Page 30 of Suddenly Tempted
The thought of it, though, the thought of never finding a way through Devlin’s icy shields and into the truth of him, made her head pound and her heart race.
Ahead, she heard a clatter of rocks, and another angry shout from Devlin.
“Come on!” he yelled.
How infuriating could he be? One moment he was telling her to stay back, the next he was ordering her to catch up. She ignored him, purposefully slowing down and taking a moment to breathe. Beneath her the world shone, the brightest thing she had ever seen in her life, and as much as she hated adventures, she couldn’t help but be mesmerised by the sights it brought to life.
It was only when Devlin cried out again that she realised he didn’t sound angry at all.
He sounded scared.
Chapter 15
DEVLIN
He felt the snow give way beneath him, and suddenly there was no ground. It was like the mountain had swallowed him whole, the blazing sun giving way to absolute darkness. He dropped into the black heart of the ice, reaching out with both arms even though the pain was unbearable. His left hand snagged a rock and he grabbed it, arresting his fall. Scrabbling with his legs, he found a ledge, hearing rocks and pebbles drop into the bottomless pit beneath him. It was a crevasse, a deep, narrow one concealed by snow.
Devlin Storm was trapped.
His heart raced as he clung to the rock, the freezing air stabbing at his lungs. He yelled out Darcy’s name, his voice barely carrying over the gusting wind. Panic clawed at him as his mind screamed that he should never have let her out of his sight. He hadn’t even heard her steps behind him. She could be anywhere — or worse, she could fall too. Was she even following him anymore? How could he have been so stupid? The first rule of survival was to stick together. By losing his temper with Darcy he may have just condemned them both.
“Darcy!” he cried out again. One of his feet slipped and he fought to secure it again. His heart was battering his ribs like a tiger in a cage, and his fingers were numbing fast. In minutes they would cramp, and it would all be over. “Darcy, please!”
She was gone, she couldn’t hear him, she—
“Devlin?”
He almost cried at the sound of her voice.
“Darcy, be careful. There’s a crevasse.”
He had a sudden image of her falling into it, falling past him, screaming into darkness.
“Please be careful,” he cried out.
“I see it,” she replied, her voice even closer now. A flurry of fresh snow fell onto his upturned face, and by the time he’d blinked it away, she was there, leaning over cautiously. Her eyes were huge with fear.
“Thank goodness,” he said.
Her eyes were wide with fear, but they steadied when they met his. “What do I do?” she asked, panic creeping into her voice.
The honest, awful truth was he didn’t know. His mind was a hissing mess of white noise, too full of pain to be able to think straight.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said, disappearing from the gap at the top of the crevasse.
Devlin took a breath, waiting for Darcy to reappear. What had he been thinking? He had walked on, not wanting to deliberate too hard about what Darcy had said. She was right, had hit the nail on the head. He hadn’t ever been in love because losing himself to someone was a sure-fire way to losing control. She was getting too close and Devlin had no idea what she wanted from him and why she was so curious about his life. He wasn’t used to opening up and sharing, and Darcy had this knack of making him feel it was okay. But it wasn’t.
The sunlight pierced his eyes but Devlin felt as frozen solid as the ice around him. He squinted, feeling his fingers start to twitch and cramp. His foot slipped again, sending a wash of ice flurry down into the gaping void. There was no noise as it hit the bottom and Devlin knew with sickening clarity that the bottom of the crevasse was so far down that he wouldn’t hear it even if it made it all the way down. They were metres deep sometimes, taller than his penthouse on the ninth floor. He gripped tighter, his life flashing before his eyes.
“Please, Darcy” he cried out. “Hurry.”
She did, appearing again and dangling something down to him. It was the sleeve of her jacket — the heavy-duty Gore-Tex was easily strong enough to hold his weight.
But would she be strong enough to hold him?
“I’ll brace myself on a boulder,” she said, as if reading his mind. “There’s one right here. Just tell me when you’re ready and I’ll pull.”
There was no way he’d ever be ready for this. He stared down into the impenetrable darkness of the ravine. All the billions in the world wouldn’t help recover his body. And it hit him, right then and there. It hit him, just how pointless his wealth was. He’d faced death before, yes, but his wealth had saved him because those trips had been pre-planned down to the last minutiae. Now he just had Darcy, and he knew that at this moment in time, Darcy was all that he needed. None of it mattered. Not the cars, not the houses, not the watches and the helicopters and the holidays. None of it mattered, and none of it made sense.
