Page 18 of Culinary Chaos (Hotel Bombshell #1)

Chapter

Thirteen

H ope froze.

She turned around, looking at Bowen, her eyes wide with shock. Had he really just said what she thought he said?

“Come again?” she asked, seeking more information and using a tactic that had worked with Eva many times over the years.

Bowen looked at her nervously. He should. The kid was just a kid, not old enough or anywhere near experienced enough to be in charge of a kitchen. He had no formal training and yet was supposed to be cooking classically French food every day. The poor kid had no idea what he’d just said, did he?

“Uh… the uh… owners…”

God, he was stumbling over every word, and Hope just needed him to spit it out again.

“They uh… they want us to cook like this.”

Hope let that shockwave roll right through her, expecting it this time. The kitchen was a disaster, she’d seen that the moment she’d stepped into the restaurant, but now that they’d started filming, and she’d finally had a chance to talk to the staff, she realized this wasn’t entirely their fault.

They were set up for failure.

Massive, all-encompassing, disastrous failure.

And she wasn’t going to fire a single one of them.

Hope jerked with a start, the door to the kitchen slamming loudly. She spun toward it, finding Angelica stalking toward her, anger written all over her face, her shoulders tight, and her jaw clenched. Shit, was this when they were supposed to argue about firing everyone?

Well, at least it’d be a real argument this time.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Angelica started out, her voice echoing.

“I’m running the kitchen.” Hope pressed her fists to her hips and glared back at Angelica.

She wanted to find Rex in the sea of crew members, see if she was doing this right, if she was finding the balance that they wanted her to find, but she held her ground and kept her gaze locked on Angelica’s forcibly angry face.

“Which is my area of expertise, not yours.”

“We agreed that we were wiping the slate clean, starting fresh.” Angelica pressed her palm onto the stainless steel countertop, leaning over it slightly as if to get into Hope’s face even more than before. “You haven’t done that yet.”

“I haven’t.” Hope clenched her jaw, mimicking Angelica’s pose. Two could play this game, and that was exactly what they had signed up for. “And I’m not going to.”

She made sure to lock her gaze on Angelica’s. Would Angelica be able to tell that Hope actually meant what she was saying?

“The restaurant’s the problem. It needs a complete overhaul to be functional. They—” Angelica pointed wildly to the few staff that had managed to stick through everything so far “—don’t have the skills to do this.”

“No, they don’t!” Hope dropped her shoulder slightly. Maybe Angelica did finally understand what she was saying. “And they haven’t ever been given them.”

“You think you’re going to train them up in a week?” Angelica snorted. “Don’t overestimate your abilities.”

That was a dirty dig if Hope had ever heard one.

They hadn’t talked about how hard-hitting the insults would be, but Hope hadn’t been expecting that one.

She probably should have. Angelica was ruthless.

And there was some truth to that. One week wasn’t going to replace years of training and education.

“Don’t ever underestimate me.” Hope dropped her voice low, to a dangerous tone, one that should be setting off warning bells.

But it didn’t seem to be. Angelica leaned in even more, only inches from where Hope was standing.

If Hope focused, she could feel Angelica’s breath against her cheeks, her face.

Her stomach tightened, her entire body in tune with what was going to happen next.

She lowered her gaze to Angelica’s lips, slightly parted, the full lower one and the upper one that was curved like a bow but so thin right in the middle, like it almost wasn’t even there.

But Angelica’s lipstick hid it well, the makeup artists truly artists.

“Fire them,” Angelica repeated.

“No,” Hope answered, her heart picking up speed. “I won’t throw them to the wolves out there when we should be dealing with the wolves in here.”

“Wolves?” Angelica shook her head, her golden curls bouncing against her shoulders in her confusion.

“John and Nova.” Hope pointed her finger into the countertop. “They’re the problem. Not my staff in here.”

Angelica snorted and shook her head. “Your staff can’t cook.”

“They’ve been thrust into positions they weren’t ready for,” Hope agreed, wondering briefly why Angelica’s lips pushed together at that comment, but she barreled forward.

“But they’re being forced to cook with prepackaged food, old frozen meals, and with so little staff that no one could possibly succeed.

The issues in here are bigger than just in here.

And you need to get your head out of your ass and realize that. ”

Satisfaction rolled through her at that comment. It was a good comeback for the bomb that Angelica had lobbed at her earlier.

“Customers can hear you.” John stepped inside, a worried look on his face.

Customers? Hope pinched her face. There was no one out in the dining room waiting on food. It was barely ten in the morning, and they didn’t open for lunch for another hour.

“What?” Hope snapped.

“You’re driving away what little people we have here.

” John pointed toward the door, his face bland.

He was flat out lying. The bigger question was who had told him to do that?

And was it just to keep the argument between her and Angelica going?

Or was it to add in even more drama for the show ? Hope was beginning to hate that line.

Angelica turned, straightening her back into a rigid line and squaring her shoulders. She wasn’t focused on Hope anymore, and the intensity of that moment seemed to pull more energy from Hope than she was willing to let go just yet.

“ We aren’t doing anything,” Angelica fired at him, crossing her arms. “You’re the one who’s run this hotel into the ground, you’ve ruined the reputation of this kitchen, and I’m not sure that even Hope or I can put it back together again. This isn’t our fault.”

Hope at least agreed with her there, but the whiplash of going from toe-to-toe in an argument that was supposed to be scripted to this was something else entirely. Angelica went from picking on Hope to defending her in one second flat, and Hope reeled from it.

“You’re here to fix this mess, not create more of it,” John barked the words out loudly.

“Fix it?” Hope screeched.

Angelica put her hand out, stopping anything else that Hope was about to say.

“We’re here by request of you to help you help yourself.

We’re not going to run this place. We’re not going to swoop in and pour a ton of money into it without also knowing that you’re going to learn something and keep the changes we’re making after we leave.

This isn’t a quick fix solution. This is a problem that you’ve created and that you have no earthly idea how to get out of. ”

Hope couldn’t have said it better. She stepped around the counter and put her shoulder right next to Angelica’s.

They were going to face this down together.

“You have hog-tied this kitchen to the point that they can’t function.

No fresh foods because it’s too expensive.

No trained chefs because you can’t afford payroll.

No updated point of sale system or ongoing training.

You’re the reason this restaurant and hotel is failing. You and Nova.”

“If they can’t function with the budget they’ve been handed, then it’s not on me.” John stepped forward, using his imposing size to try and make them back down.

Angelica didn’t budge an inch. “No, she’s right. This isn’t on them. It always comes back to management and ownership. You need to take responsibility for your choices. And until you do, then we’re done working.”

“What?” John and Hope said at the same time.

Hope’s heart was in her throat, needing to know exactly what Angelica had meant by that.

“I’m pulling the plug.” Her lips were tight, fraught with a tension that Hope had never seen on her before.

“You can’t do that!” John’s eyes widened, and he stepped forward.

“I can, and I will.” Angelica’s body was so tight.

Hope’s jaw dropped. She wasn’t really going to do this, was she?

This wasn’t just their jobs on the line, it was the entire crew’s jobs.

She was going to cut everyone’s pay just because this hotel wasn’t going to work in the way that she wanted it to?

Surely Angelica wasn’t that idiotic. The crew relied on her and Hope in order to keep the show running. They had to do this.

“This is my livelihood.”

“It’s really not,” Angelica answered. “You’re not earning profit on the hotel, and with the amount of debt you have stacked up against it, it’s going to be a very long time before you actually start a year in the black.”

“Angelica,” Hope whispered, keeping her voice quiet as a plea.

Angelica flicked her a look of pure disdain and shook her head.

Then she held her ground with John. “I won’t hesitate to pull every single member of my crew from here if you don’t start shaping up and acting like you give a damn about this business.

It’s not worth our time and effort to fix something you’re going to destroy two seconds after we leave. ”

“I can’t believe you’d do this!” John shouted, his face trembling from the force.

“I can, and I will,” Angelica doubled down.

Fear raced through Hope. How could Angelica really think that she could make this decision all on her own? John stormed from the kitchen. And without missing a beat, Hope pressed her hand around Angelica’s wrist and pulled her attention directly to her.

“You can’t do that,” Hope said.

“I can, and I will,” Angelica repeated, but her tone was much softer than it had been with John. “I’m not going to waste our precious resources on something that isn’t going to give results.”

“Ange…” Hope trailed off her name, her lips parted in shock. She wasn’t even sure what she could say to her to convince her otherwise. “The crew…”

“Knew what they were signing onto when they took the job.” Angelica turned and faced her, again effectively breaking Hope’s hold on her. “And I knew that coming in here would be a disaster.”

“You couldn’t have predicted that!” Hope’s voice rose. “You don’t know everything. Stop acting like you do. Stop acting like you can make decisions for everyone.”

Angelica’s face tightened. “I do make the decisions for everyone. That’s my responsibility. Not yours.”

“Do you hear yourself? Seriously? How can you care so little for everyone who works for you? You’re just as bad as him.” Hope pointed in the direction that John had run off to. “Don’t think you’re any different.”

Angelica’s eyes narrowed, crinkling around the corners. No one would ever accuse her of laugh lines. These were anger lines, frustration lines, stress lines. Hope was about to speak again, but Angelica shook her head ever so slightly that Hope was damn sure no one else would even notice.

“We can talk about this later,” Angelica warned. “This conversation isn’t over.”

Without another word, she stormed out of the room, following John. Or at least, Hope assumed she was following him. But who honestly knew? She was left in the wake of anger, which she hadn’t fully anticipated. She knew she’d get riled up, but they’d planned this argument.

At least, Hope had thought they had.

But now she wasn’t so sure about that. She wanted to rant and rage again, to break apart the kitchen and throw things, but the cameras were still pointed in her direction, catching every small reaction she had, and there was no way in hell that she was going to let their audience see her anger matching Angelica’s.

One of them had to be the nice one, didn’t they? Wasn’t that what Angelica had implied?

Let it be her.

Hope hated that. Not just for the fact that Angelica thought one of them had to be the hard-ass, but the fact that Angelica believed she could never be sweet and loving and the one who laughed more often.

Sighing heavily, Hope turned around to face the kitchen.

The entire staff was staring at her, waiting for direction, waiting for her reaction to see exactly how they should be behaving.

“Let’s start with cleaning the freezers out,” Hope said.

“That’s it?” Bowen asked.

Hope shook her head and threw her hands up in the air. “That’s above both our pay grades.”

Bowen sighed, but he looked like he was going to cry. “You don’t think she’ll do it, do you?”

“Do what?” Hope asked as she walked toward the freezer and pulled the door open as fast and as hard as she could. That should help a little bit with her frustration, shouldn’t it?

“Give up on us.”

Hope stilled. She looked directly into Bowen’s dark brown eyes and was met full on with his fear, his anxiety, and his world spinning topsy-turvy.

She had to fix that, she had to make him feel better, she had to erase the last ten minutes like they’d never happened.

But she couldn’t. “No, I don’t think she will. ”

“She seemed so sure of it.”

“Do you think John and Nova will give in to her? Or do you think they’ll hold out?”

Bowen shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Humming, Hope surveyed the freezer. She was going to take a page out of Angelica’s book and avoid with everything she had.

Because in all honesty, she wasn’t sure if Angelica had meant her threat or not.

She’d like to think it was a bluff, but then again, Angelica didn’t seem like someone to blow smoke.

“Let’s start with everything.”

“Everything?” Bowen squeaked.

“Everything,” Hope confirmed.