Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
“The AC isn’t getting fixed in this part of the hotel this week.
” Angelica sat down at the tables that had been arranged into a square and crossed her legs.
Her back was already covered in a sheen of sweat and her blouse stuck to her skin.
She’d given up pulling it off, and her emergency conversation with Robin and Johnny had gotten her nowhere except to say, it wasn’t going to be fixed.
“You’re kidding me,” Hope hissed, her head dropping as she breathed in heavily.
“Unfortunately not.” Angelica pulled her iPad out of her bag and put it on the table in front of her. “We’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“At least there’s air conditioning in the rooms.”
“Don’t jinx it.” Angelica shot her a look before unlocking her iPad and pulling up the agenda for that afternoon.
They’d all arrived safely in Houston, Angelica the day before so she could make sure everything was set up, and Hope and Rex that morning with Eva in tow. She’d had to hold back her smile at the thought of seeing Eva again. It’d felt like forever.
“This is going to be brutal. It’s nearly a hundred outside with a hundred percent humidity,” Hope whined.
“You’re right, and complaining about the facts of life isn’t going to get us anywhere.
Is it?” Angelica locked her eyes on Hope’s for a brief second before focusing back on her iPad.
She was tired, and cranky, and she knew she was being shorter than she typically would, but she also didn’t want to hear it.
She was sick of it already and she knew it’d only get worse once Rex arrived for their inaugural meeting.
She’d hadn’t seen Rex yet, and this would be the tell-all Angelica wasn’t looking forward to.
How was he going to handle the situation?
“No need to be mean about it.” Hope’s voice had a teasing tone to it, which Angelica had been missing during the conversation in her office. It seemed they were both going to work on making this as normal as possible. That was a good thing. They needed it that way.
“I apologize if my tone was sharp.” Angelica looked up from her iPad and found Hope looking at her curiously. “If you hadn’t noticed, there’s no air conditioning in the room, making it nearly an inferno from hell.”
Hope laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners, and her lips turning upward. “I wonder if I could cook eggs on the tables.”
Leaning back in her chair, Angelica laughed. “On the tables? Probably not. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not sure it’s quite hot enough for that. Outside… on a car window or roof…? That might be doable.”
“Nah, it’s not quite up to temp yet.” Hope winked at her.
The door opened and they both stilled instantly, the lightness of the conversation vanishing right before their eyes.
They hadn’t had to force that, but with other people around, they absolutely would.
Rex held the door open, but he didn’t step inside immediately.
Before she knew what was happening, Eva raced forward and wrapped her arms around Angelica’s neck and practically jumped into her lap.
“Oh my,” Angelica said, holding Eva on her lap so she didn’t fall on her butt on the floor. “Hi Eva!”
“You didn’t call me!” Eva sat back a little, her brow furrowed in a scold that matched her mother’s. “You didn’t help me with my math.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m so sorry.” Angelica frowned slightly. “There’s a lot of reasons why, but it’s kind of hard to explain all of them, so you’ll just have to trust me. Okay?”
Rex stared at them curiously before plopping down at a thin table that was pressed into an L-shape against the one where Angelica and Hope were. “I told you that you’d have to entertain yourself, Eva.”
Angelica frowned, squeezing Eva’s sides lightly before she hopped off Angelica’s lap. “Daddy got me a new math game on my tablet so that I can play it.”
“A math game?” Angelica raised an eyebrow in Eva’s direction. “You’ll have to show me how it works sometime.”
“We can play it together.” Eva pulled up a chair, dragging it from the other side of Rex, to plop it right between Rex and Angelica.
Angelica slid a glance of curiosity and confusion to Hope but then focused back on Eva. She crossed her legs and sat in the chair and leaned forward on the table as she pulled out her tablet and set it up. Rex shifted awkwardly and frowned as he pulled out his iPad.
“I have the filming schedule for the first few days finalized, but I wanted to go over the rest of the week with you two before it’s finalized.” He didn’t look at Angelica or Hope, keeping his chin down and facing the iPad.
If this was going to be the name of the game when it came to how they interacted, Angelica could handle it.
The three of them were the only ones who knew what had happened at the end of last season, and Angelica wanted to keep it that way.
She didn’t need Josef or anyone else on the crew to find out what she and Hope had done.
Hope was the fan favorite, and the studio and production would choose Hope over her any day.
Angelica glanced at the file Rex had AirDropped her and started reading through it.
“I thought we’d start with introduction videos like we did last time, along with a bit more interviews with the owners, management, and a few key staff—those we think are good on camera.
The writers are working on some key words and questions for them to tell their story succinctly and with the spin we need. ”
This was fairly standard to what they’d created last season.
They didn’t want to mess with the rhythm and structure of the show too much.
People now knew what to expect from them, and they had to deliver on that.
But they could play with little things here and there, and that’s what Rex was working on.
Angelica checked through the detail information, but she caught sight of Eva frowning at her tablet.
Distracted, she leaned over to see what Eva was working on, recognizing the math problem for what it was.
She pointed at one number and then moved her finger toward the end of the equation, making eye contact with Eva to see if she understood what Angelica wasn’t saying.
Sure enough, Eva figured out quickly what she was missing and was able to solve the problem. When Angelica glanced up, no one was talking, and Rex was staring at her oddly. She stared right back at him. She wasn’t about to let a man intimidate her—ever.
“I’d really appreciate it if you and Hope could figure out when you’d like to add tension in and how. I don’t want this to be a repeat of last season, and since we have a bit more control this season…” Rex trailed off, but he still hadn’t moved his gaze from Angelica’s face.
What he meant was since Kyle wasn’t there to force a lack of communication, they might stand a chance at actually doing the things they wanted to do and doing them well.
And since Josef wasn’t there to flat out lie and make up stories about how they were screwing one another over, they really stood a chance of not having stupid manufactured drama like they had last year.
God, had it really been a year since they started filming?
So much time had passed in between seasons, but it didn’t feel that way at all. Especially now that Angelica was back in Hope’s presence. Especially now that they were in the same room again.
“I think we can manage that,” Angelica said, finally shifting her gaze toward Hope.
What was she thinking about all of this? Or did she even have an opinion?
Angelica pulled up her files and waited to see if Rex was done with his spiel. When he didn’t continue, she nodded firmly and started in on what she wanted to talk about.
“I think Gardenia primarily has an organizational issue, which is relatively easy to fix.” Angelica pulled up the information she’d managed to get from the hotel so far. “I think they tried to go too big too fast and didn’t work their way up properly and now they’re drowning because of it.”
“I can tell you that happened with the restaurant,” Hope chimed in. “I’ve never seen a menu quite so extensive as this one. It’s at least twenty pages.”
Angelica raised an eyebrow in Hope’s direction before shaking her head. “I’ll let you deal with that.”
Hope gave her a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“They’ve had quite a turnover in staff as well.” Angelica furrowed her brow at her iPad as she stared at it, as if all the answers were hidden in there somewhere. “Though they have managed to keep a few people on a long time. There’s no median length of employment. It’s either years or months.”
Rex nodded. “I’ll have interviews with the hotel staff first, and then I’ll let you watch the dailies so you can glean more information from them.”
“Oh that’ll be helpful.” Angelica’s eyes lit up. They hadn’t done that last season, but having more information would always be better in the long run.
“I thought you might appreciate that,” Rex said, but he wasn’t looking at Angelica. He was looking at Hope, a silent conversation filtering between the two of them. Angelica had no clue what was being said, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know either.
“I do, thank you.” Angelica broke the tension.
This tension in the room wasn’t something she was used to, and it was going to be difficult to navigate.
She’d never been in a relationship with someone who was married before.
Scratch that. She and Hope definitely weren’t in a relationship, but they had kissed, and Rex knew about it, and so this was now an awkward dynamic that they were all going to have to navigate because laws and contracts dictated that they work together for at least two more years.
Eva looked over her tablet and locked her eyes on her mom, then her dad, and then finally Angelica.
Oh, she was observant, wasn’t she? Eva was no idiot when it came to the tension in the room.
Would Rex or Hope bring her in here on purpose to help ease that tension?
It wouldn’t be a bad tactic in the long run.
Eva was fairly familiar with everyone there.
“Why don’t you and Hope discuss tension points now?” Rex crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.
“N-now?” Hope asked.
Well, at least Angelica wasn’t the only one surprised by that demand.
“Yes. I need to know when to expect them to make sure we have cameras and crew in place.” He stare at her hard.
Angelica breathed deeply, steadying herself as if she was going into a new battle. “I think Hope and I can do that tomorrow, when there’s more time—”
“Now,” Rex insisted, looking at her now. His stare was cold. And he didn’t seem to be budging from his seat either.
“Do you mean to stay here for that conversation?” Angelica asked outright. It was time she figured out exactly where the three of them stood and just what other battles she was going to be fighting this season.
“Yes.” Rex’s lips pulled into a thin line, and again, he glared daggers in her direction.
Angelica held his gaze, making sure that he understood she was still his boss and that she wasn’t going to tolerate being pushed around and bullied.
It didn’t take long, but Rex finally softened and rolled his shoulders.
“Eva, would you step outside for a minute?”
“Why?” Eva popped her head up.
“I need to say something, and I don’t need you hearing it.”
Eva narrowed her eyes, looking between the three of them again before she finally pushed her chair back.
The fact that she wasn’t arguing or asking more questions worried Angelica.
Any six—no, she was seven now, wasn’t she?
—seven-year-old who was told randomly to do something like that would be asking why until they got a satisfactory answer.
What had happened during the season break?
When the door was shut, Rex loosened his shoulders again.
“Make no mistake, Ange, I’m not happy about this situation.” Rex sighed heavily. “But also make no mistake that I don’t entirely blame you for what happened.” He shifted his look of disdain from Angelica to Hope. “And Hope is fully aware of how I feel about this.”
Hope might be, but Angelica wasn’t. Not that she really wanted to know either.
She wanted to be able to film this season and then jet back to Los Angeles and forget they’d had to spend months together confined to hotels and traveling around the country.
She wanted to forget what Hope’s lips felt like pressed against hers, the taste of her tongue, the feel of her body in Angelica’s hands.
“All right,” Angelica answered, canting her head to the side. “Do you mean to supervise every conversation Hope and I have together?”
“You know I can’t do that,” Rex replied immediately.
“Then what are you planning on doing?” Angelica kept her forearms on the table, staying as still as possible. She was actually curious about this one, about what Rex might do with the power that he held over her.
Rex shook his head. “I don’t know yet. But today I’m going to stay to observe the conversation.”
“Fine.” Angelica pursed her lips tightly. “But let your daughter back. I’d hate for her to think that she’s being pushed out and forgotten again. I don’t need another runaway on my hands.”
The room went silent. She’d probably taken that too far, but she was exhausted from her travel there, and from the emotional games they seemed to be playing that put her right smack in the middle of everything.
“Like I told you at the premier, Rex, I’m not interested in fighting for Hope. And I’m not going to allow you to bully me into submission either.”
Instead of continuing to speak to him, Angelica turned to Hope. “I have a video meeting I need to do. Feel free to come find me in an hour to discuss tension moments.” She spat out that word like it was the enemy.
Without another moment of hesitation, Angelica pushed back her chair and walked out of the room. Did she have another meeting? Hell no. But she wasn’t about to sit there and be treated like a toddler who needed constant supervision either.