Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
“Ange, I need to talk to you.”
“Of course you do.” Angelica sighed heavily. Josef always needed to talk to her, to yell at her, to put her in her place. And that stunt that Hope had pulled was only going to make it worse for her if it got back to Josef, which it would. Everything always did.
She sat down in the chair they’d stashed behind the reception desk and put her leg up on the knee scooter.
The ache had gotten much better in the last couple of days.
Which was helping. Mostly. She still was sore, but she found it easier to move around.
It’d be better when she could actually walk again, too.
But she had another week before she could get clearance for that.
“What do you need?” Angelica asked when Josef didn’t immediately launch into the conversation.
“Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere private?” He looked around the lobby and all the people coming and going, Sy there with the camera.
Angelica raised an eyebrow at him and shook her head. “No.”
“Ange—”
“No. It’ll take too much time for me to move, and we need to film the next sequence. Isn’t that right, Sy?” Angelica asked him directly because she knew he’d agree with her.
“Yep!” Sy nodded at Angelica in understanding, and he kept the camera on and pointed directly at her.
Good, he’d understood the assignment.
“Fine.” Josef scoffed.
He sat at the desk, crossing his arms and glaring at her the entire time.
This really wasn’t what he wanted to do, but Angelica was glad she’d forced him into it.
If Hope was going to continue to take recordings of Josef and send them to production and the studio, then like hell would Angelica impede that. In for a penny…
“Josef, we don’t have much time. What did you need to discuss?” Angelica crossed her arms.
“Vermont.”
“All right.” Angelica lifted her chin. She had been looking forward to heading north and into the woods. It reminded her of Mountain View West—the magic they had there when they’d filmed and the home she’d found there afterward. “What about Vermont?”
“Well, it’s about Leanne and Vermont. She’ll be coming with us.”
“No.” Angelica shook her head in disbelief. “No, she won’t. I’ll be walking before we finish filming and then you can’t argue that I need her anymore. So no, she’s not going.”
“She is.” Josef glared. “I’m not giving you a choice in the matter.”
Angelica scoffed.
“Leanne is going to replace you, Ange, whether you like it or not.” Josef said that quietly, so that only Angelica could hear it.
“We don’t have the budget to pay her for a second episode.
We didn’t even have it in the budget to pay her for the first one.
” Angelica gave him a serious look. She was the one that primarily dealt with the finances of the production, so she would know the best. But she did often make accommodations as they filmed.
“We got that new investor, remember?”
Angelica did remember. Because it had been her and Hope who had locked that investor into place when they’d taken that trip back to Los Angeles during their filming of season two. And that investor wouldn’t be happy to find out that Josef wanted to replace her entirely on the show.
“Don’t think that money is guaranteed if I’m not around.” Angelica pursed her lips. “Susan Navarro didn’t give that money to you. She gave it to Hope and me, for making the show what it is. And if you fire either one of us, then it’s going to be a problem.”
“Oh, I’m not going to fire you.” Josef lowered his voice. “I’m just not going to renew your contract.”
Angelica sighed. He could make that threat, but it had to be a decision between studio and production. He didn’t have that power. She shook her head and glanced at her phone as it buzzed. The number that came up was one she’d never expected to hear from again.
“Excuse me, I need to take this.” Angelica held the phone up so he could see it before she answered. “This is Angelica Shields.”
“Oh, hi.” The voice was soft, and nothing like it had been when Angelica had met the entitled woman. “This is Kayla. I’m, uh… I’m not sure if you remember me.”
“I remember you. Tucson.”
“Yeah.” Kayla nervously chuckled.
“I fired you.” Angelica played her fingers along the edge of the desk trying to distract herself. Why the hell would Kayla be calling her? She’d been so drunk while they were filming that Angelica had been sure that she wouldn’t even remember anything that had happened that week.
“You did. And… I deserved it.” Kayla groaned. “I should have been fired long before.”
“You should have. But that’s why mixing family and business is so difficult sometimes.” Angelica rested back in the chair and settled herself in for this conversation. It didn’t seem like Kayla was trying to ask her for anything, so that was a bonus. “Was there something I could help you with?”
“I was just calling to thank you for firing me, actually.” Kayla sighed. “It gave me the kick in the ass to get sober that I needed. I’ve been sober for ninety days now.”
It’d been almost a year since they’d been in Tucson filming.
“It took me a while to make it longer than two weeks.”
“Ah,” Angelica said, understanding now. “Ninety days is amazing.”
“It really is. And it feels good. I didn’t think it would, but it does.” Kayla chuckled nervously.
“Keep riding that high then. You deserve it. Getting sober isn’t easy.”
“Right, that was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. I saw the accident in Maine on social media?” Kayla said that like it was a question even though it clearly wasn’t.
Angelica licked her lips and bided her time. She wasn’t entirely sure what to say at that point. Had she been in an accident? Yes. But that’s all it was.
“The news said you’d been arrested for a DUI.”
“The news said I’d been arrested?” Angelica’s eyebrows rose into her hairline. She hadn’t seen that one. She’d seen where it’d implied that she had, but when people actually read the article, it’d rightfully said who had been arrested. “I wasn’t arrested, Kayla.”
“Oh, well, I just wanted to say that if you needed support to get sober that you should do it. It’s really good for you, and it helps with all of your relationships.”
Angelica’s lips parted in shock. Did Kayla honestly think that she’d been drunk driving and had caused the accident herself? It was sweet of her to call and offer the encouragement, but holy fuck, was that what everyone thought about her now? Angelica pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Kayla… I didn’t get arrested because I wasn’t driving drunk.” She was drunk though, but she wasn’t going to mention that. It really wouldn’t help her case with Kayla in the end. “I was in the car, parked, and a drunk driver ran into my car.”
“Oh.” Kayla’s voice dropped in disappointment. “You weren’t drinking?”
Fuck.
“I was drinking that night, Kayla. But I wasn’t driving a vehicle.”
“Oh! Well, if you need help getting sober, I think you should do it.”
“Thank you,” Angelica said, nodding, not quite sure what else to say to that. “I’m, uh… filming this week, so I need to get back. But thank you for your call. I appreciate it.”
“Okay. Bye!” Kayla hung up, that same nervous energy left in her wake that she’d entered with.
Angelica stared around the lobby with wide eyes, her mind completely boggled by that conversation.
She took another minute to herself before she pulled herself up out of the chair and made her way down toward the kitchens, dragging her knee scooter with her.
She couldn’t wait until she got rid of that thing.
Though she knew she’d have to go through an entire week of a new kind of soreness when she did.
Stepping into the kitchen, Angelica caught Hope’s eye and crooked a finger at her.
There had been an awkward tension between them the last day while they’d been shooting, and Angelica hated it.
She wanted it to be gone, but she hadn’t figured out the cause of it yet.
Hope had been stiff with her, pushing her away like she hadn’t done before.
When Hope stepped close to her, Angelica lowered her voice. “You’ll never guess who just called me.”
Hope kept her lips closed and said nothing. Another sign that the tension was still strong between them. But Angelica wanted to share this with her because no one else would understand what she’d gone through to save Desert Paradise from Kayla and her alcoholism.
“Kayla. Remember her? From Tucson?”
“Yeah. You fired her in front of the entire staff in the main lobby.”
Cold washed through Angelica. She had done that, and it’d been brutal and harsh, but she hadn’t managed to get Kayla into a room where no one else could watch.
She’d tried and failed. Not to mention, the rest of the staff needed to know that someone was going to take a stand against the bullshit that Kayla had been getting away with. They needed to see justice served.
“I did,” Angelica agreed. All the wind had been taken out of her sails, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to continue. She paused, looking directly into Hope’s crystalline eyes, the way her full lips pulled tighter than they normally would, the tension in her gaze, her guardedness.
Reaching forward, Angelica snagged Hope’s fingers again. She was struggling with not touching her, with not being in Hope’s presence constantly. That brief kiss they’d shared in Maine had flared up desire in her again, and she wanted nothing but to have a taste again.
But that would be heartache.
“Hope…” Angelica started, not sure what to say next. She was never at a loss for words, but right now, she couldn’t find them no matter how hard she tried. “Hope, how do I make this better, between us?”
Hope jerked her head back slightly, as if taken by surprise. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”