Page 20 of Love Worth Gold
“Game on, Goldilocks!”
Blaire walked away alone, the cold biting less than it should. Months ago in St. Moritz, it had been easy to make rules about this—about her. One night. Ghost the rookie, bury the ache, focus on the only gold that was supposed to matter.
But rules made sense on a training calendar, not in a village where Isaline’s laugh bounced off concrete and her mouth tasted like every reckless choice Blaire had never let herself make. Holding the line suddenly felt less like discipline and more like trying to ski straight past her own kind of medal. Maybe love was actually worth gold.
She continued walking with her mind racing as fast as any training run she had done. Isaline had a first Olympics to survive. Blaire had a last shot to finish making history. The right thing—for both of them—was distance. Containment. No more late-night texts. No more kisses outside Swiss housing.
It didn’t change the truth vibrating under her ribs: she’d lost that bet with herself the second she let Isaline walk out of her hotel room in November and still thought about her every damn day after.
Chapter Eight
Isaline arrived late to breakfast looking cheery with a tray balanced on one hand and a coffee in the other. She was still buzzing from a night of half-sleep due to adrenaline running through her veins. She spotted the USA table immediately—Tess, Jordy, younger racers clustered around Blaire like she was the sun they all orbited.
As she and Reto claimed a spot near a window, Blaire walked past on her way back to the buffet. For a second, their eyes met. Isaline offered a small, private smile and a soft “morning” under her breath.
Blaire’s reply was a polite, neutral nod before her attention quickly slid toward the line of people in front of her. No spark. No shared joke. No lingering anything. Just the same professional acknowledgment she’d give any other racer in the room.
The dismissal landed like ice water poured down her back.
Isaline forced herself to sit as her hands wrapped a little too tightly around her coffee mug. After Reto had asked her a question, she mumbled something half in German, half in English—about ice queens and cardboard beds and maybe having imagined more than was actually there.
Reto, seated across from her, caught the tone if not every word. He watched the way her shoulders hiked a fraction higher when Blaire laughed at something a teammate said at the table next to theirs.
“You okay?” he asked quietly enough that only she could hear.
“Fine.” She took a sip of coffee and scalded her tongue. “Just tired.”
“Liar.”
She glared at him over the rim of her mug. “I am tired, Reto.”
“And someone made that worse.” His gaze flicked toward the Team USA table, then back to her. “Want to talk about it? Or her?”
“No.”
He nodded once, let it drop, but his eyes stayed sharp. He logged every flicker in her expression—the way her jaw tightened when Blaire stood to leave, the way her fingers drummed against the table in a rhythm that wasn’t following any music from the speakers overhead.
Isaline forced herself to focus on her eggs. She’d accepted the one-night-stand rules back in St. Moritz. What she hadn’t braced for was caring enough after last night’s kiss that Blaire’s coolness could sting.
She’d thought—unrealistically, maybe—that walking each other back to housing meant something. That the brush of their hands, the way Blaire had looked at her in the dark, had shifted the terrain between them.
Apparently not.
Across the hall, Blaire disappeared through the exit with her team. Her shoulders were straight, and her expression composed.
Isaline set her mug down harder than she meant to. The clatter drew a few glances from those around her.
Reto reached across and tapped her wrist once. “Whatever it is, don’t let it get in your head before tomorrow.”
She met his eyes. “I won’t.”
He didn’t look completely convinced.
~~
Reto found Matthias near the wax cabin corridor, wedgedbetween two rolling ski cases and a stack of marked bases waiting for structure work. Techs moved in and out with clipboards and radios. The space was busy with purpose.
“Got a minute, Dad?”