absent. I felt that absence more now when I endured the twinge of muscles that were long underused. Christ, I could still feel him inside me, even though he wasn’t here.
Even though I’d woken up to an empty bed.
He hadn’t even had the decency to kiss me goodbye.
The bastard.
The national anthem droned to a halt, but I didn’t register it. In fact, I only moved when the women on either side of me, including Hilary Benton from Team U.S.A. who came in third, hustled off the podium.
Feeling fragile, hell, worse, brittle, I walked toward the locker room where my shit was stored.
Today was the first day of the rest of my life because today, I had six gold Olympic medals to my name. I wasn’t just Theodosia Kinkade, gypsy, traveler, foster kid, charity case.
I was going to be written into the history books.
Sucking in a breath at the thought, I shook hands, pretended to laugh, and smiled in all the right places as people congregated around my locker.
When I made my escape, I pierced the crowd, rushing through it because I knew Anna and Robert would be waiting on me otherwise.
I had no desire to see them, and I knew it would hurt their feelings for me to disappear like I was, but I didn’t care.
I couldn’t care.
I needed to get away.
I’d stored my case in my locker, and I was moving out of the Olympic Village and into a nearby hotel suite where I didn’t have to be around other athletes. I was pissed at Lori, who’d magically not come to our room to sleep last night, and I was ignoring her texts as well.
The traitor.
Of course, it was stupid to blame her, when I recognized that the only traitor here was me. I was the one who’d let him into my body, who hadn’t told him where to go.
I wasn’t even sure what had me so upset. After all, he’d told me he’d be leaving, only, I’d thought, after last night he wouldn’t. And to wake up without him? For him to have pulled a coyote ugly on me? God, how I wanted to rip his head off.
The thought filled me with useless emotions, a raging waterfall of them, and as the white noise overtook me, I registered that I needed peace. A chance to reflect, a chance to think about my next steps. I wouldn’t get that in the Village. There’d be a party for me, and while it was churlish of me to avoid it, and though I definitely needed to let my hair down, that was the last thing I could handle right now. I needed space. Stat.
When I made it outside with my case without spotting Robert or Anna, I felt more victorious than I had when I’d won gold, and I hailed a cab then hustled in. Urgency rode me, urging me on, making me feel like I was going to go insane if I didn’t immediately get out of here.
I gave the address of the hotel I’d reserved this morning, and pulled out my phone when it buzzed. I let the calls go straight to voicemail, ignored the texts, and did as I always would when I wanted to torture myself into remembering why, sometimes, the charade was too hard to continue.
I pulled up Facebook.
Searched Maria Ramsden nee Lopez’s profile, and stared at them.
All three of them.
The happy family.
It should have been me standing with him, not the bitch who’d tried to hurt me, but as I’d learned quickly, the elite stuck together. Closing ranks around us mere peons to protect themselves, uncaring of the hearts they broke along the way.
The kid, Freddie, looked just like his father, and his father looked just like the love of my fucking life, so he was beautiful too. Absolutely gorgeous. But I’d expect no less.
As if the charade before me could be anything but beautiful.
As.
If.
They wanted to torture me? They’d succeeded.
My mouth tightened and a flurry of pop up banners cropped up along the top of my screen as I received texts from Anna and Robert as well as Coach—who was demanding my presence at a press release—and the rest of the team.
It seemed so obscene to call Adam’s parents ‘family,’ but they were. They might have broken my heart, but they’d given me the chance to be here today. To have records in my name. To have the world at my feet.
I bit my bottom lip, feeling ungrateful and spiteful, but I just...I knew