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

in Scotland and just had a baby. Most of
my friends have families, and it’s fucking Christmas.”
    “John, I know this is frustrating, but
there’s a five-year-old boy in the bay next to yours, so I’ll have
to ask you to save the language for the rugby pitch.”
    “Oh, fu—uh, sorry.”
    “It’s okay,” Maya replied. “You have some
time to think about it. We probably can’t get you in for the CT
scan for at least an hour yet. Just let Nurse Chambers know whom we
can phone for you. I’ll stop by again soon to see if you have more
questions.”
    Before Maya could step out of the bay, John
stopped her. “One question. What happens if I don’t find someone?
Can I check myself out?”
    Maya regarded him quietly for several long
seconds. “We can’t hold you here against your will. Try your best
to find someone, though. I’d hate for you to get worse and have to
be rushed back here to share Christmas dinner with me—believe me,
if you thought Brussels sprouts were bad under normal circumstances—” She shuddered.
    Gwen hoped that would light a fire under John
to impose on one of his friends because the alternative was worse
than staying in hospital over the holidays. Being home alone with a
concussion could be fatal.
    Maya made it to the curtain before snapping
her fingers and spinning back around. “The flowers!”
    Gwen bit back a curse and tried to throw her
a subtle, silent shut up .
    “Flowers?” John asked.
    “We’ve a beautiful bouquet of lilies at the
nurse’s station, and the card said they were from John Sheldon,”
Maya told him. “But it didn’t say who they were for. Just said, Hope these are better than whisky. ” She pressed her lips to
one side. “Depends on what you need it for, I suppose. It’s not
better for disinfecting wounds. Or for getting drunk…unless the
water’s been in the vase a very long time. Huh.”
    She tossed a final, significant look at Gwen
and then pulled the curtain to the side. Once she’d left, Gwen
peeked around the curtain to see if she was needed elsewhere. All
seemed relatively quiet, so she reoccupied the chair next to John’s
bed. She itched to hold his hand again, but somehow that seemed
more intimate now that he was awake. So she laid her hands
palm-down on the mattress next to his ribs. “What about one of your
teammates?”
    “Here? This is the hospital you had my
flowers sent to?”
    Blood rushed to her cheeks. She cleared her
throat. “I knew I’d be working all week, hardly home at all. I had
them sent here to…”
    When she couldn’t think of a good excuse, he
cocked one brow, the corner of his mouth pulling up with a hopeful
twist. “To…remind yourself to return my call?”
    She turned her attention to gathering some of
the bedsheet in her fists. “I’m really sorry about the other night.
And really embarrassed. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did. I
don’t even know why I did it.”
    A complete lie, but much better than the
truth: that a ten-year-old wound still festered inside her—one
she’d thought had healed but obviously hadn’t.
    He laid a big hand over hers. “It’s all
right, Gwen. You can make it up by having dinner with me when my
brain’s unscrambled.”
    “Really? You want to have dinner with me?
Still?” Hope surged in her. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve
to call and thank you for the flowers, but every day it got more
difficult. I’ve never been very good”— at talking to men who
aren’t bleeding —”um, at apologies.”
    “No need to apologize. Just tell me your
favorite restaurant and let me take you there.”
    “Can we snog on your couch afterward?”
    “My couch, my bed, my shower—lady’s choice.”
He winked, and she laughed.
    Surely it couldn’t be this easy. She’d felt
so humiliated when she’d left his house, and every time she’d
picked up the phone to call him, her tongue had tangled over the
words she’d wanted to say. In the end, he wasn’t making her say
them