Oh, this guy was good. Too good. The exact kind of guy Dani would normally chase back home. And the exact kind who would be in and out of her life in less than a month.
Dani glanced at Theo, who was doing a terrible job at pretending not to be bothered. But you didn’t spend hours reading beside someone and not pick up on their mannerisms. Such as the way he firmly pressed his lips together. Or how he suddenly snapped to attention.
“And you work at the Acropolis Museum?” Theo asked.
“Yes. When I’m not out in the field.”
“Theo works in a museum, too,” Dani offered unsolicited.
“The US National Hellenic Museum, right?” Andreas asked, and Theo nodded. “I’ve been once. It was cute.”
Cute? Oh boy.
Theo chuckled, but there was no humor behind it. “You didn’t want to join the family olive oil business?” he asked with a bit of snark.
Andreas snickered. “For now, I’m happy here, but maybe someday when I’m ready to settle down with a wife and children,” he said, turning his attention back to Dani.
His eyes homed in on hers, and Dani swallowed hard. “I take it you aren’t married then?”
He flashed that killer grin again and bashfully hung his head. But Dani could already tell, this man wasnottimid. “No, I’m not married. Painfully single, as my yayá would say.”
She could almost feel Theo’s glare burning a hole through Andreas.
“Look, if you know who I am, then you’ll know that my family thinks I’m dead,” Theo said, quickly changing the subject. “Can you help us get home?”
“They’ll be looking for you. I think it’s most prudent for you to stay put for now,” Andreas said.
“For how long?” Theo said. Dani could hear the panic in his voice. With still no communication with the outside world, it must have felt like getting abducted all over again.
“He wasn’t just missing. He’s been held hostage for months,” Dani said before Andreas could respond.
“By whom?”
“Pierre Vautour,” Theo said without any further explanation.
Andreas’s eyes widened slightly, though he fought to maintain his composure. Guess being in this business also meant knowing all the bad players, too.
“I need to warn my yayá,” he said, holding his phone up in the air for a signal even though it was practically useless. “If Pierre Vautour is behind your disappearance, then it’sdefinitelynot safe for you out there. We need to be careful. He’s probably got spies at the embassy, and most certainly with the police.”
That tracked.
“I know for a fact he has people working for him within the police on Crete,” Theo explained.
“Then we need a plan to get you out of here before we do anything. No one can know you’re here,” Andreas said.
“What about our families?” Theo asked. “Please, they need to know I’m alive.”
“I have a friend at the embassy. Let me talk to her first,” Andreas said.
She could feel Theo tense. “It’s one more day,” she said.“Besides, Pierre might be anticipating we’ll contact them. Maybe it’s better if we lie low until we figure out our next steps.”
“She’s right,” Andreas jumped in. “How about this? It’s probably safer for me to leave than you, at least until we know the coast is clear, so why don’t you clean up while I run back into town and make some calls? Christos will make us dinner, and we can all sleep here this evening. And then in the morning, we will figure out next steps.”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Theo asked with accusation dripping from his voice. “How do we know you aren’t working for him, too?”
Andreas narrowed his eyes at him and pulled his hands out of his pockets, squaring up to Theo. “The only reason you’re here is because my yayá had a sixth sense about you. You’ve putmyfamily in danger, so maybe you shouldn’t be the one going off about trust.”
Theo started to bristle.Oh no.But Dani put her hands up in between them. “Okay, okay, emotions are high. Let’s not get carried away,” she said.
