Taming the Legend (3 page)

She lifted her gaze to meet his. Jesus, her
eyes. A clear green that knocked the breath right out of him—just as it had when he’d seen her on the beach in Barcelona half his life ago.

“Fucking hell. Camila?” Camila Morales. Her name had lived in his memory all this time. Ca-
mee
-la. A name common in England, but with a twist of the tongue it became foreign, intriguing, beautiful, arousing. Everything this woman was.

Her eyes flickered
with surprise. “Y-you remember me?”

Remember? He’d lost his virginity to her.

No, not lost it. He’d thrust it at her with an eagerness that would’ve been embarrassing if he hadn’t already given her a leg-trembling orgasm—he hoped.

“Of course I remember you.” He held out his hand, palm-up in the empty space between them. Giving it a hesitant glance, she placed her hand in his and
he helped her stand. She was barely on her feet before he wrapped his arms around her. His whole body sighed with relief at the feel of her pressed against him again.

At least, pressed against him for about two seconds. Then she shoved him back and punched him square in the jaw, knocking his pride and his equilibrium straight out of him as he toppled over and landed on his arse.

Chapter Two

Satisfaction—glorious, glorious satisfaction—rippled through Camila as she glared down at the man lying sprawled on the floor, gingerly working his jaw from side to side and grimacing. But that satisfaction was swiftly dampened by a wave of reality.

You freaking idiot. You just belted the one man who can save you.

In one fell swoop—literally—she’d completely
blown the fifteen hundred dollars she’d taken from her savings account to come here and beg him for help.

The whole room had gone silent, everyone staring at her and Ash. Who was on the freaking
floor,
laid out by one solid punch.

She would have to thank her brother Gabriel for showing her how to do that. If only he’d taught her that her knuckles would hurt like hell afterward.

“Camila. What the fuck?”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to do that.” Hadn’t meant to, but she
had
dreamed about it for years. She stuck her hand out to help him up, but he eyed it warily.

“If I take it, will you use the other fist to knock me down again?”

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak without cursing a blue streak—at him, at herself, at everything and everyone. He gently
took her hand but, instead of clasping it and pulling himself up, he turned it over. “You split the skin of your knuckles. Hey, Cally! Get some ice and a cloth from the bar!”

Damn it, don’t be nice.
She was torn between wishing she could go back in time five minutes and keep her cool the way she’d convinced herself she would, or kicking him in the nuts. If he was nice to her, she wouldn’t
have an excuse for the nut-kicking.

And that would be some truly poetic justice. She would kick him in the nuts every two minutes for fifteen hours. Then she would rip his heart out. “My knuckles are fine.”

“So’s my jaw, thanks for asking.” He pushed himself up and stood in front of her, so much broader than he’d been all those years ago. Almost exactly eighteen years since they’d met.
And not long after that, he’d destroyed her.

A guy with dark blond hair and just about the handsomest face she’d ever seen approached with a glass of ice and a tea towel. “You okay, mate?”

“Yeah, fine. Never drinking again, though. Fucking hell, a little tap and I was down.”

“It was more than a tap. I hit you hard.”
Shut up shut up shut up.

Both men gave her a funny look before
one corner of Ash’s mouth kicked up. “You’re right. You hit me really hard. Care to tell me why?”

What the—?
A weird shiver traipsed down Camila’s spine. “Are you sure you remember me?”

“You know each other?” asked the blond guy, presumably Cally.

“Not for a long time,” Ash answered.

That was one way to put it, but Camila had another way. “I never knew you. You were a liar
and an asshole. You used me, tricked me and abandoned me, you scum-sucking son of a monkey whore.”

A collective gasp pierced the silence. Ash’s teasing half smile froze into a grotesque mask. Flickering candlelight from the closest table made him look evil. Dangerous.

You’re taunting a man who’s made a career of tackling guys twice his size so hard they’re unconscious before they hit
the ground. You. Are. A. Freaking. Idiot.

“Come with me.” Ash had never let go of her bruised hand, and, after grabbing the ice and tea towel from his friend, tugged her through the silent crowd toward the door.

“No.” She dug her heels in, but one of the cheap-bastard heels snapped right off and she stumbled. Ash’s arm whipped out and helped her stay upright, but she shoved his hands
away. “Don’t pretend to be nice to me. I won’t start liking you again, no matter what you do.”

“Baby, believe it or not I stopped being interested in you liking me about eighteen years ago.”

“Yeah, you made that perfectly clear,” she muttered, and he cursed.

“I’m not having this conversation with an audience. Come with me now or I’ll call the cops to haul your crazy arse away. Your
choice.”

Camila reluctantly gave in. Not only was a night in a London jail low on her list of touristy things to do while she was here, but she hadn’t flown halfway across the world to assault Ash, despite how satisfying it ended up being.

No, she was here to beg him for the biggest favor of her life. And to promise him just about anything in exchange.

They’d nearly made it to the
door when Cally came trotting up to them. “Mate, wait.”

“What?” Ash snapped.

“We chipped in and got you something else.”

“Now’s not the time.”

“Actually, it is, because if you try to get into your old room you’ll find your key card doesn’t work.” Cally produced a plastic card from his suit pocket. “You’ve got two nights in the penthouse suite. To go with the—you know—other
things we gave you earlier.”

Ash took the card from him. “Cheers. That’s thoughtful.”

Cally clapped him on the shoulder. “You all right?”

“Yeah, that punch was nothing.”

“Actually, mate, I was talking to the lady. I know you’re fine, but she seems reluctant to go with you.”

Ash threw her an ironic look. “Camila, would you like to come up to the penthouse suite so we can
have a little chat?”

“Not really, but I’m going to anyway.”

One of Cally’s brows arched. “That doesn’t really reassure me.”

“Then how about this? I came all the way here from California so I could talk to him. Getting close enough to sweep the floor with him was an added bonus.”

Ash rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake.” Then to Cally: “Satisfied?”

Cally gave a laugh that
held very little amusement. “I feel like I just saw Superman crash into a bird and tumble out of the sky. Have you got an evil twin somewhere?”

“No. See you at breakfast.”

“Your room comes with—”

“See you at breakfast.” Ash stalked out the door and turned down the hall toward the bank of elevators.

Feeling like she needed to say something to the man who would’ve been her protector
if she’d needed it, Camila said, “I won’t see you at breakfast.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Cally murmured.

Camila followed Ash and stepped inside the elevator. Ash used his key card to select the top floor. He didn’t seem eager to look at her. Instead he stood gripping the glass of ice as if he were trying not to hurl it against the wall, his hard jaw gritted tightly shut, his shoulders
so stiff he could’ve been chiseled from marble.

But he was a man, and one she’d once been intimate with. More than once. A few dozen times, if memory served.

And sadly, memory was serving very well right now. In fact, she was inundated with images she didn’t want, featuring a man she wished she’d never met. The hesitant sweep of his hand over her bare thigh to play at the frayed edge
of her hand-me-down shorts. The tease of his tongue against hers. The soft rasp of his cheek—no longer peach fuzz but not quite bristle yet either—on her inner thighs as he licked her to paradise.

Oh, God. She was in such deep shit.

The elevator opened onto a private corridor. Ash was just about to slide his key card into the lock when the door swung open to reveal a somber man in a
dark suit. Ash started, taking a step back right onto Camila’s bare toes.

“Ow!”

He stepped away immediately, and she grabbed her foot, using the wall for balance.

“You okay?” His face held actual, genuine concern, and she gave him a point for being a better person than she was—at least, when it came to tonight.

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Did I break them?”

She hesitantly wiggled
them. “I don’t think so.”

“Pity.” He turned back to the man in the doorway, who’d lost some of his composure. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. Obviously my mates are taking the piss—”

“Mr. Trenton, please, allow me to apologize. I really shouldn’t have made my presence known in such an intrusive manner. Ms. Morales, are you certain you’re uninjured? Perhaps you should come in and sit
down. I see Mr. Trenton already has ice. That’s very fortunate. I can get you some more, though. Please do come in and sit down.”

She and Ash blinked at the stranger, and then at each other. “Your room comes with a roommate?” Camila asked.

The man did a commendable job of not smiling. “Butler service, madam. I’m Mr. Frye.”

“Oh. Cool. Wait—how did you know my name?”

“We make
a point of quickly discovering the names of anyone who assaults our guests.”

Her gut twisted with queasiness.
Assault.
What a horrible word for…punching a man in the face.
Oh, damn.
“Ash—”

“Come on. Let’s take a look at your injuries.” Both men stepped aside for her to enter the room first, almost comical in their politeness, and she felt like she’d stepped back into the nineteenth century.

Make that eighteenth. Holy hell but the penthouse suite was
exquisite,
filled with antique furniture sumptuously upholstered in cream, gold and mint fabrics. A large mahogany table and eight delicately carved chairs stood on a platform one step higher than most of the room. A flat-screen TV dominated one end of the room, where the sofas and chairs looked built for comfort but were no less
elegant than the rest of the furniture. Camila had left a camp that didn’t have reliable hot water and stepped into the pages of an exotic billionaire romance novel. “Holy shhh…ugar.”

Her toes throbbed as she hobbled over to the comfy sitting area, but she could tell they weren’t broken. As Ash told the butler they’d rather be alone, she lowered herself onto the sofa and kicked off her shoe.
The door clicked closed, and Ash sat next to her, close enough her cushion bounced a little, and she suppressed an uncomfortable shiver at his nearness.

A shiver of revulsion. Definitely revulsion. Definitely.

“Can you wriggle them?”

She did.

“Give me your punching hand.”

“I won’t hit you again. I promise. I’m really sorry I did it at all.” Genuinely sorry now, not just
because she’d blown her chance to convince him to move to California but because she’d never hit anyone in her life, other than a couple of times in self-defense. She wouldn’t have thought she was capable of it and was horrified to discover she was not only capable but had gloried in it.

“Mila.”

“Yeah?” she said, momentarily thrown off by his use of her nickname and the way it sounded
in his deep, posh English inflection.
Mee-lah.

“I don’t know why you hit me. I don’t know why you’re here. All I know is two things. One, you punched me hard, but I’m fairly well used to being punched by stronger people than you. That’s not an insult to your punch. It certainly had a lot of power behind it. Just saying it’s not the worst punch I’ve ever received. It’s not even the worst punch
I’ve received today.”

He picked up her hand and laid it on his thigh, then wrapped some of the ice cubes in the tea towel and placed them softly over her broken skin. Despite his gentleness, she flinched at the contact, her hand tightening on his leg even as her belly went warm and liquid. She closed her eyes in embarrassment. What a horrible, horrible thing to feel this way about him, after
the way he’d treated her.

And the way you treated him.

She opened her eyes and forced herself to meet his gaze. “It doesn’t matter if other people have hit you harder. I shouldn’t have hit you at all.”

He tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Here’s the second thing I know. We can talk about whatever brought you here, have a normal conversation between two adults who promise not to
punch each other—”

She smiled a little.

“But if you
ever
try to insult me in a way that dishonors my mother—whether explicitly or implied—then the conversation ends immediately and you will need to leave. Understand?”

…son of a monkey whore.
Yeah, she understood. As shameful memories burned her cheeks and her heart, she struggled to swallow the sickness clawing its way up her throat.
She understood better than he could ever know.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Forgiven. Now, ready to tell me why you’re here?”

The chill of the ice cubes finally worked its way through the towel and hit her broken skin, shimmering up her arm and making her shiver. Or maybe that was the nerves. She’d practiced this moment over and over in her mind, but nothing had prepared her for
the reality of it. Just like so many of the momentous occasions in her life.

He sat patiently, quietly watching what must’ve been an intriguing display of conflicting emotions across her face.

“Um…”

He sighed. “Well? How much?”

“How much what?”

He rolled his eyes. “I doubt you’re here for an autograph. I assume you’re here about money. How much do you want?”

“Half
a million.”

His eyes bugged. “Fuck!
Pounds?
”

“No. Dollars.”

“Well, that’s slightly more doable. But I think you’ve got me mixed up with a professional footballer, sweetheart. I don’t make the kind of money that means I can just piss away half a million. Not even close. Not even for my first fuck.”

Agony lanced through her, making her breath hitch. So much for trying to hide
how painful this conversation was. Hearing him put it so bluntly—and at a time when she had few options other than to humble herself and ask for his help—was even worse than she’d imagined.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Did a little searching online. Wasn’t too difficult.”

“Couldn’t have been too easy, either. We don’t exactly advertise—”

“But one of your groupies did.”

His brows shot up, and she rushed to explain. “Not
your
groupies. The team’s groupies. I think she mentioned something about a shag with Shaggy?”

Ash cringed. “Yeah. Sounds about right. So why did you come here?”

Her throat constricted as she tried to swallow. “To ask—”

“No, why did you
come
here? If you found out what hotel I’m staying in, you could’ve found out how to get
in touch with me by email. Hell, my Twitter profile has my agent’s contact details on it. But instead of saving us both a whole lot of humiliation, you’ve come to ask me in person. Want to know what I think?”