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the window as quickly as possible and pushed it open with a curse. Then he threw every single candle out the window to fall to the grass three stories below.
    His heart pounded with fury as he stood there. Damn it. He didn’t need candles. He didn’t need advice. He just needed to talk to her. He needed to see her. Did she even get the note he’d sent? Was everybody on that damned island conspiring against him?
    An idea suddenly occurred to him. He’d seen her at the window as he walked back. He knew where her room was.
    Down the hall, he entered the elevator and pressed the button for the second floor. It took him to the ground floor instead. So he pressed the button for the second floor again. It took him back to the third.
    Undaunted, he tried the stairs, but the door to the second floor refused to open even when he slammed his shoulder into it. That’s a fire hazard. He limped back up the stairs and into his room, throwing the window open again to stare at the ground. A pile of broken candles glowed in the moonlight on the grass below, also marking the spot right beneath the window he suspected was hers. He leaned out to examine the bricks and carved statuary decorating the building and smiled. This was going to be fun.

    Adriana finally dressed for bed and crawled beneath the silky coverlet, her eyes scratchy and blurry from crying. She rolled over and tried to sleep, but all she could see was Josh walking back from the dock alone. She’d wanted to go down there so badly, just to explain. Explain what, she didn’t know. But she didn’t want to leave anything unsaid between them.
    She sniffled again and rubbed her face. At last, she got up and went into the bathroom for a cool washcloth. She peered at her face in the mirror, scrubbing the tearstains from her cheeks. As she walked back into the room, a cool wind blew through her now open window, pushing the curtains into the room in billowy folds.
    The room was dark, but the moonlight illuminated the figure of a man dangling in the open window frame. The intruder swung lightly onto the floor to land with a grunt.
    Adriana shivered in fear as she prepared to scream for help.
    Then the figure stepped into the soft glow of the lamp, and she gasped.
    Josh.

Chapter Five
    “I t’s just me,” Josh said as he rubbed at his hip.
    “What are you doing? How did you get in here?”
    “Climbed. I do some parkour on the side,” he said as if that gave her some kind of explanation.
    “Parkour?”
    “Free running. Kind of like doing an urban obstacle course. You climb buildings and jump off two story ramps. Things like that. This wall was easy. Plenty of handholds on the gargoyles.”
    “Do you want something to drink?” she asked, completely taken aback by his unorthodox arrival in her room.
    “Yeah, that would be nice.”
    She passed him a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and he sat down in her reading chair. After a long silence, they both started to talk.
    “I just wanted—”
    “I needed to tell you—”
    “You first—”
    “You first—”
    They looked at each other. Adriana took a seat on her bed, pulling a blanket across her skimpy silk pajama short set, and nodded at him. She had no idea of what to say anyhow.
    Josh put his water bottle down and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I know it doesn’t look good that I climbed in your window to tell you I’m not some kind of stalker, but I’m not. I wasn’t trying to cop a feel when you bailed off your board. I guess I just hit the ground kind of hard and—” His cheeks turned pink in the lamplight. “I’m not usually a fainter. You must think I am a complete waste.”
    “No, oh Josh, no, I never thought that.” She had to stop herself from reaching out to him. “I am so sorry about not coming tonight. I wanted to talk to you too.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to give you the wrong idea about me. I like you. I really do. But now is not a good time for me to start a