“You have five seconds, or I am going to call Jo in here and we’re all going to sort this mess out together.” She was typically the kind of person who said Snitches get stitches. But she needed to get Eli’s attention. She needed to regain control of this impossible situation. She needed to stop watching the way his freckles danced across his face as his expressions shifted.

Eli didn’t even bat one of his long eyelashes. Didn’t miss a beat. His voice went soft and lyrical, like he was an old-fashioned muse. Like he could use that honeyed voice of his to get out of any and all trouble. “Come on, Danny.”

“Don’t you dare use that tone with me. You’re not going to charm me out of getting an answer from you. What aren’t you telling me?” Daniella uncrossed her arms and settled her hands on her hips.

Eli sighed. “I might have, just maybe, found an email saying that the store was closing and being sold.”

“You what?” Daniella’s voice went low. She had wanted to shout. But finely honed instincts had taught her that when she wanted to shout, she ought to whisper. “You just saw an email lying on the floor and thought, Huh, I’ll just pick that up—maybe somebody lost this electronic message and needs a hero like me to return it to him? Nobody just finds emails, Eli.”

Eli sighed another very put-upon sigh. But he didn’t avoid her this time. “I went through Jo’s email, and I found that there was a pending sale.”

For a moment, all that Daniella could do was stare. And Eli stared back, his eyes full of earnestness and something else that Daniella couldn’t place. Something Daniella could have easily mistaken for longing.

She blinked, fluttering some of the remnants of last night’s mascara into her eyes. Daniella rubbed until the flakes were out of her eyes—probably fully entrenched under them by now. In an instant, she became conscious of what she looked like.