Zack smiles, genuinely pleased. "Great. It starts at seven on Saturday."
I do the math quickly. Saturday is three days from now.
"Seven on Saturday. I see you then," I confirm.
We part ways easily, no tension tugging at my spine, no second-guessing. For the first time since I arrived, I realized how sore I actually am, both emotionally and physically.
A hot bath and a book sound like heaven.
I head back toward the chalet, the snow quiet beneath my boots. No Luka in sight, which is probably for the best.
Because whatever that was on the mountain…
I need a minute before I try to understand it.
Chapter Fifteen
NATALIA
I wake, my body feeling heavy, limbs weighted with the kind of exhaustion that comes from a day spent fighting gravity, skis, and something far more sinister… physical attraction to the client I flew all the way out here six days ago to save.
Then it comes back to me. I didn’t fall asleep in this bed. I fell asleep out on the couch in the small living room, a paperback book in my hand, before my eyelids got too heavy to keep open.
I turn my head against the pillow, and his side is cold, the covers rumpled in a way that tells me he slept there but left hours ago. He must have moved me last night after he came back from wherever he had spent his evening.
My gaze landed on the nightstand.
My book sits there, still open to the exact page I fell asleep on.
I push myself up on one elbow, blinking against the brightness streaming through the window. There's a glass of water beside the book—fresh, no condensation rings on the wood beneath it, and two Tylenol, likely for sore muscles. He knew I’d be stiff and sore today. The charger I’d left downstairs is powering my phone, its cord snaking across the nightstand like evidence in a crime scene. A crime of consideration. He thought of everything.
I sit on the edge of the bed, feet on the cold floor, trying to reconcile these small acts of caretaking with the version of us that makes sense. The version where we're client and agent, where yesterday's kiss was a momentary lapse in judgment. They just don’t fit with who he keeps trying to tell the world he is. I just don’t believe his hard exterior anymore.
I stand up and make up my mind. I'm going skiing alone today.
Not to prove anything to him—I'm past caring what Luka thinks of my athletic abilities or lack thereof. But I need to prove it to myself. That I can navigate the slopes without someone hovering, ready to catch me. That I can spend a day in this place without analyzing every gesture, every look, every saved page in a paperback romance novel.
I can create some distance before I get any more tangled up in whatever this is becoming. Because I have to remember another fact. He didn’t come back to the chalet until late last night. He may have showed acts of kindness but that doesn’t mean he didn’t spend the night with someone last night, and that fact that I can’t let myself think on that for too long before green jealousy starts to rise up, tells me that I need to put Luka back in the client zone before I screw up my work life, and my love life.
My phone dings, and I see an email come through from an assistant for the Olympic Committee with information on who to send the request for mediation to. Though I know this isn’t going to excite Luka like it does me, I have to tell him right now, andsince he’s on the slopes, that’s exactly where I’ll have to go to find him.
The morning air is brighter with the storm having mostly passed, though I checked online and the airport just opened back up this morning, but all flights are currently filled with passengers stranded and needing rebooking, so getting a room could be possible soon. They said they would bring my keys when they were available. The mountain is already buzzing with movement. I click into my skis, take a steadying breath, looking for Luka first, and then push off.
I’m cautious on my first run. I remember Luka’s instructions as I keep an eye out for him with my exciting news, and keep my weight forward, my turns wide. My confidence builds with each clean stop, each small victory.
See? I’ve got this. Though Luka is still nowhere in sight.
That’s when three teenage snowboarders came flying down the slope behind me, cutting too close, laughing like they owned the mountain. Another comes flying down and shouts something loudly at me, startling me, and I lose balance, my skis cross wrong, and then I go down hard.
There’s a sharp, blinding twist in my ankle that steals the air from my lungs. I lay there staring at the sky, teeth clenched, snow melting down the back of my jacket.
"Dammit," I whisper.
Ski patrol arrives quickly—one man, one woman, who work calmly and quickly. The woman kneels beside me, palpating my ankle with practiced hands.
"Can you wiggle your toes?" In a Swiss accent.
I wince at my attempt, but they move, which should be good news. "Yes," I tell her.
