Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
“Hi, I’m Florence Delarosa.” The woman had wide hips, a beautiful smile, and dark hair for days reaching down her back. It wasn’t curly, but rather had a certain amount of weathered fluff to it that instantly drew Hope in.
“I’m Hope.” She took Florence’s extended hand and shook it, flicking her gaze to Angelica. This was a private meeting, just the three of them, and while Angelica had assured her it would be a quick meeting, Hope still had been nervous showing up.
“It’s good to meet you finally. Shall we?” She pointed to the conference table in Angelica’s office, where they’d agreed to meet since it was so much closer for Hope to get there from her house and filming.
Hope sent Angelica a curious look as she slid into the seat next to Florence and then waited to see whatever bomb was going to be dropped on them next. Because that’s exactly what this meeting felt like. Tense. Secretive. And exploding.
“I wanted to meet with just the two of you to get a feel for how you want the show to run for the next three seasons. I know you two had a lot of issues with Josef, and I wanted to be very clear where I stand versus where he stood.”
Hope tensed instantly. Already, this felt different. Josef would never sit down and discuss. He’d order and play tricks, and he’d somehow force them to do whatever he wanted them to do.
“As we dive into filming season four, I’m looking to you two to lead the direction of the show and to create a healthy environment for everyone.”
Hope flicked her gaze to Angelica. Were they being called out on being toxic now? Hope folded her hands in her lap, managing somehow to keep her mouth shut while she listened.
“I know there have been issues with the crew in the past, and I don’t want to go into the next three years with the same issues.”
“I don’t think those problems will be around,” Angelica said, her voice calm just like it always was.
Hope bit her lip and shook her head. “Not with Josef gone.”
“Well, I’m just making sure.” Florence put her hands out to the sides and smiled. “Because I want us to start off on the right foot, where we can all understand each other.”
“Josef was where the problems stemmed from.” Hope clenched her hands together tightly.
“Not all of them,” Angelica stated quietly. “He was the root cause of a lot of them, but we can’t blame everything on him.”
Hope’s stomach twisted with bile. Was Angelica really defending that man?
“You and I didn’t get along for at least half a season in the beginning, remember?”
“Yes, but we’re fine now.” Hope pressed her lips together hard. They weren’t fine but they at least understood how to work together to keep the challenge to a minimum.
Angelica cocked her head to the side, and Hope knew she was in for it. Angelica disagreed with her statement, and she’d be hearing about that later. Oh well, she’d enjoy that conversation. At least it’d be Angelica talking to her and hopefully in the same room as her again.
“I’m under the impression that Josef liked to keep the tension high on set for the purposes of ramping up drama for each episode.
” Florence’s gaze bounced between them as if she was trying to figure out what she was missing.
Hope was curious just how long it’d take her, because as much as Angelica wanted to keep their relationship under wraps, she wasn’t sure that it would be possible.
“He did.” Hope bit her lip and looked directly at Angelica. “And he didn’t take kindly when we thwarted his efforts either.”
Florence hummed and nodded. “I can understand that. He has quite the reputation…”
Hope was curious about that. She honestly hadn’t heard much about Josef before filming Hotel Bombshell.
All the complaints she’d heard about the show had to do with Angelica, and as was proven, those complaints had been false.
While Angelica was a bit icy—or an Ice Fairy, as Hope liked to still think of her as sometimes—she wasn’t purposely mean just to get a thrill out of it.
“What reputation?” Angelica asked.
“For putting people in positions they can’t see a way out of.” Florence made direct eye contact with Angelica. “But I won’t be doing that. Everything I’ll do on set will be consensual. If we want drama, then I’ll talk to both of you first. If I want an argument, then we’ll manufacture it.”
“That sounds rather scripted,” Hope stated.
“It is.” Florence sighed a little. “But I’ve found that the more scripted something is then the more stable the show can be.”
Hope wasn’t entirely sure that she agreed with that, but she’d have to deal with it.
She didn’t have a say if Florence was the showrunner or not, and while she’d usually talk to Angelica about it, she should probably instead talk to Logan if she had an issue.
Angelica was right about one thing. They did need some hard boundaries when it came to work.
“Some of our more popular moments in the show are things we’ve said off the cuff.” Angelica flicked her stylus back and forth between her fingers.
“I understand that, and I’m not opposed to having those moments still be in the final edits of each episode. But I prefer to run a much tighter ship.”
Hope directly looked at Angelica. Maybe getting rid of Josef hadn’t been the best thing.
Or perhaps, just replacing him with Florence hadn’t been a wise decision.
Angelica hadn’t wanted the job, especially with buying Mountain View during the break and with her relationship with Hope already building, but that didn’t explain that this was the better choice of the two.
“So here’s how it’s going to work. We’ll be having a meeting every morning to discuss the ins and outs of each day.
This meeting will involve you two, me, Logan when he’s around, and Rex and Cadence as the main directors on set.
We’ll make a detailed plan of what’s going to be shot and how we’re going to do it.
Then we’ll get to work for the day, and be done when the schedule is finished. ”
Hope bit her lip and held her breath. “And if something happens after hours?”
“Something like what?” Florence blinked at Hope.
“I’m sorry to say it like this, but have you watched the show?”
“Yes.”
“And you think that there weren’t things that happened outside of normal operating and business hours?” Hope pressed her fingertips into the conference table. “Because sometimes you can’t predict when the drama will break out and you just have to go with it.”
“That’s a major part of why we stay on-site, amongst other reasons,” Angelica added in.
Florence’s lips thinned into a single lip. Hope eyed her carefully. There was something about Florence that was super familiar to her, something that put a part of her in the mood to trust, even though Florence was coming off as demanding and harsh.
“A lot of things have happened after hours,” Hope said.
“Right, like these cooking shorts that Cadence has dreamed up.” Florence dashed her tongue across her lips and pushed her hair over her shoulder.
“I wanted to talk to both of you about them. They seem to be doing well for marketing purposes, but I don’t want you to be filming them while we’re in the hotels.
If you want to do them here, that’s one thing, but beyond that, let’s keep it to Los Angeles. ”
Hope wrinkled her nose. “I think Cadence wanted to film one in New York, but that was the last one. As a way to connect to the start of filming.”
Florence nodded.
Angelica jumped in. “She was going to release that one first and then shift into other forms of promotional filming while we were in production and then back to the cooking-with-Hope shorts post-production.”
“I’m aware of Cadence’s plan.” Florence shook her head slowly. “But I’m not convinced it’ll work, and I don’t want to put you two into working overtime just for marketing purposes.”
Well that was a change from Josef, who didn’t seem to care how many hours they worked or how much sleep they got the night before. He was all about putting them into situations that would get them into trouble.
“I like to have as much structure as possible,” Florence added. “That way when we get into the mess of filming, we can be flexible when necessary but we’ve already planned for the majority of what can go wrong.”
Hope liked the sound of that. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “So you’re going to limit the hours we spend filming?”
“As much as I can, yes.”
Hope looked directly at Angelica. That would make their lives so much easier if it truly was the case.
It’d give her more time with Angelica off the clock, and more time to spend with Eva, which would hopefully ease the anxiety that Eva felt any time they left for filming.
When she’d been in Italy, she was glad Rex had been there with her.
It had taken both of them to get Eva through that filming.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Angelica said. “The number of issues we’ve been woken up for in the middle of the night or had to stay up late to resolve are large. And I don’t want you to promise Hope that she’ll be in bed by ten every night when we all know full well that she won’t be.”
“Of course not. But if she stays up late to film something, she can have a late start. That’s what I mean by adjusting.”
It all sounded particularly delicious, but Hope was with Angelica on this one. It sounded completely unrealistic at the same time. Still, she wasn’t going to put her finger on that.
“Outside of scheduling, what did you both want to keep from the first few seasons and what do you want to do away with?” Florence folded her hands and stared at both of them, as if she would sit there all day until she got an answer.
Hope had seen that tactic before, from Angelica, and she was ready to applaud it.
“I want to keep the tension,” Hope said. “Not just the angry tension, but the work tension, the sexual tension. I think it plays well for our audience.”
Angelica paled at that last comment.
“While I tend to agree with you, I’m not sold on the sexual tension. This show isn’t about the two of you. It’s about fixing hotels and restaurants to make them viable.”
Angelica frowned at that, but she didn’t say anything.
And Hope wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to try to jump into the conversation again either, not after being shut down like that.
Florence waited for more, but both of them remained silent, as if their mutual agreement to say nothing had taken hold and neither one of them was going to back down from it.
After thirty more minutes of discussion, Florence wrapped up the conversation and excused herself. Angelica shut the office door behind her, leaving the two of them alone in the room, her eyes glued to Hope.
“Well, she’s a bag full of giggles,” Hope said, dryly.
“She’s come in with a plan, I’ll give her that.
” Angelica crossed her arms and then sat on the edge of the conference table, right next to Hope.
“She has a mess to clean up because of Josef. It’s important she starts before filming to make sure that people understand where she’s coming from and how she’s going to run the ship. ”
“That doesn’t mean she has to be a bitch about it.”
“She’s not.” Angelica canted her head and looked directly at Hope. “Why would you think she was a bitch?”
“She’s not.” Hope rolled her eyes. “She’s just… rigid. Rules this. Rules that.” Hope frowned. “It’s never going to work.” Hope’s cheeks heated.
“Do you like her?”
“What?” Hope snapped her gaze up to meet Angelica’s eyes. “Why would you say that?”
Angelica held her gaze, not moving an inch. Hope’s heart thumped hard.
“Are you going to answer that?”
“No.” Angelica crossed her arms tightly across her chest. “When do you need to go back?”
Hope sighed heavily and glanced at the clock. “I need to leave in twenty.”
Angelica nodded and then bent down, pressing their mouths together.
Hope hummed, curling her fingers around the back of Angelica’s neck and holding her even closer.
Now this was something she could get on board with.
It might be a long season of filming and getting used to Florence, but at least she’d be able to do this every night.
“Think we’ll survive this season?” Hope asked.
“Because of Florence?” Angelica raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think Florence is going to be our problem.” Angelica rolled her shoulders. “She’ll be an adjustment, but that’s it. A few hiccups. But we’ll figure each other out.”
“You’ve had more time to get to know her than I have.”
“Then you’ll just have to trust me.” Angelica bent down for another kiss. “When will I see you again?”
Hope groaned. “In New York.”
Frowning, Angelica nodded. “Then until New York.”
“But I don’t have Eva that week.”
“Good.” Angelica’s lips curled upward. “I think we’ll both enjoy that.”