Page 46 of Love Worth Gold

Blaire tightened her arm around Isaline’s waist, hiding her smile against her shoulder. For once, the future didn’t feel like an empty slope—just a path they’d possibly be able to carve together.

Later, tangled in the thin, sweat-warm sheets, Blaire didn’t shift to untangle herself. She lay on her side with one arm draped over Isaline’s waist. Her fingertips traced lazy spirals along the small of her back. The urge to calculate an exit, to nudge Isaline toward the door with polite excuses, never came. Instead, she pressed a kiss to the nape of Isaline’s neck, soft and unscripted, and let the quiet hold them both. For once, she wanted the woman to stay.

For a brief moment, the old familiar script began to scroll through her mind. This was the part where she’d always pulled back, created a sliver of space, and made a joke about recovery times and the need for eight solid hours of sleep. The words formed, ready to be spoken, ready to gently nudge Isaline toward the door.

But the words died on her tongue before they could escape her mouth.

Isaline shifted and pressed her cheek softly against Blaire’s shoulder. Her breathing was slow and even.

“I want you to stay,” Blaire heard herself say. The words felt foreign and fragile in the quiet room. “Tomorrow’s just press and getting ready for the closing ceremonies. No one will bother us.” She swallowed. “I’d rather face the day tired with you herethan rested and alone. In fact, if I really had my way, I’d love for you to stay for longer than just the night.”

Isaline lifted her head, her eyes searching Blaire’s face for the punchline, the catch she’d been trained to expect. When she found none, her body softened and melted against Blaire with a sigh that was pure trust. An arm slid around Blaire’s waist, staking a comfortable claim. “We’ll have to see what I can do about that,” Isaline whispered.

Blaire tucked the thin blanket around them both. It was a small, protective gesture she had never made for anyone else. Letting Isaline stay felt more raw, more exposed than any downhill run. It was an admission that this night wasn’t a finish line; it was a start.

Long after Isaline’s breathing deepened into sleep, Blaire lay awake. Her gaze fixed on the drawer where the medal lay hidden. She couldn’t help but think, with equal parts wonder and terror, that this felt as much like winning as the medal did.

Chapter Twenty

The Olympic Village breathed out a huge sigh of relief. With the last of the downhill medals handed out and bibs hung up for another four years, the coiled tension of the past weeks unspooled into an energy of relaxation and fun. The atmosphere shifted from a military-grade athletic compound to a university campus after finals. The place was vibrating with last-day parties and the promise of celebration over preparation.

Isaline sensed a window of opportunity. It was a narrow, perfect gap between the finish line and the flight schedules, and she was not going to let it close without getting her and Blaire’s teams together.

She engineered a plan with the same focus she applied to a course inspection. She had a quick word with Tess, who met her request of getting both families together with a slow grin that told Isaline she’d seen this coming for weeks. Then she had a similar conversation with Jordy, who simply grunted her approval. Tess helped her reserve a long table at a small restaurant in town—a wood-beamed alpine place with candles on the tables, windows facing the lit race hill, and a menu that wasn’t laminated. She tasked Reto with managing their father, framing it as a necessary, diplomatic toast between the Swiss and American speed teams. Then, drawing on a bravery that felt entirely different from dropping into a downhill, she got Mr. and Mrs. Hollis’s contact from Blaire and extended the invitation herself, a simple “thank you” meal.

Now, she sat at the long table she’d claimed in the corner of that mountain restaurant. She let her fingers trace the rim of a water glass while snow fell gently outside the window. For a heartbeat, panic flared. She’d pulled trigger points from twodifferent families—legends, coaches, parents who had sacrificed decades for this—and pushed them all into one small space. What if it were too soon? What if her father’s composure froze over, or Blaire’s parents saw her as a distraction, or Blaire herself retreated behind that cool, public wall?

Then they arrived. Tess and Jordy came first, followed by Blaire with her parents in tow. Don and Mary Hollis were exactly as Blaire had described them in stolen moments: quiet, observant, with a shared stillness that spoke of a lifetime spent in cold tuning rooms and at the edge of icy training lanes. Moments later, Reto appeared, steering Matthias through the crowd.

The shuffling began—chairs scraping, elbows bumping, a murmur of hellos across languages and team jackets. Isaline watched her grand, fragile experiment take shape. Reto slid in next to Blaire’s father, and immediately they started talking about base grinds. Matthias, with a look of stoic resignation, found himself seated across from Blaire.

The table was full and noisy. And, against all odds, it felt easy. Menus sat forgotten as the air filled with joyful conversation. There was a delicate balance between polite getting to know you and the first hint of two families coming together for both love and gold.

The moment the plates hit the table—heavy stoneware laden with seared meats and roasted vegetables that smelled of garlic and rosemary—the last of the fragile uncomfortableness broke. Blaire’s parents were warm and unassuming. Their pride in their daughter was a soft glow rather than a spotlight. Don leaned past Blaire, his voice raspy from years of shouting over the wind on training hills, to ask Matthias about a downhill course from the eighties.

“I remember watching you on that Kitzbühel run,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Scared me just watching it on television.”

Matthias, a man who usually rationed his words like precious race wax, actually smiled. He leaned forward, gesturing with his fork. “The light was terrible that year. You couldn’t see the ruts until you were in them.”

Blaire moved closer, and her attention locked on Matthias with the same intensity she gave race prep. “Isaline told me you took a high line through the traverse that no one else was skiing.”

Blaire’s deep respect for Isaline’s dad was so genuine it caught Isaline off guard. This wasn’t Blaire, the untouchable legend, humoring a rival’s father. This was Blaire, the student of the sport, seeking insight from a master.

Reto saw the opening and pounced. He raised his glass in a mock toast. “Well, Papa, looks like your retirement is official. Isaline has a new expert to argue with about hundredths of a second.”

Laughter rolled around the table. Mary Hollis held her glass up in cheers. “Oh, we must get a picture of the three of you medal winners. What a group!”

“This would be a great Wheaties box photo,” Reto added, grinning at Blaire. “A real passing of the torch.”

“This would be a great group photo,” Blaire shot back, her gaze flicking to Isaline. “No one gets the cover of the Wheaties box alone.”

The look she gave Isaline was private and warm, a shared secret in the middle of the noise. Across the table, Jordy and Reto launched into a noisy debate about who had aged more during that final downhill run, their hands gesturing wildly. Isaline just kept watching Blaire, feeling the rightness of thenight settle in her bones. This could work. This potential relationship could actually exist in the light.

When the waitress returned to clear the last of the plates, she smiled and said, “The bill has been taken care of.”

Isaline’s head snapped toward Blaire, who was suddenly deeply invested in folding her napkin into a perfect square. Isaline simply shook her head as a slow, fond smile spread across her face. Blaire finally looked up, raising her hands in a gesture of pure innocence.

“Not sure what you’re talking about,” she mouthed.