Zach paused at the kitchen counter, his back to her. For a moment she thought he might actually answer. Then his shoulders shifted—a minuscule adjustment that revealed he was choosing his words.
“We’re still looking into it.”
The evasion landed like a stone in water.
Emma set the book aside and pushed to her feet.
“Looking into what, exactly?” She kept her voice neutral. Curious, not confrontational. The same tone she’d use in an interview when someone started dancing around a gap in their résumé.
Zach opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. He still didn’t turn to face her. “The security breach. Could be someone on staff. Could be external.”
“Could be someone I hired.”
He turned. Those winter blue eyes locked on her, and the weight of his assessment pressed down on her from across the room. Calculating. Measuring threat levels, even with her.
“That’s not what I said.”
“But it’s what you’re thinking.” Emma stepped forward, closing some of the distance between them. “I didn’t recognize the worker on the path—so no, not someone I hired.” Her voice stayed level, deliberate. “I told you, as promised.”
Another step.
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten I am the one who received the threat. I’m the one it’s aimed at.”
She stopped a few feet from him, ticking points off on her fingers. Facts. Evidence. The same competence she brought to every hiring decision, every performance review.
“I know the staff better than anyone because I hired most of them. I know their backgrounds, their references, their tells when they’re lying in interviews.” Her chin lifted. “So, if you found something, I need to know what it is.”
Zach set down the bottle with deliberate care. “You’re safer if you aren’t involved.”
The dismissal was soft. Absolute.
Wrong answer. Heat flared sharp and immediate in Emma’s chest.
“Safer?” The word came out clipped. “I’m already involved, Zach. Someone left a threatening note on my door. That’s not a spectator sport.”
“Which is why?—”
“No,” she cut him off. The flicker of surprise that crossed his face was briefly satisfying. “You don’t get to decide what I’m allowed to know. Not about this resort. Not about threats that target me directly.”
Zach’s jaw tightened. “Yes, I do.”
Emma actually rocked back a half-step, his words landing like a blow.
For a second, she stared at him in disbelief. The man she’d teased over coffee. Who didn’t object to the way she rearranged his carefully ordered space. Who today left his updated schedule on the counter because she worried when he disappeared.
This man looked at her like she was nothing but a variable to control.
“Excuse me?” Her voice dropped, quiet and dangerous. “What did you just say?”
“My job is to protect this resort and everyone in it.” His tone didn’t rise, but something deeper shifted beneath it. Tectonic plates grinding. “That means I decide what information gets shared and when. It means I assess threats before they become problems. It means?—”
“It means you treat me like a guest who wandered into the wrong building.”
Emma stepped closer again, anger overriding the self-preservation instinct that told her not to challenge a man who could doubtless kill her sixty different ways.
“I’m not a guest here, Zach. This is my resort, too. My staff. My hiring decisions. My career. Mylife.” Her voice sharpened. “I have a right to know!”
“It’s also my responsibility to keep you alive.”
