Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Hope’s lips quirked up as Angelica slid the first taste of food between her lips. She popped the entire tiny morsel—or nibbling as Angelica seemed to call Hope’s food—into her mouth in one bite and hummed as the flavors hit her tongue.
That was the look Hope longed to see in every single one of her patrons.
A look of pure, unadulterated pleasure.
She had to work hard to hold back her own smile in response. It seemed that all of the staff was enjoying this little game and particularly enjoying her food. They tallied their votes and placed them in the boxes that had been made up just for this purpose.
That hadn’t been Hope’s idea, but it was a fascinating one regardless. It made the voting far more anonymous, and better than mere opinion. Although, she was a glutton, and she wanted the straight up opinion.
Because she knew her food was damn good.
She knew the one thing she had going for her in life was her ability to put together different ingredients and make an amazing, mind-blowing dish.
The temptation to walk over to Angelica and make a comment to her was so strong, to tell her how good she looked eating Hope’s food, to tell her how stunning she was in general when she wielded that power and control.
But she stopped herself.
That’d take everything a little too far, and the aftermath of their confrontation earlier was still ringing through her mind…and her body.
She could have sworn that Angelica was going to kiss her.
And oh, how Hope had wanted her to.
Just like that first true kiss in Angelica’s office in Los Angeles, when Angelica had cupped her cheek and her ear and pulled her in for not just one but three delicate and pure kisses. Except there was far more heat in Angelica’s gaze this time around, far less restraint.
How wild could she get when she was unleashed?
How passionate?
How loud?
Hope shivered, her entire body on the edge of something big, something extraordinary, something that she knew she couldn’t allow to happen.
Because if Angelica were to kiss her again, then Hope wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop herself from taking everything that she wanted—everything that she’d dreamed of.
“The tally is in,” Angelica said loudly, catching Hope’s long-lost attention and forcing her to look from the owners to Rex sitting behind the cameras and near the monitors, and then to Angelica.
Perfect fucking Angel.
She shivered, a wetness forming between her legs that made her uncomfortable, and a desire to say fuck it and kiss Angelica anyway. But those few moments of intensity in the conference room had been beyond anything that Hope had dreamed of.
She’d really thought that Angelica was going to do it. That she’d finally be the one to break whatever was between them.
“And the overall winner is Chef Lawrence.” Angelica clapped her hands together as the room burst with laughter.
Hope’s cheeks burned. She could barely even focus right now. She couldn’t keep doing this. They had to find some way of being together for work that wasn’t going to distract her to the point where she couldn’t do her job.
“The only dish where Gardenia staff won was the duck salad appetizer.” Angelica was clapping, smiling. She turned to Hope, a grin on her lips, and winked.
Oh my God. Did she actually wink?
Hope shivered, blinking suddenly and focusing on the room around her. The staff began to dissipate back to their designated areas to work. Hope took a step toward Angelica and froze.
“You didn’t win. You rigged it.”
Her shoulders went up, her jaw clenched, and she turned to face Johnny. “Excuse me?”
“You rigged it. Where’s the actual tally? There’s no way you beat out our classically trained chefs.” He put his hands on his hips and scowled, the deep lines in his face darkening, especially with what must be a spray-on tan he had going on.
“Do I need to remind you that I’m also classically trained?” Hope raised an eyebrow at him. “I spent seven years in France studying before I came back to America.” She crossed her arms, her lips pulling tight into a barely avoided grimace.
“I don’t believe you beat them.”
“I did.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. What was it that Johnny had against her?
“What’s the problem here?” Angelica slid in step next to Hope, glancing at Hope before turning the full force of her look at him.
“I think you cheated. You and her. You’re in on it together.”
Angelica pulled back slightly, no doubt just as taken by surprise as Hope was. “This was a contest that was run fair and square. In fact, the results were as anonymous as possible for this very purpose. All of production talked it over and decided on that.”
“You rigged the voting.”
Angelica sighed heavily. She shifted a glance to Hope, nearly rolling her eyes, but then focused back onto Johnny. “Why do you think your chefs should have won?”
“Because they’re classically trained, by the best of the best.”
The fact wasn’t lost on Hope that he couldn’t actually name a classically trained chef who had taught his classically trained chefs.
She could name them. In fact, she’d met many of them over the years.
And his chefs were trained very well. They understood far more than the basics, but that didn’t mean they were the best or that they still couldn’t stand to learn something new.
Even Hope wasn’t so egotistical as to think she could never learn something new.
“And you think Chef Lawrence isn’t trained?” Angelica crossed her arms.
Oh, Johnny was in for it now. Hope had seen that move many times over the years, and Johnny was about to get it hard.
“Go get Robin.”
“What?” Johnny’s jaw dropped.
“Go get Robin. We’re going to have a sit-down.” Angelica waved Hope over as the staff finally left.
She led the way to a table in the back corner of the dining room and pulled out a chair for Hope to sit in. “Stay right here.”
Confused, Hope did as she was told and didn’t move her gaze from Angelica.
She tried to calm her racing heart. These sneak attacks of confrontation and yelling were over the top and hard to keep up with.
If it hadn’t been for Angelica interrupting both times, she wasn’t entirely sure what she would have done about them.
Sy came over with a camera, setting it while Rex glowered at the two of them.
But he said nothing, just crossed his arms and watched from a distance.
What the hell was his problem lately? It was like he’d drawn in on himself since they’d started filming—or really prepping for the season—and was just exploding at her randomly.
Surely this couldn’t all be jealousy, could it?
Angelica sat down and folded her hands in front of her. She leaned over to Hope and whispered, “We’re going to have this out now. I’m tired of skirting around the real issue.”
“The real issue?” Hope leaned in closer, keeping her voice quiet. They had microphones on, sure, but only the crew could hear them.
“The owners.” Angelica pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows, and then leaned back in her chair. She stared directly at Robin and Johnny as they walked over and sat across the table from them. “Good, glad you both could join us.”
“What’s this about?” Robin asked.
Angelica nodded.
Hope held her breath, determined not to say anything unless she had to. Angelica seemed to have this task in hand.
“After spending all this time in the hotel, working through the issues we’ve found, the ones we haven’t found, there’s really only one thing holding Gardenia back from being a place where people can come and find respite, and from the business side of it being profitable.”
“Oh?” Robin seemed surprised by that.
“And you’re not going to like what that problem is.” Angelica kept herself very still.
Hope would be scared to be sitting on the opposite side of the table from her right now. She could smell the attack coming at them from a mile away, and it wasn’t something that she would want to defend against. Because Angelica would win this one. Hands down, and without much flair.
“So you can either listen to what we have to say, or we can do what we can and know you’re doomed to fail and continue on as you have been.”
The silence was loud.
Hope’s heart thundered so loud that she swore everyone sitting at the table could hear it. The crew probably could with the microphone taped to her chest. The thud thud thud was so ear-splitting. Hope’s skin turned clammy when there wasn’t an immediate response from either Robin or Johnny.
Would they actually bury their heads deeper in the sand than they already were?
She was just about to say something out of that nervous habit of hers to fill the silence always when Angelica spoke up.
“So which is it? Do you want the answers to your problems or would you like to continue on the way you’ve been doing it?” She held her chin up, staring them down.
God, that in and of itself was sexy as hell.
Hope had seen Angelica in similar ways before, but something about this time made it so much better than all those previous times.
She put her hand down on the edge of her chair, her fingers brushing against Angelica’s hip accidentally.
She nearly pulled back in an instant, but Angelica didn’t even move. Perhaps she hadn’t felt it.
“We want to know,” Robin said with a sigh. He shook his head, his face falling. “We’re going to lose this place if we don’t.”
“At least you understand fully what’s on the line.” Angelica’s tone softened, but barely. “But before we go any further, there is one thing that I need to talk to you about first.”
“What’s that?” Robin asked.
“Your treatment of Chef Lawrence.” Angelica flicked her gaze between the two men sitting across from them, who now looked as though they’d just been called into the principal’s office and were about to get scolded or expelled.
“Wh-what about it?” Robin asked, as if he didn’t already know.
Hope nearly scoffed at him. But she managed to hold it in. She pulled her hand up from under the table, accidentally hitting Angelica’s thigh again. Only this time, Angelica drew in a sharp breath and looked at Hope firmly.
Oh, so she had felt it.
Angelica focused back on the men sitting across from them. “Both of you have attacked her, torn her down, undermined her authority and training, and have called her a liar to her face.” She stopped talking.
The list of accusations hung in the air.
Neither one of them spoke to defend themselves.
Perhaps they didn’t expect someone to actually call them out on their bullshit and bullying.
But beyond that—no one had ever stood up for her like this.
Not in any production meeting, not in any casting call, not in any grocery store parking lot where Eva had thrown a tantrum.
Literally no one had defended her to the point that they would sit down and call out the lurkers and gossipers and bullies in front of Hope’s face.
And that was… Hope didn’t even have words for what that was.
“So what do you have to say for your actions?” Angelica followed up.
A shiver ran through Hope, up and down her spine. Her jaw dropped and she stared at Angelica’s profile, the shape of the lines of her face, the way she was so dead focused on them and not on Hope. They weren’t going to get out of this at all, were they?
“Uh…” Johnny went pale.
“Both of you have acted disrespectfully toward her, and I, for one, am sick and tired of listening to you do it.” Angelica pressed her palm flat into the table. “So I ask again, what do you have to say for yourselves?”
“We were wrong,” Robin said finally, his voice wobbling a little. “I was wrong.”
“Yes, we were wrong,” Johnny jumped in and added.
“We didn’t…” Johnny stopped and sighed heavily.
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re incapable of doing this job.
It’s the opposite. I’m the one that pushed us to sign up for the show, and Robin was the one who was hesitant.
I just didn’t realize how much was going to need to change. ”
Hope tensed. Had Angelica really just turned this back around to the one issue at hand? Making them figure out what the problem was for themselves?
“And I’m taking it out on you,” Johnny added, ducking his chin. “I’m sorry. Really. I’m not usually such a dipshit.”
“He’s really not.” Robin pointed at him. But then he softened his features. “I’m sorry, too. I think both of us were surprised by what needs to happen.”
“Wh-which is?” Hope asked tentatively.
At Angelica’s nod, she felt much better having interrupted this process, that she hadn’t thrown them off track but managed to keep it on the right path.
“Us, I guess,” Robin said.
“It is,” Angelica confirmed. “Which leads us straight to where we started. This hotel is primed to thrive and succeed, but you two keep getting in the way of it. This is your fault, and you need to take ownership of that. You’re hindering the process of growth, of success, and you’re keeping yourselves stagnant—all because you’re afraid of change. ”
Again, the silence was so damn loud.
Hope reached down, this time purposely touching Angelica’s thigh on the way. The shift in Angelica’s posture on the chair was enough to tell her that she’d noticed it this time as well.
“You have one option, really,” Angelica continued. “You can either let us lead you through this, and then you can continue to work on your own problems of fearing change after we leave so that you can be successful, or you can stay where you’re at and flounder.”
Robin looked like he’d just shit a brick.
Johnny, however, seemed a little intrigued.
“You have the next sixty seconds to tell us what your answer is because that’ll inform how we move ahead through the rest of the week. We’re not going to keep pouring time and energy into a venture that isn’t going to change.”
Hope leaned forward slightly, just enough to see Angelica’s tongue dash out against her lips. Angelica moved her gaze from the men to Hope, locking their eyes together. Hope had no idea how long they actually stared at each other, but she was lost in the beauty of this woman.
Not just the fact that Angelica stood up for her, defended her, tore down the men who were taunting her right before her eyes, but also the fact that Angelica had done it without question or compromise.
She was drawn back by Robin clearing his throat.
Hope’s entire body was tuned into Angelica’s, and she wasn’t going to let this moment live down.
Robin nodded at them firmly. “We’ll do it.”