each other. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“What sort of deal?” Theo asked.
“How long was this tour to last?” Pierre asked Dani.
“Ten days,” she said.
“And how many days in are you?”
“This is day four.”
“All right. We’ll deal with the tour company. Check you out of the hotel. Explain that you were homesick and returned to the United States.”
Pierre seemed to know her better than he could have even imagined.
“Then, you’ll spend the next six days searching for the eye. So long as you find it, I will let you return home, and your family will be none the wiser.”
“Six days?!” Theo said, exasperated. “I’ve been looking with your men for over a year and now you’re giving us six days?”
“Perhaps you should have been working a little harder.”
