The Favorites: A Novel(113)

“I don’t know. Veronika’s terrifying, but she usually takes her wrath out on her own skaters. And Yelena…”

I tried not to bristle at the softness in his voice when he said her name.

“She’s not what you think,” he said. “When I was in Moscow, she was the only person who was kind to me.”

“Because she wanted you to be her partner.”

“Even before that, when she was still with Nikita. She helped me learn the language. She stayed late to give me tips on my skating technique.”

“So she wanted to sleep with you.”

“Maybe.” Heath turned toward me too. “Or maybe she needed a friend as much as I did. Although I wasn’t a very good friend to her, in the end.”

“What do you mean?”

“I left without saying goodbye, right when we were supposed to start training together. Knowing Veronika, I’m sure she put all the blame on Yelena, made her believe she’d driven me away or something.”

“Earlier, you said…” I swallowed. Before Bella called, he’d been on the verge of telling me the truth he’d kept locked up tight for all those years. “If Veronika didn’t hurt you, then who did, Heath?”

He was silent for so long, I thought he’d fallen asleep. Then he whispered to me, like we were teenagers again, wrapped up in each other under the covers, trying not to get caught.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, Katarina. To get back to you.”

Somehow, we’d drifted close again. His hand was on my pillow, buried in my damp hair. I found the edge of his jaw and traced up to the scar under his eye.

“So have I,” I said.

“But I also made my whole existence about you, for far too long.” Heath’s words came out in a rush, as if he’d been storing them up for ages. “I grew up without a family or a culture or anything of my own, so when I found you…it wasn’t fair to either of us. I had to figure out my own passion, my own purpose in life.”

He wasn’t going to give me the answers I wanted. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

“And you’ve found that?” I asked. “Your purpose?”

“I’m working on it.”

In Los Angeles. With Bella, and their baby. Whether or not they were in love, soon Heath and Bella would be family in a way he and I had never been.

His lips brushed my hand. “We’ve wasted so much time, haven’t we?”

We had. Years and years we could never get back. If we won the gold medal, would it all be worth it? Not so long before, I would have said yes without hesitation.

“We’re here now,” I told him. “Let’s not waste any more.”





Kirk Lockwood: By the morning, word had spread about the latest attack on Shaw and Rocha. My producer still wouldn’t let me point any fingers, but I had my suspicions.

Veronika Volkova: I am tired of talking about this. Move on, or we are finished here.

Ellis Dean: There was speculation that Kat and Heath might not show up for the free dance.

Francesca Gaskell: I blocked it all out. I was totally focused on the final. On the gold.

Ellis Dean: And then there was speculation about that speculation—people saying they’d staged the whole thing themselves to save face and create an excuse to withdraw, since they knew they couldn’t win.

Garrett Lin: No one who really knew them would’ve believed that crap for a second. Nothing could have kept them from competing that day.

Veronika Volkova: We are not here to rehash all this baseless speculation, are we? No. We are here to talk about what happened next.





Chapter 79





On the day of the Olympic final, I slept late for the first time in years.

A knock at the door woke me mid-morning. I sat up, and Heath’s arm, which had ended up across my waist in the middle of the night, slid away into the rumpled bedding. The sun sparkled over the Black Sea outside our window, and I felt rested, limber, ready.

Until I put my foot down on the carpet, and a starburst of pain flared out to my toes.

Another knock. “I’ll get it,” Heath mumbled.

He went to the door, rolling his neck, which set off a series of harsh cracks, like chain link unraveling. His back was always at its worst first thing in the morning, but not that bad. Maybe his body had acclimated too much to the meds.

All we needed to do was get through the four minutes of our free dance. One way or another, by the end of the day, our competitive careers would be over.

I checked my phone and found two texts from Ellis. The first said he was going out to brunch with Kirk, so we’d have the room to ourselves until the afternoon—followed by a suggestive winky smiley face. He’d be so disappointed to know that all we’d done was sleep.

The second was a heads-up that our relocation to the Radisson had leaked, and there were reporters outside waiting for us. Great.

Heath returned carrying a large white box. I shifted back, immediately suspicious.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. The card says it’s from…” His eyes widened. “Yelena.”

He set the box on the bed and showed me the note, handwritten in pretty Cyrillic script.

“Read it,” I said.