Chapter Three
Chapter
Three
Theo
Well…that didn’t go as expected.
Theo rushed to the other side of the museum display case in the exhibition room, empty except for the two of them, and dove to his knees, lifting Dani’s limp body in his arms. The warmth of her soft skin and her sweet vanilla scent released a flood of hope and memories.
She was here.
God, Dani was a sight for sore eyes.
Though based on her reaction, maybe the same couldn’t be said for him.
Seeing as he’d envisioned Dani running into his arms for a hug, the fact that she’d looked at him like she’d seen a ghost didn’t give him much confidence in what people probably thought of his fate back home, even though he already assumed they imagined the worst.
“Dani,” he said, cradling her in his arms and jostling her body. Nothing.
He lowered his ear to her face, listening for breathing.
The light air from her breaths tickled the hair on the back of his neck, and he turned his head ever so slightly, their noses now almost touching.
Theo scanned her face, taking in each feature that he could probably recite from memory.
Her long, thick eyelashes. The tiny scar on her left temple from the time she fell out of the boat and hit a rock when they went white-water rafting.
Her full, wide lips, which Theo had stared at more times than he could count and more often than her brother’s best friend should have.
He brushed a few wisps of hair from her forehead and whispered again. “Juicy?” he said this time.
Still nothing. Shit. He needed to figure something out and fast. It was only a matter of time before Maurice and Louis came looking for him.
After his last couple of paltry escape attempts, it wouldn’t take long for them to realize Theo wasn’t in the bathroom where he said he’d be five minutes earlier before he slipped around the corner when their backs were turned.
But he had to try one more time. Because this time was different.
This time he might actually have a chance.
What had it been? Seven months? Ten since he’d gone missing?
He’d lost track of time. Counting the days, weeks, and months only increased Theo’s anxiety and hopelessness.
He didn’t need anything else keeping him awake at night.
After all, being held captive by unknown criminals and being forced to search for an artifact that Theo had absolutely no clue how to find didn’t exactly make for a peaceful night’s sleep.
By that point, he’d given up expecting that someone would recognize him as the Greek American archaeologist who’d disappeared after a boat accident.
Crete was miles away from the area where he’d gone missing.
No one would be looking for him here. And even though his picture had been plastered all over the news and the papers for the few months after his disappearance, apparently his beard—something he’d never sported before—was as good as a fake nose-glasses-mustache Halloween getup.
By now people had mostly stopped searching.
So a few months ago, once his handlers, Maurice and Louis, deemed the coast clear, they set him to work searching for the Minotaur at the behest of “the boss.” Neither they nor Theo presumed anyone would recognize him all the way over in Heraklion.
When he lay awake at night for all this time, he liked to think about how he’d react if he saw someone he knew in the rare circumstances that Maurice and Louis allowed him to be seen in public.
Would he scream for help? Would he merely pray that they reported the sighting to the authorities?
Or, after his last attempt to escape left him with a broken nose and a black eye, would he pretend he was someone else, too afraid of what Maurice and Louis might do if he tried to get away again?
Up to this point, he’d survived by playing dumb, hoping his failure to make any discoveries would eventually lead to his release.
He honestly never thought he’d have the opportunity to find out how he’d react, until he saw Dani at Knossos the day before.
Had he been dreaming? Because seeing her face?
Seeing her beautiful brown eyes seemed almost impossible.
And not only because he didn’t think he would ever see any of his friends and family ever again.
Because it was her. Daniela Guiterrez, the woman he’d always wanted but could never have. Not after making that ridiculous teenage pact with Eddie twenty years ago after what they’d termed Operation Juicy-Gate.
We can never, under any circumstances, date each other’s sisters. EVER. Deal?
Of course, the odds of Theo’s sister, Ophelia, taking an interest in Eddie were about a thousand to one.
By the time they’d made that agreement, Ophelia was already out of the house, finished with college, dating her future husband, and referred to Eddie as “Edweirdo.” And according to Theo’s parents, he was supposed to marry a Triple G: a “Good Greek Girl.” Plus, Theo was only seventeen at the time.
He was not interested in Eddie’s fifteen-year-old sister.
But after he’d taken Dani to her prom a few years later, something had changed. Theo would never forget the first time he got that flutter in his stomach that night. The feeling only grew more intense in the years after—and so did the echo of Eddie’s words in his head whenever she was near.
Even now as Dani lay passed out on the cold marble museum floor, the flutter had returned, and Theo had to tamp it down.
Though primarily because he didn’t have time for those feelings right now.
Not with Maurice and Louis soon to be hot on his trail.
With the two of them determined to find the woman who’d spotted them at Knossos and after they’d been following her all morning from her hotel through the streets of Heraklion and finally into the museum, he needed to get her out of there and as far away from them as possible so they could get to the US consulate.
Theo shook Dani once more, and when she didn’t flinch, he gathered her in his arms and lifted her from the ground. “Okay, Juicy,” he said to her even though she was out cold, “we’ve got to get you out of here.”
Without further hesitation, Theo exited the room and hightailed it through the museum, moving as fast as he could without causing Dani to flop around too much.
“Sir, is she okay?” an older woman asked in English, clearly a tourist, as he whizzed by.
“Yep! Just needs some fresh air,” he assured her, continuing toward the emergency exits in the back.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call for some help?” the woman insisted, following him. “Ma’am? Ma’am? Are you all right?” the woman then called out to Dani.
Shit. This didn’t look good.
When Theo didn’t stop, the woman yelled at full volume, “Young man! Stop right there! Someone, stop him! He’s taking that woman!”
Goddamn tourists! Mind your own business!
The woman was now jogging toward him, creating a commotion. This was the last thing he needed. Maurice and Louis were surely going to hear. He may have wanted to get rescued, but not at the expense of potentially putting Dani in danger.
“Lady!” Theo said, spinning on his heels to confront the woman. “This is my fiancée, and I’m taking her to get some air. Now, please. Stop following us. You’re making a scene.” His words were forceful, but he needed this woman to back off.
But the woman didn’t. She put her hand on Dani’s wrist and tugged. “I’m not letting you take her. How do I know you’re not some sort of kidnapping creep?!”
Theo wanted to laugh. Kidnapping creep. If only she knew.
Dani started to stir in his arms. Yes. Please wake up.
“Dani? Baby?” The endearment slipped out without warning. Where had that come from? “Dani, I need you to wake up,” he said.
Her eyes fluttered open for the briefest of seconds. Long enough for her to see his face. “Theo?” she whispered, before closing her eyes again.
“See?” Theo said to the old woman. “Now if you don’t mind,” he said, nodding his head at the woman’s hand on Dani’s wrist.
The woman finally let go, and Theo turned and ran out the back door.
Once in the alley, he booked it down the street to a small hillside park.
Hopefully Maurice and Louis were still searching the museum for Dani and wouldn’t look for him in the deserted park.
After setting Dani down on a bench, he scanned his surroundings, noticing a few locals sitting near the side of the road a short distance away.
He ran over and asked if they had any water for his friend, pointing to Dani in the distance.
They’d offered to call a medic, but he quickly waved them off, explaining she’d overheated and would be okay in a few moments.
One of the men called out to someone in the house to grab a water, and a moment later, a child ran out with a bottle of water, handing it to Theo.
He thanked them profusely, then ran back to Dani, slumped over on the bench.
He brushed the long black hairs that had come loose from her braid away from her face.
“Dani,” he said, rubbing her face and putting the bottle of water to her lips. “Dani, please. Wake up.”
She opened her mouth, drinking from the bottle, and her eyes started to flicker open, taking a moment to focus.
“Theo?” she said a little more confidently this time. “Is it really you?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
Upon hearing his words, her eyes flew open all the way and she flung her arms around his shoulders causing him to spill the water over her back. But she clearly didn’t mind, pulling him in tightly as she pressed her face against his chest.
He held firm, not wanting to let go for fear that she’d vanish. She was real. He could feel her enveloped in his arms. Smell her vanilla cream lotion. He couldn’t believe he was touching someone from home—and not anyone, but Dani.
The woman he thought he’d lost forever.