Unwrapping Her Perfect Match: A London Legends Christmas Novella (8 page)

“That’s all right,” Caroline said. In the few
moments she’d been there, she’d displayed flawless English with
only a hint of an accent. She must’ve begun learning it quite
young. “I was asking if you and John had known each other
long.”

“A couple of weeks,” she replied. John hadn’t
wanted Caroline to know he was concussed. Gwen hated the thought of
lying to a mother who was about to leave her child in their care,
but John’s medical information belonged to him alone and she
wouldn’t betray his trust. “My sister is his teammate’s
partner.”

“My captain’s partner,” John clarified.

Caroline’s beautifully tweezed brows arched
delicately. “Liam Callaghan? Liam Callaghan is with your
sister?”

She put just enough emphasis on the “your” to
make her real meaning clear:
The god of rugby is shagging
someone who looks like you?
Of course, she and Tess looked
nothing alike, and that just dug the dagger a little deeper. “Yes,
they’ve been together over a year now. Do you know him?”

Please, God, don’t say you’ve slept with
him.
She’d heard rugby clubs could be quite incestuous, so it
wouldn’t come as a surprise to find that one woman had slept with
several players.

“I’ve never met him, but my brother knows
him.”

John chuckled. “Knows him well. Henri plays
for Toulon. That’s how Caroline and I met.”

“Yes, I watched my brother play a match
against Legends, and after the match I found John at the bar.” Her
lips curved in a sardonic smile. “And my life has never been the
same since.”

Did she—wait... The words and her tone of
voice sounded almost regretful, which she may have been since she
got pregnant so young. But surely she shouldn’t express that in
front of her daughter.

Caroline must’ve seen Gwen’s censure because
she shrugged. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t understand English.”

Gwen’s jaw slackened, and her gaze shot to
John. His mouth moved like he was chewing the insides of his
cheeks. He nodded once, curtly, to affirm what Caroline said.

“Oh,” Gwen said. What the hell? Her father
was English and the girl couldn’t speak the language? “So you
usually speak to her in French?”

John grimaced. “I can’t speak French.”

Gwen’s mind went blank for a few seconds. The
words bounced around in her head, but they made no sense. “You
don’t speak French.”

“No.”

“And your daughter doesn’t speak
English.”

“No.”

Her attention ping-ponged between the
not-really-a-family. Caroline’s nose had flared as if she smelled
week-old fish, but something in her eyes arrested Gwen from making
a snap judgment. Something suspiciously close to sadness.

“I translate,” Caroline said.

Suddenly, John’s distant relationship with
his daughter began making sense. No wonder he was nervous if he
couldn’t communicate with her on his own, other than with hand
gestures. Of course, Agnes was only ten, and if she didn’t have
someone speaking English to her all the time then she wouldn’t
understand it. Caroline was so fluent that she could’ve made more
of an effort, but why should she have to speak to her own daughter
in a foreign language when the girl’s father lived in a different
country and was rarely around?

Why John hadn’t bothered himself to learn
French was another question entirely.

“Well,” Gwen said, turning her attention to
Agnes. “
Bienvenue, Agnes. C’est un vrai plaisir de te
rencontrer
.”

The girl’s head shot up, her mouth gaping in
surprise.

“
Je m’appelle Gwen. Je suis une amie de
ton père
.”

Agnes’s voice crackled. “
Enchantée,
madame
.”

“Gwen,” Gwen corrected.

“Gwéen.”

“
Tu veux boire quelque chose? Sprite?
Coca-Cola?
”

“
Un Coca, s’il vous plaît
.”

“
D’accord
.” Gwen turned to the two
adults who, frankly, had both plummeted in her estimation. “Agnes
and I are going to have a Coke. If either of you would care to join
us, we’ll be in the kitchen.”

She held her hand out to the girl,
momentarily fearing that Agnes considered herself too old to hold
hands with a strange woman. But Agnes clasped her hand without
hesitation and followed her across the room to the kitchen, where
they sat alone for a half hour, drinking and chatting about horses,
books and how annoying boys are.

By the time Agnes had finished her Coke, it
was nearly nine p.m. Hardly late for most people, but after a
twelve-hour shift and a few hours trying to figure John out, Gwen
was knackered. Considering it was an hour later in France, she
wasn’t surprised to see Agnes’s eyelids drooping.

“
Allez viens, c’est l’heure d’aller au lit
.”

If the girl was annoyed by a stranger telling
her it was bedtime, she didn’t show it. She followed Gwen into the
living room, where they found John nodding off in his armchair as
Caroline chatted away on her mobile in swift French. Gwen perched
herself on the arm of John’s chair.

“Time for bed,” she whispered.

He grunted.

“Does Agnes know where her bedroom is?”

“Oh. No. I’ll show her.” He rubbed his eyes
and pushed himself out of the chair. He held his arm out to Agnes,
putting it around her stubbornly hunched shoulders. With his free
hand, he grabbed his daughter’s suitcase and wheeled it into the
little bedroom Gwen had decorated earlier. She overheard Agnes’s
gasp of surprise followed by John’s explanation. “Gwen hung these
twinkle lights for you.”

“Gwéen?” Which must’ve been the only part of
the sentence Agnes understood. But hopefully it was enough to help
her feel comfortable around Gwen, who would become her only way of
communicating with the outside world once her mother left in the
morning.

Caroline ended her call and gave Gwen a long
look. “I’m glad you are here, Gwen.”

“Really? Why?”

“I was worried about Agnes. I didn’t know
what would be worse for her—to be in Aix-en-Provence with her sick
grand-père
or here with her father.”

What a horrible way of putting it. “I hardly
think spending Christmas with her father should be seen as a bad
thing.”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps it is just the thing I
have been hoping for.”

With that cryptic reply, Caroline stood and
strode to the hallway. “I assume there is a linen closet here
somewhere?”

“A linen closet?”

“Yes. I will need bedding for the couch,
no?”

Oh, sugar. Gwen had assumed the couch was
hers. “Uh, I was under the impression you’d be sleeping in the
guest room. With Agnes.”

Caroline laughed. “With Agnes? The girl is
what you call a bed hog. I will wake with bruises all down my legs.
No, I will take the couch, thank you very much.”

Which meant...Gwen tossed a glance at the
guest room to find John standing next to the door. His hand
gripping the doorjamb was probably the only thing keeping him
upright.

“Ah, good,” Caroline said as she fluffed a
sheet over the couch. “John, you look exhausted. I’d like to go to
bed now, so if you and Gwen wouldn’t mind leaving my
bedroom...”

“Bedroom?”

“I think,” Gwen said, sidling up to him in
case he collapsed, “she means for us to go to bed—your bed—so she
can sleep on the couch.”

The exhaustion left his face as her words
sank in, replaced by a glint of humor. Slipping his arm across her
shoulders, he drew her against his side. Butterflies fluttered low
in her belly as his fingertips slid under her hair, finding the
sensitive skin on the back of her neck. She suppressed a
shiver.

“We’d better go, then.” He gave her a slow
wink. “I’d hate to be a bad host. Caro, let me know if you need
anything. I’ve shown Agnes where the guest bath is. Feel free to
help yourselves to anything you want.”

“We will. Thank you, John. And,” she gave a
hesitant smile, “thank you for having us here tonight. It will be
difficult for me to leave her, and I know it won’t be easy for
either of you. But I do think it will be good. For all of us.”

John’s hand tightened on the nape Gwen’s
neck. “I appreciate that. See you in the morning.”

“You might not. My flight is at six-thirty,
so I asked the driver from tonight to collect me at
four-thirty.”

“Christ. You definitely won’t see me then.”
He let go of Gwen long enough to embrace Caroline quickly. “Safe
travels and I hope your dad gets better soon.”

“Me too.
Merci
, John.”

“
De nada
.” He didn’t seem to realize
he’d said anything wrong until he caught Gwen and Caroline
exchanging amused glances. “What? Oh, fuck, that was Spanish,
wasn’t it?”

“Mmm-hmm.
De rien
, John,” Caroline
said. “
De rien
.”

“Derien, then. See you in a few days.”

He slipped his hand around Gwen’s, whether to
keep up the pretense or to keep himself conscious, Gwen wasn’t
sure. Or maybe he simply wanted to. Whatever the reason, she flexed
her fingers around his and let him lead her up the stairs to his
room.

The first night she’d come here, he’d seemed
larger than life in every way possible. Confident. Sexy. Funny. And
all of that had combined to intimidate her, to make her feel like
she had to be missing something. When his teammate’s text message
had come through, it had confirmed her suspicions: A man like him
wouldn’t possibly be attracted to a woman like her.

But tonight changed that. The glimpses she’d
caught into his vulnerability and failings convinced her that he
wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t too good for her. Still sexy? Bloody hell
yes. Still funny? That too. But confident? Clearly not in every
area of his life.

That knowledge helped Gwen kiss goodbye the
residual embarrassment she’d felt about the way she’d reacted when
she’d found out about the bet. At work, she could hold her own with
the toughest patients. Around her family, she felt loved and
understood. But with men she didn’t know, her confidence
crumbled.

She would love to get beyond it, but she no
longer needed to beat herself up for it. Watching John struggle to
even greet his daughter showed her that.

When they got into the bedroom, John closed
the door and leaned against it, blinking hard. “It just occurred to
me that you didn’t have time to pack any nightclothes. Don’t ask
how it occurred to me. You probably don’t want to know.”

“Oh. Yeah. I was so focused on getting you
back here that I never even thought about it.”

“You’re welcome to wear any of my things.” He
pushed himself away from the door and lumbered over to a wardrobe,
his steps heavier and more purposeful than they’d been all evening.
Pulling open a drawer, he said over his shoulder, “T-shirts are in
here—clean, obviously, otherwise they’d be piled up on the
floor.”

Yeah, his bedroom was a bit of a tip. A green
and white duffel bag with a London Legends logo sat on the floor
vomiting out clothes. A rugby ball had been tossed onto the middle
of the bed. “Do you usually play rugby in the bedroom?”

He shrugged. “No one’s ever asked me to
before, but I’ll give it a go if it’s your kink.”

She laughed. “John, I think you’d collapse if
I touched you with my little finger right now. I doubt you could
handle rucking with me.”

A competitive, taunting spark came to his
eyes. “You’d better watch out, honey. Rucking’s what I do
best.”

Shivers of anticipation danced up her spine.
“That’s disappointing.”

He came away from the wardrobe, hands empty.
“Really? Why’s that?”

She backed up a step, then another. “Because
I was hoping you were good at other things.”

“Oh, I’m very good at other things.”

She reversed another step, but the backs of
her knees hit the mattress. “For example?”

“For example, I’m good at…
tackling
.”
He pounced, lowering his head and wrapping a strong arm her waist.
For a second, she was airborne, and she barely managed to bite back
her squeal of surprise. She hit the center of the mattress,
knocking the rugby ball onto the floor. She bounced between the
mattress and John’s body, which sank on top of her.

The air squeezed from her chest like an
accordion. She poked his ribs, then shoved at him as she grew more
frantic.

He rolled off her and groaned, holding his
head. “That was a mistake.”

Concerned, she flipped onto her side and
raised herself onto her elbow. “You have to be more careful. You’ve
injured your brain. I don’t know how to get that message through
your thick skull. Be.
Careful
.”

“I get it now. Believe me, I get it.”
Growling deeply in the back of his throat, he pushed himself
farther up the bed until his head sank into the pillow. “I think
I’m going to fall asleep now. Sorry for not being more
hospitable.”

“That’s all right. Resting is the best thing
you could do. Do you need help getting undressed?”

His eyelids opened enough for her to see a
gleam of interest. “Cheers, but I should probably do it myself—in
the interest of getting some sleep.”

He wanted her. He’d made it plain and obvious
without being smarmy about it. She couldn’t remember many men
making her feel this desirable before.

He untied his tracksuit bottoms and slid them
down until he could kick them onto the floor. Beneath them, he wore
dark blue boxer briefs, which she assumed Liam had brought along
with the rest of his clothes since John had still been wearing his
muddy Legends kit when he’d arrived at the hospital. His muddy
Legends kit and a pair of tight white briefs that left nothing to
the imagination.

Determined to give him privacy, Gwen turned
away and walked to his wardrobe—but not before catching the outline
of an erection that bordered on scary. She chose a T-shirt and
walked down the hall to the bathroom, where she finger-brushed her
teeth and changed clothes. The shirt came down to midthigh, and she
smiled to herself at the novelty of having found a man who gave her
the one gift she’d never thought she could have—feeling dainty.