Is this destiny?

~ Los Angeles, the Mediterranean villa ~

Thursday

4:24 PM

JoAnna is relaxing on the sofa in the study room and watching Jeff who is in a conference call. She can see that he is exhausted, and she feels guilty because he has so much work, but he insists of working from home to take care of her. JoAnna knows that he is doing this because last few weeks he was super-busy with fending off Marcus' attacks. She told him that she is OK, and he should focus on work because she is not going anywhere, but Jeff is adorably stubborn in demanding to stay by her side.

JoAnna loves that he is doing all this for her, but she wants him to rest. Somehow.

"I want a vacation.", JoAnna said when Jeff disconnected from the call.

"Sure, where do you want to go?", Jeff asked with a smile while walking next to her.

"I am serious. It does not need to be anything long or big or fancy, but I want us to disconnect… a change of pace."

"OK. Do you have anything specific?"

JoAnna is happy that Jeff accepted. She knew that if she makes it about her, he will agree to some time off. "How about we go to my resort? We can invite our friends and family and spend a relaxing weekend. The weather is nice, we can be on the beach and there are also golf, horse riding, the spa is great…"

"No horse riding for the three of you.", Jeff said while giving JoAnna a warning look.

JoAnna understood that as a 'yes'. She grinned. "This weekend?"

Jeff shrugged helplessly. "This weekend is as good as any."

"Great! I will call people and arrange rooms for everyone who can come…"

…

About one hour later…

JoAnna pouted. "Sarah and Aiden have plans… Ellie and Jasper are busy with their upcoming wedding…"

"Tell me who is coming.", Jeff interrupted JoAnna. There is no point in mentioning people who will NOT come.

"Confirmed: Sophia and Felix, Bridgette and Steve, Emma and Charlie, Penny and Ben. Leah said that she would love to join, but she has plans with Pam. When I told her that Pam is welcome to come along and they can hang out at the resort, Leah said that she will get back to me… That's it. We will all meet at the resort on Friday for dinner and Sunday evening we can return to reality. That makes it 48 hours. Two full days."

Jeff approved. Somehow, he knows that JoAnna is doing this for his sake. His wife is taking care of him, she is awesome like that. "It's a good start. I promise to take you on a proper vacation soon."

"Don't worry about it. If we can have these quick escapes occasionally, I will be happy. Hey, next time we can all go to our island!"

"Sounds like a plan."

"Ha!", JoAnna exclaimed. "We will have so much fun that Sarah and Aiden will regret for planning in advance something else!"

Jeff laughed at JoAnna's pettiness. "Honestly, I am surprised that so many people accepted, considering that we are heading there tomorrow."

JoAnna thought about it. "True. You got a point. I will call the resort to get the rooms ready and we should go and pack! Tomorrow, as soon as you are done with work, we are heading there…"

…

In Charlie's villa…

Emma is excited. "This is our first almost-vacation together!"

Charlie frowned while thinking how he is a horrible fiancé. How come he didn't think of taking Emma to different places? Well, ever since he got out of that wheelchair, other than number of day-trips for business, he was not traveling either but seeing how enthusiastic Emma is, he regrets not taking her on a vacation. He needs to fix that.

"Why are you not excited about this?" Emma noticed Charlie's off mood.

Charlie shook his head. "Sorry, I was thinking about something else. I would like you to tell me places which you always dreamed of visiting, so that we can visit them together."

"Oh… I am not really into travel. I mean, I enjoy seeing new places, but I don't have a list or anything like that. Also, any place is great, as long as we are together. I don't mind spending my time with you here but if you have any travel plans, take me along. OK?"

Charlie smiled and nodded in agreement. He remembered her brothers…"Your bothers are coming this weekend. Are you OK with us going?"

Emma thought for a second before responding: "Mike said that he has plans and does not need me. And Ryan and Sean will be at the Cliffside Villa with Sarah's kids. When they reach here, we can ask them if they want to join us at the resort, but it seems to me that all three of them have their weekend planned."

"Did you talk to your mom about your brothers moving here?", Charlie asked.

Emma's mood dropped. "Not yet. I wanted to confirm that they firmly decided to move to Los Angeles before I open that can of worms."

"How I see it, with their current academic achievements, Ryan and Sean have great chances at the UCLA* if they do good on the entrance exams. The campus is only about half an hour drive from here, and they can stay with us if they want. As for Mike, I know that he has a job, but we can find him a non-skilled position at Smithsonite corp. until he has enough credits to start his internship as an engineer and just like Ryan and Sean, he can stay here. Mike's salary might be less initially than what he is earning now in construction, but if he counts that he has food and a place to sleep covered, I'm sure that it will be satisfactory."

Emma looked at Charlie gratefully. "You thought of everything. Will you be OK if they stay here with us?"

"They are your brothers and I see that four of you share a great bond. I would be silly not to be OK having them around. There are plenty of rooms available in the main villa, and the four-bedroom guesthouse in the back of the property is available as well, if they are interested..."

…

Pam and Leah are having a dinner in a restaurant, close to building where Orion Enterprise has office space leased.

"There is a gathering at Anna's resort this weekend. Do you want to come?"

Pam paused. "I thought we will meet for training on Saturday morning and then go shopping."

"There is nothing preventing us to train at the resort. The gym there is fully equipped, and we can go for a run or swim in the indoor swimming pool. Did you have anything specific you wanted to buy? For me, it was mostly to browse through the mall and to spend the time with you."

"I see… I don't have anything specific to buy. But a resort…?" Pam's voice trailed off.

"Is that a problem?"

"Sounds… fancy."

Leah smiled reassuringly. "It does not just sound fancy. It is fancy! Golden Ocean Resort is a five star resort. The rooms are great, with a 24-hour room service. The grounds are beautiful. There is a beach, a golf course and a shooting range, we can go horse-riding, eat at a several restaurants with an amazing food… oh, and the spa. We should go to the spa and take a full relaxing treatment!" Leah saw that Pam is overwhelmed and she laughed. "What is it?"

"I… never experienced anything like that. I would not know what to do in such a place.", Pam admitted.

"Well, that is more reason to do it. Come and pamper yourself. I will be by your side so you can ask me whenever you are not sure what to do."

Pam blinked. "You will?"

"Sure. How about this? We can stay in a two bedroom suite, so we can maximize our time together."

Pam smiled. "OK."

Leah is happy that Pam accepted.

Leah can see that Pam got attached to her, probably seeing her as a mentor, or something like that.

Now that Leah calmed herself from the Isabella-breakup, and Sophia does not need her help anymore in handling the workload, Leah is reluctant to tell Pam that she plans to leave soon.

Like this, they will spend the weekend at the resort, and she will find a good chance to tell her that their friendship is about to be interrupted. For how long? Leah is not sure, but she knows that she has a travel bug and she needs to get it out of her system. The list of her destinations was only growing in the last eleven months, and Leah has a need to mark them as 'visited'.

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