Diving Deep (Paradise Lost Book 1)

by Megyn Ward

  She grits her teeth and holds my gaze for a long time. “I’m going to do this.”

  Zach has hold of her arm, keeping her steady as they start walking out again. “You’re going to be fine. And we’re here with you.”

  She twists her head and seeks my eyes again. “You think I’m ready for this?”

  Do I think she was ready to do her open water instruction? Probably not. If she didn’t lose it on the first draw from her regulator, she’d definitely not make it through taking her mask off. “Sure. You’ll do great.”

  I hadn’t expected her fear to touch me. For some reason, she seems to think I care about her and caring about this spoiled drama queen is something I know better than to do.

  She gives me a look I’ve never seen in any of her TV shows. Sheer, wide-eyed, nerves jangling, sheer trust.

  I stiffen my back, remembering she‘s just like Zach—an experienced manipulator—and wade with them until we’re waist deep.

  I stop them. “Put on your mask and regulator, inflate your BC. Then lean back and strap on your fins.”

  Her teeth are clenched so tight I wonder that her jaw doesn’t crack. She gives me one last look of determination and brings the mask over her face.

  Zach stands in front of her, close enough to kiss her and looks like he has it in mind. I’ve seen that expression on his face, those dimples close up and personal. Watching him flash that same savior face to Liesa makes me want to dunk them both.

  Zach performs the buddy system check. “Okay, Liesa. You’re all hooked up and ready.” He smiles at her again, the picture of patience. “You’re totally safe. Kylie and I are right here with you.”

  It takes everything inside me to keep from rolling my eyes. Instead, I address them both as professionally as I can, given the fact that I want to murder them both and sink their bodies to the bottom of the ocean. “We’re going to surface swim several yards out and then practice submerging and equalizing.” At this point, I usually made a joke or ask if everyone feels comfortable. Instead, I lower my mask, put on my fins and take off.

  I swim out to where we’ll go down and wait. Well, good for her—Liesa is swimming toward me with Zach beside her. He keeps an eye on her. I suppose it makes her feel protected, having him watch over her—I know I liked it when I thought he was protecting me.

  He’ll probably pull the same shit with Liesa at some point and leave her as soon as something better comes along.

  But wait, Liesa is the best. There won’t be something better. Movie star beautiful. More money than God. I mean, I should be happy I haven’t been tossed aside for just any old thing, right?

  When they’re almost to me, I raise my inflation tube above my head and push the button, releasing the air and dropping. I’d normally stop above the surface for last-minute encouragement, then hover close to my students to give them reassurance and monitor their efforts equalizing.

  Zach stays by Liesa. Even from my position several feet below them, I see terror in her eyes. She raises her tube with one hand and clutches Zach’s hand with the other. He has to pry her hand off to demonstrate plugging his nose and swallowing to equalize her ears.

  She struggles, hovering near the surface. They descend a few feet, then she kicks up the same distance. It’s was taking her a very long time to figure it out.

  That’s because you’re an asshole and aren’t helping her like an instructor should.

  Any minute I expect her to give up, inflate her BC, and swim back to shore.

  But she doesn’t. Zach stays close, the model of patience. Almost like he’s a decent guy. I hang at the bottom, twenty-five feet deep. Lemongrass covers the sandy bottom. Blue, deep purple, and yellow juvenile fish dart in and out. We aren’t likely to spot anything spectacular this close to shore, but I keep a close eye out, anyway. You never know.

  Against my predictions, Zach succeeds in helping Liesa make it down. She isn’t doing too badly for a first timer, and one who is obviously afraid of water.

  I point outward to indicate we’ll swim in that direction. She nods and reaches for Zach. He takes her hand and she yanks it back to point at the grass. I stop and watch a minute. Sometimes, a newbie will spot their first guppy and flip out. She grabs Zach’s shoulder and pointed again.

  Zach inches closer to where she’s indicating and now he’s nodding with enthusiasm. Curious now, I swim back to them. I’ll be damned. All that time down at the bottom waiting for them and I missed it.

  Liesa spotted a tiny seahorse hidden in the lemongrass. There are few sea creatures I love more than seahorses but they’re difficult to spot. I’m grateful and irritated at the same time. I give her a thumbs up to congratulate her on the find.

  After paddling around for a while, I lead them back to the spot we’d descended. We rise, do our safety stop and resurface.

  Liesa sweeps the mask to the top of her head and pops her regulator out of her mouth. “Oh my god! Fan-fucking-tastic! You were right, Zach. It’s so freaking awesome!”

  I drop my mask around my neck and hold on to my regulator. “You might want to…”

  “The seahorse! God! A seahorse!”

  Zach keeps his mask on and his regulator in his fist. “Liesa, you need…”

  A swell sloshes seawater into her mouth. She spits it out. “Thanks for pointing out the turtle. They’re so graceful underwater. And the…”

  Zach and I speak at the same time.

  “Liesa…”

  “You…”

  Too late. A wave breaks over the top of her head. Not a big one, but rowdy enough to suck her mask off her head and send her regulator to the end of its tube.

  Liesa screams.

  I slip my mask on and pop my regulator into my mouth, getting ready to help her.

  Zach swims to her and I want to warn him away. Panicked swimmers are dangerous. Liesa screams, choking and slapping her hands on the surface. She fights to grab something in her blindness. Zach adds air to his BC, giving him more stability in the water. He pokes his arm through Liesa’s struggle and grabs her inflator, giving her more air. Her arms fly around his neck, but they keep their heads above water. More waves rock them, crashing over their heads. A cruise ship’s wake. It’ll be over in a few waves, but in the meantime, the water’ll continue to swamp Liesa so she’d have to close her eyes and breathe through the regulator.

  Since Zach seems to be quieting her down some, I swim after her mask. It’d already sunk the twenty feet to the grass but I find it easily and start up with it. I pop up next to them and hand Zach the mask. Liesa’s wheezing through her regulator, her eyes clamped shut.

  We ride up a swell and down the other side. “How’re you doing, Liesa?” I ask in a conversational tone meant to calm her.

  “Here’s your mask.” Zach takes the hand she’s clutching at him with. “Put it on and you’ll feel better.”

  She shakes her head, eyes shut, breathing through the regulator.

  I grab her BC. “I’ve got you.”

  Zach takes her hand off of him and she lunges for him again. “Trust us, Liesa. It’s okay. You’re BC is inflated so you can’t sink. Kylie has a hold of you and she’s not going to let go.”

  Liesa whimpers but she takes hold of the mask with shaky fingers. She fits it over her head but still won’t open her eyes.

  “Okay,” I say. “That’s good. Now you’re going to have to clear it.”

  Again, she shakes her head and makes a negative noise through the regulator.

  “Don’t give up now, Liesa,” Zach says. “Remember the seahorse and the turtle. There’s so much I want to show you but I can’t if you don’t conquer this.”

  A tug of jealousy hits me so hard I want to sink to the bottom of the ocean. He sounds so caring. So tender. The sound of it makes me want to cry because I know he’ll never talk to me like that. Like he wants to take care of me.

  Shoving the thought out of my mind, I remind myself that I don’t need him to take care of me. Unlike Liesa, I can take car
e of myself.

  “Remember how we did it,” I say to her, making sure my tone is as neutral as possible. “Submerge, pull your mask away, blow into the bottom of it and fill it up with air—you can do it. Just like we practiced.”

  She quits fighting and goes still. With decisive movements, she raises the inflator tube, let out air and lowers herself below the surface. She performs perfectly, clearing her mask and heading toward shore. With sure strokes, she swims to the beach, removes her fins and trudges out of the water. The sun hangs low and I tally up the cost of equipment rental for another day since I’m sure the shop is closed by now. Then I remember I’m not paying for it, and it isn’t coming out of my salary. People like Liesa and Zach can afford to buy this stuff outright and throw it away tomorrow. Just another way I’ll never understand their world.

  Zach and I stay with her and we all struggle to the dry sand, shrugging out of our BCs and dropping them on the beach. “Whoo-hoo!” I shout, truly pleased. “You were great!”

  Zach lunges at her and gives her a bear hug, lifting her from the sand and plopping her back down. “You rock!”

  Her smile of triumph doesn’t resemble the gloating, arrogant expression she’s known for. She almost looks shy. Zach unzips the back of her wetsuit and helps her pull it off her shoulders. It’s such an innocent gesture. I’ve seen countless divers assist each other. I often help the divers on my boat without being asked. But here it feels different and I have another flash of irritation or jealousy or whatever I want to call it. Zach’s fingers brush her bare shoulder unnecessarily and I find myself remembering what it felt like when he touched me. His hands in my hair. His mouth on my breast. I have to look away because I suddenly can’t breathe.

  Last night.

  Was he really touching me the same tenderness last night?

  She leans over and finishes peeling the wetsuit from her legs and feet before dumping it in the sand. Of course. Not on a towel to make rinsing it easier on me. Because, sure as shit, she wasn’t going to rinse her own gear. This is a girl used to servants pouring her cereal in the morning. She isn’t going to lug heavy diving gear to a rinse tank.

  Liesa pulls out that sweet smile I’ve seen her flash her mother on TV. It has nothing real behind it. She usually uses it to get her way or distract her mother from some misdeed. “Zach, I’m starving and super thirsty.”

  Zach hesitates, as if unsure of what she wants, but hoping to please her any way he can.

  “Isn’t there a grocery store a few miles back?” She lowers her chin and, I swear, bats her eyes at him.

  “You want me to get something and bring it back here?” He looks puzzled. “Wouldn’t you rather go out to dinner? It’s getting late.”

  She seems to consider, but I imagine she knows exactly what she wants. “Do you suppose we could do a campfire here?”

  By the look on Zach’s face, it isn’t something he’d thought about or even wants to. “I—” He shoots me a quick look. “I mean, maybe.”

  She looks at me. “We can do that, can’t we?”

  I shrug, forcing an I don’t give a shit look onto my face. “Yeah—I’ll just get the equipment loaded and get out of your way.”

  “No.” She takes a half step toward me and gives me that liar smile of hers. “I mean, I want you to stay—the three of us.” She turns her smile onto Zach. “It’ll be fun.”

  Zach looks like he thinks it’ll be about as much fun as being drawn and quartered but he smiles back, flashing her his dimples. “Sounds great.” He turns toward me, still grinning. “Kylie?”

  Like the other morning in front of my house, when he asked me out, I mean to say no. That I have a shift at The Frog or that I have to get the equipment back to the shop. Anything to get away from them. I held up my end of the deal. I did it poorly and with enough bile to choke a horse but I did it. I don’t owe either one of them another second of my time.

  “Sure.” I look away from him and wonder what the hell is wrong with me. “Sounds fun.”

  “Perfect!” She gives Zach a small shove. “Get some good stuff and lots of beer.”

  Zach trots off, shrugging into his t-shirt on the way.

  “We can gather driftwood and fuel for the fire while he’s gone.” I head down the beach toward the edge of the jungle.

  She doesn’t follow but her voice slaps me upside the head. “What the hell is your problem?”

  “What?” I slowly turn to her.

  “You’ve been a bitch since we started.” She tilts her head. “I want to know why.”

  I hadn’t seen this coming. “I, that’s…”

  “You don’t like me.” She shakes her head. “Don’t try to deny it.”

  “Like you?” I stack my hands on my hips and glare at her. “I don’t even know you.”

  “You’re right, you don’t know me.” She clamps her teeth as if tasting something bad. “But like everyone else with a television, whether you want to admit it or not, you think you do.”

  I laugh. “You expect me to feel sorry for you? If you don’t want people in your business, then don’t invite the cameras into your home.”

  One step brought her in my face. “What is it you think you know about me?”

  Did she really want to play it this way? Fine. “I know you’re a spoiled, demanding princess who can’t stand the word no. You throw two-year-old fits whenever you don’t get your way. You toss massive amounts of money at all your problem. You have a raft of paid friends and assistants who’ll do whatever you want. And if they don’t do it fast enough, you either fire them or cry to Mommy.”

  She smirks at me. “That’s me, all right. Down to the last letter of the script.”

  “Oh, so you’re going to tell me that someone writes your reality and you’re an actress playing the role of spoiled rich girl?”

  She shrugs. “You’re going to believe what you want to, so there’s no point in arguing.”

  “That’s not how to get ratings.” I cross my arms over my chest and glare at her. “You’re supposed to figure out some way to teach me not to argue. Like get me fired or steal my boyfriend.”

  “Except there’s no job.” She lifts the corner of her mouth and clicked her tongue. “And no boyfriend.”

  It’s like she slapped me right in the face. “And now you think you know me.”

  “Sure.” She folds her arms and lifts her chin. “You grew up in Massachusetts, raised by a single mother. She was a sorority house mother and you lived at Harebridge College, where you earned an accounting degree by the time you were twenty. But your mother died of cancer, leaving you with no assets. So you’re on your own. You moved to Grand Cayman six months ago and until three days ago, you were a dive instructor with Dive Love and a waitress at The Green Frog. Now, you’re just a waitress.”

  A flush of heat erupts across the back of my neck. “Where the fuck did you learn all that?”

  “You think I can hang out on a deserted beach with just anyone?” She shrugs. “I mean, I like you but that doesn’t mean I’m dumb enough to completely trust you.”

  I try to keep my jaw from dropping open. “You had me checked out with some security firm or something?”

  “Yup.”

  I sit in the sand. “You freak.”

  She sits beside me with a sigh. “Pretty much.”

  We don’t say anything for a while. We just sit side-by-side, our fight or whatever it was, having run its course, looking out over the water. Finally, she looks at me. “It was a condition of my release.”

  “Release?”

  “From the compound in Florida.” She chews on her lower lip for a second, like she’s trying to decide how much to tell me. “The last season just finished taping and I begged Mother to let me out.”

  I’ll bet she begged. Her wailing and gnashing of teeth are legendary.

  “She thought it would be a great episode idea if I went to Europe and they could film me on location doing my shtick at fancy hotels on The Continent.” She mak
es air quotes and rolls her eyes. “As Mother likes to say.”

  “Your shtick?”

  She raises her voice and whines. “I can’t stand this kind of sand! It’s too fine and it gets under my nails and then I’ll have to get a whole manicure and I don’t have the time for that because I’ve got the cake tasting session for my end of the season party.”

  I stare at her.

  What the hell did I just see?

  Before I can ask, she waves it off and her voice returned to normal. “My therapist managed to convince Mother I need a break from the spotlight and Mother wanted to get some work done, liposuction or facelift—probably both. But the only way she’d let me out of her sight is if I promised not to spend any time with anyone unless I had them checked out.”

  Oh, the problems of the super-rich. “You think it’s cute to hang out with the simple people?” I’m trying to hang on to my mad here but she’s making it pretty hard.

  “It’s not that.” She sounds frustrated. “I just want to have a regular life.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “Too late for that.”

  She sifts sand through her fingers. “I’m nineteen. How late can it be?”

  I don’t want to feel sorry for her and I don’t want to like her but I do. “I suppose you could have your face surgically altered and become anonymous.” I bump my shoulder into hers and grin. “You can give all your money to me and get a taste of normal life.”

  She sighs. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.” She sounds serious when she says it.

  “So quit.” I don’t see what the issue is. “I mean, you were filthy rich before the show, it’s not like you need it.”

  She doesn’t answer me. She just sighs and stares at the ocean for a while before speaking . “I’m sorry about your mother. It must be hard to be on your own. Making your own way.”

  I have this insane urge to tell her about Jonas. That he’s my father. That I have a plan to make him pay. Thankfully, the moment passes before I can open my big mouth and fuck everything up.