Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
“You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.” Cadence plopped down next to Hope in the conference room.
Hope frowned, her shoulders curled over the coffee she had sitting on the table, the one that she’d barely touched.
It was early in the morning, and no one was there yet.
Not even Ansel was up and around yet. This was the quietest Hope had seen the hotel yet, and she was just enjoying it for now. While she could, at least.
Because she had a big day planned.
Ronan and Elsie had agreed to their plan, so they had food to cook and a market to go to.
“Hope?” Cadence said her name and touched her arm.
“Yeah?” Hope stilled, but she couldn’t bring herself around to be her normal smiling self. Not yet anyway.
“What’s going on?” Cadence seemed so genuine. Usually, she was loud, boisterous, full of flirtation and laughter. But this Cadence was the one under the surface that you only got to see when you knew her well.
“Ange asked if I wanted an open relationship.” Just saying those words out loud was so difficult. The weight of it had been heavier than she realized, and the constant pushing from Ange for an answer wasn’t helping her any.
“Oh boy. Okay. Um…” Cadence ran her hand up and down the back of her head roughly before she snorted and chuckled. “You know, it’s five in the morning. We’re not supposed to have deep philosophical conversations until it’s beer o’clock.”
Hope laughed lightly at that. “Yeah, well, I’ve been up since beer o’clock pondering this.”
“Damn, girl.” Cadence laughed, a little more harshly this time than before.
This was why Hope liked her. She didn’t hold back. She was true to herself as she could be—at least from where Hope was standing. Biting her lip, Hope canted her head to the side and nodded. “What do you think about open relationships?”
“Poly?” Cadence blew out a breath and leaned back in the chair. “I’ve toyed with it myself. Been in relationships with multiple women at the same time, though nothing very formal like you might be thinking. Just noncommittal.”
Hope shook her head and grabbed the cold cup of coffee and took a sip. She winced as it hit her tongue, but she drank it anyway. She was going to need as much coffee as she could possibly get that day.
“Rex and I tried an open relationship.” She shifted her gaze to Cadence to judge where she was at with this information, but Cadence remained steady and unmoved by the comment. “It didn’t exactly work out.”
“With Ange?” Cadence asked.
Hope nodded silently. She’d never told anyone this before, not really, not when it was her choice to tell the story, not when she was seeking an unbiased opinion, not when she wasn’t trying to defend herself or Angelica.
Cadence whistled. “From my understanding, and from what little experience I have as a bystander, open relationships don’t usually work when a relationship has already been established for years before it becomes open.
That’s not always the case, but there’s a lot of negotiation, boundaries, and testing and back and forth that has to happen for it to work.
I’m going to take a wild assumption here and guess that you and Rex didn’t do that. ”
“No, we didn’t.” Hope’s heart sank. Angelica had told her something similar two years ago when everything had started to go downhill, but she’d ignored it. She’d lived into the dream that everything would work out. And it hadn’t.
Cadence nodded slowly, shifting in the chair. “Do you feel as though one person could be enough for you?”
“I don’t know,” Hope whispered, tears brimming and stinging her eyes.
She just wanted to have the answers, to be able to tell Angelica what she wanted, but she hadn’t thought about it.
Not until Angelica had asked, and she didn’t know for sure if an answer of yes would end up with them together in the end.
Would it be Angelica’s deal breaker?
“That’s hard,” Cadence responded, touching Hope’s arm lightly. “Why does Ange want to know so much?”
“She likes rules and lines and standards.” Hope shrugged a little. “I suppose she wants to know so that she can know what she has to prepare for.”
Chuckling, Cadence leaned back in the chair again. “That does sound like her.”
Hope agreed. Which was probably why Angelica was pushing so hard for an answer to begin with.
Hope was the opposite. She didn’t like structure or boundaries.
She wanted to live as freely and as impulsively as possible.
Though that had gotten her into a significant about of trouble in the past, and she’d worked to tame those urges more since then.
“Want my advice?” Cadence asked. “Or do you just want to tell me what you’re feeling and struggling with and have me be your sounding board?”
Hope bit her lip, still holding the cold coffee cup in her hand. “Advice.”
“Would there be any harm in telling Ange that you might want an open relationship in the future but that you don’t right now, so you don’t want to take it off the table, but you don’t exactly want it on the table right at this moment?” Cadence looked at her curiously. “Would she demand an answer?”
Was Angelica even demanding an answer?
Or was she more demanding a conversation that needed to happen?
“I don’t know. That might be enough of an open door that she’s comfortable with it.” Hope smiled at Cadence. “Thanks.”
“Glad to be of service, ma’am. I don’t claim to be an expert on all things queer, but I have some damn good experience.”
Laughing, Hope set down her cup and settled herself.
This had been a good conversation. Now if they’d only managed to have it at beer o’clock instead of this morning, then maybe she would have gotten some sleep.
Hope rustled her hair. “I suppose I should go find Ansel. Elsie and I do have an early morning of prep work to get done.”
“Yes, you do. Hence why I’m awake. Thank you for that.” Cadence rolled her eyes with the sarcasm.
Hope loved working with Cadence. She was glad that she hadn’t been scared off from the show yet, that she’d stuck around. She definitely was the highlight of most of Hope’s work week. “All right.”
Hope pushed herself to her feet and started toward the coffee pot. That was a must right now. Then she’d find Ansel.
It didn’t take Hope long to get through hair and makeup and into her chef’s coat.
By the time she got to the kitchen, Elsie was there with Cadence, and they were talking in gentle tones.
At least a lot of her anger seemed to have eased from the last few days—at least she wasn’t mad at Cadence.
Hope was a different person entirely, and Elsie might put most of that on her and Angelica.
But that’s what they were here for.
To push and to prod and to force people into the change they weren’t sure about making. Hope sent Elsie one of the biggest smiles she could muster. “Are you ready?”
Elsie nodded and frowned.
Right, so it was Hope.
They spent the next four hours prepping and baking and cooking the different items that Hope had come up with for the market.
She had a few of the other crew slapping on labels with promotional material and coupons for the restaurant.
She was going to make this work, as much as it pained her.
Angelica’s plan wasn’t without flaws, but it was probably the best bet that they had.
Hope counted and recounted everything so she could give Angelica an accurate report about what ended up happening, because she was damn sure that she’d want one in the end. When she was done, she put her hands on her hips and surveyed everything.
“I think we’re ready,” Hope said.
“This better work,” Elsie croaked out.
“It’ll work.” Hope had to believe that it would because if it failed, she wasn’t sure they’d have any more credibility with Elsie and Ronan. They were decidedly against them, pushing them to the edges of allowing them to do their work in here.
Elsie made a disgruntled noise before she started to pull on an apron that Angelica had told them to wear, one with the restaurant branding on it. Hope moved to the back door to prop it open so they could load the truck, and froze.
Flashes of lights blinded her.
She threw her hands up in front of her face to block the lights and squinted. She hadn’t been prepared for this. “Hope! Hope! Hope!” So many voices said her name at the same time. She couldn’t concentrate on a single one of them.
“Do you have anything to say about your relationship with Angelica Shields?”
“Did you cheat on your husband? Is that why you got divorced?”
“Can you tell us more about this? When did your relationship start?”
A phone was shoved into Hope’s face. On it was a still image of Hope and Angelica kissing, and it wasn’t from that security footage from New Orleans.
With this one, there was absolutely no doubt what they were doing.
She was still in her chef’s coat, and Angelica was all dressed up for filming.
They were outside in the daylight, hands to cheeks and lips to lips.
Hope had to think about to where that kiss was, and when it hit her, she nearly puked. St. Paul’s. Right at the river when they’d taken a stroll to have a serious conversation that ended in a kiss, and now this was being shoved into her face. Who the hell had taken it?
Who the fuck had seen them?
Hope slammed the door shut and retreated into the kitchen, her head against the cold door as she took deep, staying breaths.
Because this was too much. This was Angelica’s worst nightmare, and it was becoming hers.
Not only were they talking to Eva, but now they were going to interfere with them actually getting their work done.
They couldn’t go to the market like this.
Hope wouldn’t be able to stand out there and hand out food items if these people were going to be accosting her. Elsie grunted again.
“Seems like Ronan’s not the only one who’s found himself in a bit of a scandal.”
God, Hope wanted to scream.
“Cadence!” She raised her voice to make sure that she was heard.
“Yes, Chef!” Cadence’s snarky and comforting voice reached her ears.
“Go get me FloRo because we’ve got a bigger problem. Might as well get Ange and Lyric too. Everyone’s going to need to be in on this.” Hope’s shoulders slumped. She was so tired of this. She just wanted to do her damn job.
“We’re already working on a solution.” Florence’s voice reached her ears.
For the first time since Hope had met her, she actually trusted that they were doing something about this problem.
Because Angelica wouldn’t be able to think responsibly about it.
She’d have the attitude that they should all be shoved off the property or arrested.
And well, maybe that wasn’t a bad idea, all things considering.
“Elsie, will you load the car? Molly can help you.” Cadence helped direct Elsie on what to do while Hope retreated even farther into the dining room and away from the crowd outside.
“We hired private security to come and keep them away from you during the market.” Florence eyed Hope over.
“And if they slip through?” Hope asked.
“There’s only so much that can be done at this point.” Florence winced. “No one anticipated the mess that this would make, or just exactly what Josef’s leaking of videos and images was going to do to filming.”
“He’s leaked more than the one?” Hope bit her lip.
Florence bopped her had back and forth. “Several.”
“Wonderful. Absolutely fucking wonderful.”