Page 41 of Culinary Chaos (Hotel Bombshell #1)

Chapter

Thirty

“ L ook, 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 for 90 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.

“Or is it that all you care about is money?” Angelica was ready to fight fire with fire.

“Because you accused me of that.” She pointed at Josef.

“And you.” Now Kyle. “So which is it? How is it that I’m the one you call the Ice Fairy, and yet I’m the only one who actually gives a damn about Hope right now? ”

She was met with silence.

“Well?” she pushed.

“I didn’t think she was that stressed,” Kyle said.

“Then pay closer fucking attention!” Angelica threw her hand out.

“What you did earlier was unprofessional. You want us to argue. Fine. But we talk about it ahead of time. You don’t throw us into the wasp’s nest and expect us to come out the other side without being stung.

We’re human, too, and you need to remember that. ”

“You’re right,” Kyle said. “You’re absolutely right.”

“No, you’re not,” Josef shook his head. “We’re all in this to make money, including Hope. She knew what she was signing up for when she signed the contract.”

Angelica paused. When had this changed from being a way to make money to actually caring about the work she was doing?

No, that wasn’t right either. She’d always cared about the work.

When had it changed to caring about the people?

About Tatum and Baxter and Miriam? About Hope?

She’d told Hope that she wasn’t there to make friends, and she wasn’t.

Yet she’d let herself fall into that same fucking trap.

Josef stepped closer to her, dark bushy eyebrows raised. “Unless there’s something else going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” Angelica hissed, staring directly at him. He wouldn’t expose her in front of Rex and Kyle, would he?

As much as she would like to believe that he trusted and liked her enough not to do that, she wasn’t sure anymore. For so long they’d worked side by side on things like this, but ever since she’d taken on a new and different role, everything had changed.

“Will you give us the room?” Josef asked, glancing over his shoulder at Rex and Kyle. “I need to talk to Ange about some private matters.”

Angelica clenched her jaw tightly, but she managed to keep her hands from tightening into fists. She hated watching Rex and Kyle leave, the fact that they left a wake of unresolved tension pissed her off even more. And the fact that she knew exactly where Josef was going to go next.

“I told you…”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Chef Lawrence.”

Josef snorted loudly. “I was there tonight, if you don’t remember.”

Oh, Angelica had been keenly aware of the fact that he’d been there, and of the fact that he’d wanted her to poke at Hope until she broke, and she’d flat out refused to do it.

She’d seen him watching the monitors, she’d seen him standing behind Rex and Kyle, and she’d seen him encouraging both her and Hope to keep it going.

“The looks you two were giving each other…” He lowered his voice to nearly a whisper, canting his head to the side as he stared at her. “You better not have started something with her.”

Angelica huffed. “I haven’t.”

But Hope had. Not that Angelica was ever going to tell him that.

“I know you, Ange. And that look on your face says something is going on.”

“Nothing,” she repeated. “Absolutely nothing is going on. And it’s ridiculous of you to even accuse me of that. Rex was right here. She’s happily married, and her entire family is here. What else could she hope for on a show? Honestly.”

Angelica tensed, trying to keep herself under control. She wasn’t used to being so outwardly attacked like this. She’d expected it, but she still didn’t like it.

“Ange… don’t fool yourself.”

“I’m fooling no one.” And that much was true. She was entirely too aware of the situation. “But if you don’t start caring about the people who work for you, then what’s going to happen? Because you won’t have a show left to make you any damn money.”

Josef narrowed his eyes at her. “Ange.”

“What!?” She raged, her voice reverberating around the room again.

“You can’t do this to all of us. If you fuck this up, then we’re all going down with you. This isn’t just your livelihood anymore. It’s every single person who works on this show.”

Angelica took deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. She knew that without him throwing it in her face.

“If you fuck this up, you fuck all of us over.”

“I won’t do that.” Angelica crossed her arms and glared at him. “You know I won’t.”

“Then what the hell are you doing with Hope?”

“Absolutely nothing.” Again, she clenched her jaw tightly, breathing deeply as she strove to keep herself as even-keeled as possible. “You were the ones who were pushing her beyond her capacity tonight. This isn’t exactly a stressless job, and Pier 87 is one of the worst for the kitchens.”

“Of course it is.” Josef looked up at her. “You were both lulled into thinking they’d all be as easy as Mountain View.”

Angelica snorted. “You’re impossible. Do you always think that women can’t just do their fucking jobs? Or is it always about finding the faults in us to make yourself feel better?”

Josef shook his head at her, eyes wide at her audacity.

She’d called him out on his shit before, but this time felt different.

Their relationship had been fractured since he’d discovered she and Leanne had been together, and it had never gotten better.

They’d continued to communicate and work together because they had to, but that was it.

“Just do your damn job, Ange. Leave the rest of it to me.” Josef threw that last part at her as he walked out of the office, leaving the door wide open.

Angelica sighed, but she kept her body straight and tense. Just what the hell was going on with everyone here? This was supposed to be the second to last episode, and it was like the tension had skyrocketed and everyone’s stress levels were through the roof.

Still, she didn’t think she was wrong.

Hope deserved better.

And she would fight tooth and nail for that to happen.

Hope had seemed so crushed when she’d come into Angelica’s workspace earlier, begging for help. Desperate to just survive the night. Angelica glanced at her desk and left everything as it was. She didn’t need anything else that night. She needed to give it up and be done with it all for a while.

A break.

Walking out of the office, she shut the door behind her and locked it.

She didn’t need anyone else going in there to see what she was doing and what she’d been working on.

And knowing Josef, he’d absolutely pry. It was a good thing she didn’t have anything on there that would make her guilty. She was far more careful than that.

She pushed the button on the elevator and closed her eyes as she waited.

She needed a hot shower and to make the rest of the world disappear for a few hours.

Maybe a run would do her some good. She hadn’t had one of those in weeks at this point.

That’s what the problem was. Angelica, with her new plan in hand, stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for her floor.

When the elevator doors opened, she froze.

“Hope…” she trailed off.

“I was hoping to find you.” Hope bit her lip and stepped back, letting Angelica step out and into the waiting area.

Angelica said nothing, not wanting to tip off or push Hope into saying something that she didn’t want to talk about. But her muscles were weary, her feet hurt, and she was exhausted after that confrontation with Josef.

“Thank you,” Hope said, reaching for Angelica’s hand.

Angelica pulled away, staring at Hope’s fingers before she looked back up into her face.

Hope seemed confused, and Angelica understood why.

Normally, she would have let Hope touch her.

But not now. Not when Josef was no doubt watching, not when she’d been called out so blatantly for once again breaking the rules and doing something that was unnatural .

“I just…” Hope stopped. “Thank you for helping me tonight.”

Angelica nodded. “Well, I didn’t kill anyone, so that’s a bonus.”

Hope’s lips curled upward briefly, and she again reached for Angelica’s hand. Angelica took a full step to the side to put even more space between them.

“They want us to argue more,” Angelica said, trying to give Hope the short version of the argument she’d just had.

“I know. Rex was… I don’t know if you saw him, but he was trying to get me to push you tonight.”

She swallowed hard, trying to keep her opinion of Rex to herself. Hope’s marriage was her own, and she couldn’t step into that hornet’s nest.

“But I didn’t want to.”

“We need to,” Angelica fired back, taking another step and putting even more distance between them. “We need to get the ratings up, otherwise the show’s going to be cancelled before it even gets off the ground.”

“Angel…”

“Stop calling me that!” Angelica shouted. She paused, the stress of the entire evening finding its weight on her shoulders and making it damn near impossible to keep standing there. “Just stop.”

“Stop what?” Hope asked. “Because I don’t know what I’m doing that’s ticking you off so much.”

Angelica looked up and down the hallway, hoping that someone—anyone—would show up and pull their attention away, that someone would end this before it even started.

Angelica stopped, seeing the look of devastation on Hope’s face, the pain and lack of understanding.

Giving in, Angelica stepped closer, right next to Hope.

She didn’t touch her.

Lowering her voice, Angelica said, “You’re just being you.”

Without another word, Angelica stepped back. She wanted to get out of there, to escape. To go back to her room and hide for a few hours where no one would find her and maybe she could catch a wink of sleep that night, although now that was looking like it wasn’t going to happen.

“What?” Hope said, pulling Angelica right back to where she had been before. “What the hell are you even talking about?”

“You! I’m talking about you!” Angelica pointed at her. “You have to stop.”

“Stop what?” Hope shook her head wildly. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“That’s exactly it. Just leave me alone!”

Angelica turned on her toes and walked away.

She moved as swiftly as possible from the elevator to her room, keying herself in.

She shut the door and put the bolt on behind her.

Fuck taking a run. Fuck taking a shower.

She just wanted to curl up in her bed, cry, and then forget that had ever happened.

She’d hurt Hope.

She had no doubt about that, and she couldn’t even tell her why, because if she did…

Angelica slowed at that thought. If she told Hope what was going on, then it would risk absolutely everything on the show.

If one more person knew about Leanne, they could hold it against her even more.

They could fire her and bring in someone who was younger and hipper, someone who could smile all the time and play off Hope’s always joyful persona way better than she could.

If Hope knew…

That would be the end.