Page 6 of Holiday Home 5

She wasn’t there anymore. That was what he noticed first. Next, he noticed the overwhelming aroma of coffee. Chasing after that scent with his eyes, he spotted a pair of women at the cabin’s table. It seemed Tess had finally found her chance to pull Victora into a chess match.

Yawning again, Liam finally stirred enough for Tess, the one facing his direction, to notice he’d finally come awake. She helped him continue doing so with a radiant smile. Liam gave her a sleepy one back.

It was just the three of them in the suite, or so he initially assumed. His back faced the jet’s kitchen, but he soon heard soft footsteps approaching from behind.

“Hey, good looking,” Avril said, croissant in hand. “Want a bite?”

Without thinking about it too much, Liam opened his mouth. Arching an eyebrow, Avril delivered her breakfast to his mouth and let him rip off a healthy piece. Only after chewing on the tasty, warm morsel of bread did he realize his gaffe. He wasn’t really doing a good job of keeping Victoria unaware of how close his relationship with Avril had become. If she’d been in Tess’s place, she’d have seen what he’d just done.

Then again, he had shown up at her house with a hickey on his neck a weekend ago. RightafterAvril had taken him on a tour at the Bandits’ stadium and revealed who she was. That hadn’t stopped her from sending him that deliriously sexypicture of her on that very same day, even if she had waited until the last possible minute to do so.

A tense vacation wasn’t what Liam had in mind. He wanted to relax and enjoy a tropical paradise with four stunning women. He didnotwant to fret over taking a bite of a croissant. He wouldn’t.

“It’s good,” Liam said, smiling.

“There’s more back the way I came: coffee, breakfast, juice boxes.” She winked. “Go wild. Oh, and you can get the cabin lights when you do. You’re the last one up.”

“I will,” he said.

After taking her first bite of breakfast, Avril continued ahead. She glanced at Tess and Victoria’s current match, waved with a mouth still full, and then headed toward the private suite. For a moment, Liam wondered why he didn’t see Anna around, only to hear the subtle sound of running water once Avril opened one of the two doors between him and the plane’s shower. In fact, he soon noticed that Tess’s hair looked damp. How much longer than everyone else had he slept?

Getting up, Liam saw Victoria glance over her shoulder. Smiling at her, he earned a nod. It was short-lived attention, however, as Tess’s next move pulled the busty professor’s attention back to the chess board.

Before he wandered over to two of the most beautiful women alive, Liam chose to head for the kitchen. For all his plans to not worry about showing affection to the women on the plane, he imagined it’d be a bridge too far if he shamelessly walked into the lavatory and started brushing his teeth and washing his face while Anna was showering on the other side of a see-through pane of glass.

So, he opted to see what kind of stock a billionaire kept in his private jet’s kitchen.

One of his private jets,Liam reminded himself, stifling another yawn as he fiddled with the touchscreen that controlled the cabin’s lights. He brought them up to a reasonable level, then began his rummaging.

He found a varied but overall healthy selection to choose from, briefly paralyzing him in indecision. After a moment’s consideration, he decided to build himself a yogurt bowl. After filling a bowl found in the cupboard with a healthy amount of the named ingredient, he rifled through the mini-fridge. Raspberries, blueberries, some berries that he didn’t even recognize—the fridge was stocked to the nines. He went with the classic red-blue berry pairing and then added some granola. He bowed out then, deciding he didn’t want to cut up a banana or work in any other slightly time-consuming ingredients.

Mixing things a bit with a spoon, he took his first bite, then headed over to Tess and Victoria. Having closed the door after disappearing into the private suite, he imagined Avril had kept going and that she now either chatted with or possibly shared the shower with her roommate. She’d openly said they’d done it before on a video call just a few days back. However, Liam doubted he’d see them topless this morning, as he had then.

He found Victoria mired in indecision. Studying her pieces, she looked for the best way to get out of Tess’s current vise. She’d ended up pressed by Tess’s opening, and Liam couldn’t spot any good ways out as he joined them.

“Good morning,” said the woman who didn’t currently need to mull over her next decision. “Did you sleep alright?”

Mouth full of yogurt and granola, Liam nodded.

“Lucky you,” Tess said, rubbing her left shoulder. “I woke up with some terrible tension in my neck and shoulders. I guess I’m not made for sleeping while sitting up.”

“I’m not apologizing for winning the couch last night,” Victoria said without looking up.

Tess’s dark eyes swept back to her opponent. “If you promise to let me have it on the return trip, I’ll let you move your knight away without snapping up your hanging pawn.”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.”

Victoria lost a pawn, then lost more space on the board, and ultimately lost enough material for Tess to begin trading aggressively. As the mid-game transitioned into an endgame scenario that seemed almost impossible for Tess to lose from, Liam kept working at finishing his breakfast. He’d had an idea. But he wanted to wait and see if the women decided to have a rematch before he put it into action.

After examining the board for a little longer, Victoria sighed. It was imbued with more emotion than he was used to hearing from her. It was possible this wasn’t their first game and that those he hadn’t seen had also ended up escaping the younger professor’s grasp.

“I resign,” she said.

“Another?” Tess asked.

“Of course.”

---