‘I’m sorry I ran off,’ he typed, then deleted it. Too casual.
‘The breach was serious, but I have a lead,’ he tried next. True, but cold. Clinical. It sounded like he was more interested in computers than people.
‘I wanted to stay,’ his fingers spelled out, and that was the most honest thing he’d written in weeks. But he couldn’t send it. Couldn’t lay himself bare like that, not via text message, not when she probably thought he was a flake who couldn’t finish a simple romantic moment without getting distracted by work.
He deleted the message and pocketed the phone.
The rational thing to do was to focus on the threat. Someone was systematically attacking Ivory Sands, escalating from nuisance to genuine danger. The watermaker damage alone could have been catastrophic. And now they were targeting the power systems, which meant every guest and employee on the island was potentially at risk.
That should be his only priority. Find the saboteur. Protect the resort. Keep his family’s legacy safe.
But god help him, all he could think about was the way Lena had looked at him in the moonlight, like he was more than a tech guy, more than the CTO with a tablet fused to his hand. She’d looked at him like he was someone worth knowing. Worth trusting.
Worth kissing.
David stopped walking, standing still between pools of light, and made a decision that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the unfamiliar territory of his heart.
After he briefed Zach, after he secured the systems and updated the protocols and did all the responsible things his position required, he would find Lena. And he would be honest with her. About the investigation, yes, but also about the rest of it. About how she made him feel, about the strange amplification effect he couldn’t explain, about the fact that walking away from her tonight was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
And then, if she didn’t laugh in his face or tell him to take his hot-nerd routine elsewhere, he would kiss her the way he wished he had on the beach.
The decision settled something in his chest, eased the anxious spinning of his thoughts enough to breathe normally again. He started walking, his pace quicker now, purpose driving each step.
First things first. Catch a saboteur.
Then—god willing and if he didn’t screw it up—catch a certain platinum blonde front office manager before she decided he was more trouble than he was worth.
The tablet pulsed warm against his palm, the code fragment awaiting analysis, secrets waiting to be unraveled. But for the first time in his professional career, David Jones wasn’t thinking about digital mysteries.
He was thinking about the human one. And wondering if she was thinking about him too.
Chapter 30
Damaging Winds
The lagoon shimmeredunder the late-afternoon sun, as if the last few days hadn’t tightened something cold inside her.
Lena stood at the shoreline, arms wrapped tight across her chest, fingers clenching her polo. The golden light painted the water in shades of amber and copper, but it did nothing to thaw the chill that had settled deep in her bones.
Inside job.
Two words that had been echoing through her head since the morning management briefing from Zach and David. Two simple words that transformed her entire world from solid ground to quicksand.
That wasn’t what scared her most, though. What scared her—what made her stomach clench and her breath come shallow—was that it made perfect sense.
Too much access. Too many “coincidences.” So many employees had keys, system logins, security clearance… and one or more of them—smiling at her over staff breakfast or offering help at the concierge desk or laughing at her jokes in the break room—might report her every move to whoever wanted the resort to burn. To seehershatter.
The palm fronds rustled behind her, their rhythmic whisper sounding less like nature and more like gossip. A mocking caw from a bird perched in the canopy snapped her attention upward. Even the wildlife felt like spies today. Her eyes scanned the greenery, half-expecting to find someone lurking there with a camera, a recorder, or a weapon.
She forced herself to breathe. In through the nose—salt air, hibiscus, the faint tang of chlorine from the infinity pool. Out through the mouth. Her therapist from three years ago would be proud.
Or disappointed that she still needed the technique.
Footsteps crunched behind her, deliberate and unhurried. Lena’s shoulders tensed, her body coiling like a spring despite her best efforts to appear relaxed. She didn’t turn. Couldn’t turn. If she did, whoever it was would see the dismay written all over her face, and she’d already given too much away today.
“Word is you skipped out after the debrief,” said a familiar voice—roughened whiskey and sun, warm with concern rather than judgment.
Walter.
