‘I thought for a moment, when I heard you say no, that you were going to chicken out.’
Fern stopped watching the light play on the water as it lapped against the wall below her. ‘I said no?’
Josh nodded. ‘I think so.’
Fern bit her lip. Darn, darn, darn. All that for nothing! She’d shot herself in the foot before she’d even jumped. She felt like giving herself a hefty slap on the forehead, but that would have required an explanation she wasn’t ready to give. Instead she turned round and leaned her bottom against the cool stone and stared at the traffic racing along Victoria Embankment.
‘Come on, Fern. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Everyone is a little nervous on their first jump. It’s only natural.’
She twisted just her head to look at him. ‘Were you?’
He half-coughed, half-laughed. ‘Well, no…but that doesn’t matter, does it?’
Fern could feel the coffee churning inside her and looked down at her stomach. Yesterday, she’d been so sure this challenge of Lisette’s was going to be a piece of cake and now she’d blown it. Stupid, stupid girl! All she’d had to do was say ‘yes’. Such a tiny word. Not that difficult. Lisette was right; she was far too used to saying the opposite and a moment of subconscious muttering had cost the Leukaemia Research Trust nine hundred pounds.
‘What you said up there doesn’t matter,’ he continued. ‘It’s cancelled out by the fact that…Hey, look at me…’
She looked sideways at him, her head still bowed forward. He raised his eyebrows, waiting. There was no point resisting Josh when he got all determined like this. She turned to face him and looked straight into his melting brown eyes.
‘It’s cancelled out by the fact that you did it anyway. You turned the no into a yes by your actions. And actions are what count.’
She blinked. That sounded a bit like wiggling out on a technicality. Could she just gloss over it? Tell Lisette she hadn’t said no all week?
The smallest of smiles started on her lips, barely a curve. Focusing on the small print, Lisette hadn’t exactly said she couldn’t say the word no, had she? She just wasn’t allowed to use it as an answer to a direct question. And she hadn’t been asked a question on top of the crane. She’d been talking to herself.
It truly didn’t count. A sigh of relief escaped her lips and she rested her elbows on the parapet once more. Josh’s left forearm was only six inches away from her right one. Not close enough to suggest the intimacy of a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, but close enough for her to feel the heat of him.
Josh moved the arm closest to her and gave her a gentle prod in the ribs with his elbow. ‘What are you smiling to yourself about?’
‘I really did it, didn’t I?’
He grinned back at her. ‘Yes, you really did. You were really brave.’
The smile waned and the crease reappeared between her brows. ‘Don’t be silly! I’m not brave, not like you. You must have done hundreds of those jumps.’
He sidled up closer so their arms were touching. The breath caught in her throat.
‘You’ve got it the wrong way round. I’m not brave when I do a bungee jump. It doesn’t take anything for me to do it. I love it. But you…’
The way he was looking at her, full of warmth and admiration, made her mouth dry.
‘…I know you’re not mad keen on heights. For you, it was brave.’ One corner of Josh’s mouth lifted in a smile. ‘And that’s why I have a proposition for you.’
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