“I’m so sorry,” Christian added.
“Don’t be.” Angelica steeled herself, because what else could she do with that information? She didn’t have time to process it through. She didn’t want or need any money that her mom might have given her, but it was the principle of the matter. She had been pushed out.
Completely.
Her mother had never truly loved her, had she? Angelica had been a means to an end and nothing else, a failure because she hadn’t been born a boy, so they’d had to try it again. Taking off her reading glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose, Angelica closed her eyes.
“I’m not honestly surprised by that,” Angelica added. “Mom and I didn’t have a very complicated relationship, and I knew exactly where I stood with her.”
“But you deserve?—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Angelica interrupted.
“It does!” Christian implored. “It does matter, Ange. You’re her daughter. She gave birth to you. She cared?—”
“She didn’t.” Angelica had to bite that back hard. “She didn’t care about me, Christian, and you have to understand that. She never cared about me like she did you, and you shouldn’t feel bad for that. Because that’s on her and no one else. She made mistakes. She wasn’t a perfect parent or a perfect person. But I refused to let her affect my life any longer. I refuse to entertain even the notion that she might have felt any different. It’s not worth my time. Not anymore.”
The silence was so loud and thick that she could have cut it with a knife. Hell, where was Hope when she needed her? Angelica clenched her fist on top of her desk and tried to refocus everything.
“I assume she left you just about everything,” Angelica stated.
“Yes,” Christian squeaked out.
“Good. You and your family deserve it. Far more than I do.”
“But you have a family now, don’t you?”
Angelica turned slightly, looking at the picture that Eva had drawn all those years ago, the one she’d framed and put on the table right behind her desk, the one that she would never get rid of. Her heart tightened right before her entire body relaxed.
“Yes, yes, I do.”
“I’ve seen the social media posts and the tabloids.”
Angelica let out a wry chuckle. “Yeah.”
“So you’re finally out to the world.”
“I am. We… are.” Angelica kept looking at that picture, the crude drawing of each of them with all the math and numbers scribbled across the rest of the white space. “It’s not exactly how I wanted the news story to break, but it’ll have to do.”
“It’s been pretty nasty.”
“It has, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” Angelica looked up at the knock on her door. “Speaking of, I need to go deal with a defamation lawsuit. Call me later if you have any other questions. But I’ll email you a checklist that can get you started with what to do.”
“Thanks.”
Angelica could hear the smile in his voice. “Love you, Christian.”
“Love you!”
Hanging up, Angelica set her phone on top of her desk and looked directly at Logan and Florence. Neither of them seemed very happy, but she didn’t suppose this was one of those meetings that was about good news. She’d known that going into it. Still, only being back one day, she wasn’t sure she was prepared for this. Hope at least had a few more days before she had to dive back into work and filming for her morning cooking show.
Angelica grabbed her iPad and moved to shut the door to her office as they all sat at the conference table in the larger connected room to her office. When she sat down, they were still quiet… far too quiet. Angelica took out her stylus and just waited to see whatever would happen next, because she didn’t know where to start the conversation.
“Our lawyers think this is going to get messy,” Logan started.
And that didn’t surprise her. She’d talked with her lawyers, and they’d told her pretty much the same. The lawsuits and countersuits and all of the accusations were going to get messy and long-winded and drawn out for years. It was Angelica’s job to bolster herself for the long haul now because she was in it even if she didn’t want to be at this point.
“Production’s goal is to make sure that the show doesn’t get shut down,” Florence said, looking directly at her. What she wasn’t saying was that production would choose the show over her. They had more loyalty to that, but Angelica could read between the lines.
