Page 22 of Under the Table

“It seems I do.” Hope raised an eyebrow at her. “And are you joining in on this game? Or should I only plan for two hotel owners to spoil my fun?”

Angelica bit her lip to contain her smile. “Would you like me to be here?”

“Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Hope nodded. “I might need a knight in shining armor to come to my rescue again.”

“Need?” Angelica choked on the word. “You hardly need my saving, Hope. But I’m glad to lend a hand when I can.”

Angelica pushed away from the counter and took a step back. She really needed to get herself together and stop this flirting nonsense. They were supposed to be done with all of that, weren’t they? Hadn’t they talked about keeping things as professional as possible?

“I’ll see you before dinner,” Angelica said, spinning in her ridiculously high heels as she made her way out of the kitchen.

She had work to do in the meantime, and she trusted that Hope could run the kitchen and dining areas on her own. She didn’t need extra supervision. Despite the fact that Angelica had wanted to stay right where she was in Hope’s presence for as long as she could manage.

Chapter

Eight

“What do you think you’re doing?” Rex rounded the counter in the kitchen, coming nearly face to face with Hope as she set up some of the final pieces on one of the plates she was making.

She narrowed her gaze at him and clenched her jaw. “My job.”

“This wasn’t in the plan, Hope.”

“No, it wasn’t. But if you remember anything from last season, we often have to go off plan to get what we need done.” She flicked her gaze to him, fully aware of the fact that the kitchen bustled with people, that the mic was still taped to her chest, and that the cameras were somewhere. They were never far away.

“We set out a script and a plan for this episode. Both you and Ange agreed to it!” He hissed at her, getting even closer to her by the second.

If they’d been at home, Hope would have blown up at him for being an idiot already. Well, maybe not, but her defenses were already up from the confrontation with Robin and Johnny, and she was massively on the struggle bus trying to keep her temper in. “Look, you wanted Angelica and I to figure this out, to worktogether, to make sure there was tension still—that’s what we’re doing.”

“This wasn’t part of the plan!”

“So you said!” she answered exasperated. Did he really not understand that she heard him? Because he wasn’t actually saying a whole lot to her in terms of filling in the blanks. Why was this such a big deal? They’d done this before.

Well, Hope had. And Angelica hadn’t liked it.

Maybe that was it.

“Are you scared this is going to piss her off?” Hope hissed, narrowing her gaze at him as she took a curl of chocolate and laid it precisely on top of one of the dishes.

“You don’t know what she’s capable of when she’s mad,” Rex mumbled under his breath. It was only then that Hope could see the nervous energy that ran underneath everything. “And I’ve pissed her off plenty this episode already.”

“I’m not entirely sure that you have.” Hope glanced at him again, trying to calm his raging nerves. “I’m pretty sure you’d know if you did. One thing I do admire about Angelica is that she doesn’t hide what she’s feeling—well, at least not in that way. If she’s mad at you, then you’ll know it.”

Angelica did, however, hide just about every other feeling she had. Hope frowned as she moved on to another dish. The crew behind her had chosen ten of their favorites and best-cooked on the menu and they were preparing them. Hope was working on her own. She had exactly an hour and a half until she needed to be ready for this taste testing game Angelica had thrown her into.

She leaned down to her phone and added to the text message that she was building to Angelica.

Hope: The plate with the chocolate on top is safe for you.

Rex narrowed his eyes at the phone and then spun it around, reading it. Nothing in the text would give anything away as to how Hope felt about Angelica or what they’d done the previous season. It was simply a list of the plates Hope was making and the ones the staff were making, and which ones Angelica could eat and which ones she should avoid.

“What the hell is this?” Rex narrowed his eyes at her and shoved the phone into her face.

“A list of the plates I’m making.” Hope snagged the phone back and dropped it into her pocket. She glowered at him. Did he really see nothing wrong with what he’d just done? And he was pissing her off even more by the second.

“For what?” Rex’s face read as though he was offended. But why the hell would he be?

Hope shook her head at him, pausing her work so that she could fully focus on him. “What’s this really about?”