Unwrapping Her Perfect Match

Chapter Sixteen

As children across Britain fought sleep so they wouldn't miss the sound of Father Christmas's sleigh bells, John lay wide awake because of the piercing sound of a different type of bell. Alarm bells, ringing in his head.

Gwen's lush body curled around a pillow, and he curled around her. She was so warm, so soft and so cuddly. He could lie here with her forever.

Except he couldn't, because Steve had sent through the details of Toulon's offer, and John didn't want to spend any time on Christmas Day reading over them. Better to do it now, when Gwen and Agnes were asleep, because tomorrow afternoon Gwen had promised to have dinner with her family and Agnes would go home the following morning. He wouldn't waste a single moment he had left with either of them.

But dragging himself away from Gwen's sweet backside when he knew he wouldn't have her much longer...torture.

As he disentangled his arms and gently rolled away, she made a sleepy sound of protest. He froze until she sighed and sank deeper into the pillow she clutched to her chest. Oh, to be that pillow for just one night.

He pulled on his boxers, grabbed his mobile, and quietly made his way downstairs. He hadn't turned off the twinkle lights when he'd gone to bed. When he was a boy, his parents had always turned them off at bedtime. He used to sneak into the living room in the early hours of Christmas morning and turn the tree lights on so Father Christmas could to see what he was doing. He stopped doing it the year he interrupted his mum laying out the gifts he would open a few hours later.

He could still remember the visceral lance of agony that had shot through him as he realized what was going on. The guilty expression on his mum's face, her stuttering explanation... The shimmer of magic that had brightened the holidays was tarnished after that. His parents never seemed to make much effort. It was like they went through the motions because it was expected. They observed traditions but didn't make any of their own. They gave him clothes that he would quickly outgrow, socks and underwear and other practical things. Their celebrations had come from guidebooks rather than the heart.

He wanted better for his girl. He wanted colorful lights to twinkle as she closed her eyelids. He wanted her to wake up to a magical world of possibility. He wanted her to feel warm and welcome and cherished.

Most of all, he wanted her to feel like she had a dad who gave a fuck.

He collapsed onto the sofa and pulled his email up on his phone. The tree's colorful lights danced across the screen, and he had to tilt it to be able to see what Steve had sent.

The offer looked good. More than good. It looked bloody brilliant. French teams had a much higher salary cap than the one that choked English teams, and when John converted the proposed salary from euros to pounds he nearly dropped his phone.

He could play for several more years, save some money, and build a relationship with his daughter before she became an adult with a life of her own. He was so fucking tired of being separated from her. The thought of suffering several more years of a long-distant relationship made him queasy—and now he wouldn't have to put either of them through that any more.

So why did he feel like someone had squeezed lemon juice into his eyeballs?

He pressed his thumbs into his tear ducts and leaned back into the couch. His head throbbed. His brain ached. He needed a rest. Just a few minutes. He'd rest his eyes and figure out how he'd break the news to Gwen that he was moving to France at the end of the season.

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Lights twinkled behind his eyelids, gradually dragging his awareness away from his deep sleep and into the world around him—a world filled with soft, distant music, muffled giggles and heavenly scents of warm butter and sugar. He blinked, still groggy and not quite sure what he was doing with one leg slung over the back of his couch and the other hanging over the side. Then he remembered and fumbled for his phone, a shot of panic jolting him awake at the thought that Gwen might have seen what was on it.