Chapter 4
The Pull
ZLATA
This is insane. I should be panicking right now, and maybe I am. Maybe it’s the adrenaline that made me say those things, imply we cuddle.
I don’t mind gondolas, not really, but hanging in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the air, makes my lungs remember I don’t like small, closed places where I can’t get out if I change my mind.
And I’m sitting next to him, my thigh glued to his rock-hard muscled thigh.
Next to a man I’ve dreamt about a thousand times.
Even talking to him feels embarrassing; it feels wrong, knowing what I’ve already done to him in my head, long before he ever knew my name, before I knew how his voice sounds when he says it.
His arm is solid around my back, hand warm on my ribs through all the layers.
Every small sway of the cabin rocks me tighter into his side.
My heart is beating so hard it’s practically dry-humping my sternum; I’m half-convinced he can hear it through the jacket.
The window is just a black and white blur now—trees, snow, nothing I can anchor on.
All my awareness has shrunk to three things: his body, the creak of the cable, and the stupid little voice in my head that keeps whispering once-in-a-lifetime.
“Are you aware,” I breathe out, because apparently my mouth has given up on filters, “that women dream about you? Right?”
He goes very still, then sucks in a sharp breath. “Now that you mention it. It does make sense, but…”
“…you never thought about it that way?”
“Never really,” he admits. His thigh shifts away an inch, a polite retreat, and my leg follows on instinct, as if it has its own agenda. Traitor.
Silence again. Not empty—packed with wind, fear, and all the things I absolutely should not be saying to an almost-stranger.
“We’re not unlike men,” I say finally, mouth twisting. “We do have fantasies. Like you do.”
“Perhaps my imagination is not that wild,” he says, and I hear the grin in his voice without daring to look at it.
He turns his head; I feel his gaze on my profile, hot and focused. My eyes stay locked on the scratched plastic of the window. Side-vision gives me the edge of his jaw, the stubble, the stupidly pretty mouth I’ve already pictured against my skin.
“Are you still cold?” he asks, and his arm tightens, pulling me a little closer.
I lean in too fast, too eager, but I don’t correct it. My hip slots against his, my shoulder under his chin. I could pretend it’s all about body heat. I don’t.
“Much better now,” I admit.
We sit in silence. His thumb moves once, a small absent circle against my side.
The cabin creaks and sways again. My brain flickers through every bad-decision warning I’ve ever ignored.
Eva’s voice in my head, toasting to unhinged, wild Zlata.
Peter’s voice, nastier, calling my racing a kids’ hobby and my body frigid unless it’s drunk.
I exhale slowly and chase the panic into something I know how to hold on to. Skiing. Always skiing.
“So,” I say, before I lose my nerve. “Alta Badia.”
He makes a low sound that’s almost a groan. “You start with that?”
“I start with the classics,” I say, a little steadier now. “What happened on Gran Risa? You looked… not like yourself.”
That gets his full attention; I can feel his chest expand against my shoulder as he draws breath to answer.
“Gran Risa is evil,” he says finally. “But that day I made it worse.”
“How?”
“Second run, I skied like an old man,” he says, voice going a little flat. “Safe line, no risk. Ninth for my trouble. The kid behind me sent it and stole my podium. I still hear about it every time I see our coach.”
I feel the word safe like a tap on my own ribs. My fingers curl against my thigh to stop them doing anything stupid to his.
“You looked… tight,” I say carefully. “From TV, I mean. Like you didn’t trust your legs.”
He huffs a laugh that isn’t really a laugh. “Great. Even from the couch you could see that.”
“From my couch you were still terrifyingly fast,” I say, too quickly. “Just not… you at full send.”
His thigh shifts under mine, a small restless roll of muscle, and my body reads it as closer, not away. Heat licks low in my stomach.
“Okay,” he says. “Your turn.”
“My turn?”
“You make me talk about Alta Badia, that’s rude,” he says. “So now I get to be rude. What are your races like?”
“Mm. Smaller.”
“That’s not an answer.” His hand gives a gentle squeeze on my side, as if to underline it. “You said Masters. Where? What kind of hills?”
I swallow. The part of me that has spent years minimizing wants to shrug it off with a joke. The part that booked this trip without asking anyone’s permission sits a little straighter under his arm.
“Mostly Czech stuff,” I say. “Regional GS. Proper sets, just… shorter, slower, no TV.”
He chuckles. “And results?”
“Decent.” I hear the dodge as soon as it leaves my mouth. So does he, so I make myself go on. “I either finish first or second, but… usually there are two of us in the category. Three if some local girl is brave enough to join the race and complete our podium.”
“Why does that sound like you’re hiding a globe in your backpack?”
“I’m not,” I protest. “I just… it feels stupid to brag in front of you. I don’t race for podiums, I mostly race against myself, to be better every other time.”
“Why should that be stupid?” His tone is mild, but there’s a line of curiosity under it now. “You race. You train. You try to better yourself. That’s the best way to race, actually. More decent than us chasing points and prize money like wild dogs.”
His thumb is still moving on my ribs, lazy circles that have nothing to do with racing and everything to do with the way my nipples have suddenly remembered they exist.
I take a breath that feels like stepping onto ice. “Because my stuff is… hobby. I teach languages for a living.”
He’s quiet for a beat. I can feel his gaze on the side of my face again.
“And?” he asks. “You light up every time you mention skiing, and then look embarrassed. I don’t get it.”
His statement lands lower than it should. My throat goes tight. The cabin creaks, gives a little sway, and the jolt makes the truth jump out.
“It might have something to do with my ex,” I admit finally. He’s a stranger. But we are hanging in a gondola in a storm, and his arm is pulling me close. So, none of that matters now.
His arm doesn’t move, but everything in him feels more focused. “What did he say about your racing?”
I could laugh it off. I hear myself not doing that. The stopped cabin, the dark, his body holding me in place—it all strips away the usual brakes. If we’re dangling here for hours, I might as well stop editing.
“He had this line,” I say. “Any time I got excited about a race weekend, or training instead of going to some bar. ‘You and your stupid kids’ races.’ Like I was skipping real life for… kindergarten.”
I stare at the fogged window; our reflection is a blur of faces and jackets pressed together. My voice comes out thinner than I’d like. His hand on my ribs has gone completely still.
“Sounds like a fun guy,” he says, very calmly.
“Mm. Hilarious.” My mouth tastes like metal. “And if I came back proud of something, like getting a better hourly rate from a language school, he’d roll his eyes. ‘Relax, you’re not a high-powered executive. You teach verbs to bored teenagers.’ Everyone would laugh. I’d laugh too.”
My cheeks are burning under the buff. Saying it out loud in this little metal box with another man’s hand on my body feels obscene and, somehow, necessary.
“For seven years, that was the joke,” I finish. “He was somebody. I was… the girlfriend. So, calling myself a racer in front of you feels… just wrong.”
There’s a long, thick beat. The only sound is the wind punching against the cabin. Then his fingers flex, careful and deliberate, like he’s checking I’m really there.
“He was an idiot,” Fabio says quietly. “About you. About skiing. About a lot of things, I guess.”
“I was an idiot for being with him, why don’t you say that?” I blink away the tears that threaten to spill over.
He lets out a laugh, low nasty sound. “Maybe because I spent months posing for Instagram photos with a girl who now threatens with a lawsuit if I don’t return paintings I never saw.”
“That sounds like a fun lady,” I snort.
“Yeah, and her team is not happy about my silence,” he adds.
“Is that the blond you were with at the New Year’s party?” I ask before I stop myself. “She seemed pretty.”
“That she was,” he says, voice bitter.
“But I hated her, of course,” I add shaking my head at myself. “This is weird, I even know about your personal life. More than I should.”
“Yeah, damn social media, right?”
“No,” I protest looking at him for the first time, and finding his eyes sparkle with amusement. “What would poor fan girls do without your topless training reels?”
He laughs, but it’s laced with disbelief.
“I broke up with her in early January,” he says. “Now what about your happy ending?”
The words slide under my skin more efficiently than the jacket does. Something in my chest loosens, then floods with heat that has nothing to do with fear.
“Two months ago,” I say. My voice wobbles, so I speed up to outrun it.
“Anyway. I’m trying to do it right now. My life and even the skiing.
I found a training group in Prague, we set GS almost every Saturday in the mountains.
I finally bought a proper tuning set, so I can sharpen edges myself instead of waiting for some shop kid to ruin them. ”
The words start to tumble, too fast, like I’ve opened a gate and can’t close it. And it feels much safer to talk about skiing than our exes.
“I changed my boots this year, too. Got them properly fitted, not just whatever was on sale. I booked this trip without asking anyone if it’s a waste of money. I’m… trying. To be serious. About it. About everything.”