“Oh, just looking for somewhere we can find some souvenirs and gifts to take home to our family and friends, right, honey?” she responded, patting Theo on the leg and leaving her hand resting dangerously close to his inner thigh. His muscles strained, trying to remain still so she wouldn’t notice his tightening adductors and how her touch affected him. “Think my mom will finally be willing to swap the lard for olive oil if we get her the good stuff?”
God, she was a smart aleck. Though, no, he didn’t think Mrs. Guiterrez would ever willingly give up her lard.
“We’re up to trying to find the eye so we can go home, Einstein,” Dani said to Maurice, who glared at her. Clearly, he didn’t find her so amusing.
“And how, pray tell, is that bottle of oil going to help you to do that? Explain it to me again like I’m an idiot,” Maurice said.
Dani opened her mouth, likely to deliver another wave of insults, but Theo put his hand on hers, the one resting in his lap, to stop her. He knew from experience that Maurice had his limits. “Babe?” he said, tilting his head to the side and raising his eyebrows. “Let me explain this one.”
He then leaned forward and held up the bottle to Maurice.
“See this symbol here?” he asked, using his thumb on the hand holding the bottle to tap on the μ symbol. “She saw this same symbol on some pieces at the archaeological museum. We think that maybe…maybe the secret to the eye’s location has something to do with it.”
Maurice looked back and forth between the two of them. “A symbol? On a bottle of olive oil?”
“And in the museum,” Dani was quick to point out. Though they both left out the part about his necklace.
“So what are you saying? What are we supposed to do with this information?” Maurice asked.
“We need to go to Demetrios’s Olive Mill in Chania,” Theo said.
“First the grocery store and now an olive mill? What is this? A food tour? I thought you were supposed to be some sort of archaeological expert?” Maurice said.
Theo scanned his surroundings, covered in oil, taken hostage, and unable to undertake even the simplest of schemes to get Dani out of this mess.
Yeah, so did I.
Chapter
Eight
Dani
There was no point inmaking plans anymore. It seemed every hour, plans changed. Since they were no longer going back to Knossos, they first needed to stop by her hotel before they headed out of town to Chania. She’d wanted to leave Harold a note. They may have known each other for only a few days, but it didn’t feel right not saying goodbye.
Of course, Maurice refused. Eye roll.
Sure, Dani understood that they weren’t on vacation, but this guy seriously needed someone to love him because he was the most unpleasant person she’d ever met. Even Pierre Vautour wasn’t this unbearably unlikable. Did someone piss in Maurice’s Cheerios when he was a kid? Because for fuck’s sake, he had a permanent scowl on his face. She hoped that someday she’d be able to locate Harold again to thank him for being a friend, even if for only three days.
By the time they made it to Chania, Demetrios’s was closed,so they’d have to wait until the next day to visit. So for now, they checked into a small hotel on the outskirts of town, and after Maurice and Louis set up remote sensors on the doors and windows that would alert their phones of any escape attempts, Dani and Theo were finally alone. In another room with only one bed.
They stared at the queen-size bed in the center of the small, standard room, both of them still coated in olive oil and in desperate need of a shower. The room was a far cry from the opulence of Vautour’s guest room. The sickly sweet white lacy bedspread looked like the one her mom had gotten her for her fifteenth birthday—and that Dani had promptly taken to the bathtub to dye dark purple. The bedside lamps had matching lace shades. Aside from a dresser and nightstands, there wasn’t much more to the room. But man, did it have a nice view out the window to the slopes of Chania.
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about the room being bugged like when we were at Pierre’s,” she said. “Now we can bicker like an old married couple in peace.”
She tried to lighten the mood, but Theo just stood there, awkwardly holding his arm across his waist.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he finally said.
Guess he wasn’t in a chatty mood.Sigh.They were already back to this. But fine. Normally Dani wasn’t one for chivalrous gestures—which was a good thing since the casual relationships she usually engaged in left few opportunities for chivalry—but if he wanted to wake up with a stiff back and a crick in his neck, that was on him.
“Do you want to go ahead and shower first?” Theo asked.
“Oh yeah, sure,” she said, reaching for her bag.
She wasn’t used to being around Theo when they weren’tjoking around and having fun. Not that their circumstances fostered that sort of environment, but still. Was this it? Was this how things were going to be between the two of them from now on?
There was no point in worrying about it now, so she dragged her suitcase into the bathroom and closed the door. For the size of the bedroom, the bathroom was quite large, with a sizable bathtub rather than a shower. It wasn’t an ideal way to rid her body of the oil film, but it would have to do.
