After a strong performance, Katarina changes for the after-party still flushed with confidence. Garrett and Katarina finally feel fully in sync, and Katarina convinces herself that if they skate that way at Nationals, they will win and secure their trip to Torino. Katarina dismisses Bella and Heath’s crowd-pleasing exhibition as sentimental showmanship rather than a real competitive threat.

On the way down in the hotel elevator, Katarina finds herself alone with Heath. The close quarters quickly reignite their old physical connection, and Katarina feels how instinctive being near Heath still is in a way her partnership with Garrett is not. When the elevator stops, she realizes she could give in and briefly recover what they once had.

Katarina refuses because she sees the moment as a danger to everything she has built since losing Heath. She pushes Heath away, ignores the tenderness in the way he says her name, and forces herself out of the elevator before the encounter can go further. Her decision shows that, despite still wanting him, she is determined not to let him pull her off course again.

Shaken, Katarina flees the party with a bottle of champagne and heads alone to the beach. She tries to calm herself by imagining home, but the unfamiliar ocean setting only emphasizes how unsteady she feels. In the darkness, she finally notices two people entwined in a cove near the breakwater.

The chapter ends with a new shock: the couple is Garrett and Ellis Dean. After resisting Heath and recommitting herself to her current path, Katarina is confronted with evidence that Garrett may have a hidden life or loyalty of his own, threatening her sense of control just as Nationals approaches.