Chapter 32
Chapter
Thirty-Two
“Chef?” LaRae put her hand on Hope’s shoulder to get her attention. “I think you need to head to reception.”
Hope frowned and shook her head. They were right in the middle of the dinner rush with room service added back in, and to say they were overwhelmed would be an understatement.
The staff hadn’t been ready for tonight despite the hours of training Hope had spent with them all day.
Sometimes a week just wasn’t enough time to get everything back in order.
“Why?” Hope asked, straightening her back. “Does Ms. Shields need me?”
“Just…go to reception.” LaRae looked pale, and her lips were parted in sadness.
Hope wiped her hands on the towel at her waist. Her mind spun.
The crew was in there filming them, but they didn’t say anything or seem as though they knew what was going on either.
She squared her shoulders, issued a few more orders to the staff, and then slipped out of the kitchen into the dining room.
Which was packed.
To the brim.
Her stomach twisted sharply. She really didn’t have time to be dealing with Angelica right now unless it was a major emergency.
They were going to struggle to keep up with orders and keep the kitchen moving like it should be without her there.
For a first night back, this one was going to be brutal.
Then again, that’s how Josef planned the show, wasn’t it?
He paid all these people to sit in the restaurant and eat and say bad things the first night and good things the last night.
She sighed as she walked out of the dining room and straight toward reception.
“You’re drunk!” Angelica’s voice boomed through the lobby area.
Instantly, Hope’s spine straightened and the hair on her arms stood up at attention.
She’d never heard Angelica yell quite like that before.
Or perhaps she had last season, but it’d been a long time.
This season had been so much calmer than the last one.
This wasn’t another one of Josef’s attempts to up the drama, was it?
Hope rounded the corner and froze mid-stride.
Angelica stood in the center of the entryway where guests would check in.
Her shoulders were rounded in defeat, but her posture said she was absolutely on the attack and not on the defense.
The entire lobby was frozen in place, staff and workers coming to stand around the edges of the room as if this were the ultimate show down.
“You’re three hours late, and you can’t even bother to show up sober for a shift that you swore yesterday you would be here for.” Angelica’s voice rang through the room, anger and annoyance in every word. Hope knew without a doubt that she hadn’t even tried to hide it.
But she’d never known Angelica to be this forthcoming in public humiliation either.
She always kept things as private as possible, and in fact, Hope had wondered how Angelica had even agreed to do a reality television show knowing half of what she discussed with people was going to be aired across the globe.
“I’ve never met an employee so entitled, so spoiled, so stuck-up that she’d rather watch her parents circle the drain of bankruptcy than admit she has a problem and do something about it.” Angelica’s cheeks reddened, her breathing quickened, and her entire body was rigid.
Hope looked around the room, finding Harold and Christian on the edges, a camera turned on their faces as they looked on with shock just like everyone else was doing.
Hope clenched her fists at her sides, digging her short nails into her palms to wake her up.
But she was just as stuck as the rest of them while they watched this blessed unraveling of the iciest woman they’d met.
“You can’t work here anymore. You’re killing this hotel slowly by your very presence.
” Angelica put her fists on her hips and glared at Kayla, who to her credit, barely even cowered.
“You’re fired, Kayla. If they won’t do it, then I will.
If they won’t save themselves, then someone has to. Get out. Now.”
Kayla’s jaw dropped.
Her hands trembled when she lifted them up halfway and then dropped them again, as if accepting her fate. Angelica didn’t move an inch. Hope leaned forward, her toes digging into her shoes and pressing into the ground as she warred with her body to make herself do something.
Kayla scoffed. Then she shook her head and raised her chin up. “I’ll be back as soon as you’re gone, bitch. My parents won’t throw me out of here.”
She reached over to grab her purse and stormed out of the hotel, her feet hitting the tile hard with each step she took. The wake she left behind was cold and frustrated. Hope’s heart raced. No one budged an inch. This was her moment, wasn’t it?
She stepped forward into the fray, breaking the circle of fear and entering into Angelica’s space.
Someone needed to do and say something, and as the costar of the show, that had to be her.
The cameras were pointed at her, and she knew her microphone was going to be hot and primed for whatever she had to say.
A lump formed in her throat, clogging it up and making it so damn hard to breathe.
She wasn’t good at confrontation. That was Angelica’s specialty, as just witnessed.
But even then, this was well beyond anything she’d ever seen from Angelica before.
The anger, the vehemence, the downright cruelty of what she’d just said was over the top.
Hope reached out to touch Angelica’s arm, but she stopped herself. Before she did that, she needed Angelica to know that she came in peace. She curled her fingers into a fist and put her hand down to her side.
“Angel?” Hope’s voice was timid, way more than she’d wanted it to be.
Angelica spun on her, eyes wide, lips parted, and anger still in every pore of her being. “I told you to stop calling me that.” The words were laced with rage.
Hope stepped back a step, as if she’d been physically pushed away by the brutality in Angelica’s words. “We need to talk about this, but not in the middle of the lobby where everyone is watching.”
Her fingers itched to touch Angelica, to have that physical contact that she was so damn sure would soften Angelica and make it that much easier to talk to her. Or perhaps she was craving that touch herself, the connection that she swore was there, but she couldn’t find a thread of right now.
“No, we don’t.” Angelica turned her body slightly, facing Hope full-on. Her baby-blue eyes looked gray now, the black of her clothes and eye liner making her seem so much bolder and stronger than ever before. “I did what no one else in this hotel was willing to do.”
Angelica clenched her jaw, the muscles bulging out. The tendons in her neck strained tightly, the hollow in between her collar bones deepening. Hope’s chest tightened. She saw no way out of this without an argument.
“Firing Kayla is one thing. Doing it in the middle of the lobby with everyone watching is another entirely.” Hope straightened up, preparing for the fight she knew was coming.
“Don’t you dare patronize me about how I do my job. This is how business works, and you need to understand that.” Angelica glared at her.
“Patronize you?” Hope’s eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline. Now who was on the defensive? “I’m not patronizing you, Angel. And if you think for one second that I’m going to stand here and let you degrade another human being, a young woman no less, then you don’t know me at all.”
Angelica pursed her lips together, crossing her arms and taking a stand. “I know you plenty well.” Angelica’s voice was low, quiet, nearly a threat.
What the hell had happened in the last few days? Angelica had turned into someone else that Hope didn’t understand. She paused a second, trying to figure out the best way to navigate this. But she very well couldn’t use most of her tactics in a room full of people.
“Ange,” Harold stepped forward, breaking the tension between her and Hope. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
Angelica grunted, rolled her eyes, and just walked away.
Hope stood there, stunned. Everyone else was just as stunned as her. They were all silent until Hope stepped toward reception and told them to get back to work.
Harold tried to get her attention, but she stepped right around him and toward the conference room where she hoped Angelica had disappeared to. She was just about to get to the door when she heard her name being called down the hallway.
“Hope?”
She spun around, finding Christian standing there.
“Can I talk to you?”
Torn between Angelica and Christian, she nodded and walked back toward him. “Sure. What’s up?”
“It’s about Ange.” He tilted his head down to look at her, being much taller than Hope. “She’s…she and our father have never really gotten along. I didn’t think coming here was a good idea. He did. And I know now that I was right.”
“What do you mean?” Hope was more confused now than ever. The issue she had with Angelica wasn’t because of Harold or Christian. It was with how she’d treated Kayla.
“They’re very similar.” Christian sighed heavily. “And I suspect Ange is feeding off her frustration with us being here, which is making her behavior worse.”
“But nothing happened explicitly?” Hope looked at him directly, wanting to make sure that she understood what he was telling her.
“He was trying to tell her how to do her job.”
“Ah.” Hope nodded. “All right. Well, thanks.”
Christian shrugged. “Good luck! You’re braver than I am.”
Hope wasn’t sure about that. Stupidly in love with a woman who had no desire to love her back was more like it. Not that she’d say those words out loud either. Pushing her way into the conference room, Hope wasn’t surprised to find Angelica nose-deep in her iPad, a scowl on her face.
She wanted to be sharp in her tone, but she held back. Perhaps Christian was right, and it wasn’t the time to approach Angelica with anger but with compassion. Hope slid into the chair next to her, putting her hands on the table.
“Angel? What happened out there?”
Angelica looked away from the iPad and glanced in Hope’s direction. “Kayla needed to be fired. She came in drunk today. I suspected she was drunk yesterday. And I strongly suspect that she has a problem with alcohol, which is why she can’t keep working here.”
“But to do it so publicly?” Hope reached forward and curled her fingers around Angelica’s wrist.
Angelica dropped her gaze to the touch and breathed slowly. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“No, there’s not.” Angelica winced and then dug her fingers through her hair as the facade of angry manager faded into painful brokenness.
“Angel… what happened?”
“Kayla’s entitled—”
“No, Angel.” Hope squeezed her arm lightly. “What happened with you?”
Angelica sighed heavily, her face dropping as that sadness swept through her again. She looked like she was nearly in tears, but managing to somehow hold them back. She leaned back in her chair, her shoulders rounded.
“My father and I have never gotten along, not since Christian was born.”
Angelica had shared that with her before, but rather than interrupting to point that out, Hope stayed quiet. Angelica was someone who needed time to share, and Hope had to give that to her.
“I was second best to the son they wanted—I was the daughter they didn’t.” Angelica swallowed, her throat tightening before it released as her voice was coated thick with emotion. “I will never be good enough for him, no matter who I am or what I do, and I’ve accepted that.”
Hope’s heart shattered. This week was just a reminder of all of that, wasn’t it? A way to put Angelica’s weaknesses as she saw them on display for the world instead of shoring her up as someone who could do such a damn good job of taking care of others.
“I never thought you would feel the same.”
“Angel…” Hope reached up, brushing the backs of her fingers against Angelica’s cheek, as if following the tracks of the tears that Angelica refused to shed. “I’m not opposing you. Not at all.”
But she wasn’t sure that her words had made a dent in Angelica’s wounded soul, not today. She might never be able to hear those words. Hope wanted to lean in and kiss her, she wanted to comfort her and tell her everything would be all right, but she couldn’t.
“Kayla has everything she could ever need. And all she does is take advantage of that.” Angelica’s lips thinned tightly. “And they let her walk all over them.”
“They love her,” Hope replied. “And they’re not going to stop loving her.”
“Love comes at a cost.” Angelica breathed deeply, steeling herself. “And sometimes that cost is unavoidable.”
“Spoken from experience?” But was Angelica talking about her father or someone else?
Hope wanted to ask, but she couldn’t find the words, and Angelica didn’t answer her.
Hope wanted to know more. She wanted to know everything she could about Angelica, but a barrier had grown between them in the last few days, and she didn’t know how to break it down. Or if Angelica even wanted her to.
Hope pulled back from Angelica, silence filling the space between them. Hope waited for Angelica to say something, anything, but she didn’t. She remained quiet. Hope went to take Angelica’s hand, but the door opened and Rex stepped inside.
He seemed stressed.
“Lisa and Sydney want to talk to you,” he said. “And they want it on camera.”
“Naturally,” Angelica muttered under her breath. She closed up her iPad and slid the chair back so she could stand up and walk out.
Hope looked over at Rex as he held the door, their eyes locking. He seemed betrayed almost, as if something she’d done had stabbed him in the heart and twisted hard. She was about to ask him what was wrong, but he walked out, letting the door shut behind him.
Sighing, Hope closed her eyes and hung her head.
What the hell was she supposed to do now?