“You need to go back to the truck and film.”
“Nope. I’m not doing that.” Hope held her ground. “Fire me if you want. I won’t do it.”
“We have a schedule we need to stick to, and I know that Ange would want us to?—”
“Yeah, she might, and she might be ticked off at me for fucking with the schedule.” Hope’s voice rose louder, catching the attention of a few crew members nearby. “But you know what matters more than a fucking filming schedule?” Hope waited only two beats before she continued, “People! Don’t make the same mistake as your predecessor. Because we know exactly how that’ll end up for both of you.”
Spinning on her toes, Hope walked away.
Fuck Florence.
Fuck the schedule.
She was going to find Angelica and take care of her, no matter the cost.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
The humid air was a relief.Angelica clenched her eyes shut, letting the sunshine hit her cheeks and her face as she just breathed. But it wasn’t easy. In fact, it got harder and harder with each breath she took. The tightness in her chest only constricted even more. The pain in the front of her head pierced sharper.
Reaching forward, she gripped onto a bench and clenched her fingers around it to hold herself upright. But she barely managed it. Her knees were giving out, and the tears wouldn’t stop streaming down her face.
And she couldn’t even tell anyone what had triggered it.
Angelica was always someone who held her emotions in check. People always described her as being cold as ice, frozen heart, no emotion whatsoever. It wasn’t true. She had them. But she hid them—so well, in fact, that sometimes she even forgot she had them.
But not lately.
And certainly not right now.
She breathed again, but it wasn’t any easier. This time it hurt. The air wouldn’t pull into her lungs like it was supposed to, andit just fucking hurt. Her entire body ached. Her head roared with pain. Her heart was shattered.
“Angel?”
Hope’s voice reached her ears, breaking through that roar, and she couldn’t even make herself turn around. She couldn’t force her body to comply and stand up. She couldn’t?—
“Angel…” Hope’s arms were around her body in an instant, cradling her. Fingers dug into her hair, tightening against her scalp and holding her firmly.
Angelica let go.
She buried her face in Hope’s shoulder, breathing in the fresh clean scent that was nothing except her and newly laundered clothes. She clenched her eyes shut, digging her fingers into the loose material at Hope’s sides and tightening her grasp so much that it hurt. But like hell would she let go. Hope’s fingers slipped up and down her back.
And she said nothing.
She did nothing.
But at the same time, Hope did everything.
Because she was there, and she was holding Angelica so closely that Angelica knew Hope wouldn’t let go. Not until she was ready. Not until she could safely stand on her own again, no matter how long it took.
So she stayed. For minutes, for hours—she didn’t care and she didn’t count. Angelica stayed right where she was, pressed into Hope’s arms, the one place of safety she knew that she had. Because while they’d had a rocky start, Hope had proven she could do this, time and time again.
Angelica drew in a deep breath, her nose sniffing from the snot that had caught in it, but it was still so much easier to breathe than it had been before. She did it again, finally catching her body back up to the reality that she was facing. Hope’s skin was so warm.
Skin?
Angelica blinked a few times, clearing the tears from her eyes, and she pulled away enough to realize that Hope was in her uniform, but the buttons were completely undone, and Angelica was just pressed against a white tank top, thin and warm from Hope’s body. Dashing her tongue against her lips to wet them, Angelica relaxed her fingers in the fabric, knowing that it’d be so wrinkled already and Ansel would throw a fit about it, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
