Page 44 of Ice Princesses
“Umm, excuse you, Ms. Five-Time Olympic Gold Medalist,” she says. “I don’t have an athletic bone in my body. It’s just really fun to yell at people.”
“Sure.”
She steps towards the door, then glances back at me. “And Izzy?”
“Yeah?”
Her expression turns knowing. “You don’t fight like that for things you don’t care about.”
I don’t answer.
She doesn’t need me to.
The door closes behind her, and I’m alone in the office again—with the spreadsheets, the training schedules, the single name at the top of the document that shifted my entire axis and helped me realize that I have purpose. And I feel certain I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
CHAPTER 15
ISABELLA
There’sa knock at my door. Three deliberate taps against the hollow metal.
I look up from the schedule in front of me and see her through the narrow window panel. Cecilia doesn’t glance down the hallway to check who might be watching. She doesn’t hover. She stands square to the door, shoulders back, expression controlled.
Waiting.
For me.
The hallway behind her hums with the low rhythm of blades on ice and the murmur of coaches running drills. The rink never fully quiets. It breathes through the walls.
“Come in,” I say.
She opens the door without hesitation and closes it carefully behind her. The click is soft but intentional, sealing the room with both of us inside.
Her brown eyes move over me once—quick, assessing—beforesettling.
“You’re busy?” she asks.
It isn’t a question about my schedule.
“No,” I reply.
She steps forward and places a folder on the edge of my desk. Her hand lingers there for a second, palm flat against the wood, grounding herself before she speaks again.
“I heard you,” she says.
No soft preamble.
I lean back in my chair. “That was the hallway’s fault. The acoustics carry.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I know. Of course it wasn’t.
Outside the room, a skater walks past in long, steady steps, skates hanging from her shoulder. The glass dulls the sound, but the cadence of her steps is constant—a reminder of why we’re both here.
“You don’t have to defend yourself to them,” she says.
“I wasn’t defending myself.”
