Chapter 47
Chapter
Forty-Seven
“How much of this trip is going to be work and how much play?” Hope tugged Angelica’s hand.
Angelica’s heart fluttered. This was their first official vacation together, though Angelica had convinced Hope that they could come up here because it was an easy enough job that they could have time off and she could still do the check-in that she needed to do on Mountain View West.
“A little less than fifty-fifty,” Angelica responded and squeezed Hope’s hand tightly.
The van pulled up in front of the hotel, Angelica’s home away from home. She already had the room booked for them.
Tatum stood outside the front door and waved as the van came to a stop. Angelica smiled at him even though he couldn’t see her through the back window. Once they were outside, he opened his arms in an embrace, wrapping her up in a hug. She breathed him in. This really was home.
“I need to talk to you,” Tatum said quietly before stepping to the side and holding his hands out for Hope. “It’s so good to see you again!”
“You too!” Hope squealed and jumped into Tatum’s arms with a laugh. “God, I’ve missed this place. I get so jealous that Ange gets to come up here so often.”
“Well, it could be more often.” Tatum flicked his gaze from Hope to Angelica, and she knew instantly what this conversation was going to be about. And she hadn’t been prepared for it, oddly enough. She’d thought she’d given him enough of an answer before.
Tatum took Hope by the arm and pulled her inside the hotel and walked with her directly to the front desk.
Angelica steadied herself, needing the extra few minutes to prepare to decline him once again.
Once they had their keys, and their luggage was being brought to the rooms, Tatum led the way out into the little garden where he had wine and a charcuterie board set up already.
Angelica knew she was being wined and dined, and Tatum was pulling out all the stops.
He chatted with Hope, getting updates about Eva and Rex and the show.
Angelica, however, stayed quiet as she sat on the bench, picked up the wine glass, and sighed into it.
She’d still much prefer a beer, but Tatum wouldn’t know that.
“I did want to talk to you again, Ange, about buying the hotel.”
“Again?” Hope’s voice broke and she went from smiling at Tatum to staring at Angelica in shock. “How many times have you offered it to her?”
“Several,” Tatum responded.
Angelica raised her eyebrows at Hope, tilted the wine glass in her direction, and then took a long sip. “And my answer hasn’t changed.”
“I wish it would.” Tatum blinked at her slowly. “We had another offer on the place even though we haven’t been seeking them, and I wanted to give you one more opportunity. The burden is becoming too much for our family to keep the place up right now.”
Angelica leaned forward and took a small piece of cheese and plopped it between her lips. “I don’t understand why you think I should be the one to own Mountain View.”
“Because you have the heart for it.” Tatum nodded toward her. “You care about the aesthetic, about what it means to the family, and you’re the only one we trust to actually do right by this place. For mom.”
He had to throw that in there, didn’t he?
Angelica continued to eat and drink, not quite sure what to say exactly.
She’d given him an answer so many times before, and he never seemed to just accept it.
Then again, as much as she wanted that to be the final answer, she also kept coming back to the question.
“I’m not in the hotels I run very often, Tatum.” Angelica took another sip of her wine, looking over to Hope as if to confirm. “And we’re doubling the number of episodes we’re filming for next season, which means I’ll be gone even more.”
“I think you can figure out a situation that works for you.” Tatum moved his glass toward hers. “You’re quite capable.”
Angelica pinched her face. “If I said yes…” she stopped talking. “You know what, never mind. I’ll say yes.”
“What?” Tatum’s eyes bugged out. “Really?”
“Yes.” Angelica relaxed. “I love this place. I can’t imagine anyone else owning it, and maybe it’s time to take some risks in my life.
” She looked directly at Hope then. They hadn’t gone public with their relationship, not yet, and Tatum had given them two rooms despite the fact they only planned to use one.
But she wasn’t going to correct him—not yet. Not until they were ready.
“Risk sounds like an adventure,” Hope chimed in. “Is it an adventure that you want company on?”
Angelica hadn’t even considered that. If she and Hope joined forces to own this place, then it would give her a backup if she needed it. But then again, going into business, actual ownership with Hope, was a huge step in their relationship and just another way for it to get messy as hell.
“We can discuss that later.” Angelica gave her a direct look. “I don’t want to make this any more complicated than it is, and buying a hotel is going to be complicated no matter which way we do it.”
“True.” Hope nodded at her, and Angelica knew she understood what she wasn’t saying.
They were getting far better at that, communicating nonverbally. That would come in handy when they started filming again.
“I have no idea when we can make it happen. I don’t have a realtor or a lender—”
“We can wait.” Tatum’s eyes lit up with excitement. “If it’s for you, we’ll wait, and we’ll figure it out.”
Angelica sighed and then smiled. Nothing about this decision felt bad or scary. Instead, everything about it was right, as if she’d been building toward this for years already. And perhaps she was. This was her home away from home, and she felt more comfortable here than almost anywhere else.
“Oh, this is exciting.” Hope bounced on the bench next to Angelica.
“It is exciting.” Angelica’s calm was such a contrast to Hope’s bubbly joy. They always were that way. It was what made them such a good pairing on Hotel Bombshell. “I’ll make some calls in the morning. But today, Hope and I were just hoping to relax.”
“Of course,” Tatum answered. “I’m so happy.”
“Let’s celebrate!” Hope chimed in.
“Yes, I’ll get champagne.” Tatum stood up and walked away.
Hope moved quickly, pulling Angelica in for a loud kiss before grinning at her. “Are you really going to buy this place?”
“Apparently.” Now those nerves settled into the pit of her belly, the ones that hadn’t been there when she’d said yes. “I can’t believe I just did that.”
“But you did.”
“Yeah.” Angelica kissed her again before moving away. “I need to talk to my bosses. This will be a direct conflict for them, and I might lose my job.”
“Do you really think that’ll happen?”
“They were looking at selling anyway, so maybe it’s time for me to resign and take up my own hotels.” Angelica rubbed her palms over her thighs. “Oh, this is going to be a lot of changes in one year.”
“I think you can handle it.”
“I know I can.” Angelica finished off her wine. “Do you think that tonight we can walk into town and get a proper beer?”
Hope snorted before she devolved into a fit of giggles. “Yeah, I think we can manage that.”
“Good. Because wine and champagne just aren’t my cup of tea.” Angelica smiled as Tatum came back with the champagne bottle.
Behind him trailed Katherine, her eyes bright with excitement.
“Oh my God!” Hope stood up immediately and walked directly to Katherine, wrapping her in a tight hug. “It’s so good to see you!”
Angelica smiled in Katherine’s direction, though she wasn’t one for public displays as much as Hope was, so she stayed seated. Katherine settled the glasses onto the small table, and Angelica immediately noticed there were four of them.
“I asked Katherine to join us. I thought you all might like to catch up a bit with her.”
“Of course we would,” Hope chattered, a huge grin on her lips.
The champagne was poured and the conversation flowed.
Katherine was telling them about all she had learned since moving there from Vermont when Angelica’s phone popped up with a notification.
Frowning at it, she stared at the text message and the name on her screen.
Her stomach sank, her entire body going cold.
She trembled as she swiped the text open to read it.
Josef: You’re going to pay for what you did to me.
“Hope?” Angelica’s voice wavered with uncertainty. When she locked her eyes on Hope, she nearly melted into a fit of tears. But she didn’t want Tatum or Katherine to see what was happening. Hope would understand the magnitude of this though. She would know just how bad this could get.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“I, uh… I need to talk to you.”
“Now?” Hope frowned. “Katherine just got—”
“Yes, now.” Angelica stood up and walked directly to the small path that led to downtown.
She didn’t want Josef to ruin Mountain View any more than he already had.
Hope was behind her immediately after issuing apologies to both Tatum and Katherine.
But Angelica couldn’t wait to do that. She didn’t have the bandwidth to handle it.
“Angel! Hold up! What’s going on?” Hope snagged Angelica’s arm and spun her around. “What’s wrong?”
Angelica couldn’t find the words. Instead, she simply handed Hope her phone with the open text message.
The color drained from Hope’s face. “He just sent this?”
“Yeah,” Angelica answered.
“It’s been months since filming wrapped.” Hope continued to stare at the phone, like the text was going to vanish. And when Angelica saw her take a screenshot of it, she was damn sure that had been what she was thinking.
“He’s typing,” Hope whispered.
“What?” Angelica took the phone back and stared at it as a new message popped up.
Josef: I know about you and Hope.
“He doesn’t actually have proof,” Hope said, but her voice wobbled. “Does he?”
“I never thought he did.” Angelica took another screenshot, needing to make sure she kept records of everything Josef did or said. Her heart rate ramped up, and it nearly suffocated her. “He would have said something if he did, I’m sure of it.”
“We were so careful,” Hope whispered.
Except they weren’t. Cadence had seen them in the hallway.
Josef could very well have been there during one of those incidents as well.
Or perhaps he had someone spy on them. Someone like Cadence.
But that didn’t seem like her at all. Angelica closed her eyes and tried to take deep breaths to calm herself down, but it was damn near impossible.
This couldn’t be happening.
Everything was going so well. She and Hope had found a new rhythm with dates and spending time with each other. They’d even started talking about a reasonable plan to go public and talk to the crew about it and how to lay the groundwork for that conversation.
“You don’t think Rex—” Angelica stopped short. “No, he wouldn’t.” Not after what he’d said during the inquiry after they’d wrapped for the season.
Hope shook her head too. “He wouldn’t do that to Eva.”
“True.” Angelica bit her lip as another message popped through. This one was a video. The still didn’t look familiar, and Angelica wasn’t sure that she wanted to hit play on it.
“Just do it,” Hope encouraged.
Hovering her thumb over it, she downloaded it first and then hit play from her saved video files. It was security camera footage. She and Hope were standing in a hallway, dressed as if they’d been filming.
“Do you recognize which hotel that is?” Angelica asked.
Hope shook her head. “We’ve been to so many.”
“I—” Angelica stopped talking.
On the screen, Hope moved forward swiftly, pressing her lips to Angelica’s and Angelica dropped the iPad onto the ground by her feet. It took her to the count of three to press her palms against Hope’s shoulders and push her back. And then she ran.
“New Orleans,” Angelica murmured. “It’s New Orleans.”
“How the hell did he get this?” Hope asked, taking the phone from Angelica’s hand and watching the video again. “That was years ago.”
“Not long enough, and they hated us, remember?” Angelica’s stomach twisted hard. She was so near to crying, tears of anger and frustration and hurt. Why couldn’t anything ever go right?
“Yeah, but they shut down like twelve months ago. Sold out in foreclosure, I think.”
Angelica whipped her head around. “What?”
“Yeah, just something I heard in the rumor mill.” Hope ran her fingers through her hair, mussing it.
“If that’s true, then how long has he had this footage?” Angelica stared at the phone like it was her worst enemy.
Then those three little dots popped back up again. She froze in fear.
“Hope…” her voice trembled. “He’s writing something again.”
Hope leaned over her shoulder, a hand on her side as they waited for whatever Josef was going to throw at them next. Angelica held her breath as the text appeared. Her entire world crumbled.
Josef: I’m taking you down with me