Zach nodded. “If that becomes the permanent plan, maintenance should get steel panels for the first-floor windows. They’re stronger than the electronic ones. Customize them to fit around the existing system for deployment during major storms.”
He moved to the counter beside her and picked up the knife. Began slicing the bread she’d left half-finished.
Emma stilled. She caught a faint scent—warm wood and something clean, almost herbal. Lavender, maybe. Not cologne. He wasn’t the type. Just soap, and him.
He didn’t look at her. Didn’t acknowledge it. He simply took over the task with the same precise competence he brought to everything, his hands quick and sure.
“You don’t have to—” she started.
“I know.” He kept slicing.
Emma found herself oddly aware of how close he was.
Something both warm and unexpected lodged in Emma’s chest. This wasn’t helping to be helpful. This was… partnership. Sharing space. Moving around each other like they’d done this a hundred times before.
Nick watched them with barely concealed entertainment. “Zach, you’re being domesticated.”
“No.” Flat. Immediate.
“The woman sleeping in your bed just made you dinner.”
Emma’s cheeks heated, even though she knew Nick was teasing Zach. David’s grin went wicked, although he didn’t glance up from his phone.
“That’s basically marriage,” David added helpfully.
“Stop talking.” Zach’s voice could have cut glass.
Emma laughed—she couldn’t help it—and something in the room shifted. Lightened. Zach’s gaze flickered to her, then away, like he didn’t quite know what to do with the sound of her laughter in his space.
“Speaking of disasters,” David said, pocketing his phone, a sheepish expression on his face, “I may have accidentally locked the hotel HVAC system into diagnostic mode.”
Nick’s head turned slowly. “Define ‘accidentally’.”
“I was improving it.”
“Those are famous last words,” she said, checking the potatoes. Almost done. “Right up there with ‘watch this’ and ‘I know what I’m doing’.”
“Don’t forget ‘hold my beer’,” Nick added with a grin.
“Idoknow what I’m doing,” David protested. “The system needed updating. The interface was from 2025!”
“And now it’s in diagnostic mode,” Nick said. “Which means what, exactly?”
“Nothing’s broken; it’s just… locked. I can unlock it. Ninety percent sure.”
Zach made a sound—barely audible, somewhere between exasperation and resignation. Emma glanced at him in time to spot it: the tiniest shift in his expression, humor softening the hard line of his mouth.
He didn’t laugh. Didn’t smile. But the corner of his mouth moved. Subtly. Like something in him recognized the absurdity and, despite himself, was amused.
Emma’s breath caught.
This was who he was with them. His brothers. The people he let inside his walls.
She turned back to the stove before he could catch her staring, but her pulse quickened. She’d glimpsed something private, something most people never saw—Zach Steele, relaxed and nearly human.
She pulled the pot roast from the oven. “Dinner in five.”
She transferred the roast to another cutting board, hyper-aware of him beside her. The controlled economy of his movements. The heat of his body in the narrow galley. His scent.
