Chapter Five
Chapter
Five
Theo
“When are you going to tell me what the hell is going on, Theo?” Dani asked as he brushed by her searching their—shared—bedroom for bugs.
The recording sort, that was. By the spotless look of this place and everything about Pierre Vautour’s image, a bedbug wouldn’t stand a chance on this island.
“I don’t think it’s safe to talk here,” he finally answered softly, lifting a corner of the king mattress on the one—and only—bed in the room.
“What do you mean it’s not safe to talk here?” she asked at full volume as he continued looking for microphones. Opening drawers. Looking in vents.
“What are you even doing?” Dani asked.
“Making sure no one is listening or watching,” he said. He couldn’t stop. Not until he knew the coast was clear.
“Theo? What sort of trouble are we in, exactly?”
“Enough that people think I’m dead,” he said without looking at her as he turned over a lamp. “I think that probably explains enough.”
“Will you stop for a minute? You’re scaring me.”
Her words stopped him in his tracks, and he stood up straight to face her head on.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around her waist. She looked small, and not only in the literal sense.
This wasn’t the Dani he was used to. The tough, no-nonsense woman who stood up for herself.
The woman who took care of business and never shied away from danger. She was never scared of anything.
It was one of the things he loved about her.
No. You can’t say that. Theo quickly wiped the thought away.
It wasn’t that Theo hadn’t thought about Dani in that way. Oh, he’d thought about her in lots of ways over the years.
And now, there she was—his fiancée.
What the hell had he been thinking when he’d told Maurice and Louis months ago that he had a fiancée? Answer: he’d been trying to save his own ass.
But now? He wanted nothing more than to scoop her up in his arms. Repeat all the words she’d said to him that night back in Grand Rapids, the words that at the time he couldn’t say back. Protect her from this mess he’d gotten himself in. Promise her everything would be okay.
But he couldn’t do any of those things. Because the fact of the matter was, he didn’t know if everything would be okay.
And those words—It’s always been you—well, she clearly hadn’t meant them.
“Juicy, I—” he said, taking a step toward her with his arms open to pull her into a hug.
But she put up her hand to stop him.
“You need to tell me what’s going on,” she said.
“I will. It’s just—”
“The pool,” she said.
He cocked his head to the side. “What about the pool?”
“We can talk there, right by the edge. It’s huge. There probably aren’t any recording devices. No Maurice and Louis. It’s not like they’re going to swim next to us.”
Hmm…it wasn’t a bad idea, especially since Maurice couldn’t swim. Except…
“We don’t have swimsuits,” he said.
“Yes, we do. Right there,” she said, pointing to a stack of men’s and women’s clothes on the dresser. And sure enough, swimwear right on top.
“Don’t you think that’s awfully convenient?” he asked. “Swimsuits? They probably want to get us in the water.”
Dani narrowed her eyes to him, marched over to the piles of clothes, and snatched the suits. “I don’t give a shit if it’s convenient,” she said, tossing a pair of trunks at Theo’s face.
He pulled the shorts from his face, finding Dani staring at him with her hands on her hips.
There’s the Dani I know.
“I want some answers. Meet me in the pool,” she said before retreating to the bathroom to change.
* * *
Theo waded into the pool alone, waiting for Dani.
Something about swimming in the luxurious infinity pool of his captor felt a bit icky, but what other choice did he have?
Dani was right. She needed answers. And since he couldn’t be sure their room wasn’t bugged—or that Maurice and Louis wouldn’t follow them around the island if they tried to talk elsewhere—this would have to do.
The water was warm, heated by more than the sun’s rays setting above them. He could get used to this—minus the whole kidnapping thing.
He stared out to the sea, watching other boats far off in the distance. Too far to be able to see him waving his arms for a rescue.
A flash of something shiny caught his attention behind him and he looked over his shoulder, spotting Dani approaching the edge of the pool and—
Holy fucking God, Pierre is taunting me.
The swimsuit she wore should have been fucking illegal.
The shimmery teal fabric reminded him of the prom dress she wore back in high school the year she’d gotten stood up and he went in place of her date.
But whereas that dress had merely accentuated her curves, this suit revealed them.
It was technically a one-piece, but really that meant only that all the little pieces were connected, even if only by the thinnest of threads.
The triangular bra area barely covered her full breasts, revealing a significant portion of her side-boob (the best part of the boob if you asked him).
They plunged to her navel, creating the deepest V possible.
He couldn’t see the back, but based on how it looked from the front, he was sure it didn’t cover her ass.
Juicy.
He couldn’t believe he’d used that nickname in front of Vautour. God, how stupid could he have been?
She’d pulled her hair up into a messy bun with a few tendrils of hair loosely falling onto her neck. What Theo wouldn’t do to sweep those loose pieces aside, grazing her neck with his fingers to make space for him to plant kisses along her honey-colored skin.
“Don’t look,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. Too late. “This suit is absolutely ridiculous.”
Ridiculously sexy.
Theo wanted to respond, but he could already feel his voice getting trapped in his throat, so he stayed quiet.
“It says it’s my size, but I swear they made this at least two sizes too small,” she said, tugging at the hem around her thighs.
Fits just right, he thought.
He cleared his throat and tried to clear his mind of dirty thoughts. God, looking at her was dangerous.
“I doubt they knew what sizes we wear,” Theo tried to explain, ignoring the fact that his swimsuit fit him fine.
Dani descended into the water then sat on the stairs across the pool from him.
“You’re going to need to get closer than that,” Theo said from about twenty feet away. “Honey,” he added, quirking an eyebrow.
“I’m fine right here…babe,” she said, ticking her head to the side with attitude for emphasis.
“Sound carries over water,” he then pointed out.
She let out a breath, then stood and pushed off from the stairs, gliding through the pool with minimal effort. Once she reached him, she leaned back against the edge of the pool, then turned to face him.
“Explain,” she said, not wasting any time.
But Theo still hesitated, scanning their surroundings. “Did you see Maurice and Louis around?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes at him, sending a chill over his skin despite the heated pool water. “Quit stalling,” she said.
If looks could kill.
But she didn’t understand. They may have been surrounded in opulence, but his reality for the past year couldn’t have been further from luxury.
“I’m not stalling. What if they’re watching us?”
Dani sighed and rolled her eyes. She then inched closer to him, reaching her arms around his waist under the water and causing him to flinch.
“What are you doing?” he said under his breath, gazing down at the top of her head as she rested it on his shoulder.
“Pretending you’re my babe,” she whispered. “In case they’re watching.”
He let himself relax, then stretched one arm along the edge of the pool steadying their bodies and placed the other around her back, delicately resting his fingers on her bare skin.
Surprisingly, she didn’t recoil, seemingly unbothered by the fact that he was touching her so…
intimately. Funny, seeing as the only thing he could focus on was the placement of their hands upon each other’s bodies.
They stayed in place for a few moments, quiet save for the water spilling over the rim.
For the first time in months, all the noise in his head—the fears, the what-ifs, the strategizing—subsided.
He could have remained that way forever, even allowing his eyes to close briefly, when her soft, silky leg brushed against him, bringing him back to attention.
“Theo…please tell me what’s going on,” she pleaded, finally breaking the silence.
He blew out a breath. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Then start with Grand Rapids. When were you there? And why did you leave without saying anything? I thought you wanted—”
She stopped herself and pulled away. But he knew what she was going to say. I thought you wanted to talk.
Fries and micheladas. That was the plan. Until it wasn’t.
No, he couldn’t start there.
“I’d planned to stop by,” he started, “but right when I arrived, I got an email from an old schoolmate, Dr. Ford Matthews. He was looking for someone to help with an expedition on the Peloponnesian peninsula, said that some Minoan artifacts had been discovered. Which didn’t make any sense since the Minoan civilization was centered on Crete.
Because of my expertise in Minoan antiquities, he asked if I could come to verify their find.
I’ll admit, I was fascinated. A cache of Minoan artifacts on the Peloponnese?
I had to see it. And it had been a while since I went to a dig site. ”
Plus, it was a convenient excuse to get away.
“But,” he continued, as his arms skated back and forth across the water, “when I got here, Ford was nowhere to be found. And when I got to the site where the expedition was supposedly taking place, no one knew what I was talking about. I emailed Ford using the address he’d sent the original request from, but I realized it was a fake.
I eventually got ahold of Ford in Connecticut, but he said he’d never contacted me. It should have been a sign to go home.”