Lexi wasn't exactly sure what happened. As she screamed, she caught one last glimpse of beautiful Croatia outside the sliding glass door of the balcony before the plastic covered her head. She could barely make out Mike's form as he yanked the thick plastic tight against her nose and mouth.

She fought, throwing her weight from side to side, but it didn't do any good. He was too big, too strong. And without use of her arms there wasn't much she could do. Her lungs burned as she attempted to drag in air but could get none through the thick plastic.

She didn't want this to be the end. Wanted more time with Jackson. Wanted a chance to officially say the words that had been inside her heart since she was sixteen years old. 

But it was too late. She didn't fight the blackness as it took her under. 

She woke to Jackson's hands stroking tenderly across her face.

“C'mon, baby, can you open your eyes?” 

She couldn't seem to make herself do it. All she could do was moan. Everything hurt.

“That's right, sweetheart, can you open those beautiful eyes for me?”

She didn't want to. Just wanted to go back to sleep where the pain couldn't overwhelm her.

“Lexi, you will open your eyes right now.” 

Her eyes blinked open. She couldn't resist his that dominant tone. Something inside her instinctively responded. 

“There you are.”

“It hurts,” she said. 

“Let me unbuckle your wrists.” He helped her sit up.

“Be careful of my finger. He broke my pinky.” She heard Jackson mutter some really ugly words as he unbuckled her arms. He rubbed her shoulder sockets to help ease the pain from having been restrained so long, then gently cradled her hurt hand in his.

“Where's the medic, Donovan? Fucker broke her pinky,” she heard Jackson say as he picked her up and sat down with her in his arms. Someone wrapped a blanket over her. 

There were a lot of people in the room.

The security team, Donovan, and of course Jackson holding her. Lexi processed it all from a mental distance.

“Medical will be here in less than five minutes. You've also got to get your shoulder looked at,” Donovan said to Jackson. 

“What's wrong with your shoulder?” she whispered.

Jackson just tucked her closer to his chest. “Nothing is wrong with my shoulder. I'm fine, sweetheart.”

Concentrating on his injury helped Lexi focus. She looked at Donovan. “What happened to Jackson's shoulder?”

Donovan trailed a finger down her cheek. “He dislocated it getting through the door. Damn good thing he did. If he had waited for the security team, he would've been too late.”

Lexi didn't want to think about the plastic bag over her face. The agonizing burn of her lungs. But she knew she had to.

“Where is Mike?”

Jackson smiled, although it wasn't friendly. “He's unconscious in the other room. My security team is with him. He'll be arrested.”

“He was stealing from you. I found out and he knew I would tell you.”

Jackson nodded. “We know, baby. Just rest, okay? I just need to hold you.” He pulled her back against his chest on his good side, his chin fitting over her head.

Something about what he'd said bugged her, but she was too exhausted to figure it out right now. She lay against Jackson until the medics arrived. First they checked out Mike, who evidently had a broken jaw, then came to look at her finger. She tried to get them to look at Jackson shoulder first, since that was obviously a more complex injury, but the furious look Jackson gave her had her offering her finger to the medic.

As the minutes wore on, Lexi's shock wore off. She was alive. She was okay, minus one broken pinky that would obviously recover and was in a splint.

Jackson's shoulder was dislocated, but the ship's doctor gave a very positive prognosis. Donovan asked if Jackson could just slam his shoulder against the wall and put it back in the socket like Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon. The doctor rolled his eyes and told both men he didn't advise it if Jackson wanted full use of his shoulder as he grew older.

Jackson needed to leave her. He had to take care of the legal situation with Mike – attempted murder on a ship in port had some complicated legal ramifications. He also needed to get his shoulder taken care of.

But he didn't want to leave her.

“Will Mike be put in a prison here in Croatia?” she asked.

“I want him tried in the United States, if possible, both for all the money he was skimming, and especially for what he tried to do to you.” Jackson kissed her forehead. “I'll be on the phone with my lawyers in just a moment.”

“I've got the data in my room if you need it. Specific amounts and how he was taking it.”

“That's because you and your software are amazing.” He kissed her again.

Lexi frowned. How he known about her software? She planned on making a big reveal once she had the data in place and could back up any accusations she made.

The head of Jackson's security team, Ian something, came over to get him.

“Boss, we need you to deal with the local police if you don't mind, as owner of the ship. The captain will be down soon too. Also, we've got the New York lawyers on the line to figure out what we can do to get Wentzel back in the States.”

Lexi was staring at Jackson still trying to make sense of his last statement.

He turned to her. “Do you need me to stay with you? If all of this has to wait, then it has to wait.”

“You already knew about my software?” she asked. Obviously, that wasn't the most important issue at hand, but she couldn't push it out of her mind. How did he know about her software?

Jackson grimaced. “I did. We'll talk about it later, okay? Unless you need me here I really should go handle this.”

“No I'll be fine. You go take care of everything.” The words came out neutrally but inside Lexi could feel something beginning to crack. Something growing cold.

How had he Jackson known about her software if she hadn’t mentioned it at all?

Jackson leaned down to kiss her forehead where she sat against the couch. “Donovan will stay with you. He'll take you to my suite after you finish in the clinic. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“I can manage on my own,” she said. 

Jackson's eyes narrowed. “Donovan will stay with you, at least until you're back in my cabin. And then we'll talk, okay?”

She nodded. Jackson looked like he was going to say something else but then one of the security team herded him out the door. 

They all left and it was quiet. Lexi stared at the space on the carpet in front of her where she had been so close to dying less than an hour ago. She saw the necklace Mike had thrown and picked it up. The clasp was broken so she just held it in her uninjured hand.

“Ready to go to the clinic?” Donovan asked. “Get that finger set, then you can get some sleep.”

Lexi looked around. “This isn't Mike's cabin. He told me that. Didn't want security to be able to find him with me.” 

Donovan nodded. “Yeah. It’s somebody else’s room. We'll be looking into it, see if there is any connection between the two men or if the other guy just happened to loan out his suite to Wentzel.”

Lexi nodded. Her brain wasn't working at full speed. She knew there were things she was missing, but she couldn't pinpoint them. And all she kept coming back to was that Jackson had already known about the tracking system she’d planted in his servers. How?

Donovan helped her stand and they began walking towards the clinic. “When I first set up the software, I never dreamed the person skimming from Calder Enterprises would be on board. I thought it would be someone accessing his servers in New York or Los Angeles.”

“I guess Mike just got too comfortable. Instead of keeping his distance, he got closer to Jackson.” Donovan shook his head. “Idiot.”

“You guys were already on to him? Or knew about the theft just not who was involved?” Lexi prayed that was the case. Prayed she’d misunderstood. 

“Not until Jackson caught you loading your software in the server room last...” Donovan trailed off. He looked away.

Jackson had seen her breaking into the server room. That's why he had tracked her down in the cafe that morning. Not because he'd known it was her, but because he'd known she'd been inside his computer systems without permission. 

“When Jackson caught me, did it tip you off right away that it was Mike?” She asked the question even though she already knew the answer.

“Lexi...”

“No, of course not, because the data wasn't in yet. Jackson thought it was me who was stealing from him.”

Donovan sighed. “In Jackson's defense, that is what your software made it look like.”

So all the time they’d been together he'd thought she was stealing from him. That she was the one skimming from Calder Enterprises.

“He was keeping an eye on me, wasn't he?” That was why they hadn't spent five minutes apart in the last seven days. Not because he was as enthralled with her as she was with him, but because he didn't want to let her out of his sight.

Donovan recognized his misstep immediately. He moved closer to Lexi, but she stepped back. She didn't want him to touch her. She didn't want anyone to touch her.

The fairytale she built for herself the last few days was crumbling before her eyes.

“It may have started that way,” Donovan said. “But I personally know that Jackson has been in love with you since you were eighteen years old. So don't act like it was some sort of hardship for him to spend time with you. Yes, maybe he wanted to keep an eye on you, but everything else you guys were doing he wanted even more.”

“Love doesn't act that way. Love doesn't assume the worst about someone.”

Donovan shook his head. “Jackson didn't assume the worst about you. I don't think the man is capable of assuming the worst of you. He kept you close and had us keep looking into your software. Until he had no other option but to believe you were guilty, he wasn't going to accept it.”

She'd given herself so completely to these last few days. Had dropped all her walls. Finding out now that he was, at least in part, keeping her close because he thought she was stealing from him... 

It was like watching him walk away all over again, this time just for different reasons.

“He wanted to be with you, Lexi.”

How could she possibly know that was true for certain?

She walked with Donovan the rest of the way to the clinic, stayed calmed as the doctor numbed her finger then reset it. By the time it was all over, all she wanted to do was sleep, to escape everything. Definitely what had happened with Mike and almost dying. She wanted that blanked out of her mind forever.

But also she just wanted to forget the fears that kept creeping into her mind. Fears that these days with Jackson had just been a gilded cage. That just like four years ago, she wasn't what he really wanted. 

That, despite his tenderness after what happened to her tonight, he would be out the door at the first opportunity. Maybe that wouldn't be today. Or maybe even a couple weeks from now. But it would happen.

This time she wasn't going to let him walk first.

“I need to go to my cabin, Donovan,” she told him as they were leaving the clinic. 

“Jackson wants you to be in his room.” 

“No offense, but right now, Jackson doesn't get a say in where I sleep. He and I can talk about everything tomorrow.” After she had rested and wasn’t so overwrought. Could think of something besides her bone breaking and the plastic suffocating her.

Donovan didn’t like it, but he agreed.

But hours later she found she couldn’t sleep. The numbing agent and painkillers the doctor had given her had worn off and now her body hurt as much as her mind. She could take another pill, but knew that would only help part of the problem.

She wanted Jackson.

Regardless of whether he had been with her the last few days to keep an eye on her or not, she needed him now. Needed him to hold her. And hope that he could tell her something – anything – that would make her understand what had happened these past few days.

That he would put his arms around her and explain, and it would mend the massive fissure in her heart. She rubbed the heel of her good hand over her chest in an effort to ease the ache there.

She had to see him.

She didn’t even know if he would be back from talking to the police yet, but she would wait in his cabin. In their bed. Just knowing he’d be there eventually would help.

She touched the necklace he’d given her, the collar. They had a lot of things they needed to work out, but she was willing to give him a chance to explain.

She dressed gingerly in yoga pants and her hoodie and made her way to the opposite side of the ship to his large suite. Using her key, she let herself in quietly, in case Jackson was already back and asleep.

She immediately heard voices from the living room section around the corner from the door. Jackson, Donovan, and the ship’s heads of security, Ian and Quentin.

She smiled as she heard Jackson’s words.

“I just want her in here with me.”

“Maybe she needs some space, Jackson. What that asshole did to her was terrible enough, but also finding out we thought it was her stealing from you? She knows you kept her around in order to keep an eye on her,” Donovan said.

Her smile faded at Jackson's response. “Yeah, I suppose she wouldn't take well to the whole 'keep your enemies closer' line of thought.”

The other men chuckled. Lexi took a step backwards, keeping out of sight, rubbing her chest at the dull ache that had started there.

“I have to admit putting the transmitter in a necklace was a stroke of genius,” one of the other men, Ian or Quentin said. “One good thing about being part of BDSM community. You know a sub isn't going to take off her collar.”

“It damn well saved her life tonight, so I'm thankful as hell she didn't take it off. I debated about getting one that couldn't be removed without a key, but she seemed invested enough without it.”

Lexi’s stomach clenched at the words, a drop of sweat rolling down her spine. She backed out of the door and closed it softly behind her then leaned against the wall trying to coax air into her lungs.

It had all been a ploy. None of it had been real for Jackson. She grasped the chain in her hand. There was a transmitter in it? He'd been right, that had saved her life tonight. She hadn't even thought of how Jackson had found her.

She'd just thought he'd been her own private superhero.  Which pretty much made her an idiot. 

She couldn't stay here. Not any more. Didn't want to face Jackson again. He didn't really want her. How many times would he have to distance himself from her before she figured that out?

She walked back to her cabin slowly, numb for the first time to the beauty of the ship around her. She would leave tonight and fly home. She felt like she was watching someone else pull out her suitcase and pack her clothing, meticulously folding each piece.  

At least her pinky didn’t hurt any more. Or maybe it was that her entire body hurt just as much.

As she turned to leave the cabin she caught a glimpse of the collar on the dresser. She traced the gold links with a trembling finger. God, she remembered the way his powerful hand had brushed over her bare skin when he’d fastened it around her throat. How she never thought she’d take it off.

She left the collar on the bed, a note underneath it.

No need to keep me closer any more. I'm glad you chose one that didn't need a key.