Page 32 of Culinary Chaos (Hotel Bombshell #1)

Chapter

Twenty-Four

“ H ope?” Angelica stepped into the kitchen, instantly at ease aside from the heat in there and the cameras that all suddenly turned toward her.

They weren’t expecting this, but Rex had thought it’d be a good idea not to tell them.

“Yeah?” Hope looked up from whatever she was doing at one of the counters. When her eyes locked on Angelica’s, her face fell. “What’s wrong?”

“I need you.” Angelica didn’t wait. She turned around on her toes and walked out of the kitchen. She could hear the small kerfuffle in the kitchen as Hope prepared to be gone, but this wasn’t something that Angelica wanted to get out beyond the few people who knew already.

She waited in the hallway. Hope walked quickly until she saw Angelica and then she nearly stumbled as she raced to keep pace with Angelica.

“Seriously, what’s wrong?” Hope repeated. “I was in the middle of a tutorial.”

“It’ll have to wait.” Angelica turned again, walking the way she had come. She’d been off her game since that night a few days ago, since they’d danced under the moonlight and laughed as if they had not a care in the world. Angelica hadn’t been able to catch her footing.

They made their way into the small office that they’d taken over.

Angelica sat on one side of the small table and put her hand out for Hope to join next to her.

She pulled over a few sheets of paper and her iPad, turning it on so that the camera crew could see it if they angled everything correctly. She was getting better at doing that.

Hope slid into the chair, the heat from her body so close to Angelica’s that it was nearly as distracting as it had been that night downtown.

Angelica hadn’t been able to head back that way on her nightly walks since then.

The intensity, the tension, the almost-kiss—because yes, that had been exactly what Hope had been thinking about—was too much of a memory.

Which was exactly where it needed to stay.

“What am I doing here, Angelica?” Hope asked, leaning forward slightly as she squinted at the papers. “I’ve been through these before.”

“I know.” Angelica rearranged them in the correct order. “Remember when you said nothing would reconcile in the accounts correctly?”

“Yes.” Hope picked up one of the papers. “It gave me a good headache or two.” She chuckled lightly, looking at Angelica instead of the paper.

Angelica’s lips pulled into a smile that she couldn’t stop before she took the paper Hope was holding and set it back down onto the table. She pointed to one of the lines. “What did you attribute this one to?”

“It’s marketing.” Hope furrowed her brow, the deep line in the center of her forehead absolutely adorable.

“It’s labeled that, yes.” Angelica pulled over another pile of papers. “And this one too. All made out to the same marketing company.”

“Correct.” Hope pulled her lower lip between her teeth, popping it out when she looked up to meet Angelica’s eyes again. “Where are you going with this?”

“We’re in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, in small town America. Where do you think you’re going to find an advertisement for thirty thousand dollars?”

Angelica sat back in the chair, not taking her eyes off Hope as the gears turned in her mind, as she made the connections that Angelica had already made.

“Wait…” Hope riffled through the papers again. “I mean, I didn’t think twice about that.”

“Because we live in LA, where it’s not uncommon to spend that much.

We also run larger businesses. But Mountain View isn’t large.

It’s a small, family owned and operated business.

They wouldn’t just drop thirty thousand dollars four times this year on advertising.

” Angelica held her breath, watching the information pile up in Hope’s brain.

“Which made me ask the question—where did that money actually go?”

“Angel…” Hope murmured, her voice so quiet.

Angelica stiffened at it, at the soft and concerned look in Hope’s gaze, at the fear in her eyes.

She shook her head, trying to indicate that it wasn’t what Hope was thinking, and it wasn’t what they’d been discussing the other night.

She dashed her tongue across her lips, moving to lean in even more because she needed to shift the tide of the conversation and quickly.

“I pulled up the bank records, thanks to Tatum. He gave them all to me without a fuss, and while I’m not a forensic accountant, this might not require one to figure it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s four transfers out of the accounts, and there’s actually a name on the account.

One I recognized.” Angelica pointed to it on her iPad, letting Hope read it before she pulled away.

She wasn’t going to say the name on camera while being filmed.

The last thing she needed was some sort of lawsuit for slander against her. “This individual works for the family.”

“Oh.” Hope sighed heavily as the news settled into her. Her shoulders collapsed down, and that feeling of dread that Angelica had felt when she’d first figured it out was plain as day across Hope’s features. “Have you talked to Tatum?”

“Not yet. I was hoping you’d do that with me.” Angelica placed her palm down on the table and pulled Hope’s attention back to her. “And then we can go from there on what we need to do.”

“He’s going to be devastated.”

“This is an easy problem to solve.” Angelica looked directly into Hope’s crystalline eyes, to the pain that was there, the compassion.

People often called her cold and heartless, but she wasn’t.

She let them think that, let them call her the Ice Fairy, let them believe that she had no empathic bone in her body.

But it was times like this, when good people were taken advantage of, that the empathic bones she rarely used went haywire.

“It’s not an easy emotional blow to deal with, especially when they’re already dealing with so much. ”

“Right.” Hope rubbed her hands over her face and groaned. “When are we telling him?”

“Now, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to wait any longer.” Angelica raised her eyebrows as she waited for Hope’s answers.

“You really want me here for this?”

“Yes.” Angelica settled her hand on Hope’s forearm.

The warmth of her body under the fabric of her chef’s coat soaked into her fingers, and she realized belatedly that touching Hope was a bad, bad idea.

It brought her right back to where they were under those fairy lights and stars.

She pulled her hand away, tightening her fingers into a fist. “I’m going to go get Tatum. ”

Angelica moved swiftly out of the room, one camera following her.

She hated this. She just wanted to talk to Hope without all the cameras and people around, when it was just the two of them and no one else.

Her heart raced, and her entire body felt like it was half-floating as she walked through the hallways and found Tatum.

“Hope and I need to talk with you.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Tatum straightened up, a slight grimace on his face.

“It’s not good news, but it’ll solve some issues.” Angelica pointed back the way she came. “Come on.”

They spent two hours with Tatum, going over the financials and how exactly this might have happened.

He was devastated. What Angelica hadn’t realized was the bookkeeper they’d hired was an old family friend.

This was the problem with family owned and operated businesses.

They often hired out of emotion and connection rather than ability and safety.

They spent the next two hours with the police. And Angelica managed to keep most of the filming out of that situation. No one needed their name dragged through the mud before everything was proven.

By the end of the night, Angelica found herself in the back garden, exhausted but satisfied to have solved the actual problem of Mountain View, and she was damn sure she’d managed to do that.

She still wasn’t sure how this place ended up on the list for them to visit and fix, because it was anything but the horror show of the last two hotels they’d been at.

“Wine?” Hope asked, sitting next to Angelica on the bench.

Angelica smiled, looking into Hope’s eyes. “Is it celebratory?”

“It can be, if you want. Or it can simply be a nightcap after a long and emotionally charged day. I don’t think you deal with those often.” Hope handed the wine bottle over, along with an empty glass.

Angelica didn’t miss the fact that she had a second one in her other hand. Had she planned this? Had she specifically come out here to find Angelica? But perhaps more important than that…

What the hell were they doing?

Hope poured Angelica’s wine and then some for herself.

She crossed her legs and leaned back into the bench, shifting to get comfortable.

Every fiber of Angelica’s being was attuned to Hope right now.

She had no other distractions, nothing else to think about or talk about.

Again, it was just the two of them in the starlight, as if nothing else in the world could touch them.

“Do you like it?” Hope asked.

“Like what?” Angelica couldn’t bring her brain back around to follow Hope’s train of thought. Not this time.

“The wine.”

“Oh. Yes, it’s good.” Angelica hadn’t even taken a sip yet, but she did then. The flavors lingered on her tongue and coated her mouth. It was a good wine, one of the better ones she’d had, but she still preferred other drinks to this.

“You did good today,” Hope said, stretching her arm out along the back of the bench and behind Angelica.

If she leaned a little more, Hope’s arm would touch her.

The heat from her body would sear her skin.

They’d be connected again. But this was how it all started, wasn’t it?

This was how everything would start to spiral out of control and Angelica would lose out once again on the happiness that she actually really wanted in her life.