Page 43 of Reset

And then his head slipped under the surface.

Sarah watched Ryan disappear below the surface of the milky water and fought the instinct to jump in after him and pull him out. It was something she was doing a lot lately. Fighting her nature when he did something dangerous. Everything they faced, every choice they made, it all flew in the face of common sense. Part of her still believed they should wait for help. The rest of her knew that if they waited, they’d share the fate of poor Adrienne and the couple Ryan found.

Keeping her eyes on the surface, her breath hitched at the exact moment when Ryan disappeared from view. He was gone. She was alone. A massive wave of anxiety hit her as she willed Ryan to be safe. Willed him to return.

Trembling fingers pressed against her lips as she questioned the sanity of kissing him. No good would come of any physical contact with the man. She hadn’t been joking when she’d said he was her catnip. He was addictive. A temptation she couldn’t afford.

But his kiss? That was her Kryptonite.

Her palms were clammy, and she wiped them on her skirt. The whole situation was completely out of her control, and she didn’t have the information she needed to change that. Where were they? Who was doing this to them? How would they get out? How were they supposed to know if the decisions they were making were the right ones?

When her stomach clenched, she rolled into herself to try and ease it. She hadn’t felt this helpless since she was a child, forgotten by parents who only cared about their next drink. Sarah had been making her own decisions for as long as she could remember. And she’d learned the hard way that you needed to do careful research before committing. Otherwise, you’d choose wrongly and things would get worse.

She never did anything without looking at all of her options. Without knowing all the possible outcomes. Without weighing the odds. Until now…

Well, unless you counted her brief relationship with Ryan.

There had been no way to prepare for him.

A tiny, somewhat hysterical laugh erupted from her. It bounced off the hard cold walls, making the emptiness seem even more stark, the silence more oppressive. She wet her dry lips and, keeping her eyes on the water, spoke out loud to stop the emptiness from eating her whole.

“How do you prepare for a whirlwind to blow through your life?”

An ache settled in her chest. She should never have signed up for Tinder. It’d been such a dumb idea. A temptation she’d been unable to resist, so she’d justified the risk. She’d just been so desperately lonely, and the only men she knew were middle-aged and married.

Barely days after she’d committed to the app, Ryan sauntered into her life, with his spontaneous decision-making and ability to find the fun in every situation. His teasing sensuality had called to the recklessness she kept locked up deep inside of her. He was a temptation she couldn’t resist.

Their conversations quickly became the highlight of her day, and she’d begun to wonder if meeting him in person would be a disappointment.

She’d been wrong.

Everything about their night together was a fairytale. They’d shared a wonderful meal, strolled through London, danced in an open-air roller disco, and gone home to her staid and boring house, where they’d made love until the early hours.

It had been magical.

For one glorious night, Ryan had made her feel secure enough to release the reins on her reckless tendencies. It’d been as though there was a safety net beneath her, ready to catch her if she fell. She’d stepped out of her comfort zone, believing he’d be there for her, letting a part of her personality that was usually locked away tight have a taste of freedom. Not since she’d been a child, and brutally disappointed, had she trusted anyone with all of her.

And she was the only one who knew about it because Prince Charming didn’t remember her at all.

“And doesn’t that sum up your life perfectly?” she asked the walls. “One day, this will be amusing…maybe…”

The cool air was sharp in her lungs, slicing at her with every breath she took. Her skin vibrated with awareness, automatically cataloging her environment, never letting her forget that she was alone and helpless. A glance at her phone told her Ryan had been gone almost seven minutes.

Shouldn’t there be some sign of him by now? Or was he resting on the other side before he made the swim back? Was there even another side to get to?

Unasked-for facts flooded her mind. Tidbits she’d picked up over her years accumulating data. No matter what she learned, she had no problems retaining it, which meant that any time she was stressed it all came rushing back.

That’s how she knew that the average person could hold their breath for between thirty seconds to two minutes. Whereas Navy SEALS were trained to hold it for three to five minutes. Free divers could go much longer than that, ten minutes or more. For most people, the urge to take a breath kicked in after a couple of minutes, and panic made them give in to it.

She couldn’t even imagine Ryan panicking, so she could rule that out.

How long could he hold his breath? And why hadn’t she asked that before he went underwater? He’d been trained, of course. Army, he said, not Navy. Did that make a difference?

Seven minutes twenty-two seconds.

Was he stuck?

Should she go in after him? Would she be any use if she did?