Everyone retreated to their rooms with relief. The strange mood that had blanketed them all day hadn’t lifted. No one was themselves. There were no plans for this evening. This was a working trip for them all. Kit had deliberately missed the warm-ups today for obvious reasons, choosing to go straight into the qualifiers tomorrow, and he needed to focus. Ari would be waxing and prepping the boards; Kit would have a massage, an early night . . .

Clover had a long shower and curled up on her bed, still wrapped in towels. The pillows felt silken under her cheek, the duvet soft and enveloping. She stared out across the lake, feeling the silence of the mountains steadily begin to slow her rushing blood and the questions in her head. She felt both drained and gripped by the urge to see Kit – to push him again on why he was protecting Amy . . .

Just to see him.

Suddenly the fact of leaving here – him – in a few days was feeling less and less like a promise. Johnny had been right. Whatever this tangle of emotions was between them, it wasn’t as simple as hate. He repelled her in one instant and attracted her in the next. She had climbed into that bath, his bed, even as he continued to deny Amy was lying, because she believed – or wanted to believe – that he was something better.

It was a lie to pretend she was impartial or a neutral observer; she never had been that. She had come here clearly in Cory Allbright’s camp, but at least her position had been unambiguous. Now, though, she had stepped inside Kit’s story and she couldn’t step out again. His life was like a massive avalanche and she had been caught up in the powder cloud. Who was she here for?

She closed her eyes, telling herself the sky would soon clear and she would find everything settled once more. She would know what to do. Things were already shifting. It was different here from the chalet; they were no longer sharing space, she didn’t even know where his room was. He was a step removed, already drifting out of her orbit . . .

It was dark when she opened her eyes again, sitting up with a feeling of confusion. Where was she? She had slept in so many different beds recently . . . Her heart was beating far too fast, in the way it always did when she was roused from a deep sleep. But what had woken her?

The knocking came again. At the door.

‘Wait,’ she called, her voice muffled as she tried to coordinate her limbs into shuffling off the bed. Kit?

‘Who is it?’ She looked through the peephole before opening the door. ‘I was fast as—’ Her voice failed at the sight before her. Oh god. What had happened now?