After an embarrassing end to her teenage crush, grey-hat hacker Alexa Stone vowed to spend the rest of her life avoiding Nolan de Luca. Reliving the memory in her nightmares is quite bad enough without seeing him in person. But when her meddling bestie volunteers her to fix a tiny ransomware issue with Nolan's laptop, Alexa can't say no. Nolan's spent the past decade regretting the way he walked out on Alexa. Yes, okay, he was a murder suspect and she was a minor who lied about her age, but he should still have handled the situation better. Now she's coming to California, to the vineyard where he sought refuge after the death of their former roommate, and he wants a do-over. But nothing's ever simple. Alexa isn't impressed when Nolan becomes an accidental porn star, and then there's the interior designer determined to give his entire life a makeover. Which, being honest, it probably needs, but complications lead to mistakes. Mistakes that threaten his business and more. Alexa doesn't do complications, or people, or the great outdoors. So why does she keep returning to Gold Country? Hard Code is a standalone romantic suspense novel with a neurospicy heroine, an uptight hero, plenty of dark humour, and a morally grey girl squad.