Page 2 of Holiday Home 3
“Avril, be quiet!”
Since the moment that Tess Williams, then Tess Levine, had moved into the house next to his, Liam had viewed her as an angel. She certainly possessed the radiant good looks of a divine entity, but she was also endlessly kindhearted and hospitable. Even had his lust been stricken from him, he would still have adored her with every particle of his being.
Recently, in a marvelous turn of fate, largely due to the redhead sowing so much discord at the moment, he’d come to know Tess as more than just an unobtainable angel on high. He’d come to know her intimately and to understand that she’d spent years in a loveless marriage. Now free of it, they had begun forging a romantic bond over the break.
So, Avril’s question was a valid one. More than anyone else, she knew just how interested Tess was in him. She’d helped him escape his hesitance, his second-guessing, his passivity. Just two days ago, he’d achieved a goal he’d only ever dreamed of when he and Tess had made love in an unusual but unforgettable setting: an igloo in her backyard. It was in no small part due to Avril’s advice and proactivity that he and Tess were together.
So, why the fuck was she trying to bring it all to ruin?
“Well, Anna’s good at noticing stuff like this, even if she’s completely awful at romance herself. She can tell he’s completely starstruck by you—not that anyone with eyes can’t tell how head over heels he is about you—but she also thinks you’re into him. Care to comment for the papers?” Grinning, Avril turned her emerald gaze onto him. “Oops. Hope that’s not a spoiler for you or anything. But congrats, huh? Sucks that Anna’s not into you, but I think Tess and I make for very worthy consolation prizes.”
Liam experienced the barest trickle of relief fall onto his tongue. It probably wasn’t enough for him to survive off, but dying of thirst as he was, that first drop was pure nectar.
He didn’t have time to scrounge up a reply before Tess spoke again, but he wasn’t all that upset about it. Silence felt like the best defense against the insanity that Avril had thrust upon them all.
“Is that how it is, Anna?” Tess asked, staring at her through two of the deepest oases of dark sapphire in existence. “Is what Avril is saying true?”
Most of the younger woman’s fury had vanished, leaving only a few spiraling smokestacks where a blazing inferno once stood. In the face of Tess’s unblinking stare, which seemed to have taken a few pages from the book of another professor they all knew, Anna meekly nodded.
“I just mentioned it to her once or twice. I-I didn’t mean for it to ever come out like this.”
At least there was someone in the room who wasn’t hiding things. Compared to the rest of them, Anna had exhausted her supply of secrets. The apologetic glimmer in her eyes was the most truthful expression currently in the house.
“It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything,” Avril said, tossing a dismissive handwave into the fray. “We’re all adults here, and the heart wants what the heart wants, yeah? There’s no reason to be ashamed about your feelings toward Liam, so I say go for it.” She grinned. “Competition could be fun.”
Even if the outrage was fading, Avril remained the sole point of jubilance in an otherwise dour room. That wouldn’t change for quite some time, even as one of them suggested—well, ordered, really—that they move to another room.
“All of you, to the kitchen,” Tess said sternly“Sit down, and I’ll get us all something to drink. We’re going to have a very long conversation about a few things.”
Even though their stomachs must have churned in tandem, Liam and Anna both knew better than to dare to argue. The only one of them who might have put up some resistance to the command seemed fine with the outcome. Still wearing her amusement plainly, she was the first to head for the kitchen, with Anna hurrying after. The latter spared him a furtive but endlessly apologetic look as she exited the living room.
Liam responded by barely shaking his head. It wasn’t her fault. It seldom was. The capricious redheaded nymph skipping into the next room was universally to blame.
And the question that Liam couldn’t help but continue to wonder as he also began making for the kitchen was: why?
Chapter Two
Center of the World
That burning question remained at the center of his turmoil as he sat down on one of the chairs at the circular table inside Tess’s kitchen. Why had she done this? Because she was pissed about how he and Anna had pulled the wool over her eyes with their fake relationship? Or because of their secret deal, because he’d taken all the benefits without truly fulfilling his part of the bargain? He had no damn clue, and he wasn’t in any position to ask her right now, even as she sat just a few feet away from him, staring amusedly across the table at him.
Why have you done this, Avril?he silently asked.
She didn’t answer, at least not in any way he could detect. Her amusement remained an uncommon fixture in the room. Sitting between them, Anna couldn’t conceal her dismay. Of the two of them, he knew which one his expression more closely imitated.
“Does anyone know what they want to drink?” Tess asked, standing by her fridge. After her initial icy response, she’d somewhat smoothed her irritability. She was hardly warm orwelcoming, but she didn’t look ready to distribute poison among their drinks.
“Just water for me,” Anna said quietly, barely looking up from her lap.
Nodding, her focus shifted to him. Not wanting to indicate guilt, he overcame the urge to avoid meeting her gaze. As he did so, he found her expression inscrutable. Whether that boded well for their impending conversation, he had no idea.
Typically, especially recently, he’d have basked in the very sight of her. Near or afar, he could usually drink deep from her resplendent beauty. The brunette woman wielded an overachieving excess of desirable attributes. From the stark beauty of her dark eyes to her voluptuous and enticing figure, she forced even the most attractive women, two of whom sat at the table with him right now, to fight to be noticed when she was around.
In more recent days, Liam had grown increasingly used to her heavenly smiles, though he no longer knew when the next time he might see such an expression might be. He’d also come to know a different suite of expressions, namely, sordid lust and sultry anticipation, over the past several days. Ones that he’d added to the annals of his memories.
He didn’t know when he might see one of those expressions again, either. Maybe never again.
“Water for me, too,” Liam said, resisting the urge to drop his head into his hands.What have you done, Avril?