Page 26 of Love Worth Gold

Her stomach twisted.

She’d spent twenty years treating every name on the start list as fair game. Rivals were obstacles to clear, not people to protect. She’d never once hesitated to take what was hers, and she’d never apologized for winning.

But standing here, goggles up, watching Isaline’s name glow on the screen, the cost felt different.

This wasn’t just another racer. This was the woman who’d laughed in her bed. The woman who’d sent her a text about crosswinds and blind rolls because she cared if Blaire crashed. The woman whose first Olympics had already been stolen twice by injuries and bad luck.

Blaire closed her eyes briefly, forcing air through her nose.

She couldn’t afford emotions. Not here. Not now.

She lowered her goggles, cutting off the view of the monitor and the gut-wrenching clarity it offered. The plastic frames pressed against her temples, narrowing the world to snow and gates.

Tess materialized at her elbow. “This is your gold, Hollis. No one else’s.”

“That’s right.”

She turned toward the start house, shutting out everything except the mountain path she’d memorized. The first gate. The compression. The finish beam.

Isaline’s name could burn on that board or fall off it. Right now, all that mattered was the next sixty seconds.

Blaire slid into the start gate, tips pointed down the fall line. The timer counted down in her ears. At the sound of the beep, everything else dropped away. She exploded out of the gate, finding her tuck and rhythm in the opening glide. She let muscle memory take over where conscious thought would only slow her down.

The first gate came fast. She carved through it with her weight forward and her hips driving the turn. The second section opened wide. It was a long glide where weaker racers bled speed by standing too tall. She stayed compressed, thighs burning, trusting the wax Jordy had spent an hour perfecting.

The blind roll appeared exactly where inspection had promised. She absorbed it without flinching. Her knees went soft, letting the terrain throw her up and catching herself on the backside. There was no hesitating and no second-guessing. Just the line she and Tess had mapped.

Mid-course, she hit the compression that had eaten two earlier racers. She pressed into it and committed to the risky inside track she’d debated all morning. The ski bit and thankfully held. She slingshot herself through the transition at a speed that felt illegal. Her pulse spiked—not from fear, but from the raw, electric satisfaction of gambling and winning.

The final pitch waited, steep and unforgiving. Her legs screamed. Every muscle in her core locked down to hold the tuck. She stayed low past the point of comfort, hands stretched forward, vision narrowed to gates and snow. The finish beam rushed up.

She crossed.

The instant her skis broke the light, she straightened with her chest heaving and looked up at the board.

Her name shot to the top. HOLLIS. Green lights down the split column. Gold position.

Below it, SENN slid from third to fourth as the rankings reshuffled. The Austrian racer’s earlier time held bronze. Isaline was off the podium.

The stadium roared. American flags waved. Cameras swung toward her.

Blaire threw a fist in the air because that’s what winners did. She bowed toward the stands, let the noise wash over her, and felt absolutely nothing land the way it should have.

This was gold. Olympic gold. The very thing she’d bled for. It was the vindication of two decades spent choosing discipline over everything and everyone else.

And underneath it, sharp and hollow, sat the knowledge that she’d just done what she always did and devoured the field. But this time it had cost a love worth gold. Someone she didn’t want to hurt.

She turned toward the exit corral. Her heart was pounding in a rhythm that was victory and loss knotted so tightly together that she couldn’t tell them apart anymore.

Blaire moved through the mixed zone like she’d done it a hundred times before—because she had. Microphones thrust forward. Cameras tracked her face. She answered in controlled sentences that gave them exactly what they wanted without offering anything that she had buried under her chest wall.

“The course challenged everyone today. Snow held up well. My team gave me fast skis.”

“How does it feel to win gold at your final Olympics?”

She smiled the right amount. “I’m focused on today. The downhill is still coming.”

Someone asked about the depth of the field. Isaline’s name came up, inevitable as the weather. Blaire’s throat tightened, but her voice stayed level. “Isaline Senn has been skiing incredibly well all season. She’s a serious competitor.”