Page 148 of The Unfinished Line

Three weeks earlier, her defeat in Yokohama had felt paralyzing. It had taken something out of Dillon she didn’t know how to reawaken.

The loss had left the upcoming race in Leeds a question mark—one she still wasn’t sure how to answer. She no longer knew if she had what it took to drag herself back to the starting line.

She’d failed bytwo-tenthsof a second.

Her knee was giving her trouble—unquestionable damage done from pushing too hard, too fast—but it wasn’t her fitness that left her uncertain. Had it been her body that let her down, or even the unexpected derailment of the penalty, she would have accepted the loss more easily. Injuries, time faults—they were the unavoidable variables of competing.

But it was her mind that hadn’t felt right. Her conviction that went slipping.

Coming off the bike in a near-perfect transition, she’d found the first steps of her run plagued with unwelcome thoughts that snaked their way to the surface. Thoughts she hadn’t known how to silence.

If she qualified—even at the time, with a strong lead, her mind had been set onif, notwhen—what came next?

There were two scenarios at the Olympics.

One: she won.

The other: she didn’t.

It should have only been the latter that frightened her. The concern that, if she lost, she still wouldn’t know how to concede. She’d promised Seren if it got to be too much—and ithadgotten to be too much—she’d hang up her ambitions and walk away. She knew she didn’t have another season in her, let alone a four-year campaign. But if a loss was what it came to, would she really be able to let it go and give up on her gold medal dreams?

She didn’t know. And it bothered her even more that the alternative outcome came with its own set of worries.

What happened if she won and it still wasn’t enough? If she still felt this hollow? This incomplete? What purpose did she have if there was nothing left to prove?

It was that idea that scared her more than anything.

Over and over, she’d replayed the events of Yokohama. She’d asked herself a thousand times if she’d been careless with her goggles, purposely flirting with the possibility of a penalty? When it came to the footrace at the finish, could she swear to herself she’d truly given everything? Or had she held back, justifying the loss on the pain in her knee?

The truth was, she wasn’t sure.

And still today, three weeks later, her future felt unclear.

However, of one thing she was certain, being there with Kam—spending the days cloistered behind the walls of the laughably lavish suite, lounging in the rooftop pool, swimming at dawn in the sea—had made her failure of Yokohama more bearable, and alleviated her all-consuming thoughts on the upcoming decision on Leeds.

Dillon pocketed the sea turtle and told the old street vendor to keep the change.

On a different morning, she would have walked the long way back to Kam’s flat via the water. The cushion of the sand hadproven good for her recovery after a run. But there wasn’t time for that. Tonight, Kam was hosting a small party in celebration of her twenty-sixth birthday. It was something she’d been planning ever since returning from her on-location filming in the Middle East.

Dillon wasn’t looking forward to it. Despite knowing the people coming were Kam’s most intimate friends—all of which were privy to her relationship with Dillon—the thought of socializing with them made her uneasy. She wasn’t sure how she’d fit in.

But today wasn’t about her, and she wanted nothing more than for Kam to have the perfect evening.

“The secret to good fondue,” Dani Hallwell gave a practiced flip of her hair over the strapless neckline crossing her shoulders, “is in the amount of wine added. The more, the merrier.”

Dillon watched from the corner of her eye as Kam’s co-star, Elliott, the target of Dani’s attention—and ill-advised cooking counsel—glanced up from the hors-d’oeuvres table. “Is it? Well, my compliments to the chef. This is truly epicurean.”

Misconstruing his polite acknowledgment for interest, Dani slapped on an air of authority. All evening she’d been attempting to engage the actor in conversation, and apparently decided this was her golden opportunity. “If I were to guess, I’d say a 1959 Latour was used in this specific dish. I tend to have a good palate for these things.”

Elliott paused with a roasted Brussels sprout midway to his mouth. “A red wine? In fondue?”

Dillon had to hand it to Dani—the ignorant twit covered her blunder with a convincing wave of her hand. “A little kitchen secret. It’s what makes the cheese so creamy.”

“Huh.” He popped the sprout into his mouth and looked to where Dillon was setting out flatware in the kitchen, offering her a subtle this-chick-is-full-of-shit wag of his brow. “How odd.”

Dillon had to look away to cover her smile.

She’d been surprised how much she liked him. Despite everything Kam told her, she’d still half expected him to be the suave, self-preening Lothario he presented to the media. But he was far from it. She found him amusingly self-deprecating. Unexpectedly cultured. When he asked her questions about herself, his interest seemed genuine.

---