Gwen Phillips held her breath as around her the sound of the crowd built. Less than a minute left on the clock, and just a few too many metres between the Welsh team and the try line. But they had the ball in hand. If they could just break through the Irish defence, the game could be theirs.

Not just the game. The tournament. The championship.

Four points in it, that was all. One try, and it would all be over.

Then suddenly Williams broke free, sidestepped the defender lunging for him, and he was through and launching himself towards the ground, the ball just millimetres over the line, grasped tight in his arms.

They’d done it. They’d bloody well done it.

Around her, the stadium erupted with noise. Cheers and stamping and—of course—singing. Joy and jubilation rang through the air, along with strains of ‘Bread of Heaven’.

‘Feed me till I want no more!’ the crowd sang. And what more was there? For Welsh rugby, right now, this was the dream. And even Gwen, with her mixed feelings on the sport, couldn’t help but grin, caught up in the moment.

Beside her, Joe grabbed her and lifted her in a tight hug, whooping in her ear, before turning to do the same to the stranger on his other side.

But as her feet touched the ground again, all Gwen could think was, George would have loved this. Her smile slipped away.

As if the thought had made the memory of her late husband real, Gwen looked down at the players on the pitch, slapping backs and hugging, and saw, impossibly, a familiar dark head atop memorable broad and muscled shoulders. He wasn’t in the team strip but wearing one of the team hoodies instead. He hadn’t been playing, he’d been sitting on the side, behind the subs benches, watching, she guessed. That was why she hadn’t spotted him before.

George.

It couldn’t be, of course. George had been dead for almost two years now. She’d seen his body, identified it after that terrible call from the police. Buried it. Cried with his parents. Explained to their daughter that Daddy wasn’t coming home. That Daddy had been a hero, stopping a knife fight in a pub.

Told Evie anything but the truth, to keep her faith in and love for her father alive. To keep the memory of George one that his friends and family treasured.

They wouldn’t, if they knew the truth.

Gwen shook her head to clear the memories, but she couldn’t look away from the figure on the pitch.

Then the man looked up, a beaming smile across his face as he reached out to hug another player, and she realised, the truth hitting her hard in the chest.

Not George.

Ryan.

Ryan Phillips. Her brother-in-law, two years younger and with a reputation for being five times wilder than the respected, beloved captain of the Welsh team, George. The man who had actually introduced her to her husband, been best man at their wedding, a doting uncle to Evie for the first year, at least. And, until this moment, commonly understood to be living and playing rugby in France, ever since his shocking departure three years ago.

When did he come home? And why?

Would she find out? Or would his return remain as mysterious as his reasons for leaving in the first place?

‘What is it?’ Joe had apparently finished hugging every spectator he could reach—which, with his six-foot-plus ex-rugby player’s build, was quite some way—and noticed her distraction. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Who do you see down there on the field?’ she asked. ‘The one in the grey hoodie, hugging Dewi right now?’

Joe leaned past her to get a good view, then swore. ‘No wonder you’re shaken up. For a moment there even I thought it was— Wait, is that Ryan?’

‘Looks like it.’ Gwen swallowed, and made herself look away. ‘You didn’t know he was back in the country either, then?’ She’d hoped not; if he’d known and not told her, she’d have been properly miffed.

Joe shook his head. ‘No idea. But if he’s down there with the team, I’d place money he’s planning on coming back to play.’

‘Which means a new team, here in Wales.’ Welsh rugby rules meant that, because he hadn’t played enough games for the national team before he’d transferred to play club rugby in France, Ryan had been ineligible to play for Wales for nearly three years now. But if he’d transferred back to a Welsh club…

‘They kept that bloody quiet,’ Joe said. ‘Well. I promised the boys I’d stop by the hotel later, stand them a pint. I’ll find out what’s going on for you.’

But the possibilities were already swirling around Gwen’s brain.

George’s death had been a tragedy, everyone agreed with that. His accident, six months before he’d died, had been a shocking loss to the world of rugby, too. Cut off in his prime, so to speak. Even now, commentators still speculated on what the team might be if he hadn’t been forced to give up the game so young—although maybe less so after this tournament.

That Ryan had left the country just two games before the one that had injured George had been a talking point too. Could George’s little brother have protected him if he’d been playing there at his side, as normal? They’d always had a strange synchronicity on the pitch, an uncanny ability to know where the other was at all times. It had led to Ryan supporting George to try after try, either by passing him the ball at the critical moment, or distracting defenders and keeping them away.

No one had quite believed it when Ryan had declared he was leaving Wales. George least of all. Gwen remembered the yelling, the slammed doors as Ryan had walked out for the last time. And as she’d heard the names George had called his brother, she’d wondered, for the first time, if maybe Ryan hadn’t got the right idea.

Maybe it was time to get out.

Everyone in Wales remembered George as a hero, especially his family. Well, everyone except Gwen, and Joe. But they weren’t telling.

Evie knew her father was a hero, and that was what mattered most. Gwen would do anything to keep that illusion alive. The little girl had lost so much already, the last thing Gwen wanted was for her to have to face the truth about her father before she was old enough to understand it.

George had been a good man, and a hero of Welsh rugby, and that was how he should be remembered. Not as the man he’d become, especially after his accident.

It was bad enough that Gwen had to remember that man, rather than the loving, supportive one she’d married. People changed, she knew that. But legacies didn’t.

And it was to that end that Gwen had set up the George Phillips Trust, helping those who’d suffered life-changing brain injuries, in sport or otherwise. George had always had a healthy life insurance policy, and the pay-out had meant that money was at least one thing Gwen didn’t need to worry about. Building up the trust—fundraising, learning from experts, trying to educate the public—that felt worthwhile. Like she was making a difference.

It was the legacy she wished George had really left for her and for Evie. And since he couldn’t, she would.

But the George Phillips Trust was one more charitable cause in a world full of those in need. Getting the attention she required to raise the money that was so desperately needed was almost impossible.

Unless she had a platform. A kind of celebrity that brought its own attention, wherever it went.

Already she could hear those in the stalls around her murmuring, wondering, as they noticed the new figure on the field—the way she had. Ryan Phillips was a name too—maybe not as big as his brother’s, and perhaps fading a little in the collective memory before now, but still a name. And this unexpected return to his home country would be bound to raise his star a few notches.

Ryan had always been the tabloid favourite anyway. With their stunning looks, the Phillips brothers had been photogenic, they’d been friends with celebs, and they had been at the top of their game. And while George had settled down with her, had Evie, and given up the headline-inducing lifestyle, Ryan had done the opposite. It was a rare weekend that didn’t yield a photo of him drunk with some teammates, falling out of cars, or with a soap star or pop singer hanging off his arm. His parents had despaired of him, of the embarrassment and shame he brought with every new headline.

‘Why can’t you be more like your brother?’ his mother had used to ask, shoving the newspapers into the recycling bin.

Ryan had always just shrugged, smiled and gone his own way again.

He had been the wild-child brother to George’s golden boy. That was just who they’d been.

But now…. Now that wild-child reputation could be good for something at last. People knew his name, liked his face. They’d pay attention to what he said.

Ryan could get her the publicity she needed to put the trust on the map. To cement George’s legacy. To enable her to help others, so maybe they didn’t have to go through what she had. What George had. What Evie had.

She just had to persuade him to help and not hinder the operation.

Which probably would have been easier if she’d spoken to him since the funeral. And if he hadn’t fallen out with every other member of his family in such dramatic style the day they’d buried George.

But just because it might be hard it didn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying.

Straightening her shoulders, she turned to Joe. Two long years she’d been away from the rugby scene. But apparently it was time to head back in.

However scary that sounded.

‘You’re going to the team hotel?’ she asked. ‘Great. Then I’ll go with you.’

 *

‘That was incredible, mate!’ Ryan wrapped his arms around Dewi and smacked a kiss to the side of his head. ‘The championship-winning try. I knew you had it in you!’

Back when Ryan had still played for Wales, his last season there in fact, Dewi had been the new boy on the team—barely nineteen and had hardly played for a club before, let alone his country. He’d been so wet behind the ears Ryan had taken him under his wing, just to make sure he survived all the training-camp pranks the rest of the team liked to pull.

And now he was the tournament-winning try-scorer.

Ryan ignored the part of his heart that ached at not being out there on that field today, the way it always did when Wales played, especially at home at the stadium in Cardiff.

Maybe, this time next year, he’d be out on the pitch with them. Sooner, he hoped.

He was ready for it, he knew that. It was why he’d decided to come back. Why he’d asked his agent to put feelers out for any offers from a Welsh club, however much of a drop in salary he had to take.

People thought he’d sold out to play in France for the money. They couldn’t have been more wrong, but at least the cash meant he could do whatever he wanted now, regardless of the pay.

It had taken him three years, but he was ready to be back in Wales again, playing for his country.

Now he just had to persuade them to give him the chance.

‘You coming back to the hotel?’ Dewi asked. ‘Celebrate with us?’

‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ Ryan said, with an easy smile. They’d all be so far into their cups within half an hour they’d never notice his switch to non-alcoholic beer, rather than the pints of bitter he used to prefer. It wasn’t the not drinking he minded, just the questions that always went with it. He didn’t want to start explaining himself, or who he’d decided to be now, until he’d settled in a little more.

He wasn’t the Ryan Phillips they all remembered, and that was a good thing, he hoped.

The hotel was nearby, so Ryan left the team showering and changing, doing interviews and signing daffodil hats and dragon banners. He’d head over, get changed, and meet them all in the bar.

But first there was one last person he needed to congratulate, still out in the stadium.

‘That was one hell of a game, boss,’ he said, as he caught up with Freddie Yates, the Welsh coach.

Freddie turned, his weathered face cracking into something that almost resembled a smile. ‘Wasn’t bad, was it?’

‘That must make it, what? Your fourth championship title?’ It was Freddie’s third in charge of the team, Ryan knew, but a little flattery never went amiss in situations like this.

‘Third, as you well remember,’ Freddie replied. ‘Who knows? You play your cards right this season, you could be on the pitch for the fourth, next spring.’

‘That’s what I came back for,’ Ryan said, with an easy shrug, even as the thrill of the possibility ran through him.

His words were true, even if it wasn’t the full story. The lure of playing for his country had never gone away, despite his choice to forfeit it for a time. He knew that his teammates had never understood his decision—they knew he wasn’t in it for the money, even if the rest of the country didn’t. But that just made it more inexplicable for them. What could Ryan possibly get in France that he couldn’t have here in Wales? And why would he give up on them, their team, his own brother, and playing together?

Ryan hadn’t even bothered to try and explain. They couldn’t ever understand. Because they’d never had the perfect George Phillips as an older brother.

When they’d been younger, he’d thought the two of them were their own team. Then as George had got older, stronger, better, all Ryan had wanted was to follow the trail he’d blazed. And he had. Same training regime, same youth team, same agent, same opportunities—although he’d been sure to work for a different position on the team, so he’d never be in direct competition with his big brother.

Even growing up, Ryan had known that George was the star, the one his mother had bragged about to anyone who would listen. But back then he’d believed that if he did the same, she’d feel the same way about him.

Except that had never happened. Even when he’d started playing professionally, got selected for the Welsh team for the first time…she had been more concerned with how many tries George had scored, or whether he’d get to be captain.

And Ryan had known, for sure, that he’d never live up to George’s reputation. So he’d decided to stop even trying. He’d chosen instead to be the opposite of George’s shining example.

The wild brother, the troublemaker. The disappointment.

At least his mother acknowledged his existence when she complained about him being photographed falling out of another taxi, drunk, with some soap star. And, really, why bother trying when he was never going to be enough for anyone?

Eventually, though, he’d had to admit that even that didn’t fill the hole inside him. He’d stopped trying to be George, only to switch to playing the anti-George instead. His whole world had still centred around his golden-boy brother. The realisation, too late to change anything, he’d thought, had burned through him, and filled him with resentment.

Until one morning he’d woken up, hung-over and late for training, with a woman he hadn’t even recognised in his bed, and something inside him had just said—

Enough.

He’d never be able to find his own path, decide who he really wanted to be, reach his full potential, while he was living in his brother’s looming six-foot-four shadow. In Wales, he’d always be the younger, lesser Phillips brother. They couldn’t see him any other way.

In France, they might let him play as himself. Live as himself.

He’d called his agent that evening and asked him to find him another team, on the Continent. And he’d taken the first offer he’d received.

It wasn’t perfect, and it had cost him a lot—cost him his family in the end. If he’d seen that coming, he might have thought again. If he’d known that in just two games’ time George would be injured. That in a year and a half he’d be dead…would he still have gone? Ryan didn’t know.

But if he hadn’t, then he wouldn’t be the person he was now. And today’s Ryan Phillips was a hell of a lot more comfortable in his own skin than he’d ever been before.

That was what had made him feel able to come home, at last.

This time, he’d woken up alone, in his house in France, well rested and early for training. He was in peak physical condition, playing the rugby of his life…but he’d known, suddenly, he was in the wrong place.

It was time. Time to put the past behind him. George’s accident, his death, the awful row with his parents, Gwen…everything.

He wanted his family back. His country back. His future back.

And he intended to get them.

Playing rugby in Wales again was only the start. Playing for Wales would be a big step.

But rugby wasn’t what had brought him home.

He’d come home for his family. To show them the man he’d been meant to be all along.

It was just that the rugby was the easier part to start with.

Freddie clapped a hand against his shoulder, still hard enough to smart even now, when it had to be thirty years since the coach had played a rugby match.

‘You keep your nose clean, lad, and maybe you’ll get out there sooner than I think.’ There was a seriousness in Freddie’s gaze that calmed Ryan’s excitement at the words. ‘It’s time to put your past in the past, son.’

‘That’s the other thing I came back for.’ Ryan held the older man’s gaze, no hint of flippancy in his voice.

Freddie studied him for a moment, then nodded. ‘Good.’ Then he smiled; a real, honest, actual smile. Something Ryan was certain he’d never seen on the coach’s face before. ‘Very good.’

Ryan’s chest felt lighter instantly. As if one small segment of the weight he’d been carrying around on his heart had lifted.

He was doing the right thing. He could come home. He could move on, past everything that had happened before. One person believed in him, and that made the world of difference, it seemed.

Put the past in the past.

For the first time in three years that actually felt possible.

He looked up, as another cheer went around the stadium, and he saw that the screens were replaying the moment Wales had won, in reactions from fans around the stadium this time, instead of what had happened on the pitch. Apparently one camera had managed to zoom in on the legendary Joe Evans—the Welsh scrum half who’d captained the team for years and had retired the season before Ryan had got called up to play for Wales. He’d been a friend of George’s, though, when they’d played together.

He smiled at the sight of him on the screen, larger than life, arms raised in a cheer, mouth wide and yelling, jumping to his feet as the magic happened.

But his smile slipped away as her realised who was sitting next to him, fists against her mouth, watching as if she didn’t believe it could be true.

Gwen.

The other reason he’d left Wales, although he’d never admitted that. Not even to himself, until he’d been hundreds of miles away, and a long way further down his path to understanding why he did the things he did.

His brother’s wife. The one woman in the world he couldn’t, shouldn’t want.

And the only one he desperately did.

Back then, he’d assumed it was just another case of wanting what came so easily to George. He’d had the fame, the glory, the adoration of a nation, the willpower and self-control not to screw it all up, like Ryan tended to. His suspension after starting a brawl with the opposing team was still a low point in Ryan’s personal and professional history. As was the red card in the World Cup quarter-finals, for that matter.

But being Wales’s golden boy hadn’t been enough for George. He’d had to marry the most perfect woman, too. The ideal rugby player’s wife—supportive, loving, beautiful, intelligent, and she genuinely loved the game. Any bloke would be a little envious, right?

And the worst part was that Ryan had met her first. He’d been the one who’d spotted her with her friends in the bar. The one who’d bought her a drink and tried to chat her up. The one who might have succeeded if he hadn’t been lured away by the promise of shots with the guys, promising Gwen he’d be right back…

Of course, by the time he’d returned, George had already swooped in, his usual, charming self. More charming, more handsome, and definitely more sober than Ryan. Was it any surprise that George had been the one to get her number at the end of the night?

At the time, Ryan had rolled his eyes and moved on. It had only been once he’d got to know Gwen properly, spent time with her as family, that he’d realised how much more he’d given up that night.

Realised how much more she meant to him, as well as George.

He’d been right to leave, he’d never doubted that, even when the rest of the nation had.

But now he was back…he wondered if there was one piece of his past, of the person he’d been, that he’d never be able to put behind him, however hard he tried. A part that would always call to him, no matter where he went or what he did.

Gwen.

*

‘Are you really sure you want to do this?’ Joe asked, as he handed her the gin and tonic he’d ordered for her. ‘I can find out what’s going on. You don’t have to be here.’

The security around the exclusive Cardiff hotel where the Welsh team was staying had been hefty, but Joe’s famous face had got them in with no trouble. Now they were sitting in the fancy bar, waiting for the boys to show up in their suits and ties, all the mud washed away, even if the bruises remained.

Any minute now, Gwen told herself as she watched the door. Any minute now they’d all flood in.

‘It will be nice to see them all again.’ It wasn’t really a lie; a lot of the guys on the team had played with George, and even the ones who hadn’t had known him. She’d attended parties and team barbeques and awards ceremonies with plenty of them. They were the people she needed to keep in touch with, to help with the George Phillips Trust. This was good. It was work.

It was also a little bit terrifying.

When George had been injured, when he’d realised the damage to his arm and shoulder meant he’d never play again, he’d pulled away from all his old friends. For a time, they’d tried to visit, to see how he was doing. But Gwen had known he’d hate any of them to really know how he was—depressed, angry, reckless and irrational. At least, the old George would have. The new George hadn’t seemed to care.

She’d cared. So she’d stage managed those visits as best as she could, keeping everything calm and relaxed, steering the conversation away from any of George’s flash points, the topics that would send him into a rage without warning.

It had been exhausting.

But as the weeks had passed, the number of flash points had seemed to grow and grow, until they’d encompassed almost everything.

Joe had been there when she’d finally lost control of the situation, and George had blown up at her, at Evie for crying, even at Joe for being there at all. The raging, the yelling, the thrown mug crashed against the wall with tea dripping down the paintwork…Joe had seen it all.

He was the only one who knew the truth.

‘It’s not really him talking,’ she’d tried to explain, after George had stormed out. ‘It’s the injury. It wasn’t just his arm and shoulder he injured when he fell, you know. The blow to the head was the more worrying thing. Head injuries…they’re funny beasts, his doctor says. And this was such a bad one. He can’t… He just can’t go back to the man he was before. His brain won’t let him.’

The man she’d married had been gentle, kind, however rough he’d been out on the pitch. And whatever problems they’d had in their marriage in the last months or year before his accident, he’d never been like that before. Then she’d been able to tell herself that it was the stress of the captaincy weighing on him, or being parent to a young child. That all marriages went through rough patches.

Now she didn’t bother lying to herself. This was who he was.

She’d married George for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.

She just hadn’t imagined that the sickness could make him a different person entirely.

Gwen shook away the memory. None of the boys on that pitch today knew what George had become, and she intended to keep it that way. To protect his memory. To them, she was still the sad widow who had lost the love of her life.

They didn’t know he’d died the day that tackle had gone wrong, and the man she’d lived with for eighteen months after that had been someone else altogether.

Not even his own brother knew that.

Joe was giving her a sceptical look, like he knew exactly where her thoughts had gone. But then he straightened up, his attention diverted to the door. ‘Here he is.’

Ryan hadn’t been playing, of course, so had made it back before the rest of the team. But it seemed he’d still taken the opportunity to smarten up before the evening’s festivities. Probably hoping to score with one of the many rugby groupies, knowing Ryan—unless he had his own minor celeb in tow, ready for the tabloid shots. Circulation figures for some of Britain’s best-known gossip mags must have gone down since Ryan Phillips had stopped gracing their pages, she was sure.

His grey suit fitted him perfectly, as always, skimming over the heavy muscles she knew were underneath. She’d seen him play on the telly only once since he’d moved to his club in France—and that had been by accident, when trying to find English children’s television for Evie in a French hotel room on holiday. He hadn’t lost any form—or muscle—since his transfer, she’d seen enough to know that. If anything, reports had said he was playing better than ever.

Ryan’s sharp blue eyes flashed as he glanced around the room, obviously looking for someone worth seeing and landing on Joe. With a smile, he began to cross the bar towards them. From where she was sitting, Gwen realised he probably couldn’t see her, hidden in the shadow of the bulky ex-captain. But she knew the moment he spotted her. His stride faltered, just for a second, but it was enough.

She’d never really understood what had driven Ryan away from his homeland, but she knew why he’d never come back. What had changed? Why was he here now? She knew she wouldn’t rest until she understood. Despite everything, Ryan was family. And that mattered to her.

When she and George had first started dating, Ryan and his parents had been welcoming and friendly. When they’d married, she’d been accepted into the family as if she’d always been there. With her own parents dead, that had meant the world to her. And when Evie had come along, everyone had been thrilled. She’d teased Ryan about settling down one day too, and he’d laughed and said that they all had George for that. Everything had been perfect.

The fractures in their happy family unit had started before George’s accident, though. They’d begun the day Ryan had announced he was signing with a French club and leaving Cardiff. No one had understood why, and he wouldn’t or couldn’t explain. Even George hadn’t been able to get his reasoning out of him, although they’d argued until the small hours.

Gwen remembered curling up in bed alone, praying they wouldn’t wake Evie. That George wouldn’t disappear out again when they were done, the way he’d taken to doing over the last few months, never telling her where he was going.

Ryan had left, and two games later George had been injured. And the first thing his mother Meredith had said was, ‘This wouldn’t have happened if Ryan had been on that pitch to protect him.’

She remembered being so taken aback at that. Gwen had always thought that big brothers were supposed to look after their younger siblings. But in the Phillips family it was different—even if it had never been said so starkly before. George was supposed to shine, and Ryan was needed to clear his path and keep him safe. The day he’d left, she remembered George yelling, ‘But I need you on my flank! I don’t trust anyone else there!’

Looking at him now as he crossed the bar, Gwen wondered if that was the real reason Ryan had left. Maybe he’d been sick of always playing back-up to his big brother.

But now he was the only Phillips brother left.

There had been a moment at the funeral—one she didn’t think anyone else had seen. A moment when Ryan had leaned over the coffin, after everyone else had gone, and had said, so softly she’d strained to hear, ‘I’m sorry. I should have been there on your flank.’

And from the stricken expression on his face when he looked at her now, Gwen knew instantly that, fairly or not, he still blamed himself for not being there to save George. Not on the pitch, and not in that Cardiff bar eighteen months later when George had been stabbed in a knife fight and had bled out before the paramedics even reached him.

‘He was all on his own,’ Meredith had sobbed into Gwen’s shoulder at the hospital. ‘Where were his friends? Where was his brother? My golden boy…’

He hadn’t been alone, Gwen knew. He’d been with another woman, for a start. One who’d sobbed and screamed dramatically—but had then disappeared when the police started to ask questions, apparently. But Meredith didn’t need to know that. No one did.

‘Joe.’ Ryan reached the table and held out a hand. ‘And Gwen. I saw you both on the big screen at the game, but I didn’t expect to see you here.’

Gwen got to her feet and moved to hug her brother-in-law. ‘We could say the same about you, you know. Do your mam and dad even know you’re back in the country?’

Ryan returned the hug tentatively, as if afraid he might break her. Or maybe just unsure of his welcome here.

He gave her a lopsided smile. ‘I thought it would be a surprise.’

Not a nice surprise, she noted. Just a surprise. ‘I imagine it will.’

‘And you two.’ Ryan motioned between Gwen and Joe. ‘Are you two…?’

It took her a moment to realise what he was asking. Joe got it first, and laughed.

‘I think my husband would disapprove,’ he said lightly, although Gwen knew how much those words cost him. How he expected to be judged still, every time. ‘But Ben has no interest in rugby. He’s always grateful when Gwen takes me out, because it means he doesn’t have to come.’

Ryan’s smile was genuine, and Gwen felt something relax inside her. ‘I didn’t know you were married. Congratulations.’

‘Thanks.’ Joe’s shoulders relaxed too, Gwen was glad to see. ‘What are you drinking? I’ll get the pints in.’ He drained his own and waited for Ryan to answer.

‘Ah, whatever’s on draught, please, mate,’ he said, after a long moment where Gwen almost expected him to say something else—although what, she had no idea. Ryan had never been one to turn down a pint.

She motioned to the spare seat at their table, and he took it as Joe ambled off towards the bar.

‘So you here to congratulate the team?’ Ryan asked. ‘It was a great game, huh?’

‘Amazing,’ Gwen agreed. But she wasn’t thinking about the game. She was thinking about the George Phillips Trust. About Evie, and the father she deserved to remember. This was her chance. So she took a deep breath and said, ‘Actually…I saw you at the stadium and, well, when Joe said he was coming here I decided to come too. Because I wanted to talk to you.’

 

 

• Text Copyright © 2020 by Sophie Pembroke
• Cover Art Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
• Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books S.A. Cover art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises Limited. All rights reserved.