Chapter 43
Chapter
Forty-Three
The room was stuffy. Angelica crossed her good leg over her bad one and pressed her hands into her lap.
She hadn’t brought her iPad today. This wasn’t that kind of conversation.
She waited as Logan settled next to her, knowing exactly what they were doing here.
This was the formal inquiry, the one where she would face the music of her decisions.
“Now that we’re all here,” Logan started, looking around the room, “we have some things we need to discuss going forward.”
Josef was absent.
Angelica took note of that. But with as much drama as he’d caused lately, she wasn’t surprised that he was being left out of these conversations. He needed a reality check, and she was fairly certain that it was going to come in the form of a firing. He’d be lucky if that’s all it involved.
“First we’re going to discuss Josef’s conduct on the show.
” Logan put a notepad in front of him, a pen to paper.
He always seemed to do that when the conversation was more serious.
She’d noticed that the first year that they’d worked together to build up plans for the show when it was in preproduction.
“Angelica, you’re going to have to fill in some of the blanks for us, but I have reports from everyone I interviewed.” Logan looked from her to Rex.
Angelica’s stomach tightened. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Rex before now, like she’d wanted to. She hadn’t made the time either, and she probably could have forced the issue. But she’d once again let fear of losing everything get in her way. “Sure, where are we starting?”
They went through Leanne’s hiring, and her participation in the show itself.
That was hard enough, but Angelica filled in the blanks on the tension and why the choice of hiring Leanne instead of someone else put an added strain on her.
Rex’s eyes had widened at that, and he’d paled.
Logan had simply encouraged Angelica to continue the story.
As the words loosed, it became easier and easier to share.
Still, she hated that she felt so exposed, and she knew that this wasn’t going to be the worst of it.
Angelica curled her fingers around each other, keeping her body as still as possible.
She didn’t want them to think badly of her, but they needed everything to be out in the open now.
Rex pulled up his phone and started texting, and Angelica’s stomach tightened.
Logan must have caught the move too, because he put his hand out to catch Rex’s attention.
“I really need us to be focused on the conversation today and not on technology. I’m going to ask that you put your phone away until the meeting is done. ”
“Sorry, Eva’s sick. She caught whatever Rishal had when we were in Chicago. Hope’s taking her in to the doctor.” Rex frowned and flicked his gaze to Angelica curiously.
Was he wanting to know what she was feeling?
Or was this some move toward solidarity with her?
He could just as easily be lying and she’d never know.
The more people who had information about her past, the more easily it would get out.
The best kept secret was a secret known only to one, and now she’d lost count of the number of people who knew about her and Leanne.
This could so easily end in disaster for her.
“Then we can take a break if you need to make a call,” Logan added.
“Yes, that’d be great. Can we?” Rex looked to Logan, pleading. “I didn’t quite realize how long this meeting was going to last.”
“Ten minutes.” Logan checked his watch.
Rex scurried out of the room, and Angelica breathed relief for the first time since she’d entered it.
But it was only a fleeting moment. Every decision she had to make lately came down to carefully planning and protecting the future that she wanted.
And it was so easy to see how everything would be overturned in an instant.
“How are you doing?” Logan asked, leaning in to whisper.
“I’m fine,” Angelica answered. It was the quickest and easiest answer that she could give. She didn’t need him to think that she was panicking. Because she was. “I’m going to run to the bathroom.”
Standing up, Angelica left the room and found Rex with the phone in his hand as he leaned against the wall.
“Oh, that’s good. Okay. Sure. I’ll pick her up when I’m done here.” Rex hung up and slid the phone into his pocket, making eye contact with Angelica. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Angelica waved off the apology. “I need to talk to you before we go back in there.”
She held her breath. It was now or never.
“Sure.” A line formed in the center of Rex’s forehead. “What’s wrong?”
“I, uh…” Angelica looked up and down the hallway. She steadied herself as best as she could and rolled her shoulders. “Has Hope talked to you about what happened in Vermont?”
“With Josef?” Rex looked even more concerned now. “Was there something else with him that we had to talk about?”
Angelica swallowed the lump in her throat, or at least she tried, but it kept moving back into place. “I mean, yes, we’ll need to talk about him today, more in depth than we have already. But I’m talking about Hope… and me.”
Rex dragged in a deep breath and let it out slowly, his cheeks reddening. He turned his chin up and stared at the ceiling before he looked back at her. “No, she hasn’t.”
“We—”
“I suspected.” Rex stared at her.
“You did?” Angelica stopped short of having to say the words out loud. This was hard enough as it was, and if he was going to take that burden from her, she’d let him.
Rex nodded. “Hope loves you.”
“She loves you,” Angelica responded, knowing for a fact that she was speaking the truth.
“I know she does.” Rex’s lips pulled tight and then he sighed heavily. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because it’s going to come up today. It’s part of why we’re having this discussion, and I’m fairly certain that this meeting will determine my future on the show. It’s why Hope wasn’t invited. She needs to have her own inquiry where I’m not present.”
“Ah.” Rex sighed again. “I’d wondered that, but it worked to our advantage with Eva.”
Angelica nodded and crossed her arms. “I wanted to tell you privately.”
“Just in case I didn’t take it well?” Rex let out a loud guffaw. “Do you ever stop playing political games?”
“Strategy does come in handy most days.” Angelica’s cheeks heated with the unintended compliment.
She’d take it and keep it. “I felt it would be right for you to find out separately, and I wasn’t sure if Hope had spoken with you yet.
She and I haven’t exactly had a moment to lay down a strategy either. ”
“You might want to do that when we leave here.”
“I will, as soon as I get a chance.” Angelica caught his gaze and held it, looking intently at him to judge whether or not he truly was okay with this news. And when he locked his eyes on her and nodded, she smiled at him.
“Believe it?” Rex asked.
“Believe what?”
“That I’m happy for you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Angelica tightened her grasp around herself and shifted her weight off her still booted foot. She was tired of that thing and couldn’t be more ready to have it off.
“Well, I am.” Rex bent his head and whispered, “And I wish you the best of luck with the lack of impulse control.”
Angelica laughed. Rex reached an arm out and pulled her into his side in a hug that she never expected from him.
She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes for a brief moment.
Maybe she had more here than she’d thought.
When he released her, Logan appeared in the doorway to the conference room.
“Break’s over,” Logan said.
“Yeah.” Angelica tossed a look at Rex. “Into the fray we go.”
“This isn’t a battle, Ange. Trust me.”
“That I have a harder time believing.”
“Really?” Rex raised an eyebrow at her as he held the door open for her to walk into. “You should believe it.”
When they were all seated again, Angelica took up her position and tightened her muscles. She would be ready for whatever hand they wanted to deal her.
“We have one more ethical conversation we need to begin today before we leave.” Logan looked at Angelica directly.
This was the cue she’d been waiting for.
“And when I say begin, I mean begin. No decisions will be made today. We’re here solely for information gathering and to have as many of the facts laid out before us that we can have. Which is only one side of the story.”
Angelica’s mouth went dry.
“Ange?” Logan stared at her.
“Right.” She couldn’t breathe. Her entire chest constricted, making this impossible. She looked to Rex, who nodded with a half-cocked smile on his lips.
He mouthed, You’ve got this.
Angelica shifted in her seat and looked around the room. While she’d been there to protect the crew, that’s also what they were there for. And if they had to protect the people she worked with from her, then she would have to let them.
“In Vermont, Hope Lawrence and I started an official relationship.”
The room stilled.
The air was sucked out of it.
Cold rushed through Angelica’s body but left her with a sweat in her palms and against the small of her back that she wasn’t going to be able to ignore. But she had to press on.
“This was a consensual relationship, and I know you’ll speak with her on the matter of how everything began and when.
But I felt the need to inform you because of Josef’s threats and knowing what he’d do with this information if he obtained it first, and because I truly value the work we do.
And we need to be ahead of the story and make decisions as rationally as possible. ”
She didn’t know what else to say.
Everyone stared at her slack jawed except Logan and Rex.
Logan jumped in to speak next. “Ange told me about her relationship officially when we were in Chicago last week, and I made the decision then that we could finish filming season three and deal with the situation when we returned. Which is why we’re in this meeting now.”
But then everyone shifted to Rex immediately. They were all waiting for his response. She had anticipated that they would, but until the sacred moment in the hallway, Angelica had no idea what Rex would say or do. He could still turn it on her and make her out to be the perpetrator if he wanted.
Rex put his hands out in front of him, palms up toward the ceiling.
“I don’t know why you’re all looking at me.
I’ve worked with Hope, been married to Hope, and done both at the same time.
It didn’t end well for me, but Ange…” He looked directly at her then.
“She’s way stronger than I am, and I know that she’s good for Hope in ways I never was, and that Hope is equally as good for her. ”
Butterflies hit Angelica’s stomach, fluttering around as heat rushed back into her limbs.
“I’ve watched their relationship from the beginning, well before they were together, and I’ve never seen either one of them so in love with someone before.
Ange is softer, more personable, more herself when Hope is in her vicinity, and likewise with Hope.
She’s calmer, settled, and at ease in a way I was never able to manage.
” Rex nodded at Angelica, his lips twitching upward into a smile.
“And in this last season, I’m glad to call Ange one of my good friends. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”
Angelica stilled. Did he really feel that way?
Hell, if she wasn’t in a room full of people, facing an inquiry about her ethics, she might actually cry just hearing those words from him. He was the most unlikely ally in all of this. He winked at her again and turned to Logan.
“So, if you’re here to throw her under the bus and say that she has to leave the show because of this, I just need to remind you that these kinds of things happen on sets all the time. And somehow, most of us tend to survive it.”
Logan grinned at him.
Could this honestly have gone any better?
The questions flew, asking more details and Angelica provided them as best as she could, but it wasn’t the easiest. She wanted to keep as much of her love life private as possible, not just because she was a private person but also for Rex’s sake. She had to protect him too.
When the meeting was finally called, she left the room and everyone else behind her. True to Logan’s word, no decisions were made. Which still left her to plan the crew wrap party, and for that she was going to have to call Hope, which she desperately needed to do anyway.
They needed to schedule time for a very long conversation.
Just the two of them.
With her phone pressed to her ear, she slid into the front seat of the car, with Lyric behind the wheel. But Hope didn’t answer.
“How’d it go?” Lyric asked.
“It went.” Angelica bit her lip and stared out the front windshield as Lyric drove out of the parking garage. “I’m not entirely sure what the result will be.”
“Do you think they’ll fire him?”
God, she’d almost forgotten that Lyric would only know about Josef and his drama. She hadn’t been in on anything else. Angelica played with her phone in her lap and held her breath. “I think they might.”
“Good. He creeps me out.” Lyric laughed lightly. “I haven’t liked him since you started working with him.”
“Really?” Angelica looked to Lyric curiously. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s not my job to judge who you choose to work with or not.” Lyric sighed. “And at the time, I didn’t exactly have the confidence in our relationship to say one way or the other, and after that it was way too late to actually say something.”
“Did Logan interview you as well?” Angelica asked.
“He did. And I told him exactly what I think of Josef.”
“Good.” Angelica relaxed into the seat and closed her eyes. This had been one of the most exhausting days she’d endured in a long time. “Take me home, Lyric. I need to take the rest of the day and give myself a break.”
“You, a break?” Lyric looked over at her in surprise. “Who are you and what have you done with my boss?”
Angelica laughed. “She fell in love.”