Wilder

Unbelievable.

“Let’s go, kids,” Little John called.

“Come on, live a little.”

“That seems more like a quick route to death. Unless you have some foolproof method of keeping me safe.”

He took the helmet from Little John, slipped my hair tie free, and ran his fingers over my hair. “You have gorgeous hair, Leah.”

“You have a huge ego, Paxton,” I fired back.

He slid the helmet onto my head, adjusted the chin strap, and snapped it before doing the same to his own. “If there was one thing you wanted from this trip, what would it be?”

“Not to zip-line right now.”

“Not an option. Tell me. What’s the one thing you’ve been looking forward to?”

I swallowed and focused on what I’d been dreaming of for the last six months. “Mykonos. We have an optional shore excursion that week, and I want to go to Mykonos.”

His eyes flashed with surprise, but he quickly masked it. “Really?”

“Really. My dad proposed to my mom on Kalafatis Beach.” She’d always been scared of marriage, commitment in general, but told me once that there was something about being there with Dad that made her abandon her fears and embrace her destiny. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t let go of the hope that maybe if I stood there, I could do the same. But as of right now, that fear was holding my feet firmly on the ground and off that zip-line.

“Done. I will take you to Mykonos.”

My breath caught, knowing how much that shore excursion cost, and that it wasn’t included in my scholarship packet. “Why?”

“Because I need to get my tutor on that ship.” He looked past me, and the cocky grin was back in place seconds before a lens came over my left shoulder. Our privacy was at an end. “It’s up to you, Firecracker, but you’ve got about a minute to decide.”

Wasn’t that the theme of my day?

He walked me back through the crowd to where Landon stood on a platform, looking more than a little irritated.

My mind raced a million miles an hour, but it slowed the minute Paxton put his hands on my shoulders and demanded my attention. “If you do this, I’ll take you to Mykonos. I will personally make sure that this is the trip of your life. But you have to accept the agreement. The tutoring, the suite, the cameras, all of it.”

“And if I don’t?”

His tongue swiped across his lower lip and, as sexy as it was, it seemed more like a nervous, subconscious motion. “Then I’ll fly you home, first class, on me. You can think of this as that one day you almost did something insanely stupid.”

“And what happens to you? Nothing, right? You pull the next name out of the tutor hat?”

He shook his head. “Every other tutor is assigned. And besides, you were hand-picked for me for your academic strengths. If I lose you, I probably fail. All these people”—he gestured to the crew around us and leaned in to whisper—“they all lose their jobs.”

A heavy weight settled on my shoulders, and I wondered in that instant if that was what he’d been thinking of back on the ship, if that was what made him so pensive. “How long does it take?”

“Five seconds, max.”

My heart started to pound, as if it already knew the decision I was coming to.

If I kept my eyes closed, it would be over before I knew it, right?

He gently tucked my hair behind my ears, clearing it of the helmet’s ear straps. How could I tell him what he was putting me through without laying everything bare and looking like an idiot? Without going into that night…and the following morning? Without seeing the cocky way he looked at me change to the inevitable looks of pity and morbid curiosity?

How could I ever get past it if I didn’t get on that damn ship? Was it better to stay safe, locked away in myself? Yes.

But the crew around us? The ones who would lose their jobs?

I looked up into Paxton’s eyes, and we lingered there, wordlessly exchanging something I hadn’t had in years: trust. He would keep me safe. I somehow knew it with every bone in my pieced-together body.

“What do you say, Leah? Are you ready for an adventure?” He questioned me softly this time, as if he had somehow realized what he was asking me to risk.

I gave the one word that I knew would change…everything.

“Yes.”

Chapter Two

Paxton

Miami Port

She said yes. I didn’t realize how much one word could mean until it slipped past her pursed, pissed-off lips. Lips that had my attention from the first second I saw her. I brought her up to the platform where Landon waited, subtly shaking his head at me.

I’d had easily a dozen girls beg me to tandem them on this, and he knew it. Instead, I’d told them all, including Zoe, to basically fuck off, and brought my uptight tutor in the hopes that it would win her over. Leah looked anything but won over.

She’d stiffened even more as I buckled her in.

Once John secured the rigs, he gave us the lowdown. “Okay, drop zone is marked. Pull the kill strap, and you’ll fall. It’s about ten feet and thickly padded, so don’t worry.”

“Wait, we’re falling, too?” she squeaked, her hands white-knuckling the harness. “You didn’t say fall. You said safe.”

“It’s into a huge pad, Leah. It’s either that or we slam into the wall, right? We have brakes, I’ll slow us down, don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry, he says,” she muttered. “Safe, he says. Asshole.”