“You’re getting courage confused with stupidity.” He leaned forward and looked down. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s not that far down. You’ll be fine.”

“You have gone mad in the heat,” Kingsley continued. “Sunstroke? Heatstroke? That would explain this.”

“Pussy,” Juliette said.

“Meow.”

“You know you want to...” Juliette gave him a cat-eyed smile.

“I know nothing of the sort. I have no desire whatsoever to do this. You are living in a dreamworld, a dreamworld where gravity does not exist. I live in the real world. I have been shot four times. I have looked death in the face, shook his hand and said we have to stop meeting this way. So if you think I’m going to do this, you are as foolish as you are beautiful.”

Juliette leaned over the edge of the cliff. Kingsley followed her eyes fifty feet down to the blue-and-white water below.

“I must be,” she said. “Because I’m going to jump. And you’re going to follow me down.”

“Is this a cry for help?” Kingsley asked, forcing his gaze back up to the sky. The view down to the water had made his head swim with dizziness.

“Diving’s fun,” she said. “And it’s not as hard as it seems. You have to close your eyes...listen to the waves. You hear that? That crash when they come in? That’s when you jump. By the time you hit the water, the wave will be on its way out away from the rocks.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“I have.”

“Many times?” he asked.

“So many times.”

“And you’ve never been killed?”

“I’d hardly be standing here talking to you if I had been,” she said, still smiling. They’d spent the past few days in his bed at the beach hut. They’d hardly come up for air or water or food. They’d survived on sex, thrived on it, feasted on each other and been sated. But this morning Juliette had woken him at noon, dragged him from bed, told him she had a surprise for him.

It was a terrible surprise.

“Mon roi,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. She wore nothing but a red bikini and a skirt around her hips festooned with white-and-red flowers. And he had on nothing but his khaki pants rolled up to his calves. “There is something I want to show you and I can’t show it to you unless we go down to the water. And there’s only one way down to the water.”

“Then how do we get back up again?”

“Maybe we don’t,” she said. “Maybe we stay down there forever.”

“Because we’ve crashed against the rocks and died?”

“Because it’s Paradise. And who would ever leave Paradise?”

“Adam and Eve left Paradise.”

“Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise. They weren’t allowed to stay. And ever since God sent Adam and Eve from Paradise, we’ve been trying to get back there.”

“And you know the way?”

“I know a shortcut.”

“Is death your shortcut?”

“Trust me,” she whispered, looking at him with her bright and gleaming eyes. “I’ve done this dive a thousand times. You wait for the wave to hit, you jump, and in seconds...there you are, in the water, safe.”

“What if I jump at the wrong time?”

“Then the water throws you against the rocks, your spine shatters, your skull explodes like a dropped egg, and you die.”

He saw the mirth shining in her eyes. She was trying to scare him. Oh, she would get it later for this. If he survived this insane leap.

“I’m going back to the hut. Paradise is not worth the risk.”

“Paradise is the only thing worth the risk.”

She pulled away from him and untied her skirt.

“What are you doing?”

She looked back over her shoulder at him. “Everyone thinks Paradise is up...high up in the sky and far away. But it’s not. It’s down there. And I’m going. With or without you.”

“You can’t go without me.”

“We all go alone. But you’re welcome to meet me there.”

Then she winked and turned away. He fell silent and watched her close her eyes. She was listening, listening to the water. With her eyes still closed she took a step and another. And then she was running and with the ends of her red wrap in her fingers she launched herself off the cliff. Kingsley raced to the edge and watched her swan dive down to the water, the wrap in her fingers still floating and flying behind her like red-and-white wings. She hit the water with the smallest of splashes and he held his breath. Between the inhale and the exhale he lived and died a thousand deaths.

When she surfaced again and waved up at him, he breathed out finally.

“Why can’t I ever fall in love with a normal woman?” he sighed to himself. “Just once...”

He looked up at the sky hoping for an answer.

“Too much to ask? One normal woman?” He held up one finger. “Or man. I’m not picky. You know me. Someone without a horrible childhood and no kinks that will get me killed.”

He leaned over the edge of the cliff and yelled down at Juliette.

“Cliff diving is one of my hard limits!”

She must not have heard him because all she did was wave.

He closed his eyes, took a breath. He thought he heard something somewhere, something like laughter. But surely it was only the waves on the water below.