Page 123 of No Holds Barred

“Okay? Right this minute?”

“Yeah.” Cadence pulled Hope out the back door of the kitchen. Rain fell lightly, drizzling on top of them as they stood huddled against the wall in the alleyway.

Hope waited impatiently. She was tired of being pulled one direction to the next. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure how to say this. Well, hold on, your mic?—”

“It’s off.” So this wasn’t work related? Or perhaps it was but Cadence just needed more discretion than that.

“Okay, okay.” Cadence worried her lower lip, stared at her shoes, shifted awkwardly.

“Now you’re making me nervous,” Hope said, a light chuckle in her voice, though she wasn’t sure how well it worked in her favor, because it seemed to just make Cadence that much worse.

“I’ve been debating on whether or not to say something since last week, but I can’t… I have to say something.” Cadence crossed her arms and lifted up on her toes before dropping back down. “I know about you and Ange.”

Hope froze. Her entire body rushed with cold fear. What the fuck was going on this week?

“I-I saw you two kissing in the hallway by her room last week. I didn’t say anything then because… well, I didn’t know what to say. But I just…” Cadence stopped, her cheeks so pale and her eyes so worried that Hope’s heart nearly shattered just looking at her. “Look, I don’t know what happened last year because I wasn’t here, but the rumors are flying, the gossip hasn’t stopped, and if you two are going to do this, then you both need to be very careful.”

“Cadence…” Hope bit her cheek when Cadence threw up her hand to stop her from talking.

“I’m not going to tell anyone. I thought… I’m not surprised is all I’m saying, but you twoneedto be more careful. You’re the stars of the show and if this goes sour then it could ruin a whole lot of lives.”

If only Cadence did know the full story. The last thing she and Angelica wanted was for their relationship to take down everyone else in the process, and they were working so hard to prevent that from happening. They had worked through last year—mostly.

“That’s all I wanted to say,” Cadence finished her speech. “All right? I don’t need details. I don’t need to know anything. Just… be more careful next time.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” Hope whispered, because somewhere in the middle of the fear and anxiety, relief burst. Keeping this a secret had been weighing on her more than she wanted to admit, and if Cadence knew, then perhaps Angelica would be more willing to let the rest of the crew know—as long as Josef wasn’t around.

Between Logan, Cadence, and Rex—it was bound to come out soon anyway, right?

“Don’t say anything.” Cadence pulled her lips into a tight smile. “I suspected something when I met Ange years ago, but I never pursued it. She’s so private about her life, and there wasn’t any reason to. But…” Cadence looked around the damp alleyway, as if checking to see if anyone else was nearby. “But when we went drinking in Maine, I didn’t think she was with anyone then.”

“She wasn’t,” Hope whispered, her voice so quiet that she wasn’t even sure if Cadence had heard her until she stilled.

“So this is all new?”

Hope nodded, not trusting her voice without explaining anything else beyond what they wanted shared. And like hell did she want to deal with this right now. Because it meant she was going to have to find Angelica and tell her that Cadence knew, and that was going to be a fight.

“Okay.” Cadence sighed. “Did you…” Cadence paused and then started again “…did you know you were queer?”

Hope shook her head, again, trying to keep her voice wrapped up tightly.

“Okay. Okay,” Cadence repeated, shuffling her feet around. “Then here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep quiet, because you have just figured out your sexuality and you haven’t come out, probably to anyone yet, and Angelica is our boss?—”

Another shiver ran down Hope’s spine. They had barely even talked about that complication lately. Everything had been so focused on the fact that Hope had still been married that they’d pushed the whole boss-employee thing to the side.

“—and she clearly has a history of making rash decisions and then trying to walk them back, and I don’t need you to get hurt and then have it blow up on set. Wait… does Rex know?” Cadence stared at her directly.

Hope furrowed her brow. “I-I don’t know. We don’t… we don’t talk about that part of our lives anymore.”

“This is going to crush him.” Cadence groaned.

“It won’t,” Hope said confidently. “It won’t.”

Cadence narrowed her gaze at Hope and tilted her chin up. “All right, I feel there’s more to that than I know, which is fine. I’m trusting you for right now. Just… stop making out like teenagers in the hallways on set. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Got it.” Hope stared down at her toes and took a deep breath. “It was a mistake.”