Page 18 of The Billionaire’s Siren (S.E. Smith Signature Romance: Heart & Soul #1)

Eleven

The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound—steady, soothing in its constancy.

The private hospital suite was dimly lit, the overhead lights turned off hours ago.

A single lamp cast a warm, yellowish-sheen over the room, pooling across the pale linen sheets and Dani’s bruised, sleeping form.

Shadows stretched across the whitewashed walls.

Beyond the window, city lights flickered like distant stars, their colors dancing faintly on the polished floor tiles.

Alexandros sat in the corner chair, still dressed in the same black slacks and white dress shirt from earlier, now rumpled and wrinkled.

His jacket was folded neatly over the armrest. His feet flat against the floor.

He cradled a now-cold cup of coffee, untouched.

Elbows braced on his knees, his shoulders curled in quiet vigilance.

He had barely moved since Dani had been transferred here from downstairs.

She lay motionless in the hospital bed, a thin white blanket pulled to her chest. Her arm—wrapped in a fresh bandage—rested lightly across her stomach.

A bruise had bloomed high on her cheekbone, another near her collarbone.

Cuts, scrapes, and pain painted her skin like a canvas of survival.

And yet—her expression was peaceful. At last .

They’d sedated her after she woke up screaming. Twice.

He hadn’t left her side. He couldn’t.

A gentle knock sounded at the door.

Alexandros turned his head slightly as the door cracked open. Theo’s face appeared in the sliver of space, his dark gaze searching the room.

Alexandros gave a brief nod.

Theo stepped inside, quietly easing the door shut behind him. He looked at Dani, his jaw tightening at the sight of her injuries. Without a word, he pulled over a second chair and sank into it beside his brother.

“Will we wake her if we talk?” Theo asked in a low voice.

Alexandros shook his head. “No. They gave her something to help her rest.”

Theo nodded, exhaling quietly.

For a moment, they both stared at Dani. The silence between them was not uncomfortable—just heavy, like air thickened with everything they hadn’t said yet.

Alexandros finally broke it.

“Did you get him?”

Theo nodded slowly. “Yeah. But identifying him… that’s been tricky.”

Alexandros turned to him, his brow furrowed.

Theo continued, “He didn’t have any real identification on him. No digital footprint, nothing we can trace. Authorities think he used aliases. But it’s been turned over to them now. The man was killed after he opened fire on our team.”

Alexandros exhaled—not in relief, but in bitter surrender.

Still, it wasn’t enough. Nothing would be.

“This is my fault,” he murmured, staring at his hands. “If it weren’t for me, she never would’ve been taken.”

Theo frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“She was targeted because of us. Because of me. Because of the money. The name. If I’d protected her properly, she never would’ve?—”

“That’s not true. ”

The voice was quiet. Steady. And came from the doorway.

Both men turned.

An older man with thick gray hair stood there, framed in the soft light spilling from the hallway. His navy-blue sweater was worn, his khakis rumpled, his expression carved from granite and sorrow. But his eyes were clear. Focused.

Alexandros and Theo rose immediately, instinctively. He recognized the man’s voice as Stuart, Dani’s grandfather.

Stuart walked over to the bed, his movements slow but steady. He bent over Dani, his hand brushing her curls back from her forehead with the tenderness of a man who had been a part of her life since infancy. He pressed a kiss to her brow, closed his eyes for a long moment, then exhaled deeply.

“I love you, girl. You did good. You did real good,” Stuart murmured with a sigh.

When he straightened, he looked at them both with quiet gravity.

“Come,” he said, his voice low. “Let’s go down to the cafeteria. We could all use some coffee.”

Alexandros hesitated. His gaze dropped back to Dani.

Stuart placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “She’s safe now, son. And there’s something I think you need to know. It might help ease some of the guilt I can see on your face.”

His words hung in the air like a thread about to unravel everything.

Alexandros exchanged a glance with Theo.

Then, with a torn glance at Dani, he followed Stuart into the hall.

“I’m surprised you made it from New York to Athens so fast,” Theo said as the elevator descended.

Stuart gave a tired chuckle. “It helps when you have the resources. I’ve never formally introduced myself. My name is Stuart Bouras.”

“Bouras? As in the Stuart Bouras of Bouras International ?” Alexandros asked, his voice coming out on a hiss of disbelief .

“The one and only,” Stuart replied with a faint smile.

“ Tee sto gha-MO-to?! ” What the hell?! Theo muttered, staring back and forth between Stuart and Alexandros. “I thought you said Dani was a mechanic.”

Stuart chuckled again and nodded. “Let’s get the coffee, and I’ll explain.”

Several minutes later, Alexandros sat with his back against the wall at a corner table in the cafeteria, waiting as his brother and Stuart finished ordering a meal.

His mind was shattered, trying to connect how Dani, his barefoot mermaid who cooed to her leather tool bag, was in reality the granddaughter of one of the wealthiest men in the world. Even wealthier than he was!

Bouras International wasn’t just powerful—it was a trillion-dollar behemoth. How the hell had Stuart allowed his only heir to live unprotected on a rusting trawler, working as a marine mechanic?

Anger churned inside him, hot and sharp. The more he thought about the dangers Dani must’ve faced, the tighter his chest became.

“Take your blood pressure down a notch, son,” Stuart said, sliding into the chair across from him.

“How could you allow her to be in this kind of danger?” he demanded, sitting back.

He knew his brown eyes were spitting fire. He didn’t care. Even he and Theo—who had spent years in Special Operations—kept a security detail on standby. That was why Theo had two of his team with him before he even made the call.

Stuart shook his head. “Dani had security. It didn’t mean that she knew she had security, but she had it.

” He nodded at him. “Carlos, the man who found your guy, is one of them. Maria, is another. She is acting as Carlos’s girlfriend.

I knew you had a guy watching over Dani, so I told Carlos to pull back so it wouldn’t cause trouble. That was my mistake.”

“The man who-who kidnapped Dani—,” Alexandros started.

“His name is Zayan Alaoui—or it was four years ago,” Stuart said, his voice dropping deeper with regret.

“You know who he is?” Theo demanded .

Stuart nodded, wrapping his hands around his coffee cup and releasing a deep sigh. He stared down at his uneaten food before he pushed it away, sat back, and studied Alexandros.

“Has Dani told you anything about her past?” Stuart suddenly asked.

Alexandros frowned. “Not much. She just told me that her parents died in a small plane crash when she was fifteen.”

Stuart sat forward, resting his elbows on the table. “You must mean something to her if she told you that much. She doesn’t talk about it—ever. Not to me. Not to the therapist I hired.”

“What does this have to do with Zayan Alaoui?” Theo asked with a frown.

“After the accident, Dani withdrew deep into herself. She barely talked. For almost a year, she just stared into space. It was as if she had lost all desire to live. It scared the hell out of me. No one could get through the walls she had erected.” Moisture glazed Stuart’s eyes before he blinked them away.

“As a last resort, I packed Dani up and we took off with no destination in mind. We spent time in Ireland, hiking in the highlands. Spent a month in England before we decided we didn’t like the food.

Took the train to France—where we liked the food a little too much.

” Alexandros’s lips twitched when Stuart patted his belly and smiled.

“Did that help her?” Alexandros asked in a quiet voice.

Stuart sniffed and rubbed his hand under his nose.

“Yeah. She slowly began to blossom. It didn’t happen overnight, but I could see the change.

She really opened up when we made it to Italy.

One day we were down at the docks. We were just going to watch the sunset.

As we were sitting there, we were watching a fisherman on this old fishing trawler.

He was working on the engine and cussing up a storm.

Out of the blue, Dani stands up, walks over to him, and asks if she can help him.

I don’t know who was more shocked, me or that damn Italian! ”

Stuart chuckled, sniffed, and wiped a dot of moisture from the corner of his eye.

Alexandros could feel the emotion vibrating within the older man.

In his mind’s eye, he was picturing a very young, shattered Dani, reaching out, a wrench in her hand, a smidge of grease across her cheek, her beautiful auburn hair piled in a messy bun and held in place by a colorful scarf.

I’m falling for her. No—I’m already gone. I am in love with her.

The realization struck him like one of Zeus’s lightning rods. He swallowed, pushing his new discovery into a corner of his mind until he could unpackage it later—when he was alone.

“I’m still waiting for the Alaoui connection,” Theo said.

Stuart snorted and looked at Theo with amusement. “Impatient, are you? You did good, going in after Dani. That was some Class A military maneuver.”

“Thank you,” Theo responded in a dry tone. “Alaoui?”

“Shortened version, I bought the trawler from the fisherman who was more than happy to sell it for a profit, Dani and I fixed it up, and we decided we’d do a bit more exploring.

We ended up in Morocco. Zayan was a dock rat.

He made his living off of finding beautiful young foreign women who were looking for romance or who were vulnerable.

He targeted Dani. If they were lucky, Zayan would seduce them with promises of love and adventure while stealing them blind.

I found out later that he would also pick certain young women for human trafficking.

Dani was marked for that. Her hair and physical beauty made her unique—and valuable,” Stuart said in a blunt tone.

Alexandros hissed while Theo cursed under his breath. Horror gripped Alexandros at the thought of what could have happened to Dani. That horror grew when he wondered if Zayan had?—

“How old was she?” Alexandros bit out.

“Seventeen. Dani never knew about the other stuff Zayan was involved in. She also didn’t know that I had security monitoring the situation.

I knew she was vulnerable. And as much as I hated it, I had to give her space.

The report I received said that Dani caught Zayan working his charms with other young tourists. Not all of them were women.”

“Poor Dani,” Theo said with a shake of his head.

Stuart grinned, though the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Don’t feel sorry for her. She fought back.

By the time she got done with him, Zayan’s little business in that port was finished.

By the time I got done with him, he couldn’t seduce a chicken.

His handlers weren’t happy with his performance.

After a few encounters with their fists, let’s just say he wasn’t looking so pretty anymore.

Unable to make a living using his looks, he had to start actually working to make a living.

Three years ago, he disappeared off the radar. ”

“Until last night,” Alexandros said.

Stuart nodded. “Until last night. As far as my security guys can tell, he must have recognized Dani. If anything, she is more beautiful than she was before. He saw her with you and decided to have his revenge and make some money off of the deal.”

“He wasn’t going to let her go,” Theo said, looking down at the cold, black liquid in his cup before he looked up. “Markos found a room—” He breathed deeply and shook his head, looking down again. “He wasn’t going to let her go.”

“Thank you both—for saving Dani. I owe you a life debt that I’ll never be able to repay,” Stuart said, his voice not quite steady.

Emotion swept through him, and he suddenly knew what he needed—no had—to do. This world was too cruel for someone as beautiful as Dani. She needed to be protected, and he would do whatever he had to do to make that happen.

“You can,” Alexandros said. “By giving me her hand in marriage.”

Theo sputtered. “What?!” He gaped at his brother. “Alexandros?—”

“I’ll protect her,” Alexandros said, eyes locked on Stuart’s. “With everything I am. I swear it.”

Stuart raised an eyebrow, watching him closely. “You realize Dani’s not a porcelain doll. She won’t let you lock her in a gilded cage. She’d fight you tooth and nail if you tried.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” His voice turned to steel. “But I’ll be damned if anyone ever lays a hand on her again.”