Page 97 of Culinary Chaos

“Is that what last night was about?” Hope stepped back, jerking her arm from his grasp. “Is that why you were telling me to get mad at her? Is that why you kept throwing random things at us to make it worse?”

Rex looked guilty. Flat out.

“Fuck, Rex.” She stepped back again. “How could you do that to me? To Angelica?”

“Because we have to do it.”

“To make money?” Hope pinched her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an uglier side to you than I’m seeing right now. I can’t believe…” she trailed off, not sure what to say at all. She looked over to find Angelica still looking at her, but once again leaned over the desk with Henry. “Since when is that all you care about?”

“It’s not.” Rex gripped her hard again on the arm and pulled her in to lower his voice. “But we don’t want the show cancelled because you two can’t figure out what we need from you.”

Hope looked at him directly. “You’re such an ass.”

Wrenching herself free from him, she jabbed her finger into the elevator button. She wasn’t going to talk to him anymore. She was over it. She was exhausted, she was at her limit of stress, and he still couldn’t be compassionate toward that.

“Hope, listen to me, really.”

“Fuck you.” She turned when the elevator door opened and hit the button for her floor. She didn’t care if the entire crew heard her say that to him. It was well deserved. She watched as he looked on in shock while the elevator doors shut on his face.

Good riddance.

Hope sighed heavily, tears building in her eyes. She reached behind her back for the mic pack and ripped it from her waistband. She turned it off and then pulled out the batteries just to make damn sure no one heard her cry.

What was she doing here?

She couldn’t win. It was either fight with Angelica or let the show die. And she didn’t want that ultimatum. She wanted to get along with everyone on set. She wanted to find a balance with Angelica where they could actually enjoy working together—like at Mountain View. She wanted…so much.

But what she knew for certain was she didn’t want this.

Chapter

Thirty-Two

“Have you seen this?” Josef slid a stapled pack of paper in front of Angelica’s face.

Angelica glanced over it, instantly wanting Josef to give far more of an explanation than he had. It was a state inspection on the kitchen. One that had been failed. She glanced at the date, seeing it was for yesterday, when the kitchen had been finished and refilled with food. She flipped to the second sheet.

“Hope failed the inspection,” Josef added, glancing at Rex behind the camera.

“She certainly did.” Angelica sighed, reading through page after page littered with different violations. Some of them were minor, but some were egregious. The total fine at the end was astronomical, as were the requirements for fixing it within the next ten days.

“You should go talk to her,” Josef added.

Angelica looked at him curiously. “Is that want you want?”

“Yeah.”

“You want a scene of me confronting Hope about this? Instead of a scene about how we’ll resolve it?” Angelica dropped the papers onto the table and kept her eyes locked on Josef. Sheneeded more direction from him, because the last couple of days had been absolute hell. She’d started to feel as though she had a place on the show only for all of that to be taken away as soon as they’d arrived in Seattle.

And it was wearing on her as much as she was sure it was wearing on Hope.

“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks!” He clapped his hand on Angelica’s shoulder, moving her slightly with the force of it.

Angelica ignored him and picked up the papers again. If she was going to go into this for an argument, then she would… she stopped. The date on the front sheet was yesterday. The date on the last page…was two weeks ago. She’d nearly missed that. Angelica pursed her lips and looked from the paperwork to Josef.

“Is this all the violations?”

“Yes.”