Physical training. With a former Army Ranger. She groaned and let her forehead thunk against her desk.
“Well, that’s gonna suck.”
Chapter 26
Breakwater
That afternoon,Lena found David kneeling beside one of the pool cabanas, his fingers dancing across the black casing of a malfunctioning touchscreen panel. The tablet he always carried balanced on his thigh, a mess of green code scrolling like digital rain. He gave no sign he noticed her approach.
“You’re doing that thing,” he murmured without looking up. “Where your shoulders are stiff as rebar and you pretend you’re not jumpy.”
His voice was so faint it hardly carried over the sound of waves lapping against the breakwater and the distant laughter of guests sipping coconut cocktails on beach loungers. But Lena heard it, and it rooted her in place like a stake through her sandals.
“I’m not jumpy,” she said, her own voice defensive and too thin—too obvious. “I’m… cautious.”
He rose, bracing himself on the cabana structure as he straightened, brushing his palms on his jeans. When his eyes met hers—brilliant blue, rich with intelligence and something softer—it was like being exposed to a full-body X-ray. He didn’t just look at her. Hesawher.
“Talk to me, Firecracker,” he said, but despite the words, there was no demand in his tone. Just… invitation. Space. A timbre that engendered safety enough for her to step into it.
She hesitated, brushing small invisible flecks of dust from her arms, though they were already clean. How do you tell someone you feel your sanity unraveling like frayed twine without sounding completely untethered?
It burst out anyway.
“The notes. There were notes in my office.” Her eyes burned from having said the words aloud. She still smelled the sickly expensive cologne from the card. “One in my pen drawer, with my name on it. A picture of me on the veranda wearing Tuesday’s blouse—he circled the neckline, David. He wrote that the color matched my eyes.” Her laugh was humorless, flat. “And he knew I left my lights on at night.”
Her voice trembled, ignoring her attempts to keep it even, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “There was another one inside a staff folder I’d left on my desk earlier this week. It said—he said—he liked my hair better down.”
David’s mien didn’t change, but his eyes sharpened. Not angry. Not yet. But wary. Focused. Beneath the surface, heat simmered. Protective. He already knew this, of course. Zach would have told him.
She turned her face up toward the unforgiving Florida sun, letting it brush across her skin like a balm. The faded salt-and-coconut scent of her sunscreen tickled her nose. “So yeah… I decided to take a little walk about. Somehow ‘sit alone inside now’ didn’t feel like the most emotionally responsible choice.”
David’s brows lifted. He shifted his weight, hands on his hips but not in judgment—like he was reorganizing data in that brilliant mind of his. “So with all this happening, you decided to go for a stroll by yourself?”
“I knew you were here,” Lena replied, a little snarkiness sneaking back into her tone. “I didn’t wander into the jungle. It’s broad daylight. Guests everywhere. And I promise I didn’t stop to flirt with any pirates along the way.”
A smile ghosted across his mouth, but worry still buzzed off him like static.
She hesitated, then softened. “Also—I needed the sun. Nature. I can’t explain it, but tech systems? That’s your thing, right?” Lena waved a hand toward the tablet still active on the ground. “This?” She spread her arms in a wide, encompassing gesture that took in the blue sky above, the lapping ocean, the hum of birdsong and laughter. “This is mine. If I’m afraid, overwhelmed, worn down—it’s the wind, the heat, the salt on my skin, that steadies me again. Puts me back in alignment.”
She risked a glance up at him. “Even if it’s just for a minute.”
There was a long pause.
His gaze locked onto hers—not soft this time, but intent—and then he nodded once, a quick dip that somehow meant everything.
“Understood.” He glanced down at his screen, fingers tapping, already rerouting data flows, even as she watched.
“That’s part of why I’m the one down here fixing this,” he added almost under his breath. “Zach thinks I volunteered because I don’t trust anyone else with networking protocols. The truth is, I needed out too. Out of the server room. Off my screens. Sometimes even I need to… reboot.”
He looked up and winked.
It was ridiculous how a wink from a nerd in glasses and boat shoes could flutter something in her belly like this. But it did.
Then he turned businesslike. “Zach already updated your door lock to log all entries. That was step one. I’ll handle the next step.”
“What’s that?”
“Cameras.”
