Chapter 24
ISABELLA
The headset always leaves a faint ache behind my ears, no matter how I adjust it or how I wear it.
By the time the final skater clears the ice and the producer signals cut, I’m already reaching up to slide it off.
The rink doesn't get quiet when the broadcast ends.
If anything, the noise swells—blades scraping across the ice, recruiters calling out names, the muted chatter of parents and coaches clustering along the boards.
“Great segment,” the producer says, leaning across the desk to gather his notes. “Your breakdown of that combination was spot-on.”
I nod, half listening, and glance back down at the ice.
Rodrigo is standing near the bench, still flushed from his program.
Even from here I can see the loose electricity in his posture—the adrenaline that hasn’t quite burned off yet.
A man in a red jacket is talking to him, one hand gesturing towards the stands where a group of college banners hangs along the boards.
Recruiters move quickly after skates like that.
It’s the same pattern every time. Someone lands a clean program, the room recalibrates around them, and suddenly there are conversations happening in corners that didn’t exist ten minutes earlier.
“What do you think?” John Alvarez, my commentating partner, asks, tapping the table lightly with his pen. “Kid’s got something.”
“He does,” I reply.
Across the rink, Cecilia stands at the boards with her arms folded against the barrier.
From this distance she looks completely still, the way good coaches often do when they’re tracking every detail at once.
She isn’t speaking or inserting herself into the conversation around Rodrigo, but instead she’s letting him enjoy the spotlight.
She’s watching.
John follows my gaze. “Is that his coach?”
“Yes.”
“She’s very good.”
I glance at him.
“It’s so obvious,” he continues easily. “The athlete skates like he is enjoying himself. That doesn’t come around often.”
By the time I make it down to ice level, the recruiters have mostly scattered.
Rodrigo is still near the boards, laughing with Katia, the tension of the program finally dissolving out of his shoulders.
Cecilia hasn’t moved far.
She’s standing a few feet away, scanning the room like she normally does.
“Nice flip,” I say when I reach her.
She glances over, surprised for a fraction of a second before her expression settles again.
“He tightened it this week,” she replies. “Up until yesterday, it was drifting.”
“I noticed.”
The corner of her mouth lifts slightly at that, though it fades quickly.
For a moment we stand there in the noise of the rink—skates scraping, voices carrying across the boards, someone dragging a bag of equipment down the corridor.
Rodrigo calls something out to her in Spanish from across the bench area, and she lifts a hand in response without looking away from me.
“Looks like the scouts liked him,” I say.
“They did.”
Her tone is unnervingly neutral.
A recruiter breaks off from the group near the tunnel and heads straight towards us, his expression already arranged into something eager and polished.
He’s young enough that the Harvard logo on his quarter-zip makes him look more like an assistant than the person making decisions, but the lanyard hanging from his neck says otherwise.
“Princess,” he says when he reaches us, smiling in the particular way people do when they think the nickname is charming instead of burdening. “Incredible commentary today.”
I smile automatically. Years of training and muscle memory, but all I want to do is roll my eyes at the tired comment. “Thank you.”
He turns slightly, but not enough to stop addressing me first.
“And what a result,” he continues. “Your camp is clearly doing something right. The Argentine kid—Rodrigo?—he’s getting a lot of attention.”
I feel Cecilia go still beside me.
Not dramatically, but instead a slight change in the air, as if every muscle in her body was drawn inward by a fraction.
“And with your family’s influence behind initiatives like this…” he adds, almost as an afterthought. “I mean, when a Pierce gets involved, people talk.”
I could let the moment pass. Say something vague and keep the conversation moving.
That’s what I would have done a year ago.
Instead, I say, “He’s not getting attention because of me.”
The recruiter blinks.
I keep my voice light enough and my smile plastered on my face so that it doesn't turn into a scene, but clear enough that he has to hear the correction.
“Rodrigo is getting attention because of his technical skills,” I continue. “And because his coach has done an extraordinary job with him.”
The recruiter’s eyes shift, finally acknowledging Cecilia standing beside me.
For the first time since he walked up, he seems to register that she’s standing here.
“Oh,” he says, readjusting. “Of course. Absolutely.”
Cecilia doesn’t rescue him. She doesn’t step in to smooth it over. She just stands there with her arms folded, expression unreadable, watching him work to catch up.
I decide not to let him.
“Cecilia Montenegro,” I say, turning fully towards her even though he’s the one who approached us. “She’s the reason Rodrigo thinks on the ice instead of just checking off every element.”
The recruiter gives a quick nod, embarrassed now by how obvious his oversight was.
“Yes, well,” he says, recovering, “that definitely shows. We’re always looking for athletes with strong coaching foundations.”
Strong coaching foundations.
A phrase designed to sound respectful while still centering the athlete as the product.
Cecilia’s jaw shifts almost imperceptibly. If I weren’t looking directly at her, I might have missed it.
“He has more than that, Chad,” I say. “He has a coach who knows exactly what he needs when he needs it.”
It takes the recruiter half a second to understand what I’m doing. By then, the point has already been made.
He laughs lightly, uncertain. “Well. Then clearly he’s in excellent hands.”
“Yes,” I say.
The silence that follows is brief but pointed.
He clears his throat and glances back to the cluster of college staff near the tunnel. “Anyway, I hope we get a chance to connect later.”
“With Rodrigo and Cecilia,” I say.
That one I don’t soften. I don’t even care that this guy is from Harvard.
His eyes flick between us again.
“Of course,” he says. “Naturally.”
He offers a final smile, one that looks more careful than the first, and walks off.
The moment he’s out of earshot, the noise of the rink rushes back in around us. There’s a whistle from the far end. Someone calling for a music cut, the scrape of a chair elsewhere. Overhead, the speakers crackle and settle.
Beside me, Cecilia stays very still.
I don’t look at her immediately. I’m suddenly very aware of my own pulse in a way that feels adolescent and deeply inconvenient. Not because I said anything remarkable. Because I chose to say what I said in front of her.
And she heard me.
Rodrigo laughs across the bench area, still glowing from the skate and whatever conversation is happening around him. He turns halfway towards us as if he might come back, then gets caught again by someone else and stays where he is, nodding along to whatever is being said.
“Jesus, Isabella,” Cecilia says, her voice gravelly and low, just for me. “That was so hot.”
For a second, I forget how to breathe. The way she says it—quiet, certain, like the thought slipped out before she could stop herself.
My brain offers several responsible responses.
None of them survive the look on her face.
Cecilia isn’t smiling, but instead is studying me with those brown eyes, the way she studies the ice and her athlete. This woman, who has spent weeks keeping a careful, professional distance between us, just called me hot in the middle of a rink full of our peers.
My pulse does something incredibly unhelpful.
I lean a little closer, so no one else can hear, and smile.
“My office,” I say quietly, just for her.
“Lead the way, Princess.”