Chapter 15
ISABELLA
There’s a knock at my door. Three deliberate taps against the hollow metal.
I look up from the schedule in front of me and see her through the narrow window panel. Cecilia doesn’t glance down the hallway to check who might be watching. She doesn’t hover. She stands square to the door, shoulders back, expression controlled.
Waiting.
For me.
The hallway behind her hums with the low rhythm of blades on ice and the murmur of coaches running drills. The rink never fully quiets. It breathes through the walls.
“Come in,” I say.
She opens the door without hesitation and closes it carefully behind her. The click is soft but intentional, sealing the room with both of us inside.
Her brown eyes move over me once—quick, assessing—before settling.
“You’re busy?” she asks.
It isn’t a question about my schedule.
“No,” I reply.
She steps forward and places a folder on the edge of my desk. Her hand lingers there for a second, palm flat against the wood, grounding herself before she speaks again.
“I heard you,” she says.
No soft preamble.
I lean back in my chair. “That was the hallway’s fault. The acoustics carry.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I know. Of course it wasn’t.
Outside the room, a skater walks past in long, steady steps, skates hanging from her shoulder. The glass dulls the sound, but the cadence of her steps is constant—a reminder of why we’re both here.
“You don’t have to defend yourself to them,” she says.
“I wasn’t defending myself.”
She studies me, like she’s trying to understand the weight of my partial lie.
“For him?” she asks, glancing at the training schedules spread across my desk.
The answer sits there between us, but I don’t reply. She studies me longer than necessary, like she’s waiting for the strategic angle to reveal itself. She expects ambition. Calculation. A longer game and using my influence and this project as my stepping stone into a federation role.
I let her look, because she’s not going to find the answer she’s expecting.
“You truly don’t want the presidency,” she remarks, eventually. Cecilia’s eyes are fixed on mine, and it’s almost like I can see her train of thought.
“No.”
“But you could have it.”
“Sure,” I say as casually as possible. I even raise one shoulder to appear that way. “But I don’t want it.”
Her jaw shifts slightly. She believes me, and that unsettles her more than if I’d hedged.
“You’d be really good at it,” she says. “But my opinion doesn’t matter.”
We hold each other’s gaze. For a second, I forget the office. The fluorescent lights. The open tabs on my laptop and the fact that my parents were standing in this room not twenty minutes ago trying to rearrange my future like it was a seating chart at one of their many formal events.
What unsettles me isn’t her argument. It’s the way she said it. You’d be really good at it.
“You don’t get to say your opinion doesn’t matter,” I tell her quietly.
Her brow lifts. “I don’t?”
“No.”
I stand—not abruptly or to tower over her, but because sitting feels too defensive. Too contained. The space between us narrows without either of us moving. And it’s been recurring since the first day I saw her down the hallway in my rink.
“You’ve spent weeks assuming I had an angle,” I continue. “You don’t get to dismiss yourself now that you’re realizing you were wrong.”
The corner of her mouth lifts ever so slightly, like I’ve finally managed to amuse her.
“Oh,” she says softly, taking a step closer to where I’m standing to the side of the desk. “So now I’m wrong.”
“You were,” I reply.
Cecilia’s head tilts. “Careful.”
“Why?”
“Because I might enjoy you correcting me.”
That does something immediate and physical to my pulse, and I wonder if she can see it in my throat.
I don’t look away. “You do enjoy it.”
Her eyes sharpen, then brighten. There it is, that flash I saw at the welcome reception a few weeks ago when she realized I wasn’t going to bow to her distrust.
“You’re very sure of yourself,” she muses.
“I’m very sure of you.”
That makes her laugh—quiet, surprised. It spills out before she can stop it. And god, I didn’t realize how much I like the sound of her laughing at me.
“And what exactly are you sure of, Princess?”
My breath shifts, but I don’t hide it.
“I’m sure,” I say evenly, although my pulse is erratic and it feels like my heart is ready to jump out of my body at any moment now, “that you’ve been watching me just as much as I’ve been watching you.”
She doesn’t deny it. I’m expecting her to say that everyone watches me, that I’m the Ice Princess and that the title comes with its visibility and awareness, even if it’s not sought after by me.
Cecilia steps closer. Close enough that I can feel the warmth of her through the thin quarter-zip she’s wearing. Close enough that she has to tip her head slightly to hold my gaze.
“You think this is mutual,” she says.
“I know it is.”
Her eyes drop. Not shy or uncertain. Slowly appraising my form. When they come back up, they’re darker.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” she murmurs.
“I already told you I like to be bad.”
That makes her smile again—wider this time. “I’m just here for work.”
“Okay, Cecilia, let’s play that game,” I say, softer now. Her eyes ping-pong between mine and my lips, holding there for a moment before they come back up. “You knocked because you wanted to see me.”
She exhales through her nose, almost a laugh. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” she echoes.
We are standing too close now. It’s not accidental anymore. It’s chosen.
“What do you want, Princess?”
The second time she says it, it’s softer. Warmer. I step into her space fully now. There’s no desk between us, no papers, no plausible deniability.
“I hate it when they say it,” I tell her.
“I know.”
“But when you do—”
Cecilia’s fingers hook lightly at the fabric near my waist.
“I know,” she echoes.
There’s a beat where neither of us speaks, and it’s just our breaths and the slow narrowing of distance.
Her gaze drops again, slower this time. Intentional. When it comes back up, she doesn’t pretend anymore.
“You are very hard to walk away from, Isabella.” That is not what I expected her to admit. The confession shifts something inside me. Warmer. Softer. More dangerous. “You’re in control here.”
“Maybe outside, on the ice.” I shake my head. “Not with this.”
Her thumb brushes the side of my waist. It’s barely movement. Barely any pressure but might as well be fire.
“Princess,” she murmurs again, and this time it’s almost a question.
“Yes.”
She kisses me first this time—not a single trace of hesitation. It’s slow and deliberate and devastatingly confident. Her mouth curves against mine like she’s still smiling.
I answer immediately.
Her hand slides up to my neck and mine finds her waist, pulling her closer until there’s no air left between us at all.
She makes a soft sound from the back of her throat, and it’s all I need to deepen the kiss.
Everything feels hot and focused, and I haven’t felt like this with anyone in a long time.
When she pulls back, it’s only to look at me—pupils blown, breath unsteady in the same rhythm as mine.
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Yes,” I reply with a giggle. I drag my lips along the line of her neck, slow enough to make her feel every inch of it, and I can feel the shift in her breathing. The composure and the control she’s managed to have are thinning. “I enjoy it very much.”
She laughs again, softer this time, then leans her forehead briefly against mine.
“Drink,” she says suddenly.
“Huh?”
“A drink,” she repeats. “Somewhere that isn’t your office. Somewhere we’re not pretending this is about schedules.”
I don’t hesitate. “Okay, yes. Tonight?”
Her eyes gleam. “You’re very eager.”
“You’re very distracting, Cecilia.”
“Ceci,” she corrects with a pleased smile. She steps back first this time, but her fingers trail lightly down my arm before she lets go. “Is seven okay? There’s that cute place four blocks from here.”
“I know it.”
“Of course you do.”
She turns towards the door, then pauses with her hand on the handle.
“Isabella,” she starts, then pauses for a second, gathering her thoughts. “If this ever touches his ice, I walk.”
“It won’t.”
She searches my face one last time—and finds what she needs.
“Seven,” she repeats.
Then she leaves.
And I stand there smiling like an idiot in my own office, pulse racing, already counting down the hours.
God help me.