She kicked off her shoes and the shorts, ignoring the embarrassment she felt about being in her soon-to-be wet underwear. She dived into the water and reached the other side before she could change her mind. She dragged herself out onto the rocky outcrop, where Benoit was already standing. He barely looked at her and it only made her more determined.
‘Follow where I put my feet and hands.’
She didn’t bother replying. If he was going to be a monosyllabic brute then so be it.
She had expected the climb to be much harder, to hurt her feet, but the stone had been worn away by years and years of people doing exactly what they were about to do. As they got higher, the roar of the water was deafening and the spray flicked against her skin, making her feel hyperaware.
They reached the top and for a second the sudden absence of sound and spray was disorientating, but not as much as the view. The pool at the bottom looked a million miles away and she backed away from the edge, right into Benoit’s chest.
The adrenaline in her bod
y turned to fear, her legs trembled and her stomach twisted. She’d been wrong; she couldn’t do this. She suddenly wanted to go home. Not back to his house or the estate in Norfolk, but to her little house in the New Forest. To life before Costa Rica, Benoit and the search for the jewels. She wanted to live in the bubble that she’d been happy with until she’d exposed her life to Benoit and found it wanting.
His hand was on her shoulder, steadying her but also keeping her literally at arm’s length.
‘I can’t do this,’ she said, the trembling in her legs getting worse.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not who I am. I don’t do this kind of thing,’ she said, leaning forward a little to peer down at the pool below and wondering how difficult it would be to climb back down. Gently, he pulled her back and turned her to face him. The way his eyes bored into hers, the icy blue depths glinting not with charm but determination struck her to her core.
‘I don’t want you to be something you’re not. I want you to embrace who you are.’
Skye had to work so hard to keep the sob that rose in her chest from escaping. It felt as if in three days Benoit had unearthed the cornerstone of her entire being and it hurt. It hurt because she knew that he was right. That she needed to heal that part of herself that was always trying to be whatever other people needed her to be and not what she needed for herself.
‘What do you see when you look at me?’ she asked, unable to prevent the question falling from her lips and unwilling to meet his eyes.
‘That’s the point, Skye. It’s not about what I see, but what you see.’
And with that he stepped past her and jumped, soaring into the sky and over the edge of the waterfall. Skye counted the rapid heartbeats fluttering in her chest until she heard the splash of water and knew that he was safe.
She expected her pulse to slow, but it didn’t. Because it was her turn. She knew she could climb back down. After all, it was up to her and that was just as much a part of the point he was making. But she didn’t want to. She remembered the thrill in his eyes just after he’d jumped the first time, the excitement stirring in her own body, the desire to feel that for herself. She approached the area where Benoit had jumped from. What was the worst that could happen? She could fall and break her heart. Arm, she corrected; she’d meant arm, obviously.
Before she could change her mind, she bent her legs and launched herself away from the grassy bank at the edge of the waterfall, shaping her body into a dive. It was as if everything she felt rushed through her in less than a second. Fear, happiness, excitement, pleasure. She was pretty sure she screamed, but by the time she rose from the depths of the water below she knew one thing about herself for certain.
She was someone who jumped off waterfalls and loved it.
Now she wanted to know what would happen if she took a different kind of leap.
Benoit let the spray from the shower clean away the sweat and traces of dirt from the return journey through the rainforest. It pummelled his skin but it wasn’t enough. He switched the temperature to cold, then freezing. Anything to shock his system into clearing the kaleidoscope of erotic images of Skye from his mind. Skye in her wet underwear, climbing up the side of the waterfall like a sprite, emerging from the water and sweeping her hair from her face, her strong legs and arms holding her steady in the water.
Just like he’d dreamed the night before. At first his dreams had been intense and mouth-wateringly erotic; he could have slept for ever with dreams like that. But then, just before dawn, they’d changed. In his bedroom, in his bed, he’d found Skye in a red negligee with a faceless man and he’d woken with his heart pounding and a cold sweat over his entire body.
Was it a warning? Not about Skye—he didn’t think for a second she would do such a thing. But for himself. He, of all people, knew that his judgement was unsound around women. Camilla, his mother—he should never forget that. So that morning he’d planned to go to the waterfall alone to get his head straight. But the way she’d looked at him at breakfast... And then, at the waterfall, the diamonds in her eyes after she’d jumped... It was as if he felt what she did—the adrenaline rush, that power. She’d jumped the very first time. Her strength was something he’d never questioned about her, but she seemed not to realise it about herself and that was a tragedy.
It had been getting dark by the time they’d returned to the house and now the patio was lit by the moon and stars overhead. He wrapped a towel around his waist and stalked back into the house, feeling angry. Angry at Skye, angry at himself. No, he corrected, not one for self-deceit, it wasn’t anger—it was frustration. He wanted Skye with an intensity that he’d not experienced before, even with Camilla. And he had been stupid enough to make a deal that involved keeping her in his life for another three years. Once they were married he’d let her return to England. He simply couldn’t be this close to temptation all the time. Because he was certain that he would destroy her. As he’d nearly destroyed his brother the night his mother had left.
He walked through the house and up the stairs, seeing no sign of Skye as he made his way to the bedroom. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that she hadn’t gone to bed. In his room, he threw the towel into the basket in the corner and pulled on a pair of loose black cotton trousers, the material for the first time awkward against his skin. Something was tearing at his insides to get out, something he’d not wanted to face for years.
The door to his room opened, drawing his gaze from the window to where Skye stood outlined in a halo of light. He ground his teeth together. She was wearing his shirt. Nothing else. The image was seared into his brain in the time it took to realise that Skye was unaware of what the light behind her revealed. He could see the shape of her hips against the thin linen material, the dip of her waist, the slight shadow of the curve of her breast and the seemingly endless expanse of the smooth pale skin of her thighs.
He clenched his hand to stop himself from reaching for her.
‘You haven’t spoken a word to me since we left the waterfall.’
‘And you think coming here, now, you’ll find what you’re looking for?’
‘Yes.’