Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
“Are you mic’d?”
Hope burst through the door of the conference room, the one where they were holding their production meetings, not the one where Angelica frequently talked to Robin and Johnny.
Angelica looked up from her iPad in curiosity and confusion, her hair still shading her face as she’d been deep in working on management of her other hotels for the few brief minutes that she had.
“Yes.” Angelica cocked her head to the side. “Of course I am. I’m in between filming at the moment.”
“Turn it off,” Hope demanded. She reached behind her and ripped the microphone off her waistband to put it in front of Angelica’s face.
It was certainly turned off.
Angelica leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers as she looked Hope over.
It’d been a long time since she’d been confronted by Hope’s angry side, especially in quite this fashion.
She relaxed her body, keeping every little bit of herself in as much control as possible so she could figure out just what the hell was going on.
“What’s going on, Hope?” Angelica dropped her voice at the end, indicating that she really didn’t have the time or the patience for this today. She was tired of dealing with drama that didn’t need to be drama. She’d trust that Hope wouldn’t add to her insanity for the day.
“Turn your mic off.”
Angelica turned her head slightly to the side, looking deep into Hope’s gaze.
Fear lingered behind those crystalline blue eyes, fear and worry and stress.
Angelica pursed her lips and leaned forward in her chair, making somewhat of a show of reaching behind her back to snag the mic pack and turn it off.
She showed it to Hope and then disconnected the wire and put it on the tabletop as proof that she really didn’t have it.
“What’s going on?” Angelica repeated her question.
“Did you know about this?” Hope tossed her phone in front of Angelica, and it slid across the tabletop until it knocked into her iPad before stopping.
Angelica didn’t even flick her gaze down to it.
Instead, she continued to stare into Hope’s eyes.
She didn’t want to play games. She wanted this game to be over so she could get back to work.
And instead of saying anything out loud, she just stared, making sure that Hope understood her feelings without words.
“Well, did you?”
Sighing, Angelica gritted her teeth. “Did I know about what?”
“The pictures!” Hope nearly screeched out the word before she straightened her back and ran her fingers through her hair. Then she seemed to notice that the door was open, her entire body tensing and tightening as she stayed glued on it.
Angelica watched with rapt attention, unsure of what the hell was going on but knowing that Hope was clearly upset and struggling with something, and it was now her responsibility—for some odd reason—to talk her down from whatever this was.
“Hope, what are you talking about?”
Hope snapped her phone up quickly and unlocked it before setting it back down in front of Angelica.
Finally they were getting somewhere. Leaning over the desk slightly, Angelica focused her eyes on Instagram, specifically her Instagram, and pressed her lips together at the images she saw.
Photo after photo of her and Hope working together, smiling and laughing.
None of the intense tension from before where they were all glares and challenges, none of what was in this room right now.
But fuck, what would happen if the world saw this now?
Because this was way more than simple anger.
Hope leaned in even closer, flicking her finger against the phone’s screen to scroll it down.
Angelica had to close her eyes against the onslaught of Hope’s scent, that lilac that always seemed to follow her around everywhere.
She licked her lips, breathing deeply to center herself once again as she tried to focus on whatever the hell Hope was talking about.
They were too damn close to each other.
That’s what the problem was.
Angelica moved to stand up, hoping that the even footing between them would fix this problem, that it’d help her focus on what Hope was saying rather than on the fact that they were standing far too close for comfort.
Hope stepped to the side, but barely. Instead of putting more space between them, Angelica ended up nearly pressed against Hope’s side, the space between them mere millimeters instead of inches.
What the hell was she doing?
“Did you approve these?” Hope’s voice was back to that panicked, screeching quality.
Angelica again breathed deep, searching endlessly for the center that Hope always seemed to throw her off of. She rolled her shoulders and closed her eyes, reaching down to plant her fingers on the tabletop to keep herself as steady as possible.
“You know that I don’t deal with my social media.
” Her voice was quiet and calm, which in the middle of this conversation was quite a damn feat.
Because she felt anything but calm. Her heart raced to the point that it was hard to breathe, but when she did manage to drag in hot fresh air because the AC still wasn’t working in this fucking room, she was greeted with Hope’s scent and nothing else.
Her entire body was taut, frozen in place because she wasn’t sure she could move even if she wanted to.
She was locked here, stuck here, tethered down because Hope wouldn’t budge a damn inch to give her space.
“You pay her though.”
Lyric. She must have said something to Hope throughout the time they’d met up in the last few weeks and months.
She was proud of what she was doing, and from what Angelica had looked at before, she wasn’t doing a bad job at it.
And in all honesty, these new photos and posts weren’t bad. They just implied something.
Something that was very wrong.
Or right.
But either way, it was something that she and Hope weren’t talking about and were doing nothing about. Angelica breathed slowly. “Lyric does my social media, and I do let her have quite the range of freedom with it. For the record, I didn’t know she’d posted these.”
It took absolutely everything in her to keep her voice calm, edging on monotone. Because inside, she was a tornado of raging hormones and desires, but she’d sworn to herself over and over again that she wouldn’t.
That they couldn’t.
She wouldn’t be the one to make a move or to do something that would put Hope’s entire family at risk of falling apart. If Hope made that decision…
Angelica let that thought trail off because she didn’t want to finish it.
Instead, she finally looked up and made eye contact with Hope.
It was as if the whole world just stopped moving.
Her heart rate slowed. She couldn’t look away from Hope’s eyes, from the beauty and honesty but also the fear and worry that she found there.
That was what she loved about Hope—she never hid what she was feeling.
Everything was there in full blatant honesty for the taking.
And yet that never seemed to bother Hope.
Angelica’s lips parted, her entire body pushing its weight into her toes as she leaned impossibly closer. She breathed raggedly in and out, her entire being resting on whatever Hope was going to do or say next. Would that anger be gone?
“How did you not know?” Hope threw at her before pausing. Her gaze dropped from Angelica’s eyes to her lips… and they lingered there.
Were they even talking about the Instagram posts anymore?
Angelica wanted so much to lean in and taste Hope’s lips, to fully remember what it felt like to be pressed against her, to touch her.
She was a live wire waiting for it to happen, but it didn’t.
There’d be so much harm in that if she did it, so much backlash that she’d have to face.
And in her opinion, Hope had made it clear that she wasn’t looking for that.
Not now.
Probably not ever.
“Angel…” Hope murmured, her gaze still not lifting from Angelica’s lips.
“I don’t police my employees,” Angelica whispered. “But I’ll talk to her about them.”
“She needs to take them down.” Hope finally looked up into Angelica’s eyes and immediately turned away to stare at the phone.
Her cheeks were flushed, that gentle rosy hue that Angelica longed to see in a woman.
She knew that she looked good, and she knew that it affected people.
But to see it in Hope’s gaze now? In her body?
In the way she held herself? That held a thrill that she didn’t quite expect.
Because Hope was new to this.
She’d never been with a woman before, and try as she might, that did add a little something special to the way Hope was reacting to her now. A tease of first time, or new experiences, of what would happen if they truly were to break down this last barrier.
Angelica closed her eyes at that thought.
It was nothing more than a dream, and she just had to keep reminding herself of that.
Hope wouldn’t leave her husband, and she certainly wouldn’t leave her daughter—not that Angelica would ask her to do that ever.
But she wasn’t someone who was going to tear her family apart.
At least Angelica prayed she wasn’t, because they were going to need to keep some strong boundary lines up between them.
Hope pushed her hip into the table, her phone in her hands, and her eyes glued to it. “Do you know what these photos imply about us?”
Angelica’s heart skipped a beat. “Nothing that’s true, so it doesn’t matter what it implies.”
“But…” Hope trailed off, raising her gaze to meet Angelica’s again. Her full lips were parted as if she was going to say something else, but she didn’t. She’d full on stopped.
But what…?
Angelica wanted to know. She needed to know. But it was true? But they had kissed? But Angelica wanted to do so much more than just kissing? But Hope wanted that too? But they were both too scared to even dream up a way to figure out if this was possible? But…?
But what…?
“But…” Hope said again, stopping short. She bit her lower lip, her gaze again dropping to Angelica’s mouth. Her breaths became more ragged, the fire in her cheeks brighter.
And Angelica understood the sentiment. She felt the same.
This tension between them was dangerous and needed to be dropped off the edge of the atmosphere where neither one of them was going to have to deal with it again.
Angelica shifted her stance just barely, worried if she moved too much that Hope would skitter away in fear.
“But what, Hope?” Angelica asked, her voice reflecting a calm that she didn’t know she possessed.
“N-nothing,” Hope said, shaking her head and stepping back, putting some much-needed space between them. “Nothing, Angel. Just…Ange. I just…” Hope sighed. “I need to leave.”
Without another moment’s hesitation, Hope turned on her toes and fled.
Angelica sighed. She closed her eyes, crossed her arms, and sat on the edge of the table.
The hot, humid air in the room didn’t help her desire to escape it all, to race out that door and snag Hope’s wrist and pull her back in here.
Angelica stared across the room, seeing absolutely nothing other than that final streak of fear in Hope’s eyes as she’d run.
Who the hell was she kidding?
She knew Hope wasn’t going to break that last barrier. Angelica wasn’t worth it. She never had been, and she never would be.
Slowly pulling herself back together, at least as much as she could, Angelica snagged her iPad and pulled up her email.
Hope hadn’t been wrong, ultimately. Lyric really did need to watch what she was posting and just exactly what it implied was happening—or not happening—between the two of them.
The last thing Angelica needed or wanted was Rex and Josef to gang up on her again.
When she finished sending the email, she did nothing.
Angelica sat at that table and stared into the nothingness beyond her, lost in her thoughts. Hope was struggling with this as much as she was. She could tell that. But that didn’t mean the final straw would break, and it didn’t mean that it would ever go beyond what it was. Which was nothing.
There was nothing between them.
Angelica just had to remind herself of that. Constantly.
Hope didn’t want her. That was clear with the way she’d come raging into the room to yell at her about the photos.
She might physically be interested, but beyond that?
There was nothing between them. Angelica brushed her thumb across her lower lip and fluttered her eyes closed, remembering the way Hope had kissed her.
The touch of their mouths.
The slide of Hope’s hand against the small of her back.
The slip of her tongue past Angelica’s lips.
The sweet whimper she elicited.
That was where Angelica was going to have to live from now on, in the memory of their two shared kisses, in the dreams that could result from those, and in the fantasies that would never become reality.
She pulled her iPad closer, ready to focus back on work again, but try as she might, she couldn’t. Every task she set out to complete floundered, every email she meant to send failed. Work failed her. For the first time in her life, she struggled to avoid.
She couldn’t accept what she couldn’t have.