Page 63 of Holiday Home 4

Liam felt like a juggler who’d intentionally started to feign difficulty keeping his balls in the air but accidentally lost complete control of his situation. Flailing about, doing his best to keep up the act, even though he was seconds away from everything tumbling down onto his head.

“We’ll be playing a lot of games together,” Liam began, to which that eyebrow seemed to ask, “Oh, will we?”

Clearing his throat, he resisted the urge to buy more time by grabbing his lemonade. “And you said she usually wins, so I figured I might have a slightly better chance against you… eventually.”

Victoria neither confirmed nor denied his supposition. So, he continued to flounder, lacking a hand to right himorpush him over.

“So, yeah, we could set up some stakes for our matches,” he said. “Are you interested?”

Last night, he would have been certain she would have agreed. Right now, he felt like she might pick herself up, herlemonade, and probably even his, then guide him back to his car and away from her home. Her piercing stare just wouldn’t quit it. Itcouldn’tquit it; it was her one available setting. Severe yet sexy. It made for a sharp edge to hold onto, and yet Liam wanted to do anything but let go.

Victoria lowered her lemonade onto the table. Her gaze dropped to the thirty-two finely wrought pieces on the chess board. It stayed there briefly, but it eventually rose.

“In the event of your victory, what would you be hoping to obtain this time?”

Instead of relief, Liam felt even more anxiety. Because his brain wasn’t in charge of any part of this conversation, even if it did try to usher his lust for Victoria Moreno into something slightly coherent. And now came the part where he needed to prepare for Victoria to show him the door.

“Since tomorrow’s the last day for our previous deal, I figured we could replace that with this.”

Victoria’s immovable expression stayed solid. “So, you’d want a picture from one of my past vacations each time you win?”

Just. Say. It.Facing off against his self-doubt, his stomach churned. He felt like he was on an all-day drive, only an hour or two from his destination, but thoroughly cramped and exhausted. And then he just happened to spot a random motel, and now he wanted to stop off there and just call it a day. As they were now, he felt like she might go for this much.

But that wasn’t enough. And so, reminding himself repeatedly about the picture he’d found on his phone last night, and what it meant, and that he ought to keep his courage for just a few moments longer, Liam forced the words from his mouth. They were the kind that could never be drawn back in.

“Specifically, one of the ones you think would get five points.”

Something unfathomable happened, then. Something that no one would believe. Even if he’d somehow been recording her at the time, Avril and the others probably would have said he’d deepfaked the whole thing. But he swore it was real.

Victoria’s stoic expression, as permanent in its composure as always, cracked. One corner of her luscious mouth shifted, and something within her icy eyes almost seemed to catch alight, like a distant flicker of flame visible within a blizzard.A spark. Yet, it wasbarelyanything, especially the change in her mouth.Barely a movement at all, maybe only a centimeter or two of a shift, but when a marble statue changed its expression, when that legendary composure somehow changed, it was as obvious as a sunrise.

Did she know that she’d done it? How aware was she of her body’s infinitesimal betrayal? Did she detect it, or was she oblivious to her immediate response?

Even as those questions gnawed at the deepest part of his soul, Liam was far too busy holding his breath to focus on figuring them out. A second went by. Another. Then another. Adrenaline rocketed through his veins, demanding movement out of him, yet he gripped the arms of her chair as tightly as he could, refusing to move before he got her answer.

“Effectively,” Victoria said calmly, voice refusing to follow her expression’s coup, “you’re asking for quite a lot. That, then, would mean that I, even if I’m expected to win almost every time we play, should be allowed to also ask for a lot.”

“That sounds reasonable to me,” Liam said, dizzy in the face of a possible triumph, like a wide receiver catching the game-ending touchdown on the thirty-yard line, not a safety or corner in sight. He just needed to waltz into the endzone, not trip over himself. Nothing but an act of God could rob him of his victory.

“Have you ever put any time into gardening?” Victoria asked, glancing past him.

“No, not really, but I’m not against it,” Liam said, perhaps a little too hastily. He’d have probably said he wasn’t against anything so long as it kept them inching toward finalizing this deal.

“Obviously, I do.” Victoria nodded toward the garden area she was looking at. Liam knew it was there, so he didn’t bother looking in its direction. He vastly preferred where his eyes already were. “And once we return from Fiji, I plan to begin plotting a more appropriate selection of flowers and vegetables.”

Even though it’d been confirmed in his head numerous times, Liam still trembled with excitement when Victoria plainly stated that she knew she already had enough points to ensure they visited Fiji. And that she’d probably known while sending him the most recent pictures, including last night’s wonderful gift.

“So, if I lose a match, I stay over and help with your gardening?” Liam asked, finding zero complaints about a deal that would “force” him to linger at Victoria’s home.

“No. If you lose a match, one of your free afternoons becomes mine. Summer break won’t be that far away, and you’ll be back in town for it, won’t you? And looking to stay?”

Liam nodded immediately, though he wasn’t sure how Tess and the others would feel about Victoria potentially monopolizing so many of his summer afternoons.

“No, that’s too much,” Victoria said, tapping her fingers on the table. “You’re going to lose dozens of matches to me. There aren’t enough days in your summer break. This is better. When we meet here for your in-person practice, winning evenonematch against me counts as your victory. If you can’t, and I win every match we play on a given day, I stockpile one day that you owe to me.”

“That seems really heavily in my favor,” Liam noted.

“Does it?” Victoria asked, a glimmer of a smile moving her mouth. “Would you like to start right now and see if you can win a single match?”

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