She set the phone face down on the table. Acts of unpublished generosity took seconds. Preparing to win took hours. She picked up her tablet and adjusted the next day’s training plan, choosing the work that felt safe for her.
Stretching on a mat, she looped a physio band between her hands, pulling it taut. The rhythmic tension was a familiar comfort, a language her body understood. But in the quiet of her room, her mind snapped, uninvited, to her first Olympics. There had been an older skier’s confident smile and the feverish thrill of being chosen to be her focus of attention. Then came the quiet promises whispered in the solitude of her room in the Olympic Village.
The memory of the hottest sex of her life coiled tight in her gut, followed by the sharp, metallic taste of the aftermath. There had been the easy dismissal from the older athlete once the closing ceremony was over. Then came the chilling realization that she’d been a temporary thrill, actually one of several. Blaire had still skied well, but the sting of foolishness had been a completely different type of crash. In that strange bed afterward, she had seen it clearly: she had given someone else leverage over her focus.
She swore, in the silent, clear-eyed way she made all her important decisions, never again. Intimacy was nothing more than exposure. Exposure was a variable she couldn’t control, a weakness that had no place in a sport where miscalculation was measured in broken bones and losses.
The elastic band snapped. The sound was a sharp crack in the silence. Blaire rolled her shoulders, and the satisfying burn pulled her back into her body. She stuffed the memory away, burying it deep behind the solid walls of successful results and routine.
Later that night, the glow of her tablet lit up the room. Blaire clicked through the Federation portal to the next block of the season. Travel to Europe followed by intense training days. Then the St. Moritz World Cup downhill.
She pulled up the provisional start list, and her gaze scanned the rankings. Her own name sat predictably near the top. A few lines below, a Swiss flag caught her eye.Isaline Senn.
Blaire had noticed the cute younger skier at prior events over the past few years. A bright, easy smile in the finish corral, a compact frame that coiled with contained power. She skimmed Senn’s results. The pattern was undeniable: climbing the ranks, consistent times, and a recent podium that wasn’t a fluke. She was a serious contender. Blaire filed the data away.
An irritation prickled at her—the constant, breathless chatter about the “next generation.” But a deeper, competitive part of her welcomed it. A real threat meant she still mattered. A target on her back was proof she was still the one to beat.
Blaire closed the tablet and then set her alarm for an early start. The season was simple. Win what she could, survive what she couldn’t, and get out on her own terms with another gold medal. Whoever Isaline Senn turned out to be, on or off the hill, ultimately, she would be just another name Blaire beat on the clock.
Chapter Two
Isaline lay on the physio table with her eyes closed, listening to the rhythmic hum of the ice machine in the corner. Luc’s thumbs worked a deep, methodical pressure into her hip, chasing the tightness from her muscles after a morning on the slopes. She focused on the sharp smell of liniment oil inside the Swiss team’s training base.
“Anything here?” Luc’s voice was a monotone rumble as his hands paused over the intricate map of her thigh.
“No, that’s good. It’s a good hurt. That’s what my dad always calls it.”
He nodded, moving down to her knee. His touch was clinical and practiced, checking the joint’s range of motion. It was the same routine, the same careful assessment she had known for years. As his hands cupped her knee, her mind served up her skiing history in unemotional files.
She had her first real shot at the Olympics in her early twenties. She had just cracked the code on the Europa Cup and had earned a few precious World Cup starts. Her name finally appeared on lists alongside the women she had studied for years. Then, a bad catch on an icy training pitch was followed by the sickening snap that echoed in the alpine silence. It was a season lost to a fractured tibia.
Her mother, Sabine, had been there for all of it up to that point—every junior race, every long drive home where Matthias talked line choice and Sabine slipped her chocolate and asked if she’d had fun. Where her father calibrated, her mother cushioned. During that first rehab year, the word cancer slid into their family like a thin crack in the ice. By the time Isaline could fully load that leg again, Sabine was gone. The first time sheraced without spotting her mother’s bright red hat in the crowd, it felt like someone had moved the finish line and forgotten to tell her.
The second Olympic attempt was four years later. Her body was a stronger, smarter machine. She skied with new courage and a better line. She was faster. Then came the simple twist in the soft snow. A pop. Her ACL was wrecked just weeks before the final selection races. It was another Olympic cycle she watched from the sidelines, her spot taken by a teammate. She followed the races on a rehab-room television, and every time a Swiss racer pushed out of the gate, the silence where her mother’s cheering should have been felt like its own kind of injury.
This year had started with a warning shot—a tweak in the same knee that forced her to sit out two early races. The familiar ghost of bad timing hovered over her like a threatening storm. But the comeback since had been nothing short of miraculous. A podium finish and two top-fives. She was skiing fast and clean. The numbers on the team’s ranking board proved it. Her name crept higher and closer to the line that separated a Swiss World Cup skier from a Swiss Olympian.
Luc moved her leg through a final extension, his expression neutral. “The range is perfect. No inflammation. You’re clear for the full load, Isaline.”
Isaline sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the table. She felt a boost of energy under her skin. At thirty, she understood how small the window was and how quickly it could slide shut.
She slid off the table, moving into a slow, deep hamstring stretch. She would not let the ghosts of old injuries take a free ride on her shoulders down the mountain. This time would be different. This time, she would ski for herself, not against her history.
~~
She caught them waiting for her by the equipment racks, their silhouettes sharp against the brilliant white snow. Her father, Matthias, stood with the stillness of a man who owned the mountain air around him. Her brother, Reto, shifted his weight, his energy a constant, buzzing counterpart to their father’s calm.
“Your final split was faster,” Matthias began, his voice analytical, missing nothing. He spoke in the clipped language of performance, not that of a loving father. “You held the tuck longer through the flats. It’s the correct way to do it.”
Isaline nodded as her breath plumed in the cold.
“St. Moritz will decide it,” he continued, his tone a statement of fact, not pressure. “The Federation is watching the clock, not your last name. Ski the race you’ve prepared for. No heroics, kid. A smart run is a fast run.”
His words were a shield and a reminder that control was her greatest asset. But she heard the unspoken part: the echo of past injuries, the fear of another perfectly timed disaster.
Reto slung a companionable arm over her shoulders, pulling her into his side. The warmth of his jacket seeped through her layers. “He means don’t crash. We’ve had enough of that drama.” He grinned, his eyes crinkling. “It would be something to see you, draped in a Swiss flag, knocking Blaire Hollis off the Wheaties box.”
The joke between them was a mix of sibling pride and profound hope.
