Authors: Kat Latham
Eighty minutes to prove himself. Eighty minutes to do the only thing he was good at, the only thing that gave his life meaning.
Eighty minutes to prove he was worthy of someone’s faith, even if it was the faith of millions of strangers instead of the one person he’d given his stupid heart to.
This was the first minute of the most important eighty of his life.
* * *
Seventy-eight minutes into the match, and Tess could hardly take her eyes off the game clock. England were down 14-16. They’d scored two tries, and Liam had converted them both. Unfortunately, they’d also given away a try and a few penalties, and the ball had been in Australian territory for the past ten minutes.
Tess had bitten her nails until one of them bled, and her dad grabbed her hand to keep her from doing more damage to herself. Or maybe he just needed someone to hold on to, since he was squeezing her so hard her bones might shatter any minute. He rocked back and forth, muttering, “Focus, lads, focus,” every once in a while punctuating it with “Fucking hell, ref! Penalty!”
The ref never seemed to hear him.
Tess was beyond speech. Every fiber of her being swelled in hope for Liam, that someone on the team could gain possession—and keep it, for God’s sake—and gain enough ground to be within Liam’s kicking range. As the clock ticked far too quickly toward the eighty-minute mark, the three points a drop goal would give the team seemed the only chance for victory.
“Ball’s loose!” Tess’s dad screamed as an Aussie fumbled it. The whole crowd leaned forward, a collective gasp filling the stadium.
“Shit! Go!
Go!
” Her dad leaped up, taking her hand with him so Tess was forced to jump up too. The crowd around them surged to their feet, and Tess strained to see over the tall heads in front of her.
“What’s happening?” Realizing she had no chance of seeing for herself, she stepped onto her plastic seat, ignoring the annoyed shouts of the people behind her.
“Penny’s recovered the ball!” her dad shouted over the crowd just as she found the action again. The open-side flanker Eddie Penrose may have been only a few inches taller than Tess, but he was scrappy, fast and nasty as a hornet. He sprinted down the pitch, straight for a line of big-as-fuck Australians, as his team fell into formation behind him.
“Get it wide!” Tess yelled. Penny lobbed the ball backward to the number 8, who offloaded it seconds before one of the Australian backs flew into him.
“Late tackle!” she and her dad screamed. The ball flew from one pair of hands to the next, with the players gaining a few meters every time until they were in England’s half and at the very edge of Liam’s drop-kick range.
“Pass it to Liam!”
Her dad threw her a shocked look before turning back to the action and shouting, “Ignore her! Get it out to the wing!”
Tess nudged his shoulder against hers, and he grinned without looking away from the pitch. One by one the men evaded tackles until Liam finally had possession. Every muscle in Tess’s body froze. She held her breath as he continued running a few strides, got within kicking range, faked out two—no, three—of the opposition, and ran for the try line. Ten meters, five meters, nearly—
Boom!
A tackler at least five inches and two stone bigger slammed into him, both men flying through the air and landing with a sickening, bone-jarring thud.
The tackler rolled away, leaving Liam flat on the pitch just over the try line.
The stadium went mad, everyone cheering as they saw Liam’s hand pressing the ball into the ground, giving England the victory. The crowd hushed, though, as the big screen focused on him, showing his arm ghoulishly twisted and his body completely still. Medics had rushed onto the pitch practically before Liam even hit the ground. Considering how many types of injuries they saw, their haste made Tess’s breath seize.
“Get up. Get up,” she whispered frantically.
Her dad’s hand clamped harder around hers, squeezing the blood out, but she ignored the numbing tingles that came with the loss of feeling. She was suddenly too full of feelings—the sting of disbelieving tears, the cramp of a sick gut. The surge of adrenaline that forced her to leap away from the seat she’d been standing on, push past her dad and the two wives sitting next to the aisle and sprint down the stairs.
“Tessy! What the blazes do you think you’re doing?”
Not for the first time, her dad’s voice of reason made fuck-all dent in her impulse. She sped down several flights of stairs until she was at ground level and burst through the metal gate guarding the exit. When she and her dad had come for the London double header at the start of the season, Ruth had given them a stadium tour. She’d pointed out where injuries were treated and even let them poke their heads into the room. God, why hadn’t she paid closer attention?
Head whipping from right to left, she jogged around the perimeter of the stadium, searching for anything familiar, anything that might help her—
There!
A gate manned by a couple of beefy security guards instead of the average-looking ticket staff who’d all but abandoned other gates. Not wanting to look like a lunatic, Tess slowed down and forced herself to catch her breath. He would be all right. He
had
to be. Players were knocked out all the time. They almost always regained consciousness before walking off the pitch, groggy and concussed but still capable of walking.
Except when they couldn’t.
She approached the guards. One stepped into her path. “Can I help you?”
Screwing her face into a politely beseeching mask, she apologized for nothing but politeness’s sake. “I’m so sorry. I’m a team sponsor and I’m supposed to be part of the trophy ceremony on the pitch. Could you point me in the right direction?”
She had her ticket stub and pass out before he could ask and handed them to him. He examined them, then handed them back with a raised brow. “This is a hospitality pass for Legends Stadium, not Twickenham.”
“I know. I’m one of Legends’ official sponsors, but—”
He stepped aside. “Inside, then down the stairs. You’ll come to a long hallway. Tunnel’s at the end.”
Shit, that was easier than she’d expected. Trying to keep the surprise from her face, she said, “Cheers,” and walked through the gate he opened. Once she judged she’d cleared his line of sight, she ran again, down the stairs and along a corridor she vaguely recognized. She didn’t have to worry about finding the medical room. A few men in England staff jackets were stepping out of a room close to the tunnel, and Tess tried to estimate the severity of Liam’s injury by the way they moved or the looks on their faces. The darkened corridor threw shadows over them, though, and they were too far away for her to interpret their looks.
She gathered all her courage and forced herself to approach the room. Knocking on the door, she took a deep breath, held it...and was nearly blue by the time it cracked open with a stranger’s face peeking through.
She blurted out the first thing that came to her head. “Is he okay?”
The man’s forehead creased as he gazed at her with hard suspicion. “I don’t just give out player information to anyone who asks. Who are you?”
“I’m Tess Chambers. I’m—”
A deep, rumbly murmur behind the man caught his attention, and he turned away momentarily. Was that Liam? Was he able to talk?
The man focused on her again. “I’m sorry but you’ll need to leave.”
“But I—”
“Now.” The door closed, leaving Tess to fear something worse than rejection: that the murmured conversation had been about Liam’s health, and that things had suddenly become much worse.
“He’ll be okay,” she whispered to herself. She was trying to figure out what to do next when a couple of shadowy figures stepped off the pitch and into the tunnel.
“He’s just down here, Miss Hughes.”
Tess stepped back as the two shapes became more distinct, morphing into a man dressed in official garb and a tall, busty woman with shampoo-commercial blond hair—exactly the kind of woman Tess had once accused Liam of going for.
“Thank you so much, Edward,” the woman replied, her American accent carrying a worried undertone. Samantha Hughes, America’s sweetheart.
Was she Liam’s too? The man escorting the superstar seemed to think so. He rapped his knuckles against the door of the medical room. When it swung open, Liam stood in the doorway, and Tess’s heart leaped to her throat. From this far away, Liam’s features were indistinct, but a stark white bandage had been wrapped around his forehead, his left arm hung in a sling and he swayed a little as he grasped the doorjamb. But he was awake and standing on his own.
Thank you
,
God.
“Special delivery,” the security guard joked.
“Oh, baby! I was so worried!” Samantha Hughes threw her arms around Liam’s neck and planted a big kiss on his lips. Liam roared with pain and pushed her back a little, his unbandaged arm wrapping protectively around the injured one.
Tess jerked forward to help him. Her movement seemed to catch Liam’s attention. His head lifted, and he glanced her way. Tess took a couple of tentative steps forward, praying that the sight of her—here and ready to grovel—would encourage him to forgo the curvy woman in front of him for her, the one who’d broken his heart and publicly shattered his pride just yesterday.
Apparently he wasn’t stupid. He turned back to Samantha Hughes and wrapped his arm around her, drawing her so close she practically melted into him. Tess shattered into a thousand million shards, each one an agonizing reminder of her own stupidity and loss. She thought she couldn’t feel any worse than she had this morning. She’d been an idiot.
“Come in,” Liam murmured. He tugged the actress’s hand and pulled her into the room. Before he closed the door, he threw Tess one last look. Hard. Unforgiving. A look she recognized, having seen it hundreds of times on TV as he faced down the opposition.
The door clicked closed, leaving Tess alone. All alone with her stupid thoughts running wild—never a winning combination. She’d finally decided she wanted Liam and would give everything for a future where they fought in each other’s corner. If Liam would give her nothing else, though, she at least needed a chance to apologize.
As she stared down the tunnel, she saw the light at the end. Literally. The organized chaos on the pitch beckoned her. The teams and stadium staff were preparing for the trophy ceremony. She could only hope everyone was focused on their own jobs without really paying attention to anything else going on around them.
Squaring her shoulders, she made her way toward the pitch. If anyone knew how to publicly humiliate themselves for the greater good, it was her. Of course, she’d never done it purposefully before, and she really only wanted one man’s attention. But today she was a beggar, not a chooser. She had publicly rejected him. The only way to make things better was to publicly grovel. She began formulating a plan to get Liam—and the rest of the world—to listen to her apology.
Bright light pierced her eyes as she stepped onto the pitch. She blinked it away and, when she could see again, scanned the field for ideas. And there it sat, unguarded and just begging for her to pick it up. The match ball.
Next to her, a cameraman fiddled with his equipment. She tapped his arm and said, “Hiya. I’m Tess, one of the PR people here. There’s a slight change of plans to the ceremony schedule. Keep the camera pointed at me, and tell your producer to switch over to your feed when I get to the middle of the pitch, okay?” She patted her pockets as if she was searching for something. “Damn. I forgot my mic upstairs. Do you have an extra in your kit?”
He nodded and bent to put together a microphone for her. She didn’t waste another second with rational thought.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Stop poking me. I’m fine.”
Liam lied through clenched teeth as Dr. Bernard held one of his eyelids up and blinded him with a penlight. Doc Bernie leaned close enough to headbutt, and Liam’s mood was so foul he was tempted to do it.
“You need to lie down, Liam. You’re concussed.”
He wasn’t mentioning the shoulder. He didn’t need to. Liam had dislocated it twice before, but he would never get used to the sickening feeling of his bone protruding under his skin and the agony of having it jarred back into its socket.
The concussion made him woozy. The shoulder would require surgery and leave him watching from the sidelines for weeks, maybe months. And having Tess arrive just when he didn’t think he could sink lower? Brutal. She couldn’t have chosen a worse time.
The thrill of knowing he’d led his team to World Cup victory was severely tempered by the searing pain in his shoulder. All his life he’d pictured the moment when he would hoist the World Cup trophy above his head and lead his nation in celebrating their victory. Fucking trophy was huge. He wouldn’t be able to lift it one-handed. Not without it toppling onto his head and finishing the job that tackle had started.
Doc Bernie stepped away to write something down, but his place was quickly taken by Samantha.
“You look awful, Liam.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
She grimaced, her face falling into a carefully practiced expression meant to strike a balance between showing concern and avoiding the need for Botox later in life. “I just meant that you look like you’re in a lot of pain. Can’t he give you something stronger?”
He shook his head. Truthfully, short of knocking him out, nothing the doctor could give him would help. The pain was soul-deep. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I flew in last night. I was going to surprise you after the match.”
The room’s overhead lights made his head throb. He closed his eyes, but it was no good. More pain waited for him when there was nothing to block images of Tess standing outside the door. Was she still there? Probably. The girl was a bulldog. No, more like one of those little dogs that bounced around, fronting up to Dobermans as if they might actually have a chance. What were those dogs called? Oh yeah. Pains in the arse.
Fingers brushed high against his thigh, and Tess’s image wavered then disappeared as Liam thought,
Better not be you
,
Doc Bernie.
He pried his eyelids open and found Samantha staring at him with what seemed to be genuine concern this time. Maybe it was the concussion, but he’d forgotten she was there as soon as he’d stopped looking at her.