Page 87 of Culinary Chaos

Nodding to herself, Angelica did the next thing that she could. She left the restaurant and walked directly to where she knew she could find the owner. Henry was huddled behind thefront counter, in the back room there, where he seemed to spend most of his time. Angelica stepped back there, hands by her sides as she eyed him over.

“We can either do this here where everyone can hear it, or we can do it in the office.” Angelica looked Henry directly in the eye. “I don’t care which it is because everyone’s going to hear it in the end anyway.”

Henry’s jaw dropped. “Do what?”

“Do you realize how bad this place is?” Angelica leaned over the table and stared him down. Here it was. “When was the last time you did an inspection on that kitchen or even walked in there?”

Henry shook his head slowly, trembling a little. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re going to kill someone with that kitchen.” Angelica growled out the words. “And it’s either that you don’t care or that you’re so stuck in your chair that you can’t get off your ass and actually do the work that needs to get done around here. So which is it? Are you lazy? Or are you a killer?”

She could feel the camera crew tense behind her, and she knew that she was being harsh. But Henry needed the shit scared out of him. He needed to be smacked upside the head and get some sense knocked back into him.

“If you were inspected today, you’d fail. I don’t understand how you passed other inspections, honestly. I’m pretty sure that Chef Lawrence is just as confused by that one.”

Henry put his hands up. “It’s not that bad.”

“It is!” Angelica smacked her hand down onto the table. “And until you take this seriously, nothing’s going to change, and I’m not going to waste our time and effort trying to save people. I’ll call the state right now and have you inspected and shut that restaurant down.” It’d kill Hope if she did that—maybe. Hope hadn’t seemed very happy about the situation either. “So what’sit going to be, Henry? Are you going to take responsibility and ownership for the situation we’re finding right now? Or are you going to continue to cower and hide?”

Henry’s jaw remained open, his eyes wide, and he stared at her in complete shock.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Henry whispered.

“Well, I think that’s the first thing that you said that’s the truth since we arrived.” Angelica straightened up, keeping the hard look on her face. She wasn’t going to let him off easy. “So are you going to learn or are you going to bury your head in the sand?”

Henry paused again, and she hated that he was taking so long to answer her. She was just about to turn and leave when he finally said something.

“Help me. Because if you don’t… I’m going to lose everything.”

“Get up.”

“What?”

“Get. Up.”

Angelica crossed her arms and waited for him to finally stand. She said absolutely nothing as she walked out of the front reception area and straight back into the restaurant. She pushed open the door, her eyes locking with Hope’s.

“Clean the kitchen,” she said, staring at Henry. “You talk back once to Chef Lawrence, and I’ll be back down here. You do absolutely everything she tells you to do without complaint and without whining. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” Angelica looked at Hope again, longing to say a few words to her, but there were cameras everywhere, and they were both mic’d up. She couldn’t. Not now. Not while there were so many people watching. “Chef?”

“Yeah?” Hope asked.

“If he bothers you, send for me.”

“Understood.”

Angelica hesitated. She didn’t want to leave Hope on her own. She wanted to stay and help, but this wasn’t where her talents would be most useful. Hope looked at her again, listing forward as if she was about to take a step in Angelica’s direction.

Shaking her head so slightly, Angelica paused.

They couldn’t.

Angelica must remember that. Hope wasn’t hers to be with even if she wanted. The games they were playing had to stop.

Chapter