I told my boss to jump. And for three seconds, Sophia Cooper, senior partner, 2 million architect, the woman who fired people for being 2 minutes late, stood frozen on a climbing wall 40 ft above me, her $800 heels kicked off at the base, her perfectly tailored skirt restricting her legs, her hands white knuckled on a hold that wouldn’t savor if she slipped. “Jump,” I said again, my voice steady, my arms open. “I’ll catch you.” She looked down at me.
Maverick Jones, the structural engineer she barely acknowledged in meetings, the subordinate she’d never spoken to outside work hours, the man she’d just spent 4 hours with learning to trust fall because in 2 hours she had to stand on an unfinished skyscraper 400 ft in the air or lose everything her dead father built. Her mascara was running. Her hair had fallen from its severe bun. She was shaking so hard I could see it from the ground. “I can’t,” she whispered.
