Page 91 of Culinary Chaos

“Good.” Angelica dashed her tongue across her lips, her eyes not moving from Hope’s face. “Think we can get back to it?”

“Yeah.” Hope shifted entirely. She moved back to the stove and checked on the reduction and tried to concentrate on what needed to happen next.

Apricots.

They still needed to finish peeling and dicing those. She stood next to Angelica and started to work in silence. When she looked up, she met Rex’s eyes. He made a continuing motion at her, but she didn’t understand it. Then he mouthed, “Fight. Get mad.”

Hope wrinkled her brow and focused back down on the food in her hands. She didn’t want to fight with Angelica. She wanted to scream and yell at just about anyone else right now, but not Angelica.

Angelica must have caught the look too, because she stared directly at Hope as if waiting for the other shoe to drop and for a new argument to start. Hope clenched her jaw and went straight back to dicing. She wasn’t going to add any more stress to her already stressful day.

She wouldn’t survive the night if she did that.

Though she and Rex would be having words as soon as they were alone.

Didn’t he realize how bad this was for her?

Didn’t he understand?

Because Angelica did. Hope could see it in her eyes when they looked at each other, when Angelica had asked if she felt better or if she was all right. Hope took the apricots and dumped them into the pot to simmer down for a few minutes.

She stirred everything together before letting it sit off the heat and checking the temperature of the oven. Good, it was finally holding. At least for now. Hope closed her eyes and let out a sigh. Angelica touched her arm lightly and nodded at her.

“It’ll be good, I’m sure.”

“It’ll be exquisite,” Hope said, though she wasn’t quite sure that she felt it this time. She wanted to, but she was getting lost in Angelica’s eyes, in the compassion that she so rarely showed to anyone. Hope gave her a wan smile and then rolled her eyes. “We need to start the rice and then start dessert.”

“Just tell me what to do, Chef.” Angelica’s light teasing tone brought a small twitch to Hope’s lips.

This had been the right decision, at least for tonight.

At least she didn’t doubt that.

Chapter

Thirty

“Look, I’m not doing this.” Angelica planted her feet and looked at the three men in front of her. She’d called this emergency meeting after filming ended, and she wasn’t going to back down from it. Kyle and Rex looked confused. Josef, however, cowered. He knew exactly what this was about.

“Not doing what?” Rex asked, crossing his arms as he stared at her.

Angelica pursed her lips, eyeing each one of them and settling on Rex. “Do you know how stressed she was tonight? Or how fucking over the edge she is?”

He should know. Hell, he should care more than Angelica did. He should be the one stepping in to protect his wife from pushing over that edge into the abyss below.

“I’m not going to be filming just to create drama. If you want drama, then you should have signed up for90 Day Fiancé, not a show about hotels!” Angelica’s voice rang through the room, and she didn’t even care. They needed to understand how pissed off she was. Cooking all evening with Hope had been enough stress on her, and she would never have agreed if Hope hadn’t looked so desperately afraid.

“We need drama to keep the ratings up,” Josef said, but his voice was quieter than hers, like he didn’t quite believe it.

“And tonight was perfect for that,” Rex added.

Kyle nodded his agreement. Who was really in charge here? Kyle or Rex? Because she was about to school all of them.

“Tonight wasn’t perfect for it!” Angelica gave each of them a glare. “And Hope can’t handle any more stress. Manufactured or not. And if you really want this show to succeed then you need her. I’m not stupid. I understand my role and her role, and I fully understand that she’s thirty-five and young and I’m over the age people would typically want to watch. I’ve seen the audience estimates and predictions.” She pointed at Josef. “You need her. So fuck with me all you want, but you leave her the hell alone.”

Rex frowned, his face falling. Did he really not understand just how bad Hope had been tonight? Had she been able to hide it from him that well? Or was he just bulldozing his way through to make money and produce a show?

Because fuck that.