Losing at Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

air-cast on her foot, a constant reminder of exactly why she wasn’t out there winning the whole damn tournament. For Penny, there was nothing closer to hell on Earth than watching someone else play while being told she couldn’t. Even Alex’s trophy, downstairs in his ridiculously gorgeous London townhouse mocked her every time she walked past it, though it would be worse back at home. Her parents would be fussing over her and she’d have to watch everyone else train day in and day out. She was better off here where she at least had London to explore and Alex to show her everything he loved about his hometown.
    “Alright, no time for a lie in this morning, time to get up,” he said, pulling away and grabbing his watch from the bedside table. “Paolo will be here soon and while I’m sure he’d appreciate how you look right now, he definitely doesn’t want to see my naked arse.”
    The bed shifted behind her again and Alex groaned, his reflection in the window stretching his arms over his head. “You take the shower here, love, easier on that ankle,” he said, gathering some clothes from his dresser and heading down the hall to another bathroom.
    She hobbled over to where her suitcase was resting atop his dresser, digging through it and finding one of her dresses, only slightly wrinkled from the trip across the channel. They’d stayed a night in Paris, celebrating his victory at a nightclub with a name she couldn’t pronounce and from there it had been a short trip to London. She planned on just calling The Dorchester, her chosen spot for the two weeks of Wimbledon, and starting her stay there earlier, but Alex had actually laughed at the idea and brought her straight home. It was a lovely house in a gorgeous neighborhood, all white town homes facing a small park with actual gardens in the back, a rarity in a city like London. It felt like something out of Mary Poppins .
    The shower in the en suite was walk-in with a long bench that she could sit down on and keep the weight off her ankle and as the hot water sluiced over her body, she half wanted to call out for Alex to come join her but knew that was probably a bad idea. They’d get distracted, much the same way as they had over and over again the night of their arrival from Paris, when he’d promised his mother they’d go to her house for dinner and he’d forgotten about it completely. They had to start being able to reign in that desperate need for each other soon. It wasn’t natural to want someone that much, was it? Penny bit her lip and laughed as she shampooed her hair. She decided that she didn’t care. Natural or not, it was amazing .
    Penny made her way slowly down the stairs toward the smell of coffee brewing and the sounds of a conversation, half in English, half in Italian, the words meshing together so seamlessly, like a completely new language. Paolo Macchia, one of Alex’s best friends and his training partner while they were in London, must have arrived while she was in the shower. She felt her cheeks get warm, glad she hadn’t given into the urge to call down the stairs and invite Alex back up to join her.
    Paolo had been in Paris too, but she and Alex hadn’t exactly been on speaking terms for most of their time in France, so she hadn’t actually met the man yet. He wasn’t playing at Queens and Alex probably shouldn’t have either, but he felt a deep loyalty to the tournament hosted by the courts he’d grown up playing on as a junior. So despite being more than a little drained by the quick turnaround, he kept his commitment to the place that had given him so many opportunities over the years.
    Smoothing down the skirt of her floral print sundress, she braced her weight on the end of the banister and leapt lightly off the last two stairs, landing on her good foot with ease. Leaning over just a bit onto her bad foot, the pain wasn’t quite as intense as when she awoke, the hot water having done it some good.
    Limping just a bit to