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. He saw her.
“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.”
Lena flinched.
“I’ve got a few different models to test. We’ll find one that fits and get it mounted today—something discreet that captures the door but keeps your workspace private. I can configure it so you can see it on your phone too.”
She shook her head, unsettled. “I already feel like I’m under someone’s microscope, David. I don’t want to reinforce that with actual footage. I don’t want to exist like I’m being watched all the time.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “Do you feel that way now? Like you’re being watched?” he asked, curious—not pressing.
“Yes,” she said, surprising herself with the certainty of it. “Most of the time when I’m outside. Less so when I’m around people. But sometimes even inside—it’s like the back of your neck goes tight and every part of you screams someone is aiming their focus at your back. Like you’re prey.”
She shivered. Admitting it out loud almost made it worse.
“I never see anyone suspicious,” she added. “If it weren’t for the notes and everything else, I'd have checked myself into a psych ward by now.”
“That’s what he wants,” David said, voice turning quieter, almost clinical. “To make you doubt your instincts, your reality.”
Hearing him say that—with such certainty—settled something inside her.
He crouched again with a grimace, fingers brushing the back rim of the screen. She watched, transfixed, as his fingertips hovered and then made contact.
It was subtle—a strange prickle over her skin. It was like pins and needles, but tactile, electric, faint. Just like last night when he repaired the laptop with nothing but his touch and some freaky-cool tech magic.
Her breath hitched.
He was using his power now. He didn’t have to. He shouldn’t. It took a toll; she knew it did. His headaches, the drained energy he tried to hide. Yet he did it anyway. For her.
A wave of fierce gratitude swept through her, warm and lingering like a tide. Gratitude… Yes. That’s what this was.
She shoved aside the echo of something sweeter. Something deeper.
“I’m almost done,” he said. “Give me five more minutes, and we’ll walk back together. Take five and soak up the sunshine. You’ve earned it.”
She sighed and sank onto the grass next to him, resting a hand on his leg. “Thanks, David. For this. For everything.”
He didn’t look up as he replied, “Anytime.”
Lena lifted her face to the sun, soaking in the rays, enjoying the silken caress of the breeze on her skin. With him beside her, her hand on his leg, she didn’t feel hunted. Didn’t feel watched. Not completely. Just… seen.
A few minutes later, David exhaled, shoulders dropping as the last alert cleared from his tablet, and the prickle disappeared from her skin.
“That should’ve wiped me,” he muttered.
Lena quirked a brow. “It didn’t?”
He shook his head, turning back to the screen. “Nope. Must be adrenaline. Or luck.”
She let her hand fall away, unsettled by the strange sense that everything muted without the contact.