“She’s good to go for now.” The doctor cleaned his hands in the sink. “I’ll check on her again before she goes upstairs into an overnight room.”
“Thank you,” Hope mumbled. She ran her fingers through her hair and reached out for Angelica’s hand. Now she had nothing else to do other than think.
And worry.
And repeat those words in her head.
I fucking love you.
Because Hope had no idea that was how Angelica had felt. Not once had she indicated that what was between them was anything more than attraction and sex. Never had they talked about what they felt or where they stood with each other. And Hope never would have guessed that Angelica was in love.
That they both were in love.
Chapter
Eleven
“They’re postponing filming for a week,” Angelica said out loud to Lyric as she read from her phone. She’d anticipated something like that would happen, but she hadn’t wanted to be the cause. She’d tried to convince everyone around her that she could still work, but they’d all flat out told her no. Including Josef.
“It’ll make for an intense rest of the season filming,” Lyric commented as she piddled away on her phone.
Angelica frowned. Lyric moved around her room at the hotel like she owned it. Which she did at that point. Angelica could barely get up on her own, and Lyric had taken the responsibility of moving all of her personal items from Harbour Inn to the new hotel they’d stay at for the week until she could reasonably travel.
She’d already sent messages to the owners of her hotels, letting them know she was being forced to take time off. All in all, it was a good test for her managers to attempt to run the show without her. But the amount she’d been sleeping the last two days irked her. She just wanted to be upright and working, but the thought of even moving to get her iPad when Lyric put it on the other side of the room was too much.
“What are you doing?” Angelica asked, needing something else to entertain her since Lyric refused to let her work. This was the worst kind of invalid she could be.
“I don’t suppose Josef or anyone else has sent you the headlines?” Lyric flicked her gaze up to meet Angelica’s. “They’re not great.”
“Headlines? From what?”
“From the accident.” Lyric sighed heavily and came closer, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Angelica had to hold her breath as the mattress shifted which made the aches in her body fire up with protest and pain. But she wouldn’t let Lyric see that, not if it was the last thing that she did. Lyric held her phone out for Angelica to take it.
Squinting to focus her eyes, Angelica stared at the screen. She mumbled a thanks when Lyric handed her reading glasses over.
Reality star Angelica Shields hospitalized after car accident resulting in a DWI arrest.
“But I wasn’t arrested. I wasn’t even driving.” Angelica tapped the phone to try and pull open the article before she realized it was a screen shot image posted on Instagram. She scoffed and handed the phone back to Lyric.
“No, you weren’t.” Lyric scrolled through her screen again. “But that doesn’t stop people from talking. If they read the article, they’d know that you weren’t driving, and you most definitely weren’t arrested. But that’s not what the click bait is interested in.”
Angelica sighed heavily. This was going to cause a massive headache for Josef and Logan—and probably her, though she doubted they’d let her in on fixing that problem. She’d neverfelt more left out of the conversation than she had the last three days.
“We should probably make some sort of social media post to counter it, so let me know what you want me to say.”
The knock on the door was unexpected. Angelica frowned as Lyric stood up to answer it. Hope’s voice reached Angelica’s ears in an instant. They hadn’t spoken since Angelica had been discharged from the hospital, since Lyric had brought her here and Hope had gone back to Harbour Inn.
Lyric popped her head around the corner of the small hallway. “Hope’s here.”
“She’s fine.” Angelica pulled herself to sit up a little better, adjusting the pillows behind her back and pushing her hair behind her ears. She looked like shit, she knew that, but she didn’t exactly have another option either. She could barely move, and she hadn’t had a chance to shower to clean off the grime and blood—though Lyric had tried to be helpful with that, there were some things Angelica wasn’t willing to do with her employee.
Hope stepped inside, a smile plastered on her face, but it looked strained. The instant her eyes landed on Angelica, though, that look softened into something else entirely, something akin to relief. She stood awkwardly next to the bed, her hands wrapped together tightly.
“How are you?” Hope asked, sounding more timid than a kid in front of a school principal for a scolding.
Angelica flicked her gaze to Lyric and nodded. “Will you give us some time?”
