Chapter 38
Zac
I hold her, listening as she breathes softly against me. The rest of the cabin is already awake, but I have no plans to move until she does.
Eventually, she stirs.
“Good morning.”
“Morning.” She stretches, blinking up at me. “How long have you been up?”
“A little while.” Right on cue, my stomach grumbles.
She gives me a lop-sided grin. “Let’s get something to eat. I’m hungry too.”
We get dressed and head to the kitchen, hand in hand. Jameson is at the counter, nursing a mug. Brooke sits in a dining chair, cradling one too, her eyebrows lifted as she hides a smirk behind her cup. Emmett sits across from Brooke, giving me a blatant caught look.
“Morning,” Jameson says.
“Sleep well, Zac? Cabin walls didn’t bother you?” Emmett adds with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
“Shut up.” Brooke flicks a warning gaze toward them.
Pressing a kiss to Hannah’s head, I drop her hand to head straight to the coffeepot, while she makes a break for the empty seat next to Brooke.
“What’s the plan for today?” Hannah asks, trying to pivot the conversation. “More fishing?”
“It’s already ten—” Emmett starts, then glances at Brooke with a grin. “Though I guess some of us needed the beauty sleep.”
Brooke doesn’t even look up from her mug, but her foot shoots out under the table.
“Fuck.” Emmett slams his mug down, hunching forward.
“You going to rub it better for him?” Jameson teases, looking at Brooke.
Brooke snorts, taking a slow sip. “Not a chance.”
“Should be nicer to our guests,” I tease Emmett. His face is turning splotchy. Brooke must have kicked him good under the table.
I carry a fresh mug of tea over to Hannah and hand it to her. “Did you want to fish again?” I ask, unable to hide the eagerness in my voice, or how much I want more time out on that water.
“Definitely,” she says, looking up at me over the rim. “Yesterday I was focused on not falling in. Today I’ll pay attention to the fishing part.”
Sharice calls the morning after I get back from the cabin while I’m halfway through my morning cup of coffee.
“We found it,” she says bluntly. “The photograph. I know who sent it to Peltz.”
My stomach drops before she even says the name. “Who was it?”
“Yolanda. She contacted a freelance photographer. Paid him for exclusive pictures, then forwarded it straight to Peltz directly. We have the email.”
Anger builds in my chest. Of course it’s her. The diner, the day she happened to run into us with a camera-ready smile and a glimmer in her eyes. She’s been planning this before I knew to be careful.
“What do I do with it?”
“That’s the question.” Sharice’s voice drops in a way that says she’s about to tell me something I won’t like.
“You have grounds now. We can go after her for harassment, for interference, and frankly, the board should be furious that Peltz used a privately solicited photograph as the basis for a suspension instead of going through proper channels. This could clear you completely and embarrass him in the process.”
I nod, not that she can see me. “Good.”
“But, Zac... how you handle this next part matters. If you go in there angry, and I understand why you would be, you hand Peltz exactly what he’s been waiting for since the day he met you. Confirmation that you’re a liability. That you can’t control yourself under pressure.”
I close my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. I know exactly what she means. The old version of me is already halfway out the door, already rehearsing the things I want to say to Peltz’s face, already picturing the satisfaction of watching him squirm.
But that got me a disciplinary file in the first place.
“What do you suggest?” I ask instead.
“We present it formally. Through proper legal channels, with full documentation, requesting immediate reinstatement and a review of Peltz’s conduct in handling the original complaint. No confrontations or emotions. Just the facts laid out cleanly so there’s nothing left for him to spin.”
I exhale slowly, dropping my hand from my face. I’d love to walk into Peltz’s office and make him say it to my face, watch him feel even a fraction of what the last few weeks have cost me.
But that’s exactly the reaction he’s counting on.
“Let’s do it your way,” I say.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” I mean it. Not because I’ve stopped being angry. But because I’ve finally figured out that being right and being reckless aren’t the same strategy, and only one of them actually gets my life back.
The board reinstates me three days later.
Full clearance; the complaint dismissed as fraudulent, with Peltz issued a formal warning for failing to follow proper investigatory procedure.
It’s not nothing, but it wasn’t enough in my eyes.
Sharice tells me there’s already talk among the senior staff that Peltz’s judgment on this was questionable at best, and that’s a different kind of consequence than the one I imagined.
I don’t gloat and look to rub it in his face. Fuck knows I want to, but going back to work will do that enough.
I call my dad with the question on my mind that’s been bothering me for weeks.
“Congratulations. Your attorney did well,” he says when he answers.
“Yeah. Sharice was good.” I stare at the laptop screen, phone to my ear. “Dad, can I ask you something?”
“Of course. What is it?”
I take off my glasses and put them down. “Did you ever tell Peltz I was too arrogant for my own good?”
“He told you that?”
“He used it during the suspension. Said it came directly from you.”
My dad exhales loudly. “I said something like that once. Years ago, at a conference, when you first started at Pulse Point. Peltz asked how you were settling in, and I told him you’d always had a stubborn streak, and that you didn’t take direction well when you thought you were right.
It wasn’t meant as a condemnation. It was meant with pride, in a backwards way.
You’ve never needed anyone’s permission to believe in yourself.
I used to find that frustrating. But now I find it admirable. ”
I close my eyes, letting that truth settle. Tightness coils in my chest as I realize one offhand comment at a conference became the ammunition Peltz used to manage me for years. “He made it sound like you thought I was a problem he had to manage.”
“Zachary,” he says softly down the line. “I’m sorry I ever said that in a way that could be used like that. I never thought he’d twist my words or their meaning.”
I don’t say anything as I think about all the years of comparison, trying to outrun his name, assuming every word from him was scorekeeping.
“I think I spent my whole career trying to prove I wasn’t just your son,” I admit. “That I could do this without you. And I think somewhere along the way, I forgot to ask whether that was actually what you wanted from me, or just what I assumed you wanted.”
“I never wanted you to outrun me.” His voice catches slightly, which I’ve never heard before. “I wanted you to be good at this because you loved it. And you are. I should’ve said that more clearly, a very long time ago.”
The honesty of it hits like a physical blow through the speaker. I lower the phone an inch, staring at the blank screen, the silence stretching across the line. I don’t have a quick response, and for once, I don’t go looking for one.
“Yeah,” I finally say, clearing my throat. Taking the chance to be honest myself. “I need to tell you something about the suspension. About why the photo existed in the first place.”
“Okay.”
“The photo was my patient, Hannah Morgan. It’s not what Peltz made it look like. But it’s also not nothing.” I exhale. “I have real feelings for her. And I know how that sounds, given everything.”
My dad is silent, so I expect a lecture about professional ethics, liability, and a reminder of how much harder I’ve made things for myself.
“Is she good to you?” he asks instead.
The question catches me by surprise. “Yeah. She is.”
“Then I think that matters more than how it looks. Just handle it right when the time comes. Which I suspect you already know.”
“I will.”
“I’m not going to pretend I understand it. But I know you. You don’t do things carelessly. You never have. That stubborn streak I mentioned? It cuts both ways.”
A knot in my gut uncoils at his words.
“Are you doing okay otherwise?”
I think about Hannah and how much I love her.
“Yeah, Dad. I am.”