Page 17 of No Holds Barred

Hope paused, canting her head to the side. She flicked her gaze over Angelica’s shoulder, cursing under her breath when she saw Sy standing there with a camera pointing in her direction, then to Justin who also had his camera pointed at them. Was this all for show? Was this all for the ratings?

Josef wove his way through, and Hope locked her gaze on him. He moved his hands in front of him, moving them in a circle as if he was trying to get her to continue the argument. This was exactly what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Up the tension? Up the conflict? Fuck, Hope had just played right into his hands when she hadn’t wanted to.

“It’s not that I can’t do it by myself. It’s that we’re doing this as a team. We’ve always been a team.” Hope bit the inside of her cheek, wanting Angelica to understand the subtext. But Angelica was so dense sometimes, that she wasn’t sure she was making a dent in her thick skull. “We do these things together.”

“Not this time,” Angelica fired back, her voice far calmer than it had been before. “This time, we divide and we conquer.”

Why did she keep saying that?

“I need to talk to you.” Hope took Angelica by the arm and walked directly toward the small staging area that they had. Sheshut the door, out of the view of crew and cameras, and turned on Angelica. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“With me?” Angelica’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“Yes! Do you want this show to continue or not? Because we need to make sure that we get renewed. We’re the ones all of this is relying on. And you’re just shutting me out!” Hope fisted her hands and put them on her hips.

Angelica set her iPad heavily on the table and leaned against it, crossing her arms. “You want to be renewed again?”

“Yes! This crew relies on us.” Hope frowned, not sure where Angelica was going with this.

Cocking her head to the side, Angelica stood up slowly and took her iPad again. “I can’t do this again.”

And she walked out of the room.

“Can’t do what again?” Hope stood there, frozen on the spot.

Had Angelica meant the show? A fourth season? Had she meant the relationship? The arguments? The tension? The conflict? What the hell had she been talking about? Hope’s heart raced. But she didn’t leave the room. The silence was so loud, and it rushed through her ears like a roaring wind.

The knock on the door startled her. Cadence popped her head in and seemed relieved to find Hope still there. “You doing okay?”

“No.” Hope sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose. This was all too much. Between Rex and Eva and Angelica, Hope didn’t stand a damn chance of surviving this season if this was how it was going to go. A hell of her own making for sure.

“Is it always like this?”

“Like what?” Hope bit her lip and tried to center herself, focusing on Cadence and her questions.

“Intense.”

Laughing, Hope nodded. “Oh yeah. You’ll learn pretty quickly that anything involving Angelica Shields is intense.”

“Right.” Cadence glanced over her shoulder. “They want to film the introductions.”

“Now?” Hope asked, disbelief seeping into her voice.

“Yeah.”

“Fine.” Hope shook out her hands and took one more steadying breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

Chapter

Seven

“Talk to me about Dawn.” Angelica leaned against the front reception desk and stared Melissa down. She managed to get most of her information from Melissa, not Ali, which was a shift in the way she’d thought everything would go.

“Dawn?” Melissa frowned and continued to click away at her computer. “She’s part of the family.”

Angelica clenched her jaw tightly. She hadn’t expected that response. What she was looking for was something more material. Was she good at her job? Did she have the skills to actually run a kitchen? But every time she asked Melissa for information, she had to drag it out of her.

“What’s her experience in kitchens?”