Unwrapping Her Perfect Match

Sneak Peek at Playing It Close (London Legends #2)

Dear Reader,

The second book of my London Legends rugby series features Tess Chambers (the older, more petite sister of Gwen Chambers from Unwrapping Her Perfect Match) and team captain Liam Callaghan, one of the world's sexiest men.

Tess is a woman who has made big mistakes. HUGE mistakes. And they resulted in her being at the center of a major investigation. Her photo has been all over the London newspapers for months, so she decides to escape to a lodge on a lagoon in Venezuela. That's where she meets Liam Callaghan, a man who's trying to escape his millions of fans so he can recover from the shock of his mother's sudden death.

Except the first person he meets is Tess...a huge rugby fan. Will their one-night-stand turn into something more? Find out in 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.

She shoved her feet into her sandals, crossed her arms over her chest and rushed through the hotel's beach entrance. Please let everyone be in bed.

No such luck. As she entered the lobby, the receptionist was handing a man his room key. Bugger. She'd have to walk right past them to get to the stairs. Fortunately the lift was right here. She ducked her head and pressed the up arrow, muttering, "Come on, come on."