“Do you think Mitch is okay?” she asked Drake, who had commandeered the seat next to her.
“Yeah. Why? He was pretty happy when I came back to the room.”
“Was he?” Julia fought a losing battle to prevent a blush from taking over her face. The heat climbed up her neck at a steady pace.
Drake laughed. “Ahh, so that’s the reason.”
She could try to deny it, but there would be no point. “Right, so yeah, anyway, do you think maybe because”—she waved her hand around in the air.—“you know, we—”
“Danced the horizontal mambo?”
Well, as embarrassing as it was, at least Drake had the decency not to be crass about it all. “Yeah, that. Will it affect the way he swims?”
Drake shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno, maybe. Although can’t say we’ve ever discussed our pre-event rituals. Guess we’ll find out in a few minutes.”
She could’ve kicked herself. As an athlete, she knew how important it was to conserve energy before a major event. And nothing was more major than the Olympic Games. “If he loses, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“I’m guessing he was as much a participant in the event as you were?”
“Yeah.” Didn’t make her feel any better.
“Well, he knew what he was doing. And don’t worry, he’ll be fine. He’s done too much work to get where he is to let spending some time in bed with you fuck it up. But if he loses, Anabel may not be so understanding.”
Exactly what she was worried about. She’d already had a subtle warning from Mitch’s coach. If Anabel found out exactly how she and Mitch had spent some of their time today, she was sure to get another lecture and a demand to stay away from Mitch. The last thing she wanted was to be the reason Mitch didn’t get all the medals he wanted to get. Maybe it would be better off if she walked away now. Before he saw her in the crowd. She could go back to her room, watch the races on television, and all would be well.
The announcer’s voice blared around the stadium. No chance of making a quick exit now.
“Don’t worry, Jules. He’ll be fine. And he’ll handle Anabel if there are any issues.”
Drake sounded so confident, but she couldn’t help but let that little bubble of uncertainty grow a bit bigger. It had been hard to walk away from Mitch the first time. Even though nothing had been settled between them, after what they’d shared today, she wouldn’t be able to walk away so easily this time. Just being in Mitch’s arms again, kissing him, having him possess her body told her what she’d tried so hard to deny—she still loved him. She had no idea what he felt for her. Maybe he’d needed to scratch an itch. One last time together before he walked away this time.
She sat down with a thump. Mitch being the one to walk away was something she’d never thought about or comprehended happening. The hollowness that had possessed her when she’d used the picture of her and Brett to force Mitch into believing they were over was nothing in comparison to the overwhelming emptiness coursing through her now.
She was in so much trouble.
With a concerted effort she pushed those thoughts out of her mind. No point borrowing trouble.
Mitch will win.
Any other outcome wasn’t an option. Standing back up, she cheered as loudly as those around her when his name was called.
All the competitors stepped onto the starting blocks. From where she stood, Mitch looked relaxed and in the zone. Maybe he’d been saving himself; doing what was necessary to get into the finals and holding back his best for when it counted the most.
The gun fired, and they entered the pool, breaking the glass-like surface with perfectly timed dives. Being a 200m event, she had four laps to sit through, less than the eight laps for the 400m but no less nerve-wracking. He would use a different strategy tonight. He’d pace himself through the first 100m, then start to put the pedal to the metal during the third lap.
“C’mon, Mitch, you’ve got this,” she muttered, her hands clenching and unclenching.
As she suspected, halfway through the third lap Mitch made his move. Brett had half a body’s lead on him, but by the time they turned for the final lap, Mitch had caught up. As they came out of the turn, Mitch surfaced a fraction behind Brett, but with a couple of strokes he’d edged in front his opponent.
What unfolded before her was a skillful display of a master in his sport at play. With less than ten meters to go, Mitch now had a half a body’s lead over Brett, and the other competitors were tiring while it looked like Mitch was swimming at half pace. Julia knew different. His lungs would be burning as they tried to expand enough to supply the oxygen he needed to finish the race. His arms and legs would be starting to feel like dead weights.
Then it was all over. Mitch slapped his hands on the wall and had a new Olympic record to go with his gold.
“He won,” she screamed to no one in particular as everyone around her cheered.
Drake’s arms engulfed her and lifted her in a big hug. “Woohoo! Told you, you had nothing to worry about. He was just messing with everyone in his semi.”
She laughed. “I guess you’re right.”
“Or, alternatively, his new pre-race regime is going to prove to be a winner for him.”
Julia knew she blushed again, but she didn’t care. That Mitch had won was all that mattered. While it had been wonderful being in Mitch’s arms again, it couldn’t happen again. Their relationship, if they had one, was something they would talk about after they’d both finished competing in their respective events. She’d worked so hard to get on the team that, no matter how tempting it was to ignore the past, they had to face it before a future could be possible between them.
“Someone’s looking for you?”
Drake’s voice broke through her thoughts. She looked down at the pool deck—there was Mitch at the bottom of the stands, looking up at her. He had a huge grin on his face.
Doing the right thing sucked. She’d start doing the right thing tomorrow.
With no thought for how the media would portray what she was about to do—and she didn’t worry about what Anabel thought either—she planned to let Mitch know how happy she was for him.
She pushed past Drake and made it down the stairs. Mitch met her at the bottom and pulled her into a tight embrace. The fact he was wet from his swim didn’t matter to her.
“Congratulations. I was so worried,” she whispered.
Mitch’s response was to plant his lips on hers. Even though she said she didn’t care what the media would do, she was still conscious of everyone watching them as she pulled away quickly.
“Why were you worried?” he responded as he released her.
With the rest of his teammates surrounding him, she shook her head. “Later. I’ll tell you later.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” He leaned toward her and gave her another quick kiss on the lips before he allowed himself to be swallowed up by his team.
Seeing him so happy, she knew that her feelings for him hadn’t died at all. In fact during their time apart, they’d somehow grown stronger.
Julia looked around at the people milling nearby, Ah there was Anabel. She had tears in her eyes. Through everything, Anabel had stood by his side. Her reasoning for wanting Julia to put some distance between her and Mitch made sense. Without conscious thought, she walked over to the other woman.
“Congratulations, Coach,” Julia said before giving the other woman a hug. “You must be so proud.”
For a moment Anabel seemed to hold herself stiff before relaxing and returning Julia’s hug. “Thank you. He’s achieved so much. I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
Julia loosened her arms and took a step back. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, especially now and seeing as Mitch has more events to compete in, but I can’t walk away from him again. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I want to try again.”
“I know.” Anabel nodded. “Seeing Mitch look for you after his win was all I needed to know how i
mportant you are to him. I have to believe you didn’t bribe those judges.”
Julia’s smile fell. “I didn’t. I would never, ever do that. I worked so hard to win in Russia. I trained non-stop for weeks leading up to the competition. To have the suggestion that I hadn’t earned my win bandied around in the press almost killed me. I wanted to protect Mitch too, so I did what was necessary to make that happen.” Julia paused. The sounds of the crowd in the arena and the announcer talking over the loudspeaker failed to penetrate the cocoon surrounding her and Anabel. “I hated hurting him, but as you said, I couldn’t risk bringing him down. I couldn’t let what was happening to me tarnish him or his reputation.”
Anabel placed her hand on Julia’s arm, squeezing it gently. “I know. It was hard to see Mitch deal with your breakup. But seeing you tonight and seeing Mitch over the last couple of days, a spark has returned to his eyes. A spark that had been missing for months, and I now realized you’re responsible for that spark.”
Was she saying she wasn’t going to stand in their way if they wanted to resume their relationship?
“Thank you.” Over her shoulder she could see that, even though Mitch was still taking congratulatory slaps on the back, his gaze was fixed on her and Anabel. She returned her attention to the coach and inclined her head in Mitch’s direction. “You should go congratulate your son.”
The other woman nodded and walked away. Julia took a deep breath, and part of the stress that had consumed her over the last year released when she blew out the breath.
Now it was time to concentrate on her own event, and when it was over, explain her actions to Mitch and hope to God he understood why she’d done what she had and was willing to try again.
10
The medal bumped against Mitch’s chest as he followed Brett, who’d won bronze, through to the press conference. He was still flying high from the victory. With at least another two events to compete in, he could end up with four golds from these Games. But he wasn’t going to get ahead of himself. He was pretty happy with the two he’d already won and the fact that he and Julia had reconnected. It felt natural to kiss her after his win. It had been worth the ribbing he’d gotten from everyone. The taste of her strawberry lip balm lingered on his lips.
“You’ve got the medals and the girl,” Brett commented as they sat down at the table in preparation to chat with the gathered journalists.
The last thing Mitch wanted to do was to get into an argument with his teammate. Not the sort of publicity USA Swimming would be happy with. Not the type of publicity he would be happy with. And with the high of winning slowly dissipating through him, he knew that before he and Julia could fully commit, they had to talk about what happened after the bribery allegations. And the man sitting next to him played a major role in their breakup.
He directed a hard look a Brett. “Now’s not the time talk about that. Let’s get through the press conference. I don’t think you want any more negative publicity.”
“Whatever.” Brett slumped in his chair.
Yah, it was a low blow. Until his picture with Julia had been plastered all over the Internet, Brett had been billed as the next greatest thing when Mitch retired from the sport. After the incident, it seemed Brett had decided that he liked the bad boy moniker and had gone out of his way to make it stick. Even now, in Rio, he’d been seen partying it up with some of the competitors from Switzerland. Obviously, it wasn’t affecting his performance. Or maybe it was. Brett could’ve had more than two bronzes and a silver medal. Of course, he’d won those medals in the events Mitch had competed in. But he had a chance to get gold in the butterfly—a stroke Mitch had never quite mastered.
“Mitch and Brett, the rivalry between the two of you extends to outside of the pool. I noticed, Mitch, you and Julia Ashland seem to have reconciled. Anything you wish to say on the subject?”
Brett’s snicker didn’t endear him to Mitch, and his personal life was the last thing he wanted to talk about with the press.
“That’s the question you want to lead in with? Not the fact that I broke an Olympic record?”
A stunned silence fell over the room. He almost laughed at the comical look of shock on a few of the reporters’ faces. For years Mitch had toed the publicity line, never rocking the boat. Saying all the right things. Answering all the questions, no matter how much he didn’t want to. He had a reputation as the polite sports star. Not one who incurred the wrath of the press. With that one answer, he may have undone all that work. He didn’t care, though. He had no desire to talk to the press about Julia and him.
“Hi, Mitch. Congratulations. Can you tell us what you were feeling when you looked at the screen and saw you’d broken the Olympic record?” A different reporter posed the question. While Mitch was grateful for the topic, he had a feeling the other reporter wasn’t going to let him get away with not answering his question.
“Thanks. It’s always a thrill to know I’ve broken a record.” Mitch indicated to both guys sitting on either side of him. “I have these two guys to thank for pushing me. They both swam a good race. I just happened to be the one lucky enough to have what it took to get the win.”
“Brett, you had a lead going into the final turn of the race. Can you tell us what happened during that final lap?”
“I lost the race in the final lap, that’s what happened.” Brett’s response was curt and to the point. Mitch couldn’t blame him for his terse response. No doubt the reporter thought it was a reasonable question. To him and every other competitor who lost a race, it was a silly question. No one wanted to talk about how or why they lost. They all wanted to win.
“Mitch, you’ve had quite a few close races these Games; in fact, your time in the semis was one of your slowest. Why do you think that is?”
Mitch sat back in his chair. “We’re at the Olympic Games. The place where the best of the best get to compete against each other. Champion against champion. There are a hell of a lot of good racers here. Dane Parkland has pushed me to dig deeper. Brett here is another who competes hard, making me compete harder. We all want to win an Olympic gold. At the end of the day, the semi may not have been my best time, but I got to the final and I won. Now I look to the next event.”
The reporters asked questions of both Brett and the silver medalist, but Mitch tuned out to their answers. He was waiting for that first reporter to pipe up again. He hadn’t asked a single question after that; the. reporter had to be from some gossip Internet site. How they were allowed into the press conferences was beyond him when they treated the press pass as carte blanche to take the focus from the Games and put it onto the competitors’ personal lives.
A dig to the ribs made him look over at Brett with a raised eyebrow. Brett nodded toward the crowd of reporters. Clearly he’d missed a question directed at him.
“Sorry,” he addressed the room. “What was the question?”
The way a couple of reporters leaned forward in anticipation, Mitch knew the question was a doozey.
“I asked, now that you’ve responded to questions about the race, whether you’d answer my first question.”
Even though he didn’t need reminding of exactly what that question was, Mitch feigned ignorance. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
The reporter smirked, knowing exactly what Mitch was doing. “My question was, have you and Julia Ashland reconciled?”
In truth, it was a good question. He couldn’t say for sure. Did sleeping with her before anything had been resolved or discussed constitute as a reconciliation?
But as much as he wanted to avoid answering the douche, he couldn’t get by with dodging the question again.
“I’ve always strived to keep my personal life personal. That didn’t happen last year, and I’m hoping that it’s not going to happen again with this question. So in that vain, my answer is ‘no comment.’”
Of course, sleazy reporters like this douche never gave up when they scented a juicy story. The reporter directed his next ques
tion to Brett. “Do you have anything you’d like to say Brett? After all, Julia and you were reportedly a hot item last year.”
Mitch clenched his fists in his lap to stop from pounding them on the table and telling the reporter to take a long walk off a very short plank. If his teammate knew what was good for him, Brett wouldn’t give the reporter any further gossip.
“Well, now, that’s for me to know and you all to find out.”
If Mitch thought his anger had reached boiling point, Brett’s response sent it to volcano erupting proportions. The desire to flatten his fist into Brett’s face was almost too much to control.
“Is that all the questions?” Mitch ground out.
“Just one more. Any response to Brett’s response?”
God, couldn’t someone do something about this fucking reporter? Was he trying to get them to exchange punches in the middle of the press conference? Was the whole thing a setup to give Brett the headlines instead of him? He would like to think Brett wouldn’t do something like that, but he couldn’t be sure. Over the last twelve months, Brett had pushed the limits with his public persona. Did he really enjoy the bad boy image he was creating, or was there another reason for him to be an asshole right now?
Everyone in the room was looking at him. He needed to answer.
“No. Thank you, everyone.”
He pushed back his chair and stalked out of the room, not caring what anyone thought. He needed to find Julia and get the answers to the questions he didn’t want to ask.
Or maybe it would be better for everyone if they avoided each other. Even if that was the last thing he wanted to do. Maybe Anabel was right—perhaps Julia wasn’t good for him.
11
Confronting Mitch before her practice session probably wasn’t conducive to her training, but Julia knew what needed to be done.
Fighting to Win (The Elite Book 1) Page 6
