“You will.”
She turns around, her shoulders rising and falling as she takes a deep breath and peers over the edge. They rise and fall again as she straightens.
Then she jumps.
I’m seconds behind her, shooting into the cool water, then breaking through the surface a few meters away from where she’s already treading water with a huge grin.
“That was awesome!” she yells.
“Yeah?” I swim over to her, studying her face for any lingering signs of nerves, but they’ve all vanished.
“Yeah.” She nods quickly. “But I’m shaking.” She lifts a hand from the water and shows me her fingers, trembling, as she tries to hold them still horizontally.
“It’s adrenaline. You’ll get used to it.”
She looks at the ledge from where we’ve just jumped, then lowers her eyes and beams at me.
“Can we do another?”
Forty minutes and four more jumps later, we’re standing at a higher section of the cliff that Jude insisted we walk up to so she could take a look. There’s no way I’m letting her jump it. She’s done well, taking on each higher and higher jump like a champ. I’ve created an adrenaline junkie. But this one is too much for her first time.
“How high is this one?” she asks breathlessly.
“Twenty-five meters,” I reply, running my hand around my jaw. “Too high for your first day.”
“I don’t know.” She frowns, peering over the edge like she’s mentally gauging the drop.
I hook a hand around her waist and drag her back.
“You said you just wanted to look. I told you you’re not doing it.”
“It’s not much higher than the others,” she argues. “And you’ve done it before.”
I tighten my grip on her warm, wet skin. “Which is exactly why I’m telling you that you aren’t going to. I’ve been doing this a long time. Trust me. You’ve done really well. Quit while you’re ahead.”
She purses her lips.
“You’d better not be thinking of doing anything stupid, New York City.”
“I can do it,” she says, like a petulant child, spinning inside my grip to face me.
“Try and step closer to the edge and I’ll have you over my shoulder and down this cliff faster than you can fucking blink,” I growl.
Her expression hardens at my fierce tone, but I can’t let that bother me. There’s no way in hell I’m letting her take on a jump that big before she’s ready for it.
“You think I can’t do it?” she snaps.
“I think it’s your first time and I don’t want you to push yourself too far. Listen to me, I know what I’m talking about.”
“Ugh. As if I haven’t been told that before. What is it about me, huh? What is it that makes people think they know what’s best for me? That they know what I should and shouldn’t do?”
I clamp my lips together, my jaw clenching as I listen. I thought this might happen. When you face an extreme challenge and push yourself physically, it can break open your mind too. Make you take a deep, hard look inside yourself. Make you question things.
I should have seen this coming…
“This isn’t about your father trying to push you into a career you didn’t want. Or about your jerk of an ex choosing to stick his dick in another woman,” I snap. “This is about me keeping you safe.”
She shrugs out of my hold, making me suck in a sharp breath. It’s too late to dissect how fast this day is turning to shit. The inevitable crash is coming at full force to obliterate us. I feel like a spectator merely along for the ride.
