Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
“Ange.”
Angelica looked up from the computer at reception and the conversation she was having with Joy. Florence just didn’t interrupt scenes. But she was now. And she looked forlorn and pained. Florence nodded her head away from the desk.
“I’m in the middle of something, can it wait?” Angelica asked, keeping herself half leaning over the desk.
“No.” Florence seemed even more hurt by that.
Angelica straightened her shoulders and narrowed her gaze.
“All right. Joy, keep going through these ideas and deciding what exactly you want the branding to be. Chef Lawrence is working off the theme of elegance and local, so she’s pared the menu down to five dishes that will highlight what Virginia Beach has best to offer. ”
“Pared the menu down?” Joy visibly paled.
“Yes. It was necessary.” Angelica kept herself tense, knowing that she had to listen to Florence and be called away but also needing to make sure that Joy didn’t screw anything up while she was gone.
“It’s a simple theme that we can dive deeper into when we talk more about how exactly we’re going to brand later. ”
“Simple elegance…” Joy repeated those two words as if she’d just heard them for the first time.
But Angelica knew she hadn’t. Because she’d mentioned this before. But each time they tried to talk about branding, Joy was on board until they needed to actually nail down specifics. The thought of having the conversation yet again was even more overwhelming than before.
“You sit with that. I’ll be right back.” Angelica straightened up and stepped around the reception desk and toward Florence.
“In here.” Florence put her hand on Angelica’s upper arm and guided her toward the staging room. But she shut the door with only the two of them in there.
“What’s wrong?”
“This isn’t how I wanted to tell you, I want to be very clear on that.”
“Tell me what?” Angelica tensed.
“The production team decided that they needed to do some press in order to downplay your relationship with Hope. So they set Hope up with an interview on a local network this morning. Start small and move big.” Florence shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“She bombed it, didn’t she?”
“Yes.” Florence ground out the word.
“Hope isn’t built for playing these games. I could have told you that. Hell, Rex could have told you that.” Angelica crossed her arms, the anger from yesterday resurfacing. “You shouldn’t have put her in a position where she had to lie.”
“I told her not to lie.” Florence put her hands out in front of her. “I want to repeat, this wasn’t my choice. I told them it was a bad idea, but they overruled me.”
“And didn’t talk to me.” Angelica sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. “Because I’d give them a piece of my mind.”
“Because they didn’t think you would agree to it.”
“I wouldn’t have!” Angelica’s voice rang through the room. “Because this is exactly what was going to happen, and I would have told them that! They should have put me there instead of her.”
“They thought you were too standoffish.”
“Oh, bullshit.” Angelica cut her hand across the air. “They didn’t want me to object and push back on them. They thought they could skip around me by removing me from the situation entirely.” She shook her head and crossed her arms again. “Let me see it.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Florence.” Angelica pursed her lips. “Let me see it.”
“I really don’t think this is a good idea, for the record.”
“You’re all about making records straight today, aren’t you?” Angelica kept her arms crossed while she watched Hope on the screen, the moment she realized she’d walked into the first trap, then the second, and then when the interview abruptly cut off and what was said afterward.
That look Hope had sent her as she’d barreled through the lobby made a whole lot more sense now.
Angelica rolled her shoulders, too stunned to even know what to say.
She’d stupidly thought that getting rid of Josef would ease the issues with communication and demands when it came to production and filming, but she’d been wrong.
They were just different problems now than they were before.
Sighing heavily, she shook her head at Florence again.
“Where is she?”
“Kitchen.” Florence slid the phone into her pocket. “I need to know what you want me to do.”
“Next time they try to pull something like this, I need you to come to me before anything happens.” Angelica stilled. “Because this could have been prevented.”
“You’re right.” Florence put her hands out to the side and shook her head. “You’re absolutely right.”
Angelica wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that. She hadn’t expected Florence to so easily tell her that or give in to her demand.
“If we want this show to go smoothly, then we need to make sure that everyone is communicating clearly, and that we don’t drop anyone into enemy territory without the skills and backup to come out unscathed.”
“Fair. This is my mistake, partially, and I own up to it.” Florence put her hand over her heart. “I promise that I’ll do better next time.”
“Fine.” Angelica started toward the door, but Florence stopped her.
“Ange?”
Angelica turned around.
“It’d be easier if you would also communicate with the rest of us.” Florence rubbed her hands together before crossing her arms. “Because I see you struggling with this all on your own, and you don’t have to. Like you said, we’re here to do this as a team and a crew, and that means everyone.”
“Fair,” Angelica echoed Florence’s response from before.
“And to add to that, Ange, I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, but you’ve been off your game. I don’t mean that as a criticism, but as an observation. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here. Please don’t hesitate to talk to me.” Florence looked at her imploringly.
Angelica gave her a hard stare back, not saying anything. Finally, she nodded. “Is that all?”
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“Can I have the room for five minutes?” Angelica bit her lip.
“Absolutely.” Florence stepped outside and shut the door behind her.
Angelica let out a huge breath and halfway collapsed against a chair, holding herself up on the back of it as she half bent over and tried to collect herself.
She’d thought after last night that everything would get easier, that she could focus on the work again and get back into the groove. But that was proving to be untrue.
Everyone was going to see that interview. And Josef would no doubt use it to his advantage. Why would anyone think that sending Hope into that kind of situation was going to work out? Jesus. She’d been thrown to the wolves with no protection. And Angelica hadn’t even managed to be there for her.
Her phone buzzed.
Angelica sighed heavily as she picked it up, seeing the messages from Lyric, Logan, Florence, the rest of her family, and the last one, from Christian. She opened it up and read it quickly.
Christian
I’m so lost, Ange. I don’t know what to do.
She had to play the role of big sister in the family that didn’t want her. Not much had changed in the intervening years, had it? Tapping Christian’s name, she called him.
“Thank God you called,” Christian said as soon as his voice echoed through the speaker.
“I’m not here to tell you what to do.” Angelica slid into the chair, giving her feet as much of a break as she could, at least for the next few minutes. “I can’t tell you what to do.”
“But—”
“No, Christian. I need you to listen to me. I cut Mom off years ago. And I know you only know part of why, but you have to trust me that I did it for good reason.” It was time to lay down the law with him—again.
“I need you to respect that. But also, I haven’t been around, Christian.
I don’t know what Mom would want or what she wouldn’t want. ”
“I’m not asking you to come out here.” She could hear the pout even if he didn’t intend it that way.
“Good, because I won’t.” Angelica brushed her thumb against her bottom lip. “The family has been blowing up my phone this week. I’m not sure if you’ve talked to them—”
“God damn it!” Christian cursed. “I told them all that I would be the one to talk to you, not them. I can’t believe they didn’t respect that.”
That did at least make her feel slightly better about the situation as a whole. He wasn’t pushing them to contact her or get her involved.
“I can’t believe them,” Christian mumbled.
“It helps to know that.” Angelica rubbed circles into her temple. “But I’m telling you the truth about everything else. I can’t help you. I don’t know what kind of decisions she’d want made. I’m so far removed from that part of her life—”
“I know. I think…” Christian sighed heavily. “I just need my big sis right now, Ange. I need you for me, not for her.”
Angelica stilled, closing her eyes slowly. “Okay. I can do that. Or I’ll try to.”
“Thanks. I’m scared.”
“Of losing her?” Angelica asked.
“Of the shit storm that will happen when she dies.” Christian sighed again.
“It’s a mess, Ange. It’s so bad that I don’t even know where to start.
I didn’t realize how much damage she’s done to the house, to their finances, to everything.
And with her being in the hospital for so long this time around and Dad being up here, I’ve been able to dig in deeper to what’s going on, and fuck. It’s bad.”
Angelica clenched her fist. It would be so easy for her to tell him to send it all to her, that she would dig through it and figure it out.
But she didn’t want that burden—and that’s exactly what it’d be.
And she knew it’d be a mess. Her parents were never good with money, and her dad just let her buy whatever she wanted and never paid too much attention to it.
“Well, when you dig into it, I can offer some advice.”
“Thanks. But I won’t ask you to do that, but ugh, I didn’t realize how messed up they were.”
Because you are the golden child. Angelica held her tongue on that one. She glanced toward the door and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Christian, I have to get back to filming. I had an unexpected break and wanted to touch base.”
“Oh, of course. I, uh… just call me when you can, okay?”
“I’ll call later tonight.” Angelica started to stand up.
“Talk soon.” And then he was gone.
With two more steadying breaths, Angelica left the staging area and went back out into the fray.
She and Hope would have to talk tonight as well.
Because Hope would surely be devastated by that interview, and Angelica wanted to be there for her.
But right now, they both had a job to do, and they were both very adept at using work to distract themselves.
Joy was still at the computer at reception, where Angelica was fairly certain she lived most days. Tapping her hand against the top of the counter, Angelica caught Joy’s attention. “Thoughts on branding?”
Joy’s nose wrinkled upward.
“We can’t keep waiting for an answer, and if you don’t give me one, then I’m going to choose for you. And then you really won’t like it.” Angelica eyed her carefully, knowing that Sy was nearby with a camera catching everything. “Have you asked Ross what his opinion on it is?”
“No.”
“Does he get an opinion on it?”
“No,” Joy answered.
Angelica hummed, looking around reception to see if she could find Ross hiding off in some little corner. “Is that because he doesn’t want to give an opinion or is that because you don’t want to hear it?”
Joy clenched her jaw hard on that one.
“Ah, you don’t want to hear it.” Angelica tapped her fingers along the top of the counter and bided her time as she debated what to say next.
Because Joy was the roadblock. It wasn’t owners causing problems. It was one owner.
And Ross didn’t have enough backbone to stand up to her. “What are your thoughts on a brand?”
“I don’t know.”
“Right.” Angelica looked around. “I’m going to find Ross and ask him then.”
She didn’t stop when Joy called her name. Angelica carried the smirk of satisfaction with her as she rounded the corner to find Ross in the office on the computer. Forcing him to stand up for himself and forcing Joy to listen.
That was exactly what needed to happen here.