“Sorry to be such a disappointment,” I spat.
“I’m sorry too.” She stared out the window again, but her eyes were unfocused, no longer taking in the view. “This was my last chance.”
Even if the twins managed to qualify for the next Olympics, it was unlikely they would be medal contenders. And to Sheila, competing was pointless if you couldn’t win.
“At least I did everything I could for them.” This Sheila said so softly, I almost thought she was speaking to herself. “I hope they appreciate that.”
The realization clicked into place, a key in a lock.
All this time, I thought I understood what she was capable of, how ruthless she was, how far she would go to win. All this time, I’d had no idea.
“It was you,” I said.
Sheila gave me a look that was not quite a smile. Not quite a confirmation.
Dropping a tell-all article right before the Olympic final seemed like a classic Sheila Lin chess move. But there was only one way she could have known so much about Heath’s lost years. Only one reason she would have passed over her Rolodex full of reputable reporters in favor of Ellis Dean, who was more than happy to post first and ask questions later.
She was the one who had sent Heath to Russia in the first place.
Chapter 64
“That night in Nagano,” I said. “Heath came to see you. Didn’t he?”
I pictured him showing up at a fancy hotel suite like this one, dripping wet after running through the freezing rain. Shivering, lost, desperate. After I said he was holding me back. After I broke his heart.
“He was upset,” Sheila said. “He told me he wanted to be good enough for you, that he’d do anything. I told him I couldn’t help him. But I knew someone who might be able to.”
“Why?” I choked out.
“I figured a few days under Veronika’s medieval training methods and he’d give up for good. Turns out Heath was the toughest competitor of you all. If only he wanted to win as much as he wanted you.”
Heath hadn’t run away from me. Sheila haddrivenhim away. He’d gone to her for guidance that night, and instead she poured poison in his ear. And of course he had listened—how many times had I implored him totrust Sheila, she knows what she’s doing.
She certainly did. It disturbed me how easily I could parse Sheila’s logic: get rid of Heath, pair Bella with Zack Branwell and Garrett with me, and overnight she’d neutralized her children’s biggest competitors and secured her control over the top two teams in the country.
“You were ourcoach,” I said. “You were supposed to help us, to—”
Sheila slammed the bottle down on the table. “I let you live in my house, skate with my son, ingratiate yourself to my daughter. I gave youall the things I had to scrape and claw andearnfor myself, and you threw them back in my face. Forlove.”
She said it like a curse.
“What the hell do you know about love?” I shot back.
“Everything I’ve ever done has been out of love. For my children, for—”
“Your childrenare convinced their father must have been a gold medalist, because otherwise you would have aborted them.”
Sheila got up and walked toward the window, tugging her satin sash tighter.
“He was,” she said. “Downhill skiing champion in both Lake Placid and Sarajevo.”
“So why not tell them that? Don’t you think they deserve to know?”
“We spent one night together, and I never saw him again. I don’t even remember his name. Though I suppose I could look it up.”
She couldn’t remember the name of the man who’d fathered her children, but she knew exactly how many Olympic golds he’d won.
To Sheila, he’d merely been a means to an end. That’s what the twins were to her, too—a means to extend her legacy, to keep winning when she could no longer compete herself. And look what it had done to them: Garrett, burying his true self to protect the family brand. Bella, willing to betray anyone to gain the upper hand, no matter the damage she left in her wake.
