Page 20 of Culinary Chaos (Hotel Bombshell #1)

Chapter

Fifteen

W as she a lesbian?

When did she start thinking about kissing Angelica?

Was it just Angelica?

Hope hadn’t slept a wink all night. Her mind whirled with thoughts, accusations, self-hate, and the knowledge that she was the one ruining everything. She’d kissed a woman. She’d kissed Angelica.

What did that even mean?

Staring at the ceiling as the light spread through the cracks in the curtains, Hope blinked away the dryness in her eyes.

Today would be rough working off no sleep.

Rex had snored lightly all night next to her, after she’d fucked his brains out before bed.

And now all she could think about was doing it again.

Just to make sure.

That she still liked men.

That she still loved him .

Because the confusion that was swimming through her head was too hard to handle, and she literally had no one to talk to.

Hell, what if Angelica didn’t like women?

That hadn’t even occurred to her before now, which was a tragedy in and of itself.

Except… that would make sense for Angelica.

She’d avoided Hope’s questions about a husband and boyfriend several times already, not stating a gender or a sex for a past partner ever.

Was Angelica a lesbian?

Hope pressed her fingers over her lips, the ghost of that horrible kiss still lingering on them. It hadn’t even been a good kiss. She’d done nothing but allow her body to think for her, following her gut instincts and arriving exactly where she was.

Confused.

Lost.

Guilty.

Hope slipped from the bed, the mattress dipping from her weight.

She looked over her shoulder at Rex’s still-sleeping form and walked barefoot as quietly as possible toward the bathroom.

The water was hot as it sluiced across her skin, easing the tightened muscles and knots that she didn’t even know she had.

It was just a kiss, and barely even that. Angelica hadn’t kissed her back. Hope hadn’t pushed for more. This was probably something she could just file away under mistakes and stupid decisions and never think about again, right?

“You’re up early,” Rex’s voice echoed through the small bathroom.

Hope jumped. She guiltily looked over her shoulder as he stepped into the shower with her and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her cheek.

“I had trouble sleeping,” she said quietly.

Rex hummed and kissed her again. “That’ll make for a long day, not that it wasn’t going to be one already.”

“What do you mean?” Hope frowned, turning around to step under the water and wet her hair. For some reason, she didn’t want him all up against her. Not this morning. Not when she’d been spinning in so many thoughts and deeds and whatever the hell it all meant.

Rex sighed, his hands barely leaving Hope’s waist except when she reached for the shampoo. “I think the Ice Fairy needs a new nickname after yesterday. Fairy gives off a totally different image than the shit that she pulled.”

Hope wouldn’t disagree with that one. But she also wasn’t going to comment on it.

Not today. And definitely not after last night.

Because there was way more going on under the surface of Angelica Shields than anyone seemed to be aware of.

They all just seemed to gloss over that.

They were too focused on the fact that she was such a bitch as a boss and maybe as a person.

But would they really think that if she was a man?

Hope shook that thought. She needed to stop thinking about Angelica and focus on Rex, the man right in front of her, the man she was in love with, the father of her child. Her lips quirked up. Maybe she did still love him. Maybe what had happened with Angelica hadn’t changed any of that.

Breathing out that thought, manifesting it into the world, Hope leaned in to kiss Rex.

She really wished she had someone to talk this through with, someone who could hear her instead of seeing all the wrong things she’d already done.

But she didn’t have anyone she could confess this to, at least not yet.

Not until she’d figured it out a bit more.

“I need to get ready,” she murmured after rinsing the conditioner out of her hair.

She left Rex in the shower as she wrapped herself in the not-very-soft towels that the hotel provided.

The advantage to being on set that day was she didn’t have to do anything with her hair, and they would make her look so much better than if she’d tried to tame her wild mane anyway.

She was dressed and out of the room before Rex was dressed.

He could handle Eva that morning. Hope wasn’t sure that she could manage to look at Eva and not feel guilty for what she’d done the night before.

She’d have to work on that. But she wasn’t going to wreck their home or their family just because she’d done something irrationally impulsive.

Maybe she should talk to Angelica before their day started, set things right.

Who knew, maybe Angelica would have some insight as to what had happened.

She stared at her phone, debating on making that phone call, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to knock on Angelica’s door and talk to her there.

But Angelica was notorious for always being early, so she was probably downstairs with the makeup artists already. Scratching the thought, Hope headed straight for the elevator and hit the button to head downstairs a little harder than she needed to.

Damn it.

She really needed to find her calm and easy-going personality again, because this spiral she’d been thrown into was nearly too much for her to handle.

The elevator door opened, and she slipped inside, leaning against the back wall as she waited for the doors to close.

As they slid shut, Angelica stuck her hand in them to push them back open.

Hope held her breath.

Angelica stared at her, lips slightly parted, fear in her eyes. But she didn’t back away. She didn’t exactly move forward either. Instead, they just looked at each other. All those nerves that Hope had been avoiding came tumbling up into her stomach and her heart raced.

What the fuck was happening to her?

Finally, Angelica stepped inside and turned to face the door, staring directly forward. Were they really not going to talk about it at all? Were they going to pretend like nothing had happened? Because the memory of that kiss had been plaguing her all night, and Hope didn’t know where to turn.

“We should probably talk about last night,” she said, her voice low and quiet, nearly a whisper. Which was stupid, there was no one else in the elevator with them.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Angelica folded her hands in front of her, her jaw clenched tight.

Hope couldn’t drag her gaze away from her, from the lines of her features, the way her nose had a slight bump in it that indicated she’d broken it at some point, the way her lips were positioned, the top one so thin and the bottom one so full.

“There’s absolutely something to talk about, and I have no idea who to talk to.”

“Not me,” Angelica answered.

It was as if there were visible walls crashing down around Angelica, walls of steel that Hope would never be able to crack and break her way through.

“Why not?” Hope asked, turning to face Angelica now.

She needed to see every part of her to know exactly what was going on.

Why was Angelica so resistant to any kind of conversation now?

She hadn’t been before, not since they’d met.

She’d avoided emotional and personal topics, but she’d never avoided Hope entirely before. Not like this.

Angelica continued to stare forward. “Nothing happened last night.”

Hope scoffed. “Of course it did. We kissed.”

“ We didn’t kiss.” Angelica’s eyes widened, and she faced Hope down. “ We didn’t. You couldn’t control yourself and went too far.”

Cold washed through Hope, racing through her entire body and taking control of her.

How much had she offended Angelica? How much damage had she done to their relationship?

She hadn’t thought of that. All night, all her concerns had been focused on her and Rex and Eva.

She’d never once considered what she’d done to Angelica.

Dashing her tongue out against her lips, Hope breathed in deeply. But that was a mistake. Because that only forced her to smell Angelica’s subtle perfume. It was so light that Hope had barely managed to catch a whiff of it before, but this was undoubtedly Angelica.

“We should talk about it.”

“No,” Angelica answered firmly. “Like I said, there’s nothing to talk about.”

“ I need someone to talk to about it.” Hope leaned in a little closer, trying to make her point. She was so confused, and surely Angelica had some experience in this, didn’t she?

Angelica shook her head, crossed her arms, and flicked her gaze toward the elevator door.

Suddenly, she jerked forward and hit the button for the first floor.

Fuck, Hope hadn’t even realized she hadn’t done that yet.

They were just standing in an elevator that was never going to move, keeping them locked in this hell of a non-conversation that she’d been so inept to start in the first place.

“I can’t be that person for you. I won’t.” Angelica’s voice was low, deadly.

“Why not?” Hope asked, desperation hitting her hard. Confessing to anyone else what she’d done would be disastrous. But Angelica already knew.

“Because I’m not who you think I am.”

That statement confused Hope even more than anything else they’d been discussing up until that point and even more than whatever had happened last night. How was Angelica not being truthful? How was she hiding?

“Who are you then?”

Angelica paused, looking Hope over. Her eyes seemed haunted almost, as if there were terrors too deep for Hope to dare dream up, but then that look was gone in a flash, almost as if it hadn’t ever been there to begin with and Hope had just made it all up.

Hope stepped closer, reaching out on instinct for Angelica’s arm.

Angelica jerked back, pulling away and pushing her back farther against the elevator wall.

Hope froze. This was deeper than she knew.

There was something else going on that she wasn’t aware of, which if she wasn’t so clouded with her own problems, she should have figured out.

They barely knew each other.

One dinner together and a couple weeks as coworkers didn’t make them friends, and it certainly didn’t make them lovers. Hope put her hand up and then to the side before dropping it back down. “I’m sorry.”

“For what, exactly?” Angelica stared at her directly, an eyebrow raised. She wasn’t going to back down, and she wasn’t going to give any indication of what Hope should really be apologizing for.

Hope bit her lower lip, her gaze dropping to Angelica’s. Her mouth had been warm. Not inviting, and Hope certainly had taken liberties as they’d been presented. Angelica’s lips parted, and Hope swore she could feel her breath as it left her mouth.

Were they really standing that close?

“For not paying closer attention to you,” Hope finally managed, the words loosing from her tongue before she could stop them. That hadn’t quite been what she’d intended on saying, but it was probably more accurate to the truth than anything she’d been thinking before that.

Angelica’s features softened, her eyes rounding out slightly and her jaw going slack. Hope even dared to believe that her shoulders dropped an entire inch so they weren’t so close to her ears. Maybe that had been exactly the right thing to say.

Hope couldn’t tear her gaze away. She was completely entranced with Angelica and everything she looked like, her entire reaction, the moment when they could maybe find an equilibrium between them.

Hope held her breath, not wanting to scare Angelica away or cause her to close back up again.

This was perhaps the most open Hope had ever seen her.

The elevator beeped gently, catching Angelica’s attention.

The spell broken instantly. Hope stepped back, glancing toward the elevator doors as they slid open.

Josef stood on the other side of them, his gaze locking on the two of them.

Hope’s cheeks burned, but she said nothing as she pushed her way out and toward the small room that they’d holed hair and makeup in.

She knew Angelica was following her. Her presence was impossible to ignore, but the tone of everything between them had changed the moment that elevator door had opened.

And Hope hated it. Even though they hadn’t been talking about the kiss, about the moment that Hope had lost control as Angelica had said, they had still been talking. And in a way they hadn’t done before.

Hope was going to hold onto that moment.

She sat down in the chair and tried to relax. But even before she saw Angelica, she knew she was there, the scent of her subtle perfume—she really needed to figure out what that scent was—reached her.

“Morning,” Ansel said with a smile.

“Morning,” Hope answered, distracted. She watched Angelica out of the corner of her eye as she slid into the chair next to her.

Was she supposed to say something now? Or not.

Ansel was quiet as he handed Angelica a mug of coffee and kept silent.

Angelica nodded at him and quirked her lips slightly as she sipped.

How did Hope get on that side of Ansel? Because she was really needing the caffeine hit now.

They started with her still-wet hair, and Hope watched as they started to mess with Angelica’s while also putting on her makeup.

Had the glass shattered in Hope’s world?

She couldn’t take her eyes off Angelica. She couldn’t force herself to look away if she had the damn chance to. She was riveted to the woman next to her, glued to her. And yet that woman wanted nothing to do with her.

Hope bit her lip. Ansel scolded her for it. Then and only then did Angelica look up to meet her gaze. Hope’s heart stammered, struggling to find its rhythm again.

What was this magic that Angelica was weaving?

Hope had no chance of surviving it.