No Holds Barred (Hotel Bombshell Book 3), page 35
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.”
Chapter
Forty-Four
“Eva’s still really sick,” Hope said, glancing toward the video call as she washed dishes.
“She got hit hard then.” Angelica had her phone set up against something and all Hope could see was the flipping of papers on her desk. While she’d much rather have seen Angelica’s face, she didn’t think asking Angelica to change the angle of the camera was going to go over smoothly.
“She did.”
“The wrap party is next week. What do you want to do for the meal?”
Hope wrinkled her nose. While talking about the wrap party was fun, the last thing she wanted to do was talk about work. They hadn’t had a moment to get together since they’d returned, and Hope was longing for that one-on-one time, which she’d thought they’d get back in California. Apparently, they’d both been wrong about that.
“Angel?” Hope hung her hands over the edge of the sink and looked at her phone, just waiting for Angelica to look at her.
It took longer than Hope had wanted for the silence to catch Angelica’s attention, but she was distracted and working, so that didn’t surprise her.
“Hope?” Angelica paused, looking down her nose and over the rim of her reading glasses at Hope.
“It’s good to see you,” Hope answered, her cheeks flushing.
Angelica’s responding smile was exactly what Hope had wanted to see.
“When can I actually see you?” Hope bit the inside of her cheek and held her breath. She wanted it to be right now, even though she knew it couldn’t be.
“Probably at the party itself.”
Hope frowned. “I wish it were sooner.”
Angelica hummed, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she went back to whatever she was doing before. Hope dried her hands on a dishtowel and snagged her phone, walking toward her office so they could have more of a private conversation.
“Angel?”
“Hope?” Angelica responded again.
“Can you focus on me for a minute?” Hope waited for Angelica to come back into the frame of the camera.
“Is something wrong?”
“I want to go on a date, or you to come to dinner, or something.” Hope held her breath. She wasn’t even sure what she was asking, but she knew she had to figure it out. “I miss you.”
Angelica’s lips quirked. “We just spent nearly ten weeks together from preproduction to returning back to Los Angeles.”
“Not as coworkers.” Hope shook her head, realizing far too late what she should be saying. “As girlfriends. If we’re going to make this work, then we have to actually be in the same room as each other and not galivant around the world in opposite directions.”
“Fair.” Angelica sighed heavily. “But with the inquiry that Logan’s doing and no answer on that front, I’m not entirely sure how we should be going about that.”
“I still can’t believe you told them.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell Rex.” Angelica was back to bending her head and staring at something away from the camera.
“We said we weren’t going to tell anyone!” Hope raised her voice.
“Well, I was wrong.”
“Excuse me?” Hope laughed. “Can you say that again?”
“I’m not above admitting when I make mistakes.” Angelica flicked her a glance. “Just don’t get used to it because it rarely happens.”
Hope devolved into a fit of giggles. “God, I love you.”
Angelica hummed but didn’t respond beyond that. “The wrap party?”
“I have a full menu. I’ll email it over to you in the morning.”
“Good.” Angelica wrote something down. “And the gifts?”
“What if we picked something special from each location we went? It’ll work with the menu I chose for the evening. A small lighthouse, a mini cream pie, cheese, and we’ll figure out something for the other cities we were in.” Hope brushed her fingers through her hair. “I think between the two of us and Lyric, we can probably get it all together before the party next week.”
“That sounds good.” Angelica was clearly distracted again.
“Angel,” Hope chimed, calling her back to the conversation. “Stay with me for another minute, please.”
“Yes?” Angelica’s face focused back in the camera’s view.
“Eva goes back to Rex’s on Thursday. Come over then.” Hope’s heart hammered. The thrust back into the reality of their lives being busy, without the cushion of having to see each other each day, had been a cold way to start up a relationship. Hope needed to rectify that.
“I have a late meeting tomorrow with Logan. I can try to come after, but it’ll be late, and I don’t know what kind of mood I’ll be in.” Angelica brushed her fingers over her lips.
“Are you really worried about losing your position on the show?”
“Yes.” Angelica said the word so simply that Hope’s own anxiety couldn’t help but rise up in the pit of her belly.
“I hope you’re wrong then.” She heard Eva call her from the other room and held the phone against her chest as she called, “In a minute, babe! I’m on the phone.” She almost said she was on the phone with Angelica, but Eva would have wanted to come in there and talk to her.
Her phone buzzed in her hand.
Curiously, Hope pulled it away to see Logan’s name pop up on the screen with an incoming call.
“Angel, I’ve got to take this call.”
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Angelica said as she hung up before Hope could even respond.
Holding her breath, Hope answered Logan’s call. She hadn’t been expecting this. She’d had her conversation with him, answered the questions as best as she could and withheld as much information as she could.
“Hello?” Hope said as she answered the call, putting the phone against her ear this time since it wasn’t a video call.
“I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“You didn’t.” Hope bit her lip. “Eva’s still sick with whatever bug she caught, but I think she’s on the mend.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Logan always was such a kind soul. Hope would have to remember that, because she’d need to make friends with him and keep that friendship if she was going to survive another season—assuming they had another season to film. There was still no word on whether or not that would happen.
“I’m calling about an upcoming season.”
“Have we been renewed?” Hope asked, desperate for information.
“There’s been no word on that yet.”
Hope’s stomach sank. She just wanted answers already. She’d been paying attention to social media, to the press that was building up as they finished snippets and trailers for the upcoming season and all of the hype. Everything pointed to the fact that they might be renewed for at least one season if not more.
“If we were to renew, I wanted to get the contract in order.”
“Contract?” Hope furrowed her brow in confusion. Mary usually handled those things as her go-between, and production staff didn’t come directly to her.
“Because of the delicate situation, I wanted to come to you first.”
That meant he hadn’t even spoken to Angelica about it yet. Hope held her breath, standing up and walking through to the living room to check on Eva and make sure she had everything she needed, and to keep her hands busy.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“If Angelica weren’t offered a contract, we have two options—you either take over the show yourself or we find someone else to work with.” Logan sounded nervous even saying those words out loud.
“Leanne?” Hope’s stomach tightened at just the thought, but Josef had thrown that in her face so many times before that she couldn’t help but think this was where he was going.
“No, not Leanne.” Logan chuckled. “Never Leanne.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” Hope handed Eva a new glass of water and then stepped back into her office. “In all fairness, Logan, before we get into that, there’s only one way I’ll sign another contract and that’s if Josef isn’t involved.”
She was greeted with silence, and Hope took that as a bad sign. He was probably trying to find a way to tell her that they didn’t have enough evidence, that Josef was the show runner and creator that he—
“Josef isn’t going to be further involved with Hotel Bombshell. He was released from his position and contract earlier this week.”
