Unwrapping Her Perfect Match

Chapter Six

He ordered her flowers, but when a day passed without a call from her, he phoned the florist and was told she'd asked the delivery guy to take the flowers to a hospital. He sent her a note with an invitation to dinner. Nothing.

Near the end of the week, Oggie dragged the story out of him at training. When Oggie asked how he knew Gwen's address, John shrugged. "Got it off the internet."

Oggie's brows shot up. "You got her address off the internet and started sending her shit, and you're surprisedshe hasn't called you? Mate, count yourself lucky she hasn't called the cops."

Well, when he put it like that...

John didn't know what to do. He at least wanted Gwen to listen to his apology, but the only way to get her attention now would be sitting on her doorstep and waiting for her to get home. Probably not a smart move.

He tried to shrug the incident off. He'd never meant to hurt her, and he'd tried to make amends. She'd made it clear she wasn't open to that, so all he could do was ignore the slight nausea he felt whenever he thought about having injured her somehow. With the most important—and probably most difficult—Christmas of his life just a week away, he couldn't afford to lose focus on his priorities.

Make that priority. Making the holidays perfect for Agnes.

The Saturday after the auction, John was with his team in the Legends stadium changing room preparing for a match against Leicester the way he always did—earbuds in, Metallica's Black Album blasting away at his eardrums while he pounded his fists against his quads in time with the music. His gaze had spaced out as he imagined the thumping he would deliver in a few minutes' time, but his concentration was shot all to hell when the door flew open and tiny Tess strode into the room. She found him, her eyes narrowing in a way that made him want to hide. Ridiculous when he was a foot and a half taller and made his living flattening grown men.

He took his earbuds out just in time to hear her demand, "What did you do to my sister?"

Panic set in. "Gwen? What's wrong? Didn't she make it home?"

"Home from what?"

He blinked. "Uh...the teacup place?"

"Nice try. I know she went home with you. She hasn't returned my calls all week. And when I left a message asking her to teach me how to make a birthday cake for Liam, she texted back that she was busy. Busy!" She paused for breath, then spoke more to herself than to him. "Okay, she's a nurse in the A&E, so she's always busy. But she's never been too busy to bake, and she's especially never too busy to prove she's better than me at something. There's a problem, and it has to be you."

"Why me?"

She poked the sensitive skin covering his sternum, and he tried not to wince. "Because you went home with her, and now she's shutting herself away. Keep. Up."

Liam approached her and captured her pokey finger, giving it a kiss before saying, "Out of my changing room."

"But—"

"You're distracting my men. I'll sort this. Get out."

With a final glare at John, she left the room in a huff. He collapsed onto a bench, knees wide, hands clasped between them. He really, really hadn't wanted to talk to his captain about this, but Liam's unnerving stare gave him little choice. "I honestly don't understand it, skip. She was at my place, things were going well, then...total freak out."

Liam propped his foot on the bench next to John. "You've no idea? Nothing at all?"

Grimacing, John confessed. "Just before the bidding started, Oggie and I made a bet about who'd raise the most. She found out."

Dropping his chin against his chest, Liam muttered, "Fucking hell."

"But I explained that I'd planned to chat her up anyway. She still got really upset and left."

Liam 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.

***

Dear Readers,

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