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would have liked, but it took her only a few moments to assess the situation. She was alone on a dark path, surrounded by thick landscaping and plenty of nooks and crannies that could be used to pull her into the shadows.
    The parade of men she’d grown increasingly harsher with as the night had gone on marched through her brain. Crap, she should have been nicer.

3
    ZANE TAILED ELLE. FOLLOWING her had nothing to do with suspicions and everything to do with the fact that she’d looked less than steady on her feet back at the bar. She might have regained her balance fairly quickly, but he wasn’t in the habit of letting drunk women walk home alone.
    That was just asking for trouble. He’d worked enough cases with female victims who had been in the wrong place at the right time and ended up dead. And while the likelihood of that happening in this tropical paradise was fairly low—thanks to the security measures he’d implemented—he still wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if he’d let her walk out of that bar on her own.
    The path back to the main building was long, and he suddenly felt responsible for Elle. God only knew why.
    He rounded a corner on the path, realizing too late that the click of her footsteps ahead of him had gone silent.
    The attack came out of nowhere. If he hadn’t been preoccupied with worrying about Elle, it never would have happened. Two years ago, his brain would have noticed the lack of sound, calculated the most-likely position where she’d gone off the path and prepared for any number of things—including the possibility that she might attack him.
    Tonight, he was caught off guard as she came hurdling toward him out of the bushes. Her lithe body became a projectile headed straight for his chest. He had no desire to fall over backward from the force of her attack.
    Defensive moves that had long ago become instinctive kicked in. He sidestepped the motion of her body, reaching out to try to stop her forward momentum. He might have no desire to hit concrete, but then he really didn’t want her to, either. Too much paperwork involved.
    His fingers slid across her dress, fighting for purchase. He could feel the angle of her body shift beneath the slippery fabric as she countered his attempt to save her. The sound of cotton rending ripped through the air, mixing with the loud expulsion of her breath close to his ear. Her shoulder glanced off of his arm, the strength of her tiny body surprising him.
    Elle went off balance. He knew the second that her center of gravity overcorrected itself and couldn’t recover. He knew because he watched as her eyes, more cognizant than he’d expected, widened in panic.
    He lunged for her, but it was too late. If she’d still been standing on the path, he might have been able to grasp her and roll them both so she landed on top of him, shielding her from most of the impact. But the little minx had laid her trap right next to the pool.
    “Elle!” He cried out a warning she obviously didn’t need.
    He probably could have saved himself the dunking if he’d pushed against her momentum, but he didn’t. Instead, he tried to pull her in close to his body so that he could find her once they disappeared beneath the surface.
    Neither of them was in danger of drowning. They might have landed in the deep end of the pool, but it was only six feet. Elle was tiny, but surely she could find her way to the surface with little effort, even if she had been drunk and disoriented. And considering the dexterity she’d needed for her botched attack, he was seriously reconsidering his assessment of her ability to hold liquor.
    Warm water closed over his head. Chlorine stung his eyes as he kept them open, not willing to take his gaze off of Elle until he knew she was okay.
    Her feet touched down against the tiled bottom of the pool, pushing off in a way that had her dress floating precariously high up the smooth expanse of her thighs. Another reason to keep his eyes open. She