Page 136 of No Holds Barred

She would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that one, just so she could see Angelica’s discomfort and how she handled that situation. Also, she never would have figured that would happen.

Angelica: Nope. Rex caught it on camera. Not sure if it’ll end up in the final cut.

Hope: I’m going to ask him for the daily for that one.

Angelica: Rest up tonight. We have a long day of travel tomorrow.

Hope sighed, closing her eyes and letting the moment linger. She never would have thought that Angelica would let her out of tonight that easily. But she was glad to have texted her instead of anyone else. She sent Rex a text, letting him know so he wouldn’t worry, and then she flipped through her Kindle to find the perfect story to read to Eva tonight. This was exactly what she needed. Forget worrying about what-ifs that she couldn’t control, the ones that would send her down a spiral of what might happen when the world found out about her and Angelica.

She could focus on Eva and nothing else.

This was her home, no matter what.

Post-Season

Chapter

Forty-Three

The room was stuffy. Angelica crossed her good leg over her bad one and pressed her hands into her lap. She hadn’t brought her iPad today. This wasn’t that kind of conversation. She waited as Logan settled next to her, knowing exactly what they were doing here. This was the formal inquiry, the one where she would face the music of her decisions.

“Now that we’re all here,” Logan started, looking around the room, “we have some things we need to discuss going forward.”

Josef was absent.

Angelica took note of that. But with as much drama as he’d caused lately, she wasn’t surprised that he was being left out of these conversations. He needed a reality check, and she was fairly certain that it was going to come in the form of a firing. He’d be lucky if that’s all it involved.

“First we’re going to discuss Josef’s conduct on the show.” Logan put a notepad in front of him, a pen to paper. He always seemed to do that when the conversation was more serious. She’d noticed that the first year that they’d worked together to build up plans for the show when it was in preproduction.

“Angelica, you’re going to have to fill in some of the blanks for us, but I have reports from everyone I interviewed.” Logan looked from her to Rex.

Angelica’s stomach tightened. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Rex before now, like she’d wanted to. She hadn’t made the time either, and she probably could have forced the issue. But she’d once again let fear of losing everything get in her way. “Sure, where are we starting?”

They went through Leanne’s hiring, and her participation in the show itself. That was hard enough, but Angelica filled in the blanks on the tension and why the choice of hiring Leanne instead of someone else put an added strain on her. Rex’s eyes had widened at that, and he’d paled. Logan had simply encouraged Angelica to continue the story.

As the words loosed, it became easier and easier to share. Still, she hated that she felt so exposed, and she knew that this wasn’t going to be the worst of it. Angelica curled her fingers around each other, keeping her body as still as possible. She didn’t want them to think badly of her, but they needed everything to be out in the open now.

Rex pulled up his phone and started texting, and Angelica’s stomach tightened. Logan must have caught the move too, because he put his hand out to catch Rex’s attention. “I really need us to be focused on the conversation today and not on technology. I’m going to ask that you put your phone away until the meeting is done.”

“Sorry, Eva’s sick. She caught whatever Rishal had when we were in Chicago. Hope’s taking her in to the doctor.” Rex frowned and flicked his gaze to Angelica curiously.

Was he wanting to know what she was feeling? Or was this some move toward solidarity with her? He could just as easily be lying and she’d never know. The more people who had information about her past, the more easily it would get out. Thebest kept secret was a secret known only to one, and now she’d lost count of the number of people who knew about her and Leanne.

This could so easily end in disaster for her.

“Then we can take a break if you need to make a call,” Logan added.

“Yes, that’d be great. Can we?” Rex looked to Logan, pleading. “I didn’t quite realize how long this meeting was going to last.”

“Ten minutes.” Logan checked his watch.

Rex scurried out of the room, and Angelica breathed relief for the first time since she’d entered it. But it was only a fleeting moment. Every decision she had to make lately came down to carefully planning and protecting the future that she wanted. And it was so easy to see how everything would be overturned in an instant.

“How are you doing?” Logan asked, leaning in to whisper.

“I’m fine,” Angelica answered. It was the quickest and easiest answer that she could give. She didn’t need him to think that she was panicking. Because she was. “I’m going to run to the bathroom.”

Standing up, Angelica left the room and found Rex with the phone in his hand as he leaned against the wall.