Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
“Holy shit,” Hope murmured under her breath. The front of the small hotel they were coming in to fix was littered with vehicles, and it wasn’t the crew. She grabbed onto Eva’s hand and clasped it tightly in her fingers.
“Mom, what’s going on?” Eva asked.
Hope shook her head, still bewildered. She wasn’t sure what to make of it.
They’d had a few paparazzi show up on set, but it was never like this.
She wasn’t famous enough for this bullshit.
Hope bit her lip, still staring out the window at the crowd in front of River Vista Inn and held her breath. “Fuck.”
“Mom, that’s a bad word!”
“And reasonable to use right now.” Hope fished in her pocket for her cellphone and immediately dialed Florence’s number.
“Yeah,” Florence said, her tone curt and clipped.
“Are you here?”
“Are you outside?” Florence asked.
“Yeah, but there’s no way we’re getting through this mess.” Hope continued to stare at the crowd in front of the hotel with cameras at the ready as soon as she was stepped out. The last thing she wanted was for this to send a message that she was avoiding.
“Come around back to the kitchen and it’s not as bad.” Florence hung up.
Great. Now Hope really didn’t have a chance to avoid this, did she?
She leaned forward to give the driver extra instructions.
As they pulled away, the crowd of paparazzi started to follow them, but the driver was quick enough to escape and turn to the back side of the hotel.
Here there were only three people waiting with cameras, as if they were taking their chances that this would be the best backup option.
As soon as the car stopped, Cadence popped her head out the back door and waved at Hope.
“Here we go,” Hope said. “Let’s make this quick, Eva.”
She took Eva by the hand, opened the door, and raced inside. Cadence went out to get the luggage and waltzed it inside like nothing was wrong. Once the kitchen door was shut, Hope shook her head. “What’s going on?”
“I thought you were going to tell me.”
Hope narrowed her gaze.
“They’ve been here all day.”
“What?” Hope furrowed her brow. “How did they even…” she trailed off. “Where’s Ange?”
“She’s not here yet.”
Hope’s stomach twisted. Angelica was supposed to land before her since she’d left a day earlier to take an overnight trip. She should have been there already. Reaching for her phone again, Hope scrolled through the texts to see if Angelica had sent her anything, but there was nothing.
Nothing except a text she’d missed.
Josef
Cat got your tongue?
Hope frowned at the text and then quickly closed out of her messaging app and pocketed her phone. Her heart raced and her hands felt clammy. “I need to talk to her. When did Lyric say they were arriving?”
“I uhh… I haven’t talked to Lyric today.”
From what Hope knew, Cadence and Lyric talked almost daily, especially during filming. They were best friends on set, so the fact that they hadn’t even sent a text to each other yet made the hairs on the back of Hope’s neck stand to attention.
“Where’s everyone set up?”
“In here.”
Hope followed Cadence through the kitchen and toward a small meeting room with a long table. It could be called a conference room, but it was so small that it couldn’t host a very large conference. She nodded toward Cadence as she ushered Eva into a chair and lifted her phone to her ear.
She tapped her foot while she listened to the ringing on the other end. “Answer it, Angel. Answer…”
Biting her lip, she tried to shake out the trembles in her hands and her body, but it just never seemed to end. When it went to Angelica’s voicemail, Hope hung up and dialed again.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Eva caught Hope’s attention, worry in her gaze.
Hope shook her head and kept the phone pressed to her ear as she listened to it ring and ring again. Angelica didn’t get in another car accident, did she? The last thing Hope wanted was another phone call like that. Her heart thudded hard, and it stole her breath from her lungs.
“What’s going on out there?” Angelica’s voice rang through the room.
Hope spun around, nearly dropping the phone.
She took three quick steps to the door and wrapped her arms around Angelica’s shoulders and pulled her in tightly.
She buried her face in Angelica’s neck and breathed her scent in.
Angelica tensed, her arms at her sides before she shifted slightly to touch Hope’s back.
“What’s wrong?” Angelica asked.
Hope shook her head and drew in a deep breath to remind herself that nothing was wrong, Angelica was here, everything would be okay. “You should have gotten here before me.”
“I had a detour I wanted to make.” Angelica’s furrowed brow and confusion didn’t match what Hope was feeling. “But I wasn’t expecting whatever the hell is out there.”
“Hi Angelica!” Eva said from behind Hope.
“Hey.” Angelica shifted to the side slightly and looked over Hope’s shoulder before focusing back on Hope. “Really. What’s wrong?”
“What detour?” Hope took Angelica’s hands, not letting go of them. She really wanted to lean in and kiss her, further proof that Angelica was fine, but with Eva in the room, she wouldn’t do it.
“I’ve never been to the smokey mountains before. Lyric took a small drive so we could see them.” Angelica squeezed Hope’s hand tightly. “What’s going on outside?”
“Josef.” Florence’s voice was strong as it breached the tension in the room.
“What?” Angelica spun around.
“He told them that you two were…” she paused when she spied Eva and gave them both a sharp look, “…he pulled a few strings, and got them out here.” Florence put her hands on her hips and glared.
“He texted me,” Hope murmured, not sure that she wanted to actually say those words out loud.
“What did he say?” Angelica asked, her cheeks paling.
“Nothing specific.”
“It doesn’t matter right now. These guys are going to be out here for the week, so we’re going to have to film around them.
I suggest we start everything tonight, modify the schedule to get as much done quickly so we can get the hell out of Dodge.
” Florence flicked her gaze from Hope to Angelica. “You two up for that?”
“Yeah.” Hope looked over her shoulder at Eva.
“Sure.” Angelica brushed her fingers through her hair. “Opening sequence is going to be difficult.”
“We’ll do it inside instead of outside.” Florence brushed her fingers through long hair. “I’ll work on the schedule tonight. Why don’t you two sit down with Ronan and Elsie Bates and do the first run of introductions and conversation. Rex and Cadence are already setting up.”
“But we don’t have a script.” Angelica pursed her lips and stared directly at Florence, as if she was stepping into a battle that no one knew they were fighting.
“I think you’ll figure it out for right now.” Florence clenched her jaw.
“Fine by me.” Angelica stepped away and toward the door. “Coming, Hope?”
What the hell was that all about?
Hope’s stomach was in knots as she watched the fire and anger fly between Florence and Angelica.
What did they have against each other already?
Or was this just the fact that Angelica was very difficult to work with and Hope had been one of the few people to figure out how to manage that? Had Josef been right about that?
“Hope?” Angelica said her name again, standing by the door and holding it open.
“Yeah.” Her voice cracked, like she hadn’t used it in ages, but that wasn’t the case. “Eva?”
“I’m good!” Eva grinned back at her, all dark hair and blue eyes. “I know the drill.” She rolled those stunning eyes and planted herself at the table with her tablet in front of her, already flicking her finger against the screen as she figured out what she wanted to watch.
Still, Hope’s stomach was in knots. Eva seemed so unfazed by everything happening around her, and yet, Hope couldn’t stop the sense of dread that locked onto her body and consumed her.
But was the problem Eva and Hope’s worry about her daughter, or was it Angelica, and that last conversation they had that still clung to the air?
“I’ll watch her,” Florence stated. “Well, I’ll be in the room for now. She seems pretty self-sufficient.”
Hope bit her lip, her gaze lingering on Florence, the dark hair that reached her beyond shoulders in straight lines, the pale eyes—Hope could never quite tell if they were green or blue.
She wanted to say something, to ask Florence’s opinion on coming out to the world as being in a relationship with Angelica, but she couldn’t force the words past her lips.
Not with Eva there. Not with Angelica looking on. Not with…
She looked at Angelica, realization dawning on her.
Right.
Angelica asked about an open relationship, not because this was a thought that had just occurred to her—no, that wasn’t Angelica’s style—but because she’d been thinking about it for the last year and because something had happened that forced her to ask the question.
Something like Florence.
“Eva, why don’t you come with me, and you can sit with Daddy behind the monitors.
” Hope’s voice rang clearly through the room, catching Eva’s attention.
But she didn’t drag her gaze away from Angelica.
She needed Angelica to understand the boundaries that she was putting into place. Even if she didn’t say them explicitly.
“Okay.” Eva hopped up from her chair.
Hope nodded at Florence and then put her hand on Eva’s shoulder as she walked her out of the room.
It took everything in her not to grab Angelica’s hand and pull her in for a kiss.
To press their lips together in passion and understanding.
But their relationship was still largely hidden from the crew, they hadn’t shared that information with anyone, and they hadn’t talked about how they wanted to behave when it did come out.
Angelica shot her a look that said just as much.
They walked in silence down the hallway and back toward the front of the hotel.
The crowd outside the windows hadn’t dissipated at all.
Hope dropped Eva with Rex and set her up in a chair before she joined Angelica and an elderly woman standing by reception along with a man who looked like her but twenty years younger.
“Hope, this is Ronan and Elsie Bates.” Angelica waved her hand in front of them.
“It’s good to meet you.” Hope held her hand out to shake. Perhaps Angelica was right for once. Focusing on work would be the perfect distraction from the storm that was taking over. Because if she focused on that, then she was going to spiral out of control.
“Ronan and Elsie own the hotel together as mother and son.” Angelica crossed her arms and popped her hip out slightly, her gaze moving from the owners to Hope, something shadowed behind them. “I wanted to apologize for the mess outside. We weren’t expecting something like this.”
“They’ve been camped out here all day,” Ronan said.
“Really?” Hope asked, surprise rocking through her.
“Some came last night when I was closing down the restaurant.” Elsie nodded toward the windows. “One of them scared me when I was taking out the trash.”
Hope’s heart broke at that. These were ordinary people, and they weren’t prepared for this circus. Then again, she wasn’t sure she was prepared for it either.
“We wanted to film introductions and opening discussions tonight if we can.” Angelica immediately launched into work mode. “Then maybe we can get these monkeys out of your hair faster.”
Hope knew, even though Angelica didn’t show it, that she would feel guilty for bringing this chaos onto the hotel and family. And it’d only make their job so much more difficult.
“Yeah, I think we can do that.” Ronan nodded at Angelica. “I’m not sure we’re going home tonight anyway. If we do, I’ll drive you to your house, okay, Mom?”
She nodded at him, not arguing.
Hope looked directly at Cadence, who stepped into the conversation. “I’ve set us up to film in the dining room for now, since it’s relatively empty. And it’ll give a good backdrop for Hope so she can see what needs to be worked on.”
Right. Work.
But all the people outside, the weight of Josef’s ongoing threats, and the pressure of her relationship with Angelica and just what that meant were taking up so much space in her brain that she was struggling to do the basic things she needed for work today.
“Let’s head that way,” Hope said, guiding everyone toward what they needed to do.
Still, she wasn’t going to make anything a bigger mess than it already was. Angelica deserved that, and Hope was going to deliver on it.