Chapter Twenty-Six
LUKA
I slept in until nine am and woke up alone. Natalia left early this morning for yoga, and I can’t remember the last time I slept in like this.
My phone vibrates, but I don’t pick it up. Then it vibrates again. I turn in bed and grab it off my nightstand.
Randolph.
I answered, voice still rough with sleep. "What?"
"What the hell is this about a source telling Weekly Sports VELVT lied to you about Olympic approval?"
My brain doesn’t catch up fast enough.
"What are you talking about?"
"This isn’t a time to play with me, Luka. Sponsors are blowing me up asking if I knew about this. Is this true about VELVT? And if so, why the hell didn’t you tell me that they pulled this during the shoot. We could have gotten ahead of it."
Ice spreads through my chest.
"I didn’t tell anyone about a VELVT email."
"Then why is it on every sports site this morning?"
I sit up in a hurry, pulling the phone from my ear and swipe open notifications.
Breaking News: Popovich in hot water with VELVT Misrepresented Olympic Clearance
Another:
Source Close to Seattle Winger Says Athlete Relied on Magazine’s Assurances
My pulse goes cold.
"I didn’t tell anyone," I say.
"So this is true? VELVT lied to you?"
"Yes, but my lawyer told me not to tell anyone. The NDA is ironclad."
"Then someone in your camp did," Randolph fires back. "And now I’m getting calls from sponsors asking why I wasn’t looped in."
Camp… My camp. My lawyer knew, and he told me not to speak.
And then I told Natalia.
The thought hits slow.
She wouldn’t. Would she?
Anonymous insider… Close source. That’s not a leak from VELVT. That’s from inside.
I swing my legs off the bed.
A buzz sounds from her side of the bed. I look over my shoulder to find her phone lit up. She must have left it when she left for the yoga studio.
Her side of the room is a mess of an open laptop, legal pads, highlighter caps. Her phone sits on the bedside table.
I get up and walk over. It’s a text notification from Carey.
I shouldn’t look, but I do.
Carey: Great work on the Popovich case. I knew you’d get him to crack. I don’t normally condone sleeping with a client to advance your career, but it seems to have paid off for you… again. Gabriella is impressed. Congrats.
The air leaves my lungs.
Sleeping with the client. Again.
Get him to crack.
Camp source.
I stare at the screen. It doesn’t feel like the anger I should feel. Instead, it feels like a confirmation.
I told her one thing not to use. One thing that I trusted her with, and this morning its national news.
The headlines blur together as I scroll, but the narrative is already forming in clean, ugly lines.
VELVT misrepresented Olympic clearance. Popovich relied on false assurances. A source close to the athlete confirms.
They’ve positioned it carefully. Not an accusation. Not a lawsuit. Just enough to imply that I was misled, that I am shifting blame, that I am quietly trying to soften the fallout without owning it.
It looks like damage control.
It looks like weakness.
It looks like I ran to a PR rep and handed her the one piece of leverage I swore I wouldn’t use.
A quiet laugh escapes me before I can stop it. There’s no humor in it. Just recognition.
I knew better.
I’ve spent years learning how quickly information becomes currency, how easily vulnerability turns into strategy for someone else. And yet, last night, lying in that bed with her wrapped around me, I convinced myself that this time might be different.
I stand and walk to the corner of the room where my bag sits. I unzip it and begin packing without rushing. Shirt. Jeans. Passport. Charger. Every movement steady, controlled, as if I’ve done this before.
Because I have.
When something starts to cost too much, you leave before it costs more.
I don’t allow myself to replay the conversation in my head, but it pushes in anyway.
She said she wouldn’t use it.
She promised.
But promises don’t mean silence. Promises don’t mean restraint. Promises don’t stop someone from mentioning a detail in the wrong room to the wrong person who understands exactly how to weaponize it.
And Carey’s text says everything.
Great work on the Popovich case. I knew you’d get him to crack.
Sleeping with a client to advance your career.
Congrats.
The words settle like confirmation, not revelation.
I pick up Natalia’s phone from the bedside table and stare at the open message for a moment longer. It doesn’t matter whether she handed Carey the physical email. She didn’t need to. All Carey needed was the narrative, and Natalia gave her enough to construct one.
I grab the sticky notepad off the bedside table and write a note.
Carey says Congrats.
I left the sticky note on her phone for her to see when she gets back.
I don’t need to explain anything else.
My own phone won’t stop vibrating. My agent. Randolph. The team group chat lit up with speculation and damage control suggestions. I silence it all. I don’t have the patience to manage anyone else’s panic right now.
The chalet feels different this morning. Too quiet. Too warm. The air still carries the faint scent of her shampoo and wood smoke, and the bed behind me is still rumpled from last night.
For a moment, I considered waiting. Giving her the chance to explain. Giving myself the chance to hear it.
But that would require believing there’s an explanation that doesn’t confirm what I already know.
People do what benefits them.
She needed a win. Carey needed leverage. And I handed them both exactly what they needed.
I zipped my bag closed and slung it over my shoulder. I don’t look back at the bed. I don’t look at the fireplace. I don’t allow myself to picture what the offseason in Scottsdale might have looked like.
I walk out of the chalet and close the door behind me without hesitation.
Running has always been easier than standing still and pretending not to see the pattern repeating itself.
And I’m done pretending.
The airport is efficient in a way that I appreciate.
Clean lines. Neutral tones. People focused on their own departures. No one lingered long enough to ask questions they didn’t want answered.
It’s cold inside the terminal, the kind of sterile chill that keeps everything impersonal. That helps. I don’t need warmth right now. I don’t need comfort.
I keep my head down beneath a hat and dark glasses as I move through security. If anyone recognizes me, they’re courteous enough not to say anything. Or maybe I simply don’t look like someone worth approaching this morning.
I don’t have the patience for explanations. I don’t have the patience for sympathy.
Everything feels automatic. Shoes in the bin. Laptop out. Boarding pass scanned. The rhythm of departure is familiar enough that my body handles it without instruction. I’ve always been better at leaving than staying.
I board early and take the window seat without speaking to anyone. The cabin smells faintly of recycled air and stale coffee. I buckle in, rest my head back, and stare out at the runway while the rest of the passengers settle around me.
Switzerland stretches out in white beyond the glass. The alpine mountain speaks are sharp against the sky, untouched by the noise I’m leaving behind.
Last night, I allowed myself to imagine something different.
Offseason in Scottsdale. Her laughter in a kitchen that doesn’t have a fireplace. A version of myself that didn’t feel like it was constantly bracing for impact.
I close my eyes briefly.
It was careless.
Trust always is.
I knew better than to give someone leverage. I knew better than to confuse intimacy with loyalty. I knew better than to believe that someone could choose me without calculating what else that choice would cost them.
People don’t stay because they feel something. They stay because it benefits them. And when it doesn’t, they reposition.
The engines hum to life beneath us, low and steady. The plane begins to taxi, then accelerate. The runway blurs. The ground pulls away.
Snow shrinks beneath us as we climb, the chalet and the village and every fragile possibility disappearing into the distance.
There’s a hollow space in my chest where something hopeful had started to take root.
I ignore it.
When something gets too close—when it threatens to matter more than it should—I do the only thing that’s ever kept me in control.
I leave before it can leave me.
And as the mountains fall away below the clouds, I don’t look back.