Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Angelica sat with Mrs. Jordanger, waiting for Hope to arrive. Hope had looked exhausted that morning, like she hadn’t slept in a week. And perhaps she hadn’t slept all night, but the weariness and edge to her voice had made Angelica want to hug and kiss her right there.
Instead, she was sitting in a room with Paris, waiting for Mr. SD Jordanger and Hope to arrive after checking on the kitchen. Again. This entire scene had been Rex’s idea, but he hadn’t shown up yet.
Which even for him was odd.
Josef had even texted to check in on what was happening on the ground since he was stuck at home, and Angelica hadn’t quite been sure how to answer him. Especially because what she and Hope had done had been the cause. Angelica had no doubts about that.
“Sorry I’m late.” Rex stepped into the office and nodded at Angelica.
He didn’t seem… antagonistic. Not like she’d expected him to be. Instead, he seemed almost… happy? Could that really be the case?
She could only be so lucky, and she was never lucky.
Angelica sighed, eyeing Rex carefully as he stepped behind the monitors and checked that the cameras were set the way he wanted them. Then he poked his head around and locked his gaze on Angelica.
“Hope will be here in a minute. They were just finishing up some pickups.”
“Okay,” Angelica found herself saying. She breathed slowly, the tightness in her stomach easing a little more. Maybe they could actually work through this and not have a big blow up over everything.
Rex smiled at her, though it seemed tight and forced.
That was far more what Angelica expected to happen.
He was trying his best, which meant she would try her best too.
She was just about to say something to Paris when Hope and SD stepped into the room and sat down.
Angelica had to stop herself from smiling when her gaze locked on Hope’s.
She looked much better than she had that morning.
“Shall we get started?” Rex asked, looking from Angelica to Hope and back again.
“Yes,” they both said at the same time.
“Good.” Rex clapped his hands.
Angelica was lost in Hope’s gaze, barely able to hear the orders that Rex gave or the fact they called action. Her cheeks burned as she looked down at her iPad to recenter herself.
“SD and I were just in the kitchen checking on the progress with the renovations,” Hope said, stepping in and giving Angelica an odd look.
She was perhaps the only one in the room who could have caught that Angelica wasn’t her normal self. Well, and perhaps Rex. They’d worked together long enough now that he might have noticed. But maybe not. He was a man after all.
“How’s it coming along?” Angelica asked dutifully. The goal was to move the conversation along, and so she had to get that accomplished.
“We should be done in the next twelve hours.”
Angelica raised her eyebrows in surprise. That was much quicker than she’d thought it’d be and what they’d originally planned for. “Good.”
“It’s very good,” Hope said, her smile turning on brightly as she locked her gaze on Angelica.
Angelica let herself get lost in that smile for a brief moment before focusing back on Mrs. Jordanger.
“We’ve been working on management with staff this morning and making sure that the standards are set for going forward.
Mrs. Jordanger, why don’t you talk about what those standards are so everyone is on the same page? ”
This way, she could stop talking, collect herself, and then move on from there.
Because she really needed to talk to Hope about what the hell was going on. She felt lost and out of the loop of some decision that’d been made without her. Then again, maybe that decision wouldn’t be in her favor.
She tracked back into the conversation as Paris was nicely scolding her husband about how he was being too easy on the employees. That was a good start, and definitely what Angelica had hoped to hear after the conversation they’d had the other day.
“We’ll continue to work on that with the hotel staff,” Angelica added, then turned her gaze to Hope. “Are you doing something about the restaurant staff?”
“Front of house, yes.” Hope nodded, her lips quirking up lightly. “Though, we do need to compare notes on policy changes so that everything is consistent, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Angelica canted her head to the side.
How was it that they were working together so easily now when before it had been such a struggle to get on the same page?
Was it really just because Josef wasn’t here to throw in extra drama where there was none or was it because she and Hope had actually found a way to communicate?
If they had, it was only about work.
Angelica pressed her lips together tightly. “So we have a plan going forward?” she asked.
“Yes.”
They ended the scene. Angelica didn’t stand up, though, and immediately went back into working while everyone else moved around her. She was so behind on everything, not just with what she needed to do for Opal Oasis, but what she needed to get done for production and her hotels.
Angelica stayed where she was, moving from one task into the next. It wasn’t until the door opened and she heard someone tsk at her that she looked up to find Hope leaning against the doorway with a curious look on her face.
“Have you moved at all since I left?”
“No,” Angelica answered, looking directly down at her iPad again.
“Angel…” Hope dragged out her name and pulled Angelica’s attention away from the financial data that she was working on.
“What?”
“I left five hours ago.” Hope crossed her arms and walked forward. “Have you seriously not moved?”
Angelica looked around. The crew had packed up and left. She frowned and glanced toward the window, which was dark. “No.”
“Have you eaten?” Hope cocked her head to the side.
“No,” Angelica said quickly.
“Angel, that’s not good for you.”
“I’m fine.” Angelica’s shoulders tightened. She had no idea what to expect right now, and Hope wasn’t helping her in figuring that out either. “I don’t need you policing what I eat or when I eat.”
“O…kay.” Hope slid into the chair next to her and pulled the iPad away. “Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say,” Angelica answered, trying to pull the iPad back, but stopping when Hope kept it out of her grasp. She sighed heavily and leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms. “Are the renovations done?”
“You want to talk about work?” Hope’s lips pulled up at the side.
“What else is there to talk about?” Angelica realized belatedly just how sore her muscles were and just how much she hadn’t moved in the last five hours apparently. Standing up looked a whole lot more appealing right now than anything else.
“I’ll never understand your penchant to just forget to eat.” Hope sighed.
“Uh, Ange?” Sy popped his head in the room. “I need your mic pack. We’re wrapped for the day.”
“Right.” Angelica stood up then, her knees protesting just how long she’d been stationary, but she kept her wince and her pain hidden.
Reaching behind her back, she pulled the mic pack off her waistband and immediately turned it off before unplugging the microphone from the pack itself.
Angelica tried not to focus on Hope as she reached under the blouse and pulled on the cable, but it was next to impossible.
Normally she would have done this in the dressing area, but Sy had come to find her because she was so behind on doing it.
He skittered away with the equipment, and Angelica was just about to sit down when Hope snagged her arm and spun her so their lips were pressed together.
Clenching her fists, Angelica kept her eyes open as she watched Hope kiss her. The embrace was brief, lips to lips. Angelica sighed as soon as Hope pulled away.
“I told you that we need to be careful,” Angelica said.
“Why?”
Angelica sighed heavily. How hard was this for Hope to understand? She stayed where she was, Hope only inches from her. “Because technically you’re my employee and so is Rex. And because of my…history.”
Hope stepped back then, her eyes wide. She pushed her hair over her shoulder and nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“Good.” Angelica breathed slowly. “I need to know about rescheduling time to meet with our potential new investor.”
“Oh.”
Angelica sat back down at the table and pulled the iPad closer. “When would work? Before we go to Vegas or after?”
“Angel…” Hope slid onto the table, sitting on the edge of it right next to where Angelica was working. “Why are you being so cold?”
Angelica looked up at her, realizing for the first time that perhaps she was the one putting the wall between them far more than Hope was. She glanced toward the door to make sure that no one else was coming in and then relaxed back into the chair.
“I saw Rex last night, on my way up to my room.”
“Oh.” Hope’s face fell.
Angelica’s stomach churned. “I don’t suppose you two talked and resolved whatever is between you in this short period of time.”
“Not exactly.” Hope wrinkled her nose a little. “We did talk, all night.”
Nodding, Angelica crossed her legs. “Good. You should.”
But that also meant that she wasn’t a part of the conversation until Hope figured out exactly what was going to happen from here on out.
She didn’t want to be the other woman. And she certainly didn’t want to be the reason behind a marriage being torn apart.
Still, she hadn’t decided if she was looking for a fling or for more when it came to Hope Lawrence.
“I’m not leaving him, Angel.”
“I know you’re not,” Angelica responded, lifting her chin up in defiance. Had Hope really thought she would push for that? That she’d demand some sort of ultimatum? Because that wasn’t her style. Not at all. “Before Vegas or after?”
“After,” Hope finally answered. “Are you hungry? You really should eat something if you haven’t had anything since lunch.”
Angelica bit the inside of her cheek. She hadn’t eaten anything. All day, in fact. Not that she was about to tell Hope that. The last thing she wanted was for Hope to follow up on when she was eating and how much. And damned if she’d go eat now. She had zero appetite at all.
“I’ll put it into the schedule. That is…” Angelica stopped and frowned. “…that is if Rex is comfortable with it.”
Fuck, why did she have to go and complicate everything like this?
“I…” Hope paused. “I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to him about it.”
“You do that.” Angelica stiffened. She reached down and grabbed her iPad. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Without waiting for Hope to say anything else, she rushed out of the office and down the hall.
She pressed her finger into the button to call for the elevator and held her breath.
She just had to get to her room. She just had to get to the one safe space she had left and make sure that she could calm herself down.
The elevator doors opened.
“Angelica!” Eva’s voice was so excited and loud.
Angelica stood there stunned for a second as Eva wrapped her arms around Angelica’s legs in a tight hug.
“I was just coming to find my Mom. It’s bedtime! Do you know what that means?”
Angelica blinked once before the inkling of a memory reached her brain. “It’s…fairytale time, right?”
“Yep!” Eva bounced in her shark slippers. “Since she didn’t read to me last night, she promised to read two chapters to me tonight.”
Angelica couldn’t stop the smile that curved her lips upward at Eva’s enthusiasm. She brushed her fingers over the top of Eva’s head in a light touch before dropping her hand to her side and looking up to find Rex staring right back at her.
“I bet she’ll love reading to you tonight.
” Angelica nodded firmly. If there was one thing she knew about Hope, it was that she loved her daughter.
Any parent who was willing to read every night to their kid was the kind of parent that should have children.
Angelica’s mother hadn’t been that—or anything close to it, actually. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Night!” Eva waved at her.
Angelica stepped around her and toward the elevator doors that were just shutting.
Rex shot his hand out to keep them from closing. Then he leaned in and pushed himself into Angelica’s space.
He lowered his voice, making himself quiet enough that Eva wouldn’t be able to hear. “I don’t know what you’re doing with her, but my wife doesn’t give up on things easily. And she’s not going to let us go.”
Angelica raised her chin up, looking at him directly. “I know.”
She stepped around his arm and into the elevator, jabbing the button for her floor hard. She stared at him, keeping her face as passive as possible while she watched the doors close on Rex’s surprised face. As soon as she was alone, her shoulders collapsed and her entire body ached.
God, why did she keep doing this to herself?
Why did she keep making the same mistake over and over again?
First Leanne, and now Hope?
One night was all it’d be, and she’d have to accept that. Because Rex was right. Hope wouldn’t give up what she already had for Angelica, and Angelica wouldn’t force her to make that choice.
Not now. Not ever.