Chapter 43
CECILIA
“Princess, where are you?”
“Down here!”
I stop in the middle of the kitchen and look around the house like that answer is somehow supposed to help me.
“Down where?”
“In the basement, Ceci!”
I stare at the floor for a second.
“You have a basement?”
A laugh echoes from somewhere below me, followed by a muffled, “Oh my god.”
I finally spot the staircase behind a hidden door under the stairs and head down, still holding the bag of trash from my car I didn’t manage to put down or get rid of because my life has apparently become one long series of distractions involving Isabella Pierce.
The basement is larger than the apartment I used to rent in Buenos Aires. And of course it is, because I know that Isabella doesn’t half-ass anything.
I stop halfway down the stairs and blink slowly.
“You have a gym?”
“Umm,” Isabella replies from across the room, like this is an extremely normal thing to own, “yes?”
The entire space is finished in the same warm wood tones as the rest of the house, except downstairs there’s also a gym setup, a recovery area, shelves lined with skates and equipment, and what looks suspiciously like an entire wall dedicated to old competition memorabilia.
I narrow my eyes immediately. “You hid this from me.”
She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in leggings and one of my old federation hoodies, her hair piled messily on top of her head while several medal boxes sit open around her.
Isabella looks up at me and grins.
“Cecilia,” she says patiently, “we accidentally moved in together before I could properly tour you through the property.”
I choke on my own breath.
“We did not move in together.”
“Technicalities, babe.”
I finally make my way fully downstairs and look around again, slightly overwhelmed by the fact that this woman apparently has an entire Olympic training annex hidden underneath her house, even though she manages a state-of-the-art facility just down the road and can access that at any time.
Then my gaze lands on the medals. All of them.
Gold glints under the recessed lighting from at least three different open cases.
I look at her slowly.
“What are you doing?”
Her expression immediately shifts into something deeply suspicious.
“Is it too petty if I wear all my gold medals when my parents are here next week?”
I stare at her, then at the medals.
Isabella smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners and nose scrunching, and I know she’s being a little shit. A trait she’s inherited from hanging out way too much with Rodrigo over the past few months as we visited back and forth from Wyoming.
“Probably,” I reply carefully.
She nods once. “Okay.”
There’s a beat.
“I’m still going to do it.”
I laugh so hard I have to hold on to the railing so I don’t hit myself. “Isabella.”
“No, listen,” she says, already getting more animated as she pushes herself up on her knees. “I can tell them there was a meet-and-greet with some of the incoming athletes.”
“You’re insane.”
“I don’t give a fuck if she’s president of the association now, honestly.”
There’s still heat under the words. It’s not fresh anymore, more like the remnants of a fire that is taking a long time to extinguish.
The election happened three weeks ago. Vivienne won almost unanimously after Isabella publicly withdrew her own name before the board could formally nominate her.
The press had a field day with it, but Isabella pretended not to care.
Then she spent an entire evening rage-cleaning the kitchen in complete silence while wearing noise-canceling headphones and reorganizing the pantry in alphabetical order.
Which, honestly, was absolutely terrifying.
I walk closer now, setting the bag down on one of the benches before crouching beside her on the floor.
“You know,” I say slowly, “most people deal with family conflict by going to therapy.”
“I do go to therapy.”
“Physical therapy to relieve your back pain doesn’t count,” I mutter under my breath. “And besides, those therapists work for you, so they will literally do as you say.”
She snorts. Then her expression softens slightly as she looks at me.
“Hi, babe.”
“Hi.”
“Where’s Rodri?” She twists her body to look towards the stairs, then back at me. She’s wearing that soft, private smile that still catches me off guard because it belongs entirely to me now.
“What?” I ask quietly.
Her hand settles against my knee absently. “Nothing,” she says. “I still can’t believe you guys are here.”
Something warm spreads through my chest so quickly it almost hurts.
Colorado in December looks nothing like Buenos Aires. But even with the obvious differences, everything here feels sharper and enhanced. And it’s because of Isabella.
“Well,” I murmur, leaning over to kiss her forehead lightly, “you’re never getting rid of me now.”
Her smile turns softer immediately. “Good.”
Upstairs, the front door opens loudly enough that we both hear it.
Then—
“Honey, I’m home!”
Rodrigo, followed immediately by another voice. “Rodrigo, stop screaming!”
Katia.
Isabella closes her eyes briefly.
“They found us.”
I grin. “Your children are home.”
“Our children are getting too terrifying,” Isabella replies immediately, but she’s smiling when she says it, a little crooked and discombobulated.
Upstairs, I hear feet stomping against the hardwood floor, followed by Rodrigo saying something in soft Spanish. Katia coos, and I assume they have found the cat.
“Are we decorating the tree or what?” Rodrigo shouts from the first floor. “I didn’t drive all the way down here for this level of disorganization.”
I burst into laughter again.
Isabella groans softly and tips her head back dramatically. “He’s gotten significantly louder since he won that Grand Prix, Coach.”
“That’s because you keep validating him!”
“I support his dreams.”
“You bought him a six-hundred-dollar espresso machine because he got to ten thousand followers on Instagram.”
“He was emotional.”
I shake my head slowly, still laughing under my breath, and my gaze drifts back towards the medals scattered around us.
Even after everything, this version of Isabella—the one sitting on the floor in my hoodie while plotting psychological warfare against her mother using Olympic hardware—feels so different from the person the rest of the world thinks they know.
I reach out and pick up one of the medals carefully, turning it slightly so the light catches against the gold.
“You know,” I say softly. “I think this is the craziest thing of all.”
“What part?”
I glance around the room. “The fact that you have enough medals lying around your basement to accessorize out of spite.”
She snorts. “I’ll definitely be over-accessorized.”
I look at Isabella. At the woman who fought publicly because she was determined to build an entire program on the belief that the sport should be kinder than it had been to others, even if she’s the most decorated athlete in said sport.
At the woman who somehow still looks at me like I’m the extraordinary one in this relationship.
“You know I’m proud of you, right?” I ask quietly.
Her expression changes immediately. She stands and reaches for my hands.
“Ceci—”
“No, I mean it,” I continue, softer now. “Not because of these.” I gesture vaguely to the medals. “Or the commentating or the connections, or any of the things everyone else cares about.”
She stays very still.
“I’m proud of the person you decided to become after all of it.”
Isabella looks down briefly, and when she looks back at me, there’s something almost unbearably whimsical in her expression.
“You can’t say things like that to me,” she murmurs.
I smile a little. “Why?”
“Because now I want to ravage you and instead we have to supervise the children.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
She laughs softly and reaches for me at the same time, one hand sliding behind my neck until she can pull me to her.
“I love you,” she says quietly against my mouth, like it still surprises her every time she gets to say it out loud.
“I love you, too, Princess.”