Read Unwrapping Her Perfect Match: A London Legends Christmas Novella for Free Online

glanced around and nodded toward an
empty corner of the room. “Follow me.”
    When they were far enough away that no one
could overhear, Liam said, “Tess once told me something that I
think you should know, but I swear to God I’ll kill you if you ever
say anything to either of them about it.”
    John nodded.
    “When Gwen was in school, a boy bet his
friends he could get a blowjob from her.”
    John’s gut cramped. “You’re fucking kidding
me.”
    “I wish. Anyway, I get the impression he took
it to an extreme, turning on all his charm and convincing her he
loved her. Most of the school knew what was going on and encouraged
her to think she was special to the fucker. After the whole school
found out, other boys made life very unpleasant for Gwen, to the
point that she changed schools for her final year.”
    A vein throbbed behind John’s eye. His head
would explode any minute now. “No wonder my offering to share my
winnings didn’t go down well.”
    Liam clapped him on the shoulder. “Mate, I
know this is going to be tough, but you have to put this out of
your head now. We’re about to line up, and I need you focused on
the match.”
    John nodded, but he didn’t manage to bottle
his thoughts. He lined up on the pitch with the team and prepared
to demolish Leicester. With two minutes left to play before the
half, Leicester kicked the ball into touch, killing it. John and
his team got into position for a line-out, ready to fight for
possession. When his hooker threw the ball in, John leapt up to
grab it, two of his teammates clasping their beefy hands around his
quads to lift him higher.
    He never knew what hit them. Suddenly, his
support disappeared, shoving his legs to the side, and he was
plummeting toward the ground head-first.

 
     
     
Four
     
     
    “Trauma in three!”
    Gwen excused herself from the patient in
recovery whom she’d been chatting with and rushed to help her
colleagues. When she reached the patient’s side, her breath fled as
if she’d been sucker punched. “John?”
    Oh, God. His face was gray, he was
strapped to a board and he wasn’t conscious. Gwen went into
autopilot, following the doctor’s orders while she silently pleaded
with anyone who would listen. Please let him be okay.
Please.
    They managed to stabilize him, and Gwen was
called away to another patient and then another. Every time she
passed his bay, she peeked through the curtain. Color slowly
returned to his face, but he wore a cervical neck brace and they
awaited his X-ray results to see how bad the damage was.
    When she finally had a break, she dragged a
chair to his bedside and grabbed his hand. It was warm, and she
pressed it between hers as she tried to contain the unexpected
panic welling inside her. Every day of her career, she bottled her
emotions. Injured patients, grieving families—she coped with them
all while she was on the clock, doing her best to maintain that
fragile balance between being an effective nurse and an empathetic
human being without losing too much of herself.
    But she’d never had to treat anyone she knew
before. The fact she didn’t know John well meant she’d been able to
do her job, but that wasn’t the only thing causing her blood to
rush. It was also the memory of how she’d overreacted when they’d
been so close to having sex. Utterly humiliating. When he’d
arrived, she’d had no time to process her emotions. Now she had a
few moments with nothing to do but think—never a good thing.
    “Gwen?” His voice was croaky, and she
squeezed his hand. “What are you doing here?”
    “I work here.” She was surprised her voice
wasn’t as useless as his.
    “Oh.” His gaze flicked down toward her
uniform. “I’d hoped…Never mind.”
    His tongue swept over his bottom lip, and she
laid his hand down on the bed so she could pour water into a small
paper cup for him.
    “Drink it slowly,” she said as she tipped it
against his lips.
    When his head relaxed against the