Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
She shivered at the memory.
“Come in!”
Hope hesitated for only one more second as she pushed open the door and stepped inside. Angelica sat primly at her desk, the world her queendom in here no doubt. Hope shut the door behind her, moving to sit in the chair immediately across from Angelica.
Yes, it was a good thing to keep some space between them.
That would help.
Hopefully.
She raised her eyebrows at Angelica and pressed her lips together in a thin line. Then she sighed. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t come in here calm and collected like Angelica did. That wasn’t who she was.
“Are you ready to talk now?” Hope asked, folding her hands together in her lap to try and keep her nerves contained.
“No,” Angelica answered with a sigh and a flick of her hair over her shoulder. “But we can’t hold it off any longer.”
Hope hadn’t been the one pushing it off, but that was semantics, and she didn’t need to bring it up. She tensed her shoulders and waited for Angelica to speak. Instead, they both just ended up staring at each other in silence.
“Angel,” Hope started, her tone far sharper than she’d anticipated it being. But she was frustrated. They needed to talk about this, and it’d been long enough already.
“I know.” Angelica stood up and walked to the table near her desk and snagged herself a glass. “Drink?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what got us into this situation.”
Angelica shot Hope a look over her shoulder, one that Hope was struggling to read. Was that annoyance, frustration, or surprise? Definitely surprise in there. Disbelief?
“If you want to think that’s what got us here, then you can.
But I don’t believe that for a second.” Angelica turned back around and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, popping her hip out in the process and making the lines of her body shift.
Hope’s heart skipped a beat as she raked her gaze over Angelica’s body from her shoulders to her ass and back up again.
“You didn’t answer me,” Angelica said. “Do you want a drink?”
“Y-yes,” Hope whispered. She’d need it to get the words out.
Angelica came over with two glasses. She stood right next to Hope and handed one over. Hope reached up, taking the glass. Their fingers brushed. Both of them gasped and tensed. Their gazes locked, and Hope had to fight her body, which was telling her to stand up and do something about this feeling.
Angelica cleared her throat and moved to sit at one of the lounger chairs next to the drinks table. She slid into the seat and stared at Hope curiously. “Come sit here.”
“All right.” Hope wasn’t sure why she had to move, and sitting even closer to Angelica seemed like the perfect idea and the worst idea all wrapped up in one.
She’d spent the entire day trying to focus on her family and instead she’d been consumed by what this conversation was going to mean.
It hadn’t been easy to sneak away from Rex and Eva, and she wasn’t going to tell him what she was going to do. Not a damn chance.
Hope plopped down, crossing her ankle over her knee, and keeping the glass between her fingers. Angelica sipped hers, setting it down on the small table between the chairs. God, this was so awkward between them. One of them just needed to break the ice.
“I think two things need to happen,” Angelica said, her voice ringing loudly and firmly through the room.
Hope stilled. She’d been about to speak, but this was a surprise. Angelica was never the first one to talk about emotions.
“We need to figure out a way to put all of that behind us so we can work together. I don’t think either one of us expected to be in the position we’re in today. Secondly, going forward, we need to make sure that everyone sees how separate our lives are.”
“By everyone… who do you mean?” Hope asked, wrapping her fingers around her shin and holding on for dear life. It was as though Angelica was negotiating a plea arrangement instead of actually talking about what they were feeling.
“I mean everyone.”
“Josef? Leanne? Rex?”
Angelica sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. “You know who I mean,” she mumbled into her glass before taking another sip and focusing on it.
“No, I don’t. You haven’t actually told me what we’re trying to hide from them either.”
Angelica cut her a sharp look.
“You can’t just make assumptions, Angel. We have to talk about this, otherwise we’re never going to clear the air enough to know what we’re doing, one way or the other.”
“We’re not doing anything.” Angelica looked at her directly. “We’re facing multiple problems going into season two, and a relationship between the two of us isn’t one of those.”
“A relationship?” Hope’s breath left her. “Who said anything about a relationship?”
The air between them thickened.
What the hell was Angelica going on about? They weren’t in a relationship, and that was the last thing that Hope wanted. She clenched her jaw tightly.
“The fans of the show.” Angelica waved her hand in the air. “We need to put those rumors to rest.”
“That’s going to be hard with a second season.”
“Yes, but we’ll find a way. But there’s a bigger issue we need to talk about.”
“What’s that?” Hope gritted her teeth. This entire situation was setting her on edge. She just needed Angelica to come out with it. This holding back nonsense was too much.
“We lost one of our key investors. We’ll make it through for a while until we can find another investor, but we have to replace that income we’ve lost.” Angelica bent her feet under her, her skirt rising up over her knees and revealing smooth creamy skin.
Hope’s gaze locked on her legs. Would they be as smooth as the skin on her neck? As hot to the touch?
“That can’t happen.”
Hope snapped her gaze to Angelica’s eyes, her cheeks burning. “What? What can’t happen?”
Angelica’s lips parted as she took a deep breath and pursed her lips. “Don’t be obtuse, Hope.”
Shame rolled through her, filling her stomach first and then her chest. She hated the way Angelica was looking at her now. Hope hardened herself against it, lifting the glass to her lips and taking a long drink of the whiskey.
“I’m going to need you to help me secure a new investor.”
“What? Why?” Hope settled her glass onto the desk. “You haven’t needed my help before.”
“I used you before without actually using you. Remember?”
Right. San Francisco.
Angelica had promised to help Hope resolve a problem at her restaurant there, and then she’d never shown up.
Until she had, unexpected, and not there for that purpose.
The conversation had been smooth and fine, and everything had been going well until Hope had moved in to kiss her and Angelica had stopped it all.
That wasn’t the first time Hope had seen Angelica shut down like that.
She doubted it would be the last.
“This time I need you to work with me. It’ll be easier that way.”
“All right,” Hope agreed, not entirely sure what she was agreeing to. She’d figure it out later. “But what about us.”
“There is no us.” Angelica looked at her sharply again. “We’re here to do a job, and we’re going to do that job to the best of our ability. Nothing else.”
Hope wasn’t entirely sure about that one. It seemed they couldn’t even be in the room together right now without sparks flying, though perhaps that would get easier along the way. “Angel… I need you to be honest with me.”
Although as Hope said those words, she realized it also meant that for that to happen Angelica was going to have to be honest with herself.
Which Hope suspected was a much harder feat.
Hope leaned back into the chair, waiting for Angelica to respond to that.
She knew it’d take a minute or five. Looking around the office, she stilled.
In a frame on the storage shelves just behind Angelica’s desk was a hand drawn picture from a child.
One that Hope recognized immediately as one that she hadn’t mailed to Angelica.
She frowned at it and then squinted, trying to make sure that it really was the drawing that she remembered Eva making and asking her to send to Angelica.
Standing suddenly, Hope walked over to the picture frame and snagged it. Sure enough, written in crude crayon across the bottom of the picture was a To Angelica. Love Eva. She wanted to cry. How the hell had she gotten this?
She tensed sharply, her brows knit together as she faced Angelica. “What’s this?”
“Eva drew it for me.”
“I know that,” Hope snapped. Her cheeks were red, burning. “How did you get it?”
“I assume she mailed it to me.” Angelica stood up slowly, coming around to stand next to Hope. She took the picture from Hope’s hands and set it back down onto the shelf. “I framed it.”
“I didn’t mail it,” Hope whispered, her voice dropping off into the ether. “She asked me to, but I… I couldn’t do it.”
Angelica stilled. They were standing so close. Hope trembled as she stared at the picture.
“How did you get it?”
“I told you, it was mailed to me. I assumed you had…” Angelica trailed off. “I do miss Eva.”
“She misses you.” Hope gave her a small, watery smile. “It was so hard to keep her from calling you.”
“Why would you?” Angelica furrowed her brow in confusion. “I’m not dangerous.”
But she was. Just not to Eva.
Angelica screamed every bit of danger that Hope wasn’t sure she could keep herself safe from. “Angel…”
“Don’t do that.” Angelica stepped back and turned on her toes, immediately going back to the chair she’d just vacated.
“I did nothing,” Hope said.
“You know exactly what you did.” Angelica challenged her and then sighed. “We’re going to Houston first. It doesn’t seem like too big a job, not like Seattle.”
Hope clenched her jaw as she listened to Angelica prattle on about work. That was the last thing she wanted to discuss, but it was the only thing that they should be talking about. Like Angelica had said, there was nothing else between them, right?
“Next we’ll go to Kansas City…”
“I can read the itinerary on my own.” Hope sighed heavily and plopped back down next to Angelica.
She could already feel the distance between them growing.
“Unless you want to discuss the details of each hotel and how we’re going to fix them right now, let’s just do one at a time like we did last season. ”
Angelica pursed her lips but nodded in agreement. “I’ll schedule in a few trips between the shows to meet up with tentative investors. It’ll just be you and me on those trips.”
“Just us?” Fear raced through her. “No one else?”
“No one else is as good at closing the deal as I am on that front.”
“Then why do you need me?”
“I need you to cook.” Angelica frowned and nodded. “That’s not exactly in my skill set. I think you can testify to that.”
Hope laughed lightly. “You’re not the worst chef I’ve met.”
“High praise coming from you.” Angelica’s lips curled up slightly, just enough that Hope felt some ease.
Maybe this would work out in the end. Maybe they just had to get over this initial struggle before they could get to that point.
“I’ll have to talk with Rex about that. He’s…
uncomfortable with all of this. I don’t blame him, and I’m going to apologize to you in advance.
” Hope wrung her hands tightly before she grabbed her glass of whiskey and drank it down in one gulp.
That’s what was really bothering her, wasn’t it?
How did Rex fit into this whole situation?
Especially with how they’d been doing in the last year.
“Apologize?” Angelica asked, sipping her drink delicately.
“Yeah.” Hope didn’t really want to say more than that. Rex could dig his own grave with that one.
They fell into a comfortable silence, at least comfortable between the two of them. The rest of it was uncomfortable. And Hope couldn’t deny that now. With nothing else to say, Hope straightened up and moved to the edge of her seat.
“I suppose I’ll see you in Houston then.”
“Yes.” Angelica frowned slightly but she nodded. She set her glass down and stood up, understanding exactly what Hope had been aiming for.
They stood facing each other, Hope inches taller than Angelica, but that didn’t matter.
She tilted her chin down, looking into Angelica’s baby blue eyes, at the way her hair was perfectly curled over her shoulders, and she resisted the damn urge to reach up and brush her fingers across a lock, and then across Angelica’s cheek.
She definitely was going to have to deal with that.
“Thank you,” Hope murmured.
“For what?” Angelica asked.
Hope nodded. “For thinking I’m important enough to actually be honest with me.”
Angelica’s lips twitched upward into a smile, something that Hope had longed to see for months now. She was stunning when she let go of all the pomp and circumstance and was just her genuine authentic self. Hope wished she could see more of that, that the world could see all of her.
Saying nothing else, Hope left Angelica’s office and walked directly to her car.
She slid behind the wheel and closed her eyes, breathing deeply.
This was going to be difficult, but after that conversation, she was pretty sure they might just be able to pull this off.
They only had two more seasons locked in together, and then they could part ways—hopefully on a much better note than the start of this season.
Her phone buzzed.
Hope lifted it up, confused to see Lyric’s name across her screen along with a text.
Lyric: I wasn’t sure if you’d want these or not. But you asked me to send them, so here they are.
What the hell was she talking about? She was just about to ask when another text came in with a flood of photos from the shoot with Wade. Frowning, Hope opened the first one and then started to scroll with them. They were good behind -the-scenes shots.
That was until she zoomed in on her face.
And Angelica’s.
As they stared at each other’s lips over their shoulders while standing back-to-back.
And the way her cheeks had a rosiness to them that definitely shouldn’t be there.
And the way Angelica’s lips were parted so slightly, like Hope could catch her breath.
Fuck.
They were never going to be able to hide this.
Were they?