Page 27 of Under the Table

But what…?

Angelica wanted to know. Sheneededto know. But it was true? But they had kissed? But Angelica wanted to do so much more than just kissing? But Hope wanted that too? But they were both too scared to even dream up a way to figure out if this was possible? But…?

But what…?

“But…” Hope said again, stopping short. She bit her lower lip, her gaze again dropping to Angelica’s mouth. Her breaths became more ragged, the fire in her cheeks brighter.

And Angelica understood the sentiment. She felt the same. This tension between them was dangerous and needed to be dropped off the edge of the atmosphere where neither one of them was going to have to deal with it again. Angelica shifted her stance just barely, worried if she moved too much that Hope would skitter away in fear.

“But what, Hope?” Angelica asked, her voice reflecting a calm that she didn’t know she possessed.

“N-nothing,” Hope said, shaking her head and stepping back, putting some much-needed space between them. “Nothing, Angel. Just…Ange. I just…” Hope sighed. “I need to leave.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, Hope turned on her toes and fled.

Angelica sighed. She closed her eyes, crossed her arms, and sat on the edge of the table. The hot, humid air in the room didn’t help her desire to escape it all, to race out that door and snag Hope’s wrist and pull her back in here. Angelica stared across the room, seeing absolutely nothing other than that final streak of fear in Hope’s eyes as she’d run.

Who the hell was she kidding?

She knew Hope wasn’t going to break that last barrier. Angelica wasn’t worth it. She never had been, and she never would be.

Slowly pulling herself back together, at least as much as she could, Angelica snagged her iPad and pulled up her email. Hope hadn’t been wrong, ultimately. Lyric really did need to watch what she was posting and just exactly what it implied was happening—or not happening—between the two of them. The last thing Angelica needed or wanted was Rex and Josef to gang up on her again.

When she finished sending the email, she did nothing.

Angelica sat at that table and stared into the nothingness beyond her, lost in her thoughts. Hope was struggling with this as much as she was. She could tell that. But that didn’t mean the final straw would break, and it didn’t mean that it would ever go beyond what it was. Which was nothing.

There was nothing between them.

Angelica just had to remind herself of that. Constantly.

Hope didn’t want her. That was clear with the way she’d come raging into the room to yell at her about the photos. She might physically be interested, but beyond that? There was nothing between them. Angelica brushed her thumb across her lower lip and fluttered her eyes closed, remembering the way Hope had kissed her.

The touch of their mouths.

The slide of Hope’s hand against the small of her back.

The slip of her tongue past Angelica’s lips.

The sweet whimper she elicited.

That was where Angelica was going to have to live from now on, in the memory of their two shared kisses, in the dreams that could result from those, and in the fantasies that would never become reality.

She pulled her iPad closer, ready to focus back on work again, but try as she might, she couldn’t. Every task she set out to complete floundered, every email she meant to send failed. Work failed her. For the first time in her life, she struggled to avoid.

She couldn’t accept what she couldn’t have.

Chapter

Ten

Hope’s lips quirked up as Angelica slid the first taste of food between her lips. She popped the entire tiny morsel—or nibbling as Angelica seemed to call Hope’s food—into her mouth in one bite and hummed as the flavors hit her tongue.

That was the look Hope longed to see in every single one of her patrons.

A look of pure, unadulterated pleasure.

She had to work hard to hold back her own smile in response. It seemed that all of the staff was enjoying this little game and particularly enjoying her food. They tallied their votes and placed them in the boxes that had been made up just for this purpose.