Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
The room was dead quiet.
Rex sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, and Hope had no idea what to even say to him. She’d begged Molly to take Eva for the night when Rex had texted and told her he was coming back and they needed to talk. But ever since he’d arrived, he hadn’t said a damn word.
And it was now three in the morning.
Hope worried her lower lip and continued to stare at his back. Had she really broken him this time? Had she shattered the man that she’d fallen in love with into so many pieces that they’d never be able to put him together again?
“Rex?” Hope asked, her voice breaking on his name.
She cleared her throat, tears stinging her eyes.
But she was going to have to be the one to start this.
He wasn’t going to do it, and they needed to talk before morning hit and they had to get to work.
“Rex, I know I did this all wrong. That I’m the one at fault here. ”
“Yes, you are.” Rex’s voice rang through the room, so raw and rough. He’d been crying most of the day. Hope could tell that. And she hated herself a little more because she was the cause.
“I’m so sorry.” She shook her head, tears escaping down her cheeks. But she hated that she was crying. She wasn’t the victim here. He was. She’d made a conscious decision to have sex with Angelica, and she wasn’t ever going to be able to change that. Not that she wanted to.
Something had changed in her that night, but it wasn’t what she expected. She didn’t come to any sort of conclusion about her sexuality—she’d already done that. She hadn’t realized that she didn’t love her husband, because she definitely still loved him. That’s what made this so hard.
Hope crawled to the edge of the bed, hanging her feet over it so that she was sitting next to him.
The light from the television was the only thing that allowed her to see the exhaustion in his face.
She wanted to touch him, but she knew she couldn’t.
He had to allow her to do that first. He had to make the step to let her back into his life.
“It wasn’t just sex,” Hope whispered. She sniffled and clenched her teeth. This part was going to be the hardest to say. “I have feelings for Ange.”
“I know,” Rex said, his voice dropping. He closed his eyes and his shoulders went lax. “I know you do.”
Silence filled the space between them, but it was a comfortable one, something about the way they were finally talking about what Hope had been avoiding since the end of last season. The words she’d avoided telling him for so long spilled from her and it was so damn hard to make them stop.
But then again, why did she have to do that?
“I tried so hard to ignore it,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I tried so hard to convince myself that it was all in my head.”
“But it’s not.” Rex nodded slightly and looked up at her, eyebrows raised in understanding. “I’ll never fault you for being someone who thinks with her heart first and her head second, Hope. You know that.”
She gave him a small, watery smile. God, the man was always supportive of her, wasn’t he? Even in one of their darkest moments, even when she was the sole source of that darkness, he still wasn’t going to let her be someone other than who she was meant to be.
He sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair. “I had all day to think about this.”
“I didn’t want to keep it from you.”
Rex sent her a look, telling her to be quiet, so Hope nodded to let him speak. This was his time now, not hers. And she needed to let him have it. Open communication. It was now or never, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know what to do going forward, Hope, but we need to talk to each other. You need to stop hiding things from me.” Rex stretched his back and then settled his gaze on her. “Our marriage will never survive if we don’t do that.”
“Survive?”
Did he honestly still want to be with her? Did he want to give her a chance to earn his trust back?
“I love you, Hope. The whole of you, faults and all. I told you that you were impulsive, and I guess in many ways, none of this surprises me. It hurts, but it doesn’t surprise me.
I’ve seen the way you are with her.” Rex snorted and rolled his eyes.
“No, it’s more that I’ve seen the way she is with you. ”
“What do you mean?” Hope furrowed her brow.
“She’s not the same with you as she is with everyone else. She’s… softer.” Rex shrugged a little. “Nicer.”
Hope wrinkled her nose. “Ange is a very nice person.”
“No, Hope, she’s not. Well, she’s not mean, but she’s not nice. I don’t know how to explain it.” Rex groaned and ran his fingers through his hair again. “The whole point of this is to say I wish you would have just told me instead of hiding it from me.”
“I…” Hope stopped talking. Heat rushed to her cheeks.
This is the time to be honest. “I didn’t want to admit it to myself.
Honestly. I tried not to think about it or focus on it because I was scared of what that would mean.
Figuring out that I’m attracted to a woman was one thing, but having feelings for her? ”
“You don’t have attraction without feelings.” Rex put his hand on her knee. “You’ve never been someone who’s attracted physically to a person without falling for who the person is first.”
Hope parted her lips to say something but stopped. “Y-you’re right. I just never thought about it like that.”
“Sometimes the people who love you are the best mirrors of yourself.”
Hope hummed, hearing the words of their couple’s counselor in her mind. How many times had they been told that in the last year? Too many. She rolled her shoulders and eased the tension in her body a little. “So where do we go from here?”
“Well, I don’t want to give up on us.”
Those words warmed Hope’s soul. She pressed her head to his shoulder and closed her eyes, nearly crying from the relief. She breathed in his scent, that smell that had a bit of spice to it, and she savored it. She hadn’t been sure she’d ever get to smell him like this again.
“What do you want?” Rex asked.
“I don’t want to lose you.” Hope pulled her lips into a smile. “I can’t lose you and Eva. I love you.”
Rex sighed heavily, relaxing. “Then let’s continue to talk and go from here. I don’t know what our future looks like, Hope, but what it’s been can’t be it.”
“I understand.” She pinched her face up and nodded at him. “I need to stop holding back from you and from myself.”
“That’s a start.” Rex held his hand out.
Hope slid her fingers against his, reveling in the warmth of his skin.
It felt like eons since they’d last touched each other like this.
But he didn’t lean in to kiss her like he normally would.
Baby steps, she had to tell herself. They were just getting their feet back under them and they needed to figure out where to go from here.
“Let’s get a couple hours of sleep. I know you have an early morning,” Rex said, nodding toward the mattress.
“Yeah.” Hope swallowed the lump in her throat. She had to be up and filming in an hour. She wasn’t a morning person. She hated mornings, in fact, and this one was going to be particularly hard.
Rex stood up and pulled off his shirt, shucked his pants, and then climbed under the blankets. Hope breathed slowly, following his lead. When he was pressed up behind her, she tried to relax, but she found it next to impossible. She wanted to be here, she really did, but it was so damn hard.
Because she’d made a decision that could tear down everything they’d built and more. She’d made the decision to go with her gut, to give in to feelings she didn’t want to admit until earlier today. Because she loved hard and fast, and she was absolutely in love with Rex and Angelica. Both of them.
And she didn’t want to have to choose.
The coffee mug was hot against the skin of Hope’s palm as she stepped into the kitchen way too early in the morning.
Sy followed her with a camera, and a few of the other crew who had been told they were getting up this early.
Hope hadn’t even stopped by to see Ansel yet, and she was barely able to blink her eyes open enough to see in the bright lights the construction team had hung.
“Ma’am, you need a hard hat,” the construction site manager, Carrie, said gruffly, as if she hadn’t had enough coffee that night either.
Right. She’d forgotten that. Snagging the hat she was supposed to wear, she plopped it on her head and stepped in closer to check everything out. She was supposed to talk to the cameras, explain what was happening, but words weren’t forming in her mouth right now.
Two more sips and then maybe she’d get there. Maybe she’d get some into Carrie and Carrie could do the talking on the camera for her. That was a better idea.
Hope finally turned to face the camera that Sy had, following her.
“We’re in the middle of fixing the renovations that the owners had done about a year ago.
They weren’t to code, and we needed to get them up to speed.
Luckily, we found a company willing to work with us on our timeline.
Poor Carrie has been up all night working her ass off to get this right. ”
Hope plastered a smile on her face, one that she was sure didn’t reach her eyes, but her next sentence would make that make sense to all the viewers out there, if this even made the final cut of the episode.
“So, we’re here in the kitchen in the middle of the night working.” She laughed a little. “Because we have a week to turn this place around and get it on the right track.”
She moved to face the hood on the oven. That was the issue she was most afraid of not being fixed. Lighting was one issue, but if the hood wasn’t moved, then she would refuse to cook in the kitchen entirely.
“What they’re doing is moving the hood to where it needs to be. We also have to add in some floor trim, add in some lighting, and change the countertops.”
She hated feeling like she was talking to herself like this.
She reminded herself to no end that she was talking to the audience, but it still felt awkward.
Even in her morning cooking show, she hated it.
When she had guests like Rachel, her sister, or Rex and Eva, it was so much easier.
Hope rolled her shoulders and ducked around a ladder to get to the freezer.
“We’re cleaning out the freezer as well, making sure that everything is up to date and ready for us to relaunch the kitchen in twenty-four hours.
” Hope lifted the tone of her voice to make herself sound way more excited than she actually was.
“It’s been a long night, but we’re here to get work done.
We need to save Opal Oasis, and Ms. Shields and I are burning the candles to get it done. ”
What had she just said? Frowning to herself, Hope nodded at the camera and then at Sy.
She really needed to stop this. She walked around the kitchen a bit more and then ducked out into the dining area.
Sy stayed to get some more footage, but Hope couldn’t keep herself there.
She needed to get her head on straight, coffee in her veins, otherwise she wasn’t going to make it through today.
Hope wandered through to the conference room where they had most of their stuff stored for the week, but no one was in there. Rightfully so, most people were still asleep. That or they were just waking up and getting ready for the day.
Sighing, she made her way into the next room over where Ansel had set up his station.
She was already in her chef’s uniform. Some days she wanted a change of outfits, but then she looked at what Angelica had to wear and knew it was probably better to stick with her chef’s coat and a pair of pants.
She wouldn’t fall on her face in non-slip tennis shoes either.
She smiled at that as she sat down in the chair and sipped the hot coffee. God, this stuff needed to have four more shots in it before she’d even feel close to human for the morning.
“Hope!” Ansel frowned at her. “You’re here early.”
“I had an early call.” Her voice was gravelly as she spoke. Clearly, the coffee wasn’t working as well as she wanted it to. “Didn’t you know?”
Ansel shook his head. “No.”
“Sorry. I’ll talk to Rex about that.” She wouldn’t.
They had bigger fish to fry with conversations, but maybe someone else would talk to him so she wouldn’t have to.
Someone from production. Typically that’d be Angelica, but she had to tell Angelica to steer as clear from Rex as possible for the next few days while they sorted things out, didn’t she?
“I’ll get you made up, then.”
“Take your time,” Hope called, not caring to have makeup plastered on her face to cover up the dark circles she no doubt had under her eyes. It might take every trick in Ansel’s book to cover those up today. “I’ve got time to wait you out.”
Ansel moved over to the counter and started setting up, turning on light music so that Hope wasn’t just sitting in silence. He tried a few times to start a conversation with her, but Hope didn’t have the energy or the brain power to carry on anything that resembled coherent sentences.
“Morning,” Angelica said as she stepped into the room.
Hope’s back stiffened immediately. She looked up at Angelica, empty coffee mug against her knee, and her lips parted in surprise.
Angelica halted her forward motion, her gaze dropping to Hope’s face and then her hands and back up.
She cocked her head to the side, lips slightly parted, and sighed lightly.
“Would you like more coffee?” Angelica asked.
“Hell yes,” Hope whispered.
“I’ve got you.” Angelica’s lips pulled tight, and she disappeared again.
Hope had no idea where she was going. Using her brain was such a slog right now. Ansel clicked his tongue at her and then tilted her face upward into the light.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” Angelica murmured quietly.
“No,” Hope answered. “No, I didn’t.”