Unwrapping Her Perfect Match: A London Legends Christmas Novella (16 page)

“Mmm,” she moaned against his lips. “I feel
good with you.”

“And I feel exactly right with you.” He
kissed her temple before reluctantly pulling away. “I owe you a
better Christmas gift.”

She squelched her desire to say
Of course
you don’t.
“Yeah, you do. I look forward to it.”

“I also owe you a day of doing whatever you
want. You bought me, remember?”

She smiled and slipped her fingers through
his, giving his hand a squeeze. “Best five grand of Tess’s money
I’ve ever spent.”

“You’re not scared of heights, are you?”

John scoffed, throwing Gwen an incredulous
look as they finished eating lunch at a café in Toulon. “You
seriously asking me that, short stuff?”

She couldn’t suppress the shiver of glee that
ran through her at the nickname. Even after a year and a half
together, she delighted in being small around him. “I’m talking
more than six feet and nine inches. I’m talking close to
two-thousand feet.”

Understanding gradually touched his
expression and he grinned. “The cable car? You want to go up the
cable car?”

“Only if you can say it in French, big
lad.”

“You want to go up the
Téléphérique du
Faron, ma chère
?” He accentuated his French accent, sounding
like a leering, eyebrow-waggling seducer and making Gwen laugh.
He’d been living in the Mediterranean port city for a year now,
playing for a French team and building a strong, loving
relationship with his French daughter. Language classes hadn’t
helped him a jot, but hanging out in pubs and at the rugby club
certainly had.

Perhaps that was because the language classes
hadn’t taught him how to talk about rugby and sex, his two favorite
topics.

“
Oui
,” Gwen answered. “
Avec plaisir
.”

“Then let’s go.”

Over the last year, Gwen had taken several
trips over, but seeing him hadn’t been her only purpose. Each time
she’d gone, she’d asked herself if she could imagine settling here.
If she could be here and still have her own identity, her own
career. It was so important to her. She didn’t want to be his WAG,
spending her time shopping and cheering him on. She wanted to walk
alongside him, not behind him.

He’d been so patient, despite his obvious
eagerness for her to move over. And now she had her answers.

Today was the day she’d chosen for him to
make good on his auction promises. She’d put it off for a long
time, but she hadn’t wanted to waste her opportunity to make the
day special.

“I’d like to go up the cable car and have a
glass of wine while we watch the sun set over the sea,” she said.
“How does that sound?”

And there she would tell him that her efforts
to study medical French over the last eighteen months had paid off.
She’d tell him that she had an interview at the local hospital. And
she’d tell him that she’d given notice at her work and she didn’t
actually have to go back to London at the end of the weekend, as
she’d led him to believe.

He leaned across the table and brushed his
lips against hers. “Sounds perfect.
Je t’aime,
Gwen.”

“I love you, too.”

With all her whole heart.

Dear Reader,

When I first wrote about Gwen in
Playing
It Close
(Tess and Liam’s story), I had no idea she would get a
story of her own. Fortunately, she not only captured my heart but
the hearts and imaginations of readers too. I had several emails
asking for her story—a thrilling request for a writer!

I hope you enjoyed being part of her and
John’s happily ever after. If you did, there are lots of ways you
can spread the love:

• Leave a review at your favorite review
site.

• Recommend or lend this book to your
friends.

•
Sign up for my monthly
newsletter
for access to giveaways and information about
upcoming books.

• Connect with me on
my
blog
,
Facebook
and
Twitter
.

If you’re new to the London Legends series,
turn the page to find out more about John’s teammates.

Thank you for reading
Unwrapping Her
Perfect Match
!

With very best wishes,

Kat Latham

Kat Latham is a California girl who moved to
Europe the day after graduating from UCLA, ditching her tank tops
for raincoats. She taught English in Prague and worked as an editor
in London before she and her British husband moved to the
Netherlands. Kat’s other career involves writing and editing for
charities, and she’s traveled to Kenya, Ethiopia and India to meet
heroic people helping their communities survive disasters. She
loves to hear from readers!

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London Legends Series

Knowing the Score

(Book 1—Spencer Bailey and Caitlyn
Sweeney)

Playing It Close

(Book 2—Liam Callaghan and Tess Chambers)

Tempting the Player

(Book 3—Matt Ogden and Libby Hart)

Standalone Novellas

Mine Under the Mistletoe

(Nominated for a 2014 RITA© Award)

Enjoy more hot rugby players as the London
Legends series continues in 2015!

Turn the page for more about the Legends.

If you enjoyed
Unwrapping Her Perfect Match,
check out the first
three books of the London Legends series,
Knowing the Score, Playing It Close
and
Tempting the Player
!

Knowing the Score

Book one of London Legends

Rugby player Spencer Bailey is determined to
win a spot on England’s World Cup team. But with a month break
before the selectors start watching him, he’s eager to have fun
with a woman who knows the score: the relationship will end when
rugby season begins. The lovely American Caitlyn Sweeney seems
perfect for the role of temporary lover, since her visa will run
out soon anyway.

Caitlyn works for an international disaster
relief organization and can handle the world’s worst crises, but
she flinches from her own. Her past has left her with a fear of
intimacy so deep that she has trouble getting close to anyone—until
she meets sexy Spencer. His hot body and easygoing nature are too
much for even her to resist.

Neither Caitlyn nor Spencer expects to fall
hard for each other. But with their relationship deadline
approaching, the old rules of the game seem less important than
before…until past secrets surface, challenging everything they
thought they knew about each other.

Praise for
Knowing the
Score:

“
The book is funny and real and the
dialogue is fantastic… I want Spencer. I want to marry this man.
Not only is he patient and a sweetie, he’s sexy as hell. Spencer
should be cloned and mass produced for export. Britain would have a
trade surplus that would be the envy of the world.”

—Dear Author

“
This is one of the best contemporary
romances I’ve ever read! I had such a fantastic time watching these
two characters fall in love…”

—The Season for Romance

“
Latham keeps her debut fresh, with
characters whose unique careers play a role in their relationship,
and the romance runs at a strong pace. Readers will be eager for
the next series offering,
Playing It Close…”

—Library Journal

Playing It Close

Book two of London Legends

Where do you go to escape everything when
you’re one of the most famous rugby players in the world? For Liam
Callaghan, that place is a remote lodge on Venezuela’s Caribbean
coast. Perfect, except he doesn’t exactly want to be alone with his
thoughts. Enter Tess Chambers, the ultimate distraction.

Still reeling from a professional disaster
that’s made her all but unemployable, Tess understands the desire
to move through life as somebody else. So when instantly
recognizable Liam uses a fake name, she runs with it and creates a
temporary new identity of her own.

Their time spent together in paradise is
idyllic but brief—after one passionate night, Liam wakes up to find
Tess gone. Returning to London, he’s shocked to learn she’s taken a
job with his team’s new sponsor. As the Legends’ captain, he’ll
have to not only figure out how to work with the one woman who ever
left him wanting more, but also convince her that their feelings in
the present mean more than any lies they’ve told in the past.

Praise for
Playing It
Close
:

“
I loved this book. I couldn’t stop
clicking pages long after my bedtime. I laughed out loud on several
occasions and found myself reading with a smile plastered on my
face...The only disappointing thing is that Liam and the Legends
are fictional.”

—Give Me Books blog

Tempting the Player

Book three of London Legends

Libby Hart and Matt Ogden are perfect for
each other—as friends. They’ve known each other for ages. They act
as each other’s plus-ones. They even share custody of a dog. And if
there’s always been a little spark between them, so what? It’s
never been worth jeopardizing their friendship.

Professional rugby player Matt is fighting
for a starter position with the London Legends—and that’s not the
only thing he’s fighting. A crippling fear of flying means he’s
struggling to get his career off the ground. He has no time for a
relationship, even if Libby does make him ache. As an airline
pilot, Libby’s looking for a stay-at-home husband so she can have a
family without sacrificing her high-flying career. Matt’s certainly
not that man.

But just because they don’t have a future
together doesn’t mean they can’t have a right now. When Matt asks
Libby for help overcoming his fear, they agree to take a vacation
from their platonic relationship—whenever they fly together, they
can have sex. It’s the perfect way to resolve all that built-up
tension. As long as they can avoid getting a little
too
comfortable…

Praise for
Tempting the
Player
:

“
This is one of the best friends-to-lovers
books I’ve read in a long time. Even if you know nothing about
rugby—this is tender and hot romance.”

—Molly O’Keefe, RITA© Award-winning and
bestselling author

“
Witty humor, steamy romance, and plenty
of hot rugby players. Latham scores!”

—Katie Lane, USA Today bestselling
author

“
This series is just getting better and
better. I wonder who the talented Kat Latham will write about
next?”

—For the Love of Books

Here’s a sneak peek at Liam and Tess’s
story,
Playing It Close
!

Warm seawater sliding over naked skin.
That’s
how Tess wanted to end her second night in
Venezuela.

She stood on the moonlit shore and gripped
the hem of her T-shirt, battling her misgivings as she scanned the
beach. No one. She was completely alone. If she pulled the shirt
over her head, no one would see that she’d ditched her bikini top
in her room and only wore a pair of frilly pink bikini bottoms. No
one would see if she slipped those off too.

Her hand relaxed its grip on the soft cotton
before fisting it again and inching it up.
Do it.

But there could be cameras.
She
scanned the shore from left to right, then turned to face the
beachside hotel and did it again. The moonlight shone brightly—too
brightly. The journalists who’d hounded her for eight months
wouldn’t even need to use their flash if they wanted a decent
picture of the Scourge of the City cavorting naked and alone in the
Caribbean. How much would the London tabloids pay for a photo like
that?

Enough that she might be tempted to send them
one herself.

Idiot. You’re at a remote eco-lodge
halfway around the world. No one here cares or even knows who you
are
.

Still…

Resolved, Tess let go of the shirt hem and
took determined strides toward the water lapping at the shore. She
had five more nights here. Plenty of time for the moonlight to die
down. She could wait for a cloudy night—if northern Venezuela
experienced such things. Tonight she would simply enjoy swimming
lazily through the calm water with her T-shirt protecting her
dignity.

Although it was past midnight, the sand was
still warm from the strong rays it had soaked up throughout the
day. The water cooled Tess’s sun-kissed skin as it swirled around
her knees, her hips, her waist. She brought her hands over her head
and dove in, kicking her feet and pulling her arms back in an
underwater breaststroke for as long as she could hold her
breath.

Freedom.
Under here, no one could
touch her. Under here, her life was her own.

After ten minutes of paddling around, she
swam for the shore and stepped onto the soft sand. A breeze swept
over the sea, chilling her skin, and Tess realized she’d forgotten
a towel. If she’d stripped her shirt off before getting into the
water, she would have had a dry shirt to put on. Now she was
half-naked in a translucent white T-shirt. Fabulous.