Taming the Legend (6 page)

Chapter Five

The journey to Legends stadium took nearly an hour on the Tube, since their hotel was in West London and the stadium was in the East End. On the way, Ash asked for the big envelope the letters had been returned to her in. He stared at it for several long minutes before silently handing it back, leaving Camila guessing about what the handwritten address revealed.

He didn’t utter another word until the Tube train stopped at Stratford. “This is us.”

She followed him out of the station to a stadium that seemed like it was right in the middle of the city. A grassy square in front of the entrance was dominated by a bronze statue three times her height showing a man flying through the air, holding a ball in his outstretched hand as a tackler grabbed
his ankles. As they passed it, Camila slowed down to study the sheer determination on the men’s faces. Neither of the men looked like Ash, but she’d seen photos of him playing, freezing in time that win-at-all-costs expression that warned others to step back or he would mow them down.

That expression was one of the reasons she was here. He would win for her—if he agreed to help her. She had
no doubt about that. The other reason was that she’d felt like he owed her, but now she wasn’t so sure. The story she’d believed for so long wasn’t even true.

She brushed her fingertips over the tackler’s bronze calf.

“Mila?”

She shook her head to clear the memories. “Sorry. Still sleepy from jet lag.”

He nodded toward the stadium. “The security guard’s holding the door open
for us.”

She raised her hand in apology. Ash led her through the stadium’s outer office and down corridors, pointing out the gym and other facilities along the way. She followed wordlessly but made appropriate noises here and there. Then he led her down a tunnel and onto a grassy green field, and the sight stole the breath from her lungs.

“Wow. So this is where the magic happens, huh?”
Camila stood on the sidelines and turned in a circle, taking in row after row of seats stretching toward the sky. “Imagine all those seats full of people cheering you on.”

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to.” He gestured toward the grass. “Want to walk on it?”

“Am I allowed to?”

“Only if you’re with me. Special permission.” He winked at her, and her belly went all fluttery. How
could he still have this effect on her? She was hardly sixteen anymore. How could she still get a wiggly tummy from a simple wink?

“Come on.” He took her hand and she twitched in shock, making him drop it. “Sorry. Should I not do that?”

“No, you shouldn’t.” She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. “This is…weird.”

“I know. For me too. Seeing you has brought a lot of stuff back.
A lot of
good
stuff, which kind of surprises me.”

If he thought
that
was surprising… She tried to swallow her guilt and changed the subject. “I saw you’ve won more championships than any other rugby player in England.”

He stopped and stared at her. “Wow. You been checking up on me?”

“Just a brief search.”
Whenever I’m fighting the urge to drink.
“Your Wikipedia page is very interesting.
It lists all your achievements, mentions your parents’ and sister’s names…but no mentions of any other significant relationships.”

He glanced away. “You know me, Mila.”

“Do I?”

A brief smile as he met her gaze again. “Yeah. When it comes to this you do. I’ve never really been interested in all that.”

That flutter in her belly went away, replaced by something that felt suspiciously
like sadness. “
All that
being love?”

He shrugged. “Commitment to someone else. To her goals and doing things together. It’s selfish, I know. But you don’t get where I have by compromising.”

She crossed her arms, unsure why that disappointed her. “You don’t feel like you missed out on anything?”

“I’ve been able to do things almost no one in the world ever gets to experience. I’ve
played rugby with kids in South African townships. I’ve been the guest of honor at a dinner with the Maori king. I’ve stood on a podium and held the World Cup in my hands. Besides, I’m not a woman—the batteries on my biological clock will never die out. I’m thirty-six and quite a catch, from what I hear.”

“Yeah, because women love men who can’t compromise. Especially when those men see it
as one of their strong points.”

“All right, you got me there. I’m fairly sure I’ve got other assets women find attractive, though.”

That was for damn sure. “I remember your assets well. You’ll do fine.”

He smiled. “What about you? Any significant relationships?”

“A couple long-term boyfriends, but no one worth dwelling on.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She shrugged.
“I may not have dined with Maori royalty, but I’ve played soccer with inner-city kids who’d never played on grass before. I think you’re right, though. I don’t usually live in the past, but seeing you has brought back so many memories I don’t know what to do with them all.” She turned in a circle, staring at the stands until she got dizzy. “How are you going to cope without the weekly adulation?”

He snorted. “Or the weekly grilling? Weekly speculation that at thirty-six I’m on the verge of decrepit?”

She forced herself to smile, but she noticed how he’d evaded her question. This life, this legendary life, was as much a part of Ash as his bones were. It was the life he’d chosen over her. He
wouldn’t
cope without it.

He reached up and brushed her cheek with his thumb. The touch
was so light, so fleeting, yet she fought to keep her eyelids from fluttering shut. The man was a drug, one she’d never gotten over. “For weeks after I got back from Barcelona, I cuddled a pillow and pretended it was you.”

Shock rippled through her. She tried to deflect it. “You didn’t do anything rude to that poor pillow, did you? Because that’s not a sexy image.”

He chuckled. “No.
Promise. She wasn’t nearly as fun as you.”

“Did it make you sad when my letters didn’t show up?”

He looked surprised by the question. “I’m not sure I could label my feelings like that. I was… I don’t know. Hurt—my pride, mostly. I thought I must’ve misjudged our whole relationship.”

“For someone who can’t label his feelings, you’re doing a pretty good job.”

He shrugged. “I
can’t say I was in love with you, Mila. The time was too short and we were too young. But I cared for you. A lot. And it sucked when I thought you didn’t feel the same.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “I think we need to skip straight to the third letter.”

“Is it a naughty one?” he teased.

“No. It’s…it’s something you really need to sit down for.”

All traces of amusement fled
from his face. Silent, he led her toward the sidelines and pulled down a couple of seats from the wall. This was probably where the team sat when they weren’t playing. He sat with his knees widespread, his elbows braced on his thighs. With shaky hands, Camila drew the letter out of her pocket, smoothed it over her leg and handed it to him.

He read the addresses on the front. “You were in
L.A.?”

“Yeah. I moved there the Christmas after Barcelona.”

“To live with your dad?”

“My mom and brother came too. It was a…temporary relocation. Only about six months. Then Mom and Gabriel and I went back to Marietta.”

“You sent this to our old stadium.”

“Sending them to your house never got me a response, so I thought I’d try to get you at work.”

“But this one came
back unopened with the rest?”

Why was he delaying? The wait made her want to throw up. Her jaw went all shivery, the way it did during the coldest Montana winter days. Nerves. Adrenaline. Fear.

“Mila? Do you want to just tell me what it says?”

She clamped her lips shut, knowing she wouldn’t be able to speak even if she wanted to. She gave him a jerky shake of her head.

He ran
his finger under the seal and reached inside. No letter. Just a photograph of her lying in a hospital bed, pale as the walls behind her, holding their baby against her chest. No salutation on the back. Just a date, a birth weight and the words “It’s a girl.”

The photo didn’t tremble in his hands. They stayed steadier than hers. His head tipped back, and he stared out over the expanse of green
grass.

“You had a baby.” His voice was hushed. She couldn’t get any clues from it.

“Mmm-hmm.” Her throat ached. She tried to swallow, but a choked sob burst out instead. Then another. She covered her face, shame and guilt pouring out of her. Making her feel dirty and sick. A failure and a fuckup.

“Mila.” His arms wrapped around her. The sound of paper crumpled behind her head as
he pulled her against his chest. She hugged herself, keeping herself apart from the man she’d hidden from all these years.

“Come on, sweetness. It’s okay.”

His tender words broke her, and so did his teenage nickname for her. She buried her face in his neck and let go of years of loss. He stroked her back. Whispered comfort in her ear. He held her until she could breathe again, but the
tears didn’t stop flowing. They wouldn’t. She’d held too many inside for too long.

When she finally took a deep breath, he tipped her head back and gently swiped the tears from her cheeks. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know. A—A couple adopted her. They came and got her when she was one day old. I never even got to meet—” Her voice shattered.

“It’s okay.” He pressed his lips to her temple.

“I kept thinking you would come to us. I wrote you so many goddamn letters, and you never replied. You never—”

“I would’ve. I promise I would’ve.”

Her lips trembled, coated by salty tears. She rubbed her aching eyes, remembering too late that she’d put makeup on this morning. Brown and black gunk smeared her fingers, but she couldn’t be moved to care.

“Please tell me what happened.”

“I got pregnant.”

“Yeah, I figured that part out. Tell me when
you
figured it out.”

“A-about two weeks after you left. My period was due the day I flew home from Barcelona. When I got home, I didn’t feel right. I thought it was PMS or just, love. God, I was stupid. After a few more days, I decided I must’ve picked up a bug or something on the plane.” She pressed her fingertips around
the bridge of her nose, trying to get her head to stop pounding. “Deep down, I suspected. But it took me two more weeks to take a test.”

“I thought you were on the pill.”

“I was. My mom got me the prescription before I went to Spain. And I took it every day, but no one told me I had to take it at the same fucking time every day. I just took it whenever I remembered to. My mom said she’d
thought it was obvious, but God, what did I know? I was
sixteen.
” She swallowed air, still so upset that one little piece of missed information had led to such heartbreak. She’d naively promised Ash she was safe, thinking that because she’d used a condom with everyone else and was on the pill she’d be okay.

She’d been anything but.

He held the small picture with both hands, staring down
at it with so little expression he might as well have been a statue. “Jesus. You must’ve been terrified.”

She wiped away fresh tears and finally saw him, concerned but calm, and disbelief rippled through her. “Why aren’t you angry? Or hurt? Or crying? Why are you just sitting there like this was something that happened to me alone? You have a child out there somewhere, Ash. You could’ve been
a dad.”

* * *

I could’ve been a dad.

Tension pounded in Ash’s head as he stared down at the photo of Mila and the baby.
Their
baby.

Mila looked traumatized. Young. Hardly more than a child herself. Sixteen looked a hell of a lot different from thirty-six than it had from eighteen.

He couldn’t see much of their baby. Mila lay flat on her back with the baby lying curled
against her chest, swaddled in a yellow blanket that blocked half her face from the camera. Black hair was plastered against her forehead, and her little eyes were squeezed tightly shut. A big red splotch colored one of her cheeks. He got the same splotchy face when he exerted himself. But that was where the familiarity ended.

All he felt was…what? What did he feel? Why wasn’t he angry or
upset? “This all feels surreal. Everything. From you showing up to finding out… I don’t think I’ve wrapped my head around it. Right now it feels like it
was
something that only happened to you.”

He needed
to touch her, but she’d pulled away and held herself so rigidly that he feared she would shatter. Seeing her so overwhelmed affected him far more than the news itself. Maybe it would sink
in and he would be hit with how much he’d lost. But right now?

Right now weariness settled in his bones—weariness and concern for Camila as fat black tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

“Do you know her name?” he asked.

“Her adoptive parents got to name her. But I asked them to give her the middle name Ashley, and the social worker told me they agreed.”

Shock ripped through
him, and his whole body flinched as if he’d been hit. “You thought I’d abandoned you, and you still asked them to name her after me?”

“Yeah.” Her voice broke. “I thought… I got to have nine months of connecting with her. Nine months of growing her and talking to her. I tried to transmit all the love I could to her and hoped she’d carry it with her throughout her life. I wanted her to have
some sort of connection to you too, even if I hated you at the time. I thought it would be better for her.”

Now,
now
Ash’s eyes burned. He glanced away, staring at the stands on the opposite side of the pitch through blurry vision. Humility churned inside him. He felt sick at having just bragged to her of all he’d achieved by putting his career first and relationships second. He’d done nothing
to 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.”