Chapter 44
Chapter
Forty-Four
Hope set out the last few trays of food, the ones she’d made specifically with Angelica in mind. As much as they were struggling, there was no way she could ignore the fact that Angelica had allergies, even if she wanted to. She’d still cater to them.
She brushed her hands along her sides after the food was set up.
Straightening her back, she was surprised to find Angelica stepping into the ballroom at her hotel.
The dress she wore was stunning and hugged her in all the right places.
It was sleek, a deep royal blue, and the V-neck didn’t plunge but widened perfectly against her breasts to show off exactly what she had.
The off-shoulder design let the line of creamy skin on her cheeks and collarbones show off just like they should.
The heels she wore were strappy, giving her extra height, and she’d put her hair up.
Hope had to swallow the sudden lump of desire that lodged in her throat.
The bun was low at the back of Angelica’s head, but there were curls that cascaded on each side of her cheeks and touched the tops of her shoulders.
Her cheeks looked kissed with a blush, but her eyes were so blue and piercing that they nearly made Hope want to scowl and scamper away to hide.
She felt woefully underdressed in her black slacks and bright pink blouse. Then again, she hadn’t had the energy for much else. Rex had been off all week, and any time she’d tried to talk to him or get ahold of him, he’d simply said nothing to her or avoided the topic all together.
“Angel…ica,” she tagged on the last part of the name at the last minute, remembering Angelica’s request to not call her Angel anymore.
Angelica stiffened, but she did walk closer to Hope.
“How long is tonight going to run? I want to be home with Eva early.” Hope wrung her hands together as she tried not to let her gaze fall down to Angelica’s chest, but fuck, the woman was as sexy now as she ever was.
“Leave when you want, Hope. No one’s going to force you to stay.” Angelica kept a straight face, somehow.
“Are we ever going to find a balance of working together again?” Hope lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “Because I really don’t want you to be my enemy.”
Angelica’s lips twitched slightly, but she barely moved beyond that. “Time is our friend.”
“Right.” Hope breathed in deeply and let it out slowly.
“I thought you might like to know that these trays are safe for you. That one definitely isn’t.
” Hope pointed to the one with mushroom caps on it.
“Not that I think you’ll be interested in eating anything over on that one.
And this one…” she tapped her finger as she glanced over the items she’d put onto the tray and debated the ingredients in each dish. “This one is safe, but this one isn’t.”
“Hope…” Angelica trailed off her name. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she stopped herself. “I’m not hungry, but thank you.”
“But you have to eat at some point tonight.”
“I really don’t,” Angelica said easily. “But feel free to leave whenever you want. I have the speeches early on, so we don’t need to stay late.”
“Oh.” Hope frowned. “Right, speeches.” She hadn’t thought of that, and she’d completely forgotten that they’d done that last year. Hope brushed her fingers through her hair and stepped away from the food. She checked her watch. “I’m just going to run to the bathroom before people start arriving.”
Angelica nodded at her and walked away. As if it really was that simple for her. As if she wasn’t affected by their breakup, or the fact that Hope’s world seemed to be unravelling faster than she could breathe. She checked her phone to see if Rex had texted, but there was nothing.
Which shouldn’t surprise her.
He’d been quiet all day. Though she’d spent most of the day at Angelica’s hotel preparing the food for tonight anyway, so she hadn’t been around to see him or catch him.
She had twenty more minutes to center herself before the festivities of the night began, and she could do this.
One last night of the film crew before they took a break for months.
When she returned from the bathroom, there were several people already there.
And they were just the buffer that Hope needed.
She chatted with as many people as she could, always keeping her eye on the door for when Rex would show up.
She really wanted to see him, to celebrate all of the hard work they’d done together in the last few months.
As the room filled with more and more people, the tension in her chest grew as well.
Angelica circled around the outside of the room, barely talking to anyone, but observing everything.
She never was the popular one, was she? She might have the looks, but she probably scared everyone off with her personality, with the persona of the Ice Fairy. God, it was true tonight, wasn’t it?
Hope focused back on the young sound man in front of her, trying to pick up the threads of conversation that she’d completely lost track of. Luckily, she was saved when Angelica’s voice came through the speakers around the room and she called for everyone’s attention.
It was speech time.
Angelica turned the microphone over to Josef, who talked far longer than he should have. Then Logan. Then her. Hope’s stomach twisted hard. Public speaking was something she hated doing, and it’d never get easier.
She took the microphone as it was passed to her and smiled at everyone, holding the champagne glass in her hand.
“Hey there.” She chuckled nervously. She looked around the room, trying to spot Rex, but she still couldn’t find him.
The pit in her stomach grew even more. “I just wanted to thank you all so much not just for coming tonight, but for being there this season. We did good, hard work this season, and I’m so proud of it and proud of all of us. ”
Cheers echoed around the room. Hope grinned in response.
“That’s it. I don’t have much more to say.
Those of you who know me know how much I hate pomp and circumstance.
So here’s to season three!” She raised her glass in the air and waited for the cheers before she chugged the rest of her drink.
Stepping out of the range of the microphone, she stumbled lightly but managed to catch herself. She wasn’t drunk, just distracted.
She found her way to the edge of the wall and turned around to watch the rest of the speeches.
It wasn’t until Josef took over the microphone again and turned everyone toward the slide show of photos they’d taken randomly throughout the season that she realized far too late that Angelica hadn’t actually made a speech.
Hope twisted to her side to grab another flute of champagne but stopped cold when her eyes locked on Angelica only a few feet away from her.
Angelica was staring at her with wide eyes, pained eyes.
Hope took the champagne and walked slowly closer, keeping her gaze on Angelica’s face while everyone else watched the slideshow.
“You didn’t get up there.”
“No,” Angelica answered, her lips pursing slightly. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why?” Hope furrowed her brow. “You did last year.”
“I wasn’t permitted to this year.” Angelica sighed heavily and sipped her own drink. “Apparently, I’m too boring.”
“Fuck Josef.” Hope rolled her eyes. “He really needs to get the stick out of his ass.”
Angelica laughed a little. “He does. Hopefully, he will soon.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing.” Angelica shook her head and turned back toward the front of the room as if she was paying attention.
But Hope knew better. Angelica was watching everyone else around them, not the slide show itself.
“They want us to film a mini promotional segment during the break.” Angelica lifted her glass to her lips, but she still didn’t turn to look at Hope.
“What?” Hope frowned.
“Didn’t Rex talk to you about it?”
“I haven’t seen him.” Hope’s stomach tightened even more. That pit was weighing her down.
“You haven’t seen him?” Angelica paused, her head turning to the side slightly. “We’ve hired a new assistant director for the upcoming year. She’s been working with Rex on post-production because it’s a big job to handle.”
Hope’s stomach dropped. Rex would normally tell her all of this. She’d be in the know because of him, not because Angelica was now dropping the information in her hands as if she should already know all of this.
“Cadence would like us to film short videos for promotional purposes during the break. She wants to specifically leverage YouTube shorts, and meet the desires of the younger generation to open our audience more.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“It does,” Angelica said, sipping her drink. “I don’t want to do it.”
“What?” Hope furrowed her brow. “Why not?”
Angelica glanced around the room quickly before stepping in closer and dropping her voice to just above a whisper. “We’re not together anymore, Hope. And I don’t want to spend my extra time with you in an environment that’s going to force me to ignore that fact.”
Angelica stepped away again, leaving Hope reeling from the comment.
“We need a clean break, one that both of us can define.” Angelica finished her drink and set it on a table. “So no, I don’t want to film with you.”
“Are you breaking your contract for next season?” Hope wanted to reach out and grab Angelica’s wrist, hold her there until she could get an answer to the question.
“No, I’m not.” Angelica squared her shoulders. “That doesn’t mean I’ll have a contract for season three when the break is done though. You’ll have to excuse me.”
Angelica went to step away, but Hope reached out quickly and snagged her wrist. They stared at each other, eyes wide. Hope’s lips parted. She had so much she wanted to say and more. “Do you think I’m going to try and get you fired?”
“No.” Angelica shook her head. “No, Hope, that’s not your style.” Angelica sighed heavily. “But there are many pieces at play that are out of your hands.”
“Rex?”
Angelica furrowed her brow. “No.”
“I…” Hope paused. She blinked, breaking eye contact and looking around the room tonight. “I haven’t seen him tonight. Do you know where he is?”
“He hasn’t talked to you? At all?” Angelica seemed genuinely curious now, if not a little concerned. Her voice had a much softer quality to it than it had the entire conversation before now.
Hope shook her head, fear rippling through her. Did Angelica know something she didn’t?
“I haven’t seen him tonight. I thought he might be here, but I haven’t seen him.”
Breathing in and out, Hope felt her stomach plummet. “Rex wouldn’t miss the wrap party. He’s never missed one, except when Eva was born. He wouldn’t just abandon…” she stopped at that thought.
The gears clicked in her head.
Rex had barely been home since they’d gotten back to Los Angeles. The nights that he had come home, they hadn’t slept in the same bed. Hope had figured it was because they still needed to work through their problems, but he hadn’t even set up an appointment with their counselor yet.
“Angel…” Hope was nearly in tears. “Where’s Rex?”
Angelica shook her head, but she did reach forward and snag Hope’s fingers tightly. “I don’t know.”
Panic swelled in Hope’s chest. The sudden fear as everything clicked into place, as if the breadcrumbs that had been left in a path for her in the last week finally could be put together to make sense.
“I need to leave.”
“Sure.” Angelica nodded and stepped back.
Hope didn’t even wait. She walked directly out of the ballroom and straight to the parking lot.
She got behind the wheel of her car and held her breath.
Her phone was still silent. Rex hadn’t texted her all day.
The drive home was excruciatingly long, especially with the traffic hindering her.
But she had to know. She had to see for herself.
Hope’s hands trembled as she parked her car in the empty garage.
She left the keys inside as she opened the door to the car, everything happening in slow motion.
Her breath came in slow rasps, making white noise in her ears.
Tears already stung her eyes, because she knew exactly what she was going to find without even having to see it for herself.
She skipped the empty living room and went straight for the bedroom. The blankets were undisturbed. But the top of Rex’s dresser was empty. No one else would have ever noticed a difference. Hope stepped over to it, brushing her fingers along the laminate before she pulled open the top drawer.
Empty.
Tears spilled down her cheeks, rushing over her face. She could barely breathe. Her lungs refused to expand like they should. Pain surged through her in an instant, and she didn’t need anyone to tell her.
She knew.
She opened every single drawer in Rex’s dresser and all of them were empty. The closet. Empty. The bathroom cabinet. Empty. Tears flowed down her face, and she lifted her hand to her mouth to bite her fist to keep the scream in.
Her emotions were all over the place. She should have expected this.
She should have known it was coming. She should have seen it happening from a mile away.
But he’d told her. He’d said she needed to choose, and she’d done it.
She’d chosen him. She’d let Angelica go for the sake of her family, and now where was he?
Hope’s heart clenched hard. She stepped out of their room—no, her room.
Fuck, it killed her to think of it like that.
She stopped at Eva’s bedroom door. He wouldn’t, would he?
She pushed the door open, finding the bed messy and toys still strewn about the floor.
Hope pried open the dresser, and it was empty.
“Oh, the bastard,” she whispered.
Walking back out to the living room, she stopped at the kitchen counter.
There was a notebook set in the middle of it, completely cleaned off because she’d left it that way before she’d gone to the hotel that morning.
Hope trembled as she reached forward and pulled the notebook closer to her.
Her eyes were so watery that she could barely even read the words that Rex had scrawled across it.
I can’t do this anymore. I have Eva. She’s safe with me. Don’t come find us.