Taming the Legend (12 page)

“But there has, Mila, and we can’t change that.” He wouldn’t even if he could.

“No one else should know about it, though.” She dropped her arms, gripping the edge of the desk. Her head tilted to the side, and her hair swung forward to skim her breasts. The pose was so unconsciously provocative that Ash had to shove his fists into the pockets of his jeans
to push the fabric out in the hopes she wouldn’t spot his growing interest.

“Look, Ash. I work here, I live here and, until the bank takes it away from me, I own the property here. That means I’m more than just an employer or a colleague. I’m a landlord and a neighbor to many of my staff. I love working with them, and I love the community. But I keep my personal life as private as I can.
They sometimes share more than I want to know, but I don’t reciprocate. I need them to respect me, and giving them a reason to speculate about my sex life compromises that respect.”

Every word pierced him like an arrow. Every single one sounded familiar because it echoed his own outlook on leadership. He’d led a closely knit team of men and always tried to support them, encourage them, befriend
them without losing the slight distance that respect was built upon. Hell, he’d done such a good job of it they’d given him condoms because they’d never seen him with a woman or even heard him mention any of his relationships.

But that was because his relationships hadn’t been worth talking about. He’d learned a hard lesson about letting a girl consume his focus. The affairs he’d had after
Camila had been brief, disappointing and easy to forget as soon as he stepped through the doors of the training ground. They hadn’t commanded a single bit of his attention.

Camila had been different. Still was.

He took his hand from his pocket and reached behind him for the doorknob. She wanted her staff to respect her, and because he respected her he would tame the instincts she’d reawakened.
Even if it killed him. “No more jokes about you bending me over, then.”

Odd, but she looked surprised. “Promise?”

“If I say something once, I mean it. I don’t need to use the word
promise
for you to believe me.”

She hesitated a second before nodding and pushing away from the desk. “Thank you for understanding.”

“But when we’re alone, I won’t act like you’re someone I just met
or someone who’s just a temporary boss to me. I can’t. You’re more than that, and I won’t lie to either of us.”

Her face flushed, and she glanced away.

He turned the doorknob, desperate to get out of here before he grabbed her and showed her how much more she was to him. “Where’s your toolshed?”

Chapter Eleven

The next afternoon, Ash stood next to Camila on the pitch and waited to meet his team for the first time. He’d run into her a few times after their heated conversation yesterday, but each time her gaze had slid over him as she’d greeted new campers, solved problems and directed her staff. She hadn’t been obvious about it—anyone else would’ve assumed she was busy
and preoccupied—but Ash itched to get her alone again.

He’d traveled halfway across the world for her—okay, it was also to assuage his own guilt, but still. He knew no one else here. He was tired, unsure of his future and stressed that he hadn’t made the right decision about leaving his dad to tell his mum his secret shame. He missed his mates, which was kind of ridiculous since he wouldn’t
have spent the summer with them anyway. But it was different, knowing he wouldn’t be going back and playing with them in September. And, since Hardy’s wife had died in November and Chloe was struggling to cope, he and Hardy certainly wouldn’t have gone on their annual summertime lads’ week away.

But Camila had made it clear she needed firm boundaries, and he was determined to respect that.

She held a clipboard and tapped her pen against it as she surveyed the pitch with a furrowed brow. “There’s something…weird here.”

He’d wondered how long it would take her to figure out that the grass was a little bit greener and the dirt a little bit darker than it had been the day before. She glanced down. “It didn’t rain last night, did it?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Huh. Strange.”
She seemed to shake off her confusion, and he bit back a grin. “I’m sorry about the bad condition the field’s in. We had a big storm this winter, and we worked hard all spring to get the cabins back in shape. The field wasn’t as big a priority, but maybe it should’ve been.”

A niggling of regret wormed through him for making her feel guilty about things she couldn’t control. “Don’t worry about
it. We’ll make do. A few scraped knees will toughen the boys up anyway.”

Camila winced. “Um, about that…”

He waited a few seconds, but her wince just looked more pained.

“I might’ve…uh…”

He raised his brow and gave her his I’m-waiting face.

Her breathing deepened. “Oh crap. Here they come. Please don’t hate me.”

She nodded toward the space behind him, and he turned
to find…girls. A bunch of them, all in completely inappropriate clothes and looking varying degrees of moody. A couple wore tight blue trousers he’d heard his teammates’ girlfriends refer to as
jeggings.
A few wore shorts so short he was scared to even glance in those girls’ direction, much less straight at them. And one was a Goth who looked like she’d woken up on the wrong side of the coffin.
His gaze shot back and found Camila wincing so hard she looked like a goblin. A cute goblin, but still a goblin.

“You are in such big trouble, young lady.”

Her face eased a bit. “Excellent coaching technique. Keep it up. They’ll love it.”

Why did he get the feeling she really meant
They’ll eat you alive?

“I’ve got no problem coaching girls.”

“That’s good because I can’t
turn them into boys.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you’d turn me down.”

Her blatant honesty shocked him. “What kind of arsehole do you think I am?”

“The kind who wouldn’t consider girls worth coaching?”

Offense bubbled up, but before it boiled over he flashed back to how he’d spent yesterday afternoon watching all the kids arrive. In the space of an hour, the camp
had gone from peaceful and boring to shouty and hormonal. Ash had sat on his porch—how fucking American was that?—fighting the urge to whittle or fiddle as he tried to figure out which of the boys would be on his team. Several lads looked like they mainlined creatine, and he’d silently prayed,
Please be on my team.
Several others looked like they mainlined crisps, and he’d feared he would get
stuck with them.

It had never occurred to him to size up the girls. It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered them worth coaching. He just hadn’t considered them…at all.

Shite.

Camila squeezed his arm, which had a bizarrely placating effect. It was humbling, how easy he was around her. “I’m sorry if I misjudged you. Remember, I don’t know you well anymore, and I was desperate to get you
to say yes. Maybe it was wrong of me, but I never actually lied to you. I just asked you to coach my team. You were the one who heard
rugby team
and assumed they came equipped with penises.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but what could he say? She was right. He was as angry at himself as he was at her. “Fuck.”

“Okay, they’re closing in so no more language like that. Remember, you’re
a role model. I’ll introduce you, and then I’ll step back and let you take over. Sound good?”

“Do I really get a say?”

“No, but I find giving my staff a false sense of ownership is a good management technique, even if it’s all a ruse to make them feel better about themselves.”

Her sardonic grin told him she was kidding, but that still didn’t make him feel better. Only one thing
did—Camila had told him the kids had played rugby before. They weren’t dressed like they expected to start practicing today, but maybe there was some confusion. He’d planned to spend the session assessing their skills, but it would be difficult to do when at least one of them was wearing her lingerie on the outside of her clothes.

“Tell me again how much experience they have,” he murmured
to Camila.

She cleared her throat and ignored him, gesturing for the girls to come closer. “Welcome! How was your first night’s sleep?”

There were eight of them—a fact that already made Ash nervous since it meant having only one substitute. One tugged the end of her long ponytail into her mouth and chewed on it in a way that made him vaguely nauseated. A few glanced nervously around,
as if they wanted to answer out of politeness but stayed quiet out of self-preservation. But most of them crossed their arms and glared.

Camila continued as if their attitudes were nothing unusual. For her, maybe they weren’t. “As I explained yesterday, one of the key components of this camp is learning how to work as a team. This month we’re incredibly lucky to have the world’s greatest
rugby player here to coach you.”

He wouldn’t go that far—but he wouldn’t stop her from doing it, either.

“Please welcome Coach Trenton.”

He winced a little. The name sounded so… American. He’d never referred to any of his coaches that way. Even at Legends, his head coach had a nickname, Ruud-Boy.

But, judging by the sullen stares his team gave him, he probably wouldn’t like
any nickname they came up with right now. Plus, he couldn’t escape the fact he was in America coaching Americans, so it wouldn’t hurt to show a little cultural sensitivity and get used to being called Coach Trenton.

“Coach Trenton played rugby professionally for nearly twenty years. He captained not only one of the best teams in England but also England’s national team. They went on to win
the World Cup.”

Not with him as captain, a fact that still smarted. But he’d played on the winning team under his protégé Liam Callaghan and had the medal to prove it. Maybe he could show it to them. He’d brought it to California because he thought it would impress the hell out of his new team. That seemed laughable now.

“Next month,” Camila continued, “we’re going to travel to San Diego
and play in a tournament against other youth teams from across the country. But really we’re here to have fun, whether we win it all or come in dead last.”

He shot her a look, but she managed the lie so smoothly that even he was half convinced.

“Let’s welcome Coach Trenton!” She and the two counselors who’d accompanied the girls gave him a round of applause as she stepped back. They
were the only ones.

He cleared his throat. “Thank you, uh…” Oh, shite. What should he call her?

“Camila.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He faltered as a short, stocky blonde smirked. “I knew that.”

“Yeah, right,” the girl said.

“I did. Really.” Damn it, he was starting out all wrong. “All right, does anyone have any questions before we get started?”

The attitude girl raised her hand,
and he nodded at her. “Yes, uh…what’s your name?”

“Hannah.”

“Hannah. What’s your question?”

“What’s rugby?”

His heart imploded. He glanced around. None of the girls laughed like it was a stupid question. Most of them looked relieved, as if they’d wanted to ask but didn’t have the bollocks…or…or ovaries. Or whatever.

Oh, fuck. He was going to go spare when he got Camila
alone.

Clearly catching his fury, Camila stepped backward toward the bleachers, her smile turning grotesque. “I’ll just be over here doing some paperwork. Let me know if you need anything. And good luck.”

* * *

“Let’s start with the basics,” Ash said, his voice flat and dry. He held a ball in the air. “This is a rugby ball.”

“No it’s not,” replied one of the girls—Camila thought
her name was Jen, but yesterday she’d looked like an average, somewhat plain girl, and today she’d shown up in full Goth gear, corset and lace-up platform boots included. Camila sat on the bleachers several feet away with Tammy and Ginette, the two counselors assigned to this group for the month. After seeing the look on Ash’s face a moment ago, she wished she could run far, far away, but her
future depended on Mr. Confidence turning this group of teenage girls into winners. She couldn’t look away as he stared the girls down, still holding up the ball.

“No?” Ash said. “Then what is it?”

“A white football with a red stripe.”

He shook his head. “I know it looks similar, but there’s a subtle difference. The ends of a rugby ball are rounder than an American football. That
means the ball can bounce farther when it hits the ground, making its movements much more unpredictable.”

Hannah raised her hand again. “This is America, Simon Cowell. Saying American football is redundant. It’s just football.”

“Sim—” Horror flashed across his face before he masked it and calmly explained, “Where I come from, football is soccer.”

“But you’re not standing where you
come from, are you?”

Camila leaned a few inches to her right, and Ginette met her halfway, whispering, “Straight-A student suspended for fighting. Twice. Next time she’ll be expelled. Parents went through an ugly divorce. Her mom just wants her to get through her senior year. She thinks high school’s too stifling for her daughter’s brilliance.”

“Mmm.” Camila wasn’t directly involved
in the camp’s admissions process or in the counseling the young people received because she wanted to the kids to know they had a clean slate when they met her. She had no preconceived ideas about any of them, a fact that seemed to help many realize that fresh starts really were possible.

Ash ran through a brief history of his sport. He started with William Webb Ellis, a student at a school
called Rugby who picked up his soccer ball during a game in the nineteenth century and ran with it in his hands. He ended with England winning the World Cup. The girls seemed to be listening too—at least, she thought so until she caught a couple of them nodding off despite the fact they were standing up.

Shit. This was not going well.

She decided to give him a few more minutes before
stepping in.

“Normally a rugby match lasts eighty minutes plus stoppage time, which is a bit extra to make up for the time that’s lost because of things like treating injuries or substituting players. And there are usually fifteen men—”

Hannah’s hand shot up, but Ash nodded in concession. “Sorry, fifteen
players
from each team on the pitch at once. But we’re playing rugby sevens, which
means there are seven players from each team. Each half lasts only seven minutes with a one-minute half time.”

Jen snorted. “What’s the point in that?”

“What’s your name?”

“Jen.”

“Winning, Jen. Winning is the point. Winning is
always
the point.”

“I thought taking part—”

“Whoever told you that was full of shite. And he must’ve taken you for a loser because you don’t
say that kind of rubbish to people you think can win.”

Camila stiffened and so did the girls, but they seemed to do it because he’d finally caught their attention.

Ash leveled them all with a stare, looking seriously intimidating despite not being much taller than most of the girls. It helped that he was twice as broad. “I don’t know your reasons for coming here. I don’t know what you
or your parents want to achieve by sending you here. I don’t know what the
point
is for you to be here. But I do know the reason you’ll stay. You’ll stay to fucking
win.
”

Camila shot to her feet and strode to the group. She’d just about reached them when Hannah asked, “If you can say
fuck,
can we?”

“You wouldn’t be rugby players if you didn’t. And as of today you’re rugby players. Any
other questions?”

Camila shot him a disbelieving glare.

“Good. I see from the way you’re dressed that most of you thought we were going clubbing. Sorry to disappoint you, but we’re actually going to be doing some drills to help you learn how to pass the ball. Tomorrow you’ll turn up in proper exercise gear ready to run your arses off.”

Camila’s hands squeezed into fists so hard
her knuckles popped.

“What if we don’t want to wear workout clothes?” Jen asked.

“Then you’ll run in whatever you’re wearing. Platforms, stilettos—” he gestured in the vague direction of her black-and-crimson corset, “—whatever that thing’s called.”

Hannah raised her hand.

“Yes?”

“Running hurts my boobs.”

A couple girls snickered.

“Yeah? I can’t say it’s all
that comfortable for my bollocks either. I guess you’ll have to get over it.”

Pain. Pounding, jabbing pain. In my head. Gonna explode.

“Let’s get something straight,” Ash said. “Being a girl is not a disability. Boobs, periods, cramps… I know you’ve got them, but I don’t give a monkey’s toss about them. Yes, Hannah?”