Page 123 of Ice Princesses
“Princess, please.” I kiss the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the soft skin under her ear. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed how in love I am with you, too.”
CHAPTER 43
CECILIA
“Princess, where are you?”
“Down here!”
I stop in the middle of the kitchen and look around the house like that answer is somehow supposed to help me.
“Down where?”
“In the basement, Ceci!”
I stare at the floor for a second.
“You have a basement?”
A laugh echoes from somewhere below me, followed by a muffled, “Oh my god.”
I finally spot the staircase behind a hidden door under the stairs and head down, still holding the bag of trash from my car I didn’t manage to put down or get rid of because my life has apparently become one long series of distractions involving Isabella Pierce.
The basement is larger than the apartment I used to rent in Buenos Aires. And of course it is, because I know that Isabella doesn’t half-ass anything.
I stop halfway down the stairs and blink slowly.
“You have a gym?”
“Umm,” Isabella replies from across the room, like this is an extremely normal thing to own, “yes?”
The entire space is finished in the same warm wood tones as the rest of the house, except downstairs there’s also a gym setup, a recovery area, shelves lined with skates and equipment, and what looks suspiciously like an entire wall dedicated to old competition memorabilia.
I narrow my eyes immediately. “You hid this from me.”
She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in leggings and one of my old federation hoodies, her hair piled messily on top of her head while several medal boxes sit open around her.
Isabella looks up at me and grins.
“Cecilia,” she says patiently, “we accidentally moved in together before I could properly tour you through the property.”
I choke on my own breath.
“We did not move in together.”
“Technicalities, babe.”
I finally make my way fully downstairs and look around again, slightly overwhelmed by the fact that this woman apparently has an entire Olympic training annex hidden underneath her house, even though she manages a state-of-the-art facility just down the road and can access that at any time.
Then my gaze lands on the medals. All of them.
Gold glints under the recessed lighting from at least three different open cases.
I look at her slowly.
“What are you doing?”
Her expression immediately shifts into something deeply suspicious.
