Debugging the Heart

A standalone contemporary romance from the interconnected Horizon Initiative Universe. Pretending to be in love was supposed to keep them alive. Falling for each other was never part of the plan. Ava Mitchell trusts systems more than people. Brilliant, methodical, and emotionally reserved, she has built her entire career around logic, data, and cybersecurity analysis. In Ava's world, every problem has a solution if you look closely enough.
Patterns make sense. Code makes sense. Human emotions usually don't. Then someone hacks directly into her life. When a sophisticated cyberattack compromises Ava's private research and exposes confidential information tied to a powerful tech corporation, she becomes the target of people willing to erase every trace of her existence to keep the truth buried. Suddenly, her apartment is no longer safe.
Her devices are compromised. And someone is tracking her every move. That's when Dominic Reyes enters the picture. Quiet, hyper-vigilant, and dangerously controlled, Dominic is a tactical security specialist who lives by one rule: never get emotionally involved. He's spent years surviving in high-risk operations by trusting instinct over attachment and disappearing before anyone gets close enough to become a weakness.
Protecting Ava should have been temporary. Simple. Professional. Until the only way to keep her hidden requires them to disappear together into a remote coastal town and pretend to be a deeply in love couple. What begins as a carefully staged performance quickly becomes something neither of them can fully control. Shared spaces. Fake dates. One bed when the power goes out. The constant awareness of each other in places far too small to escape the growing tension between them.
And somewhere between the lies they tell everyone else, the truth between them starts becoming impossible to ignore. Because Ava slowly discovers the loneliness Dominic hides beneath his rigid control. And Dominic realizes Ava sees through him more clearly than anyone ever has. But the closer they become, the more dangerous everything gets. As hidden players behind the cyberattack move closer and long-buried secrets rise to the surface, Ava and Dominic are forced to decide whether protecting their hearts is worth risking the one connection neither of them expected to survive.
Debugging the Heart is an addictive slow-burn romantic suspense filled with cyber intrigue, forced proximity, and emotional intensity. Blending fake dating tension with high-stakes danger, it's a gripping story about trust, survival, and discovering that the scariest thing about vulnerability is how impossible it becomes to walk away from it. Perfect for readers who love:. Fake dating and forced proximity romance.
Protective heroes and emotionally intelligent heroines. Cybersecurity suspense and hidden identities. One-bed tension and slow-burn chemistry. High emotional stakes and addictive romantic suspense. Clean contemporary romance with zero explicit contentBooks in this interconnected universe:Debugging the Heart is a standalone novel set in the Horizon Initiative Universe. While each book follows a different couple and can be read independently, hidden connections, recurring characters, and global secrets weave through every story.
Discover the next unforgettable connection at the end of this book.