Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
“Kayla, I’m glad you could show up on time today.” Angelica held her iPad against her body as she stood at reception.
Kayla, who had finally shown up five hours late yesterday, had been reamed out enough to show up on time today. Though she didn’t exactly look awake, and she didn’t look like she wanted to be there. She glowered at Angelica.
“What did I do wrong now?”
Angelica cocked her head, her fingers tightening on the iPad. “Nothing.”
Though if she thought that was Angelica’s attitude toward her, this was going to be a long day.
Angelica stepped around reception, the microphone pack digging uncomfortably into her back under the belt at her waist. She hated the dresses she was being forced to wear this season.
It made things like this so much harder. She set the iPad down.
“We need to talk about room service.” Angelica leaned against the counter, her hip pushing into the edge of it, and she crossed her arms as she frowned at Kayla.
Sy was behind the camera today, Rex off doing something else with Josef, which meant that Sy had to make sure he caught every second of this conversation that Angelica hadn’t quite planned to have. She kept her gaze on Kayla, not giving her an inch.
“What went into the decision to terminate that service?”
“I didn’t make that decision.” Kayla looked at the ground in between them.
“Oh?” Angelica hadn’t heard anything to contradict LaRae’s story. And there was no reason that LaRae would lie about it either. “If it wasn’t your choice, whose was it?”
Kayla clenched her jaw hard, the muscles in her cheeks pushing out. Her cheeks were unusually pale and a little gray. Angelica focused her senses on her, first sight then smell. But she didn’t notice anything unusual about Kayla or the way she held herself.
“Kayla?” Angelica pushed for an answer. She needed one. They had to get to the bottom of this. “If it wasn’t your decision, who made it?”
Kayla shook her head. Because the only other person with the power to do that would be her parents, and she wasn’t stupid enough to throw them under the bus.
Angelica sighed heavily, clenching her fingers around her iPad and preparing herself to stand up and walk away.
“Here’s the thing, Kayla, I can’t help you if you won’t let me help you.
And I can’t save this hotel unless you start to cooperate with me.
So you have a decision to make, either pull up your pants and be an adult or continue to let your parents dig you out of the grave you’re making for yourself and drag them down with you. Which will it be?”
Kayla flicked her long brown hair over her shoulder, a defiant little look taking over her features. “If you think you can do anything to me, then you’re wrong.”
The power of her confidence hit Angelica like a brick straight to the chest. Kayla had been nothing but meek and quiet up until this point, but Angelica had clearly hit a nerve. “Excuse me?”
“You can’t touch me.”
Angelica narrowed her gaze and crossed her ankles as she leaned heavily into the counter. “Touch you?”
“My parents own this hotel, which means they own you. You can fire me, and I’ll be back here tomorrow still running this hotel. Nothing you say or do is going to change that. So give up while you’re ahead.” Kayla’s upper lip turned into a sneer.
“Your parents, the owners of this hotel, brought me in here to figure out where the cracks were and how to make this hotel run to make them a profit instead of draining their savings. And I have only found one crack.” Angelica pursed her lips, debating how to put this kindly.
Giving up, she said it honestly, which was the only way she could. “And that crack is you.”
Kayla scoffed, shaking her head. “I’m a hard worker.”
“You think you are, but anyone who shows up five hours late for a shift would immediately be put on a disciplinary. The only reason you get away with it is because you’re the golden child who can do no wrong.” Angelica clenched her jaw.
“Angelica!” her father said, his voice sing-songing into her ear.
She stiffened instantly, looking directly at him. When the hell had he shown up?
“That’s no way to talk to an employee.” Harold glared in her direction. He leaned over the counter, and she could see Sy scramble to try and get him in the shot and another camera in the room so that he could catch absolutely everything that was going down.
“Kayla isn’t my employee,” Angelica answered, her entire body tense. She knew this tone from her father, and it never boded well. She was about to be put in her place. The real question was whether or not she’d stand here and take it.
“Ange, when I was working and in management, we never scolded employees, and we certainly didn’t do it in front of customers and other staff.” He hadn’t moved his gaze from her face.
Angelica’s heart raced. She couldn’t handle this. Not now. Not ever. She was a grown ass adult, and she shouldn’t be allowing her father to talk to her like she was a two-year-old again. This was why she’d left the house. This was why she rarely visited them.
“Again, Kayla isn’t my employee. If she was, she would have been fired years ago.” Angelica clenched her jaw tightly. “And I’m not going to hold back on that. She needs to know the danger she’s in with not only losing her job, but also losing her family.”
“Something you’re familiar with,” Harold said, a bite in his tone. “Family is more important than business.”
“Not when family is dragging the business down and taking everyone else around them under with it.” Angelica turned fully now, facing him and ignoring the fact that Kayla was still standing right there.
The fight was no longer with her—this was with her father.
“Not when family is the reason everything is breaking apart!”
All right, that last one might not have been about Kayla and her family.
It might have been about Angelica and hers.
Clenching her jaw tight, Angelica refused to back down.
She didn’t want them here, and she certainly didn’t want her dirty laundry aired across the country into homes of people she never knew existed until last year.
“Family?” Harold leaned in, his lips quivering in anger. “I knew it was a mistake coming here.”
Angelica’s chest tightened suddenly. She shook her head at him. “Maybe it was a mistake.”
Harold scoffed and walked away. Angelica rocked back into her heels, realizing belatedly that she had moved closer to him, that she’d engaged in the fight that she wanted so much to avoid.
She caught sight of her brother on the other side of the lobby.
He didn’t seem happy, but then again, he never was when she and their father got into it.
It wasn’t the first time, and Angelica was damn sure it wouldn’t be the last.
She waited until Harold was gone before storming in the other direction, needing a few minutes to herself with nothing poking at her to be someone she wasn’t.
She stepped out of the doors and onto the patio of the hotel, letting the heat hit her cheeks and her body in the way it was meant to.
Oppressive. Overwhelming. She breathed the dry heat and let it out slowly.
She just had to find her calm center again, that place she could retreat to and still get the job done.
“Hey,” Christian said.
Angelica rolled her eyes. Her family could never just leave her alone when she needed time, could they? She said nothing to him as she stayed right where she was, but she did give him an annoyed glare.
“He’s just trying to help.”
“I don’t need his help,” Angelica hissed. “I need him to stay out of my business.”
Christian stepped next to her, shoulder to shoulder, as they looked out on the city surrounding them. “I never understood why you two didn’t get along.”
Angelica sighed heavily. This wasn’t the time that she wanted to actually talk about it. If she had a choice in the matter, she’d never bring it up. It was in the past, and that’s where she’d like to leave it. “You were always the one they loved.”
“They love you.”
“They tolerate me.” As did most of the world, if she were being brutally honest about her life.
She didn’t have close friends. She hadn’t managed to keep a relationship longer than a year, not one that was serious anyway.
Angelica crossed her arms, sweat pooling at the small of her back as the heat finally took its hold of her. “You’ve always been the golden child.”
“Not because I wanted to be.”
“I know,” she answered quickly. “Dad is…well, he is who he is, and I don’t anticipate that he’ll ever change. But I’m not going to fight him to accept me for who I am either.”
“He loves you, Ange.”
She turned on him then, looking him over.
In so many ways he was still the small boy that she’d left at home when she’d moved away to go to college, the kid who didn’t know or understand the real world.
He’d always listened to their parents. He’d always done what they told him to do and believed what they told him to believe.
“I’m not saying he doesn’t.” Angelica steadied herself. “But I’m not going to be the person he wants me to be, ever. And he needs to accept that.”
“Who do you think he wants you to be?”
Straight. Married. A parent. Demure. Easier.
All those words crossed through her mind in a split second, but she couldn’t force them to her lips. All her life she’d worked to protect her baby brother, and now was no different than before. She shook her head slowly and faced the city again. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” Christian touched Angelica’s shoulder lightly. “We miss you. I miss you.”
She gave him a watery smile and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I miss you, too.”
And she did. She missed the family that she had and the family that she didn’t have.
Seeing the way Hope and Rex took such special care with Eva only brought that home.
They were there for Eva every moment that she needed them.
And Angelica never had that when she was growing up.
Christian wrapped his arm around her shoulders in a side hug and squeezed her tightly.
“I know what I’m doing with Kayla,” Angelica whispered. “And he needs to just let me do my job without interfering.”
“I know you’d like that,” Christian said giving her a bit more space than before. “But I’m not sure Dad’s up for that.”
“Of course not.” Angelica laughed lightly, brushing her fingers under her eyes when tears formed there. Why the hell had that happened? “Thank God Mom’s not here.”
Christian snorted.
“How is she, anyway?” Angelica canted her head at him. “Honestly?”
“She’s struggling. The surgery took way more out of her than I think anyone expected, and she’s really struggling to just move around the house. Walking is hard. Doing anything else other than going from the bed to the recliner is impossible.”
Angelica hummed. The back surgery had been necessary to relieve pain, but it hadn’t exactly relieved the rest of the family from taking care of her.
Still, Angelica suspected that a good chunk of that was because their mom could order them around better and get what she wanted in return if she was considered an invalid and not because she was actually still struggling and in pain.
But she wasn’t about to voice her opinion to Christian either.
“She wants you to come for Christmas.”
“That’s more than half a year away.” Angelica furrowed her brow at him. “Not her birthday? Or mother’s day? Or hell, my birthday? But Christmas?”
He shrugged at her. “I’m just relaying the message. I told her I would.”
“Of course.” Angelica nearly rolled her eyes again, but she managed to keep it to herself. He was always doing his parents’ bidding, wasn’t he?
“So will you come? I know the kids would love to see you.”
Angelica would love to see them. But that would also mean spending intense time with her family, which was something she’d vowed to herself to avoid as much as possible. She clenched her jaw and fell back on the best excuse she’d come up with to delay an answer. “I’ll have to check my calendar.”
Christian sighed. He knew what she was doing, but at least this way, they could both plead ignorance when their parents asked.
He gave her another side hug before heading back inside the hotel.
Angelica, however, stayed outside, using the extra time she’d gotten to center herself before heading back into that viper’s nest. If her father was anything to go by, then Sydney was going to be even harder to break when it came to Kayla.
And she might just have to make the damn decision for him.
“Ange…” Rex stepped outside with her, catching her full attention. “We need you inside.”
“Yeah. I’m coming.” She frowned, but she did turn around and walk back toward the main doors. Her break was up. Time was done. She had a job she needed to do and a daughter she needed to fire. Because there was no other way out of this, that was for damn sure.