Next Man, Better Plan novel Chapter 271

A sliver of the setting sun appeared just behind Stephanie.

The last rays of light spilled across the horizon, the sunset like an artist’s Yorkpiece, clouds stained a fiery orange and the earth bathed in a gentle, golden glow. It was a breathtaking tableau.

The wind gently tousled Stephanie’s hair as she sat a careful distance from him.

Jonathan had assumed she’d climbed up here with a purpose, and he watched her intently.

But less than thirty seconds after she arrived, Stephanie turned to him with a pitiful expression, her brow furrowed and her lips trembling as if she were about to cry.

“Oh God, it’s so high up here. I regret this.”

She clutched the railing beneath her, her heart pounding in her chest, her eyes red with fear.

Jonathan simply watched her panic, a coolly detached observer.

Overcome with fear, Stephanie’s legs began to tremble, and her face turned ghostly pale.

“Hey.”

She huddled against the railing, her voice shaking.

She tried to inch her way toward him, moving as clumsily as a lazy panda.

“Can I ask you for a favor?”

She lowered her gaze, her dark eyes glistening beneath her bangs. “Could you… help me get down before you jump?”

Jonathan found it rather amusing.

Was it even reasonable to make such a request of someone about to jump off a building?

And yet, her cowardice was strangely endearing.

“No. You’re interrupting me. Move,” Jonathan said, his voice cold and hard. “Besides, do you even know who I am? You’ve got some nerve asking me for help.”

Any student at this school would have recognized his face and known his reputation.

Jonathan was no saint. To teachers and students alike, he tends to challenge the norms in class. Kindness? You won’t find that term anywhere in his vocabulary.

Stephanie took a deep breath. “I don’t know who you are, but I came up here for you, so you’re responsible for me!”

So now she was trying to guilt-trip him.

And then… Stephanie grabbed his arm and threw herself into his embrace.

That was, in the truest sense, their first hug.

She smelled sweet, but it wasn’t perfume. It was a natural, clean scent unique to her, a refreshing mix of citrus and lavender. She must have been eating milk candies, because her breath was sugary and sweet.

It should have been a romantic scene, but her legs were shaking so violently that romance was the furthest thing from her mind.

Only later did Jonathan learn that she was a Jackson, and had been engaged to Quennel since they were young.

Suddenly, Jonathan felt a sharp pang of jealousy toward Quennel.

Stephanie was at their school because her academic performance was so exceptional she had skipped several grades.

On the day of the school sports festival, she had just enrolled and was wandering around campus when she spotted him on the rooftop.

But Stephanie had no memory of him. And why would she? She had only been five or six years old back then, and nearly a decade had passed. It would have been stranger if she did remember.

Yet Jonathan was grateful for their reunion.

In the countless sleepless nights that followed, he often thought that maybe, just maybe, she had been sent from heaven to save him.