Page 119 of Culinary Chaos

Josef froze, and the energy in the room stilled instantly.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But…didn’t you?” Angelica cocked her head to the side, glad to have caught him in his own farce. “You want me to fight with Hope all the time. Both of you do. And yet you can’t tell me to be an actual manager to the people you’ve hired me to manage. So tell me how I’m wrong.”

Josef gritted his teeth. “You’re twisting my words.”

“I’m really not.” Angelica reached for her iPad but stopped when Josef growled low.

“I’ll keep Hope on over you any day, Ange.”

“Excuse me?” She furrowed her brow at him. Had he really, honestly, just said that? She still had her mic on. She hoped everything said in this room was still being recorded because holy fuck, did he just say that?

“She listens. She plays nice with others. She works with the team. You don’t do that at all.”

Well, he did have her there. She wasn’t someone who played nicely with others, but that also wasn’t new information to him. She’d been hired with that already on his radar. “What’s your point, Josef?”

“If I have to choose between keeping you or keeping Hope Lawrence on for a season two, I’ll pick her.”

“Fine.” Angelica crossed her arms, leaning back against the table again and glaring at him. She could play this game. She could win this one, because she wasn’t going to back down. “You want Hope, you can have Hope.”

“What?” Josef shook his head in confusion.

“I signed a contract, Josef. It’s going to be damn hard to break it. I know, because I double checked it. And I’m not going to let you push me out of a show that I spent a considerable amount of time creating. This ismyshow, and I won’t let it go easily.”

“I’ll buy your contract out.”

“Only if I want you to. It’d actually be easier for me to run you out of the show than the other way around. Do you know how hard it is to boot off a lead after the first season and still keep a show going? I do. I did the research well before I agreed to work with you.” Angelica glared at him. She wasn’t going to let him get out of this. “What did I do to you, anyway? Because you’ve been a bear since we left Colorado.”

Josef puffed his cheeks out, and then he looked directly at Rex. Angelica knew exactly what he wasn’t saying. He suspected there was something between her and Hope, somethingmorethan just being co-hosts of the same damn show.

And fuck it all, he wasn’t wrong.

But like hell would Angelica admit that. And it didn’t seem as though Josef was going to push it either or say it out loud, atleast not in front of Rex. So perhaps tonight it was to her benefit that Rex had stayed in the damn room.

“I’m tired of dealing with you,” Josef said instead. “You aren’t made for this job, Ange. You’re not built for television like Hope is. You’re not young and beautiful, you’re not bubbly and ready to talk to anyone, you don’t understand how to manage people. Hell, you don’t care about a single person here, crew or client.”

Angelica clenched her jaw and pursed her lips.

That one stung.

As much as she wanted everyone to believe that she didn’t care, she did. She wanted them to have jobs, to be able to make money and work and do what they were good at. She wanted them to feel fulfilled by the work they were doing, not just managing to maintain. And she worked fucking hard to keep as many good employees on as she could, no matter what.

He’d know that if he’d open his eyes.

“You’ve aged out, Ange. No one wants the old boss who’s so damn cold and icy that she’s not even human.”

Angelica took in a slow deep breath, keeping herself as calm as possible. Because she didn’t even have a comeback for that one. Not right now. Not while she was swimming in the sea of hurt that he was throwing her into and letting her drown.

“Josef…” Rex stepped in, putting his hands up and physically moving between them. “I think both of you might need a break.”

Angelica snorted. She grabbed her iPad, shot Rex and Josef a look, and then walked out. She didn’t need to stay in there and be berated any further. She reached under the edge of her shirt and ripped off the microphone wire from her skin. She grabbed the mic pack from her waist band and handed it over to one of the crew. She didn’t even see who, and she didn’t care. She just needed to get the hell out of there.

She reached the elevator and tapped her toe as she waited for it to come down to rescue her from the mess she’d left behind.She hated the fact that what Josef said bothered her. She did care about the people who worked for them. She cared about them, but she had a very strong boundary between herself and them—even more so with the threat of what had happened with her and Leanne in the mix.

Angelica clenched her jaw, fighting back the tears when the door opened.

Hope.