Free Taming the Legend by Kat Latham

achieved by putting his career first and relationships second. He’d done nothingto deserve such loyalty, such thoughtfulness.
    “It’s a good thing you have a girl’s name.”
    His laugh sounded forced even to his own ears. “I don’t know what to say.”
    “You don’t have to say anything. I know it’s a lot to take in.” She rubbed her palms against her thighs, as if she were nervous. “For years after the letters came back, I hated you. I thought for sure you were the onewho sent them. That it was your way of telling me to stay the fuck out of your life because you’d really only wanted one thing, just like the others. It hurt like you could never imagine.”
    Jesus. She’d always been blunt. It was a quality that had attracted him to her in the first place. But now her bluntness eviscerated him.
    “I tried to write to you a few years ago. I’d been in a badcar accident and decided I needed to make peace with people who’d hurt me and people I’d hurt. I wanted to tell you I’d forgiven you. But I realized I hadn’t.”
    He dug his fingertips into the corners of his eyes, but it didn’t stop the throbbing. “When did you realize I had no idea?”
    “I knew something was wrong when you saw me at the hotel bar last night. You looked pleasantly surprised—notguilty or awkward, the way I imagined you would be if you’d sent them, unless you’re a sociopath, which I don’t think you are.”
    Definitely not, judging by the sharp pain radiating out from the middle of his chest.
    “Do you have any idea who sent them back?”
    He looked at the envelope in his hand, remembering his early days playing for the first team at their old stadium. “My dad managedmy career till I was twenty-two. He took care of all my contracts, my admin like fan mail. He pushed me hard. No harder than I wanted to be pushed, but I always knew he expected great things from me. My career became his life. That other envelope—the one you showed me on the Tube—it was his handwriting. But I don’t want to believe he could do this.”
    “Do you think you’ll ask him about it?”
    “Yeah. I have to figure out how, though. He had a stroke last year.” He laid his head back against the wall.
    “I’m sorry. How bad is he?”
    He glanced at her quickly, trying to judge how truthful she was about being sorry. But he didn’t see a single trace of triumph or comeuppance, only genuine concern. “He’s surviving. You can tell from looking at him that he’s had a stroke. His rightside’s droopy and pretty useless. Speaking’s difficult for him, and so is controlling his emotions. He was always really intense, really driven, but now he has mood swings and gets angry easily. I have to figure out a way to talk to him about this without it causing problems between him and my mum.”
    “You don’t think she knows?”
    “God no. She’s always been on at me about having a lifeoutside of rugby. Starting a family and all that. No. She’ll be heartbroken. And furious with Dad, which is a problem because she’s his main carer.” Damn it. Retirement was supposed to be his time to unwind and start a fresh new life. Instead he was discovering how much his career had cost the people he cared about—Camila most of all. He could hardly bring himself to ask the question, but he neededto know. “When you were pregnant, what did you hope would happen?”
    She leaned back against the wall next to him, her shoulder brushing his. “I pictured all sorts of things. At first I saw us getting married and me moving to London so we could be a family. I saw myself hopping on a big red bus with our baby in one of those old-fashioned prams. Or walking down the street singing with our littlegirl dressed like the one in
Mary Poppins.
That was all I knew about London, you know.”
    He smiled at the image and squeezed his hand into a fist to keep from wrapping her up in his embrace. “In this fantasy, was I a pavement artist with the world’s worst