Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
Hope’s shoulders were bent as she stared at the white plate in front of her, showing the chef in the kitchen how to properly swipe the jam across the plate to make it look fancier. It’d scale up their restaurant which would mean they could charge more for the plate itself.
She smiled when the chef attempted and failed to do it.
It was a skill that took practice more than anything. Leaving the practice to those who needed it, Hope stepped back over to the stove and started to pull ingredients to make a small meal for Angelica.
“Hope?” Rex’s voice reached her ears, and she turned around to find him standing near the doorway to the kitchen.
“Yeah?” Hope dropped some butter into the skillet and let it sizzle.
“This is Harold and Christian.” He pointed to the two men who had followed him in.
Seeing Christian, despite the fact that he was at least a foot taller than Angelica, Hope had no doubt that they were related.
Same coloring. Same facial shape. Same baby-blue eyes.
Though his hair had a bit of a reddish tint to the blond that Angelica lacked.
Hope’s heart skipped a beat. They’d invited Rachel to the show, so it’d make sense that they’d invite someone from Angelica’s family.
But she hadn’t said anything.
She wiped her hand on the towel hanging on her apron and held it out for Harold first. He grinned at her easily, and Hope recognized the slight quirk of his lips—higher on one side than the other—and the fact that he shared the same very small dimple that Angelica had.
“You must be Ange’s father,” Hope said, smiling as she grasped his hand. “It’s good to meet you.”
This wasn’t exactly the way she’d thought she’d meet the family, but it was as good as any, she supposed. Hope didn’t miss the cameras that were behind them. This was all for the show, still, and she had to make it worth it.
“And you must be her baby brother.” Hope gave Christian her patented smile and charm. “It’s good to meet you as well.” She shook Christian’s hand and then stepped back. “I’m glad both of you were able to come this week.”
“It’s the only way we get to see her,” Christian commented, looking around the kitchen.
Hope ignored that comment as much as she could. She knew Angelica worked hard, but she also knew that her relationship with her family was strained, though she’d never gotten the full story of how or why. Not that she expected to hear about that now either.
“And still, we’re meeting with you instead of her,” Christian said, still not looking directly at Hope.
Pressing her lips into a thin line, Hope nodded at Harold and decided to try and get him on her good side at least. She wasn’t sure she had any hope with Christian. “Have you been in a commercial kitchen before?”
Harold shook his head. “No. It’s fascinating! There’s so many stations!”
Hope smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
“There are. We have several stations for prep, cooking, final touches, and then a check station. The last one is the warming station before the food goes out to the customer.” Hope walked them through the kitchen, showing off each one like a proud parent.
“LaRae here is the chef for this restaurant, and she’s working on mastering the art of the swipe. ”
Hope showed off LaRae’s latest attempt, which didn’t look half bad. She just needed more consistency with it so she could easily just swipe her hand across the plate and make the design. Not that she was going to point that out to Harold and Christian.
“What are you cooking?” Christian pointed at the skillet Hope had all but abandoned.
She walked back to it and dumped in a little more butter to keep it going. “Filet mignon with a balsamic glaze, some honey and butter roasted asparagus. Normally, I’d make a rosemary potato to go with it.” Hope stopped talking, realizing far too late that she’d said too much.
Christian narrowed his gaze at her, his head jerking up a little before he locked his eyes on her. “This is for Angelica?”
“Yeah,” Hope said, hoping he wouldn’t take it too much further than that.
“Do you make her meals every day?”
Hope flicked a glance to Rex behind the camera. He hadn’t disappeared from the room yet. She shook her head. “No, not every day. Though it’s not hard to add in an extra meal to a day’s schedule, especially if it’s something on the menu.”
“Is this?” Christian pointed to the steak that Hope pressed into the hot skillet to sear.
“Is it what?” Hope’s cheeks burned. What the hell was it about Christian and this conversation that set her off so much?
“On the menu?”
“No,” Hope said, holding her breath. If the lesbian army of social media got ahold of this exchange they would run to hell and back with it. Hopefully Rex would cut it from the final episode.
“So you’re making my sister a special meal because…”
“Because she, like the rest of the world, needs to eat.” Hope flashed him a smile. “And why not give her something delicious in the process?”
Harold laughed lightly and clapped Christian on the shoulder. “She does always get what she wants.”
Christian wrinkled his nose and made a sour look. Hope ignored him as she used the opportunity to flip the steak over in the skillet. It did fascinate her that Christian picked up so quickly on the fact that the lack of potatoes meant the dish was for Angelica.
“You know she’s not actually allergic to potatoes, it’s all for attention.” Christian nearly sneered.
Hope furrowed her brow in his direction because it absolutely was an allergy.
She’d seen it firsthand. “I never judge or second-guess someone when they tell me they have an allergy. The most sacred part about being a chef is recognizing that I have the ability to give someone the greatest amount of pleasure they’ve ever tasted or kill them swiftly. I don’t take that power lightly.”
“You know Lisa has quite the bucket list of allergies.” LaRae said, coming over with her latest plate. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat at the restaurant because of them. Cross contamination could be enough to send her into the hospital for a week.”
“Does she?” Hope looked at LaRae surprised. None of that had come up yet, but then again, she hadn’t actually seen Lisa eat anything in front of her.
“We have EpiPens stashed all over the hotel for her.”
“Huh.” Hope canted her head to the side. “Is there any dish on the menu she can eat?”
“I don’t know.” LaRae put the plate in the sink to be washed after Hope approved it. “I haven’t asked and she hasn’t offered.”
“We’re revamping the menu this week, anyway, so wouldn’t it be a good thing to add in an allergy-friendly section to it?
” Hope used a spoon to baste the steak with melted butter from the pan, halfway looking at what she was doing and looking directly at LaRae and Christian.
“Heck, we could always toss the idea of making the entire restaurant allergy-conscious and -specific. I’d have to look at comps in the area, but I’m not sure I’ve seen one in Tucson. It’s more an LA thing.”
Hope snagged the red wine and the balsamic vinegar and poured them into the pan after reducing the heat.
She basted the steak immediately, making sure that it was covered in the sauce.
She probably should have added in another one for herself, but she wasn’t going to have a chance to eat with Angelica today, despite the fact that she wanted to.
Ever since having that time in California together, Hope just wanted more of it.
She wanted sweet dates and time that didn’t involve work.
That had been interrupted by the investors they were courting and by the fact that Angelica was also a workaholic and had dived back in as soon as she’d woken up in the morning.
On instinct, Hope started to sauté the asparagus, her hands working when her brain was lost in thought.
“That’s not a bad idea, you know.”
Hope started, nearly jumping out of her shoes. She looked up to find Rex standing next to her a curious gaze in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I was just lost in my head.” She smiled and leaned in to kiss him. “What’s not a bad idea?”
“An allergy-focused restaurant. It wouldn’t be hard to do here at all, especially with Lisa being the owner. You should bring it up this afternoon in your scene with Ange. See what she says about it.”
Hope had a feeling she knew how that conversation would go and it wouldn’t easily be in the way Rex wanted. “She probably will think I’m bringing it up for other reasons.”
“What other reasons?” Rex looked confused now, and he pulled away from her, as if this was putting a wedge between them.
“She’s allergic to several different things, so she’ll think I’m bringing it up because of her.” Hope rolled her shoulders. “Ange is a very private person, Rex. She won’t want that.”
“Oh, I thought it was something else.” Rex grimaced and stepped away from her. “Bring it up. Josef will like the tension it creates, but don’t feel like you have to push her on it.”
“Okay.” Hope sighed, her hands hesitating before she basted the steak again. The tension that had entered the conversation between them didn’t go unnoticed, but she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it either.
Pushing that worry to the side, she finished prepping the meal and plated it up, popping a cloche on top of it and grabbing some silverware. One thing that Hope had noticed in the twenty-four hours they’d been there was the lack of room service orders.
“LaRae?” Hope caught the chef’s attention.
“Yes, Chef?”
“How does room service work here? What are the hours? What’s the process when an order is placed?” Hope put her hand on her hip and waited for an answer.
LaRae’s face went slack. “We haven’t had room service in over a year.”
“But I saw a menu in my room.” Hope cocked her head to the side in curiosity. “I’m sure my room isn’t the only one with it in there.” She’d ask the crew later if they had them.
“Right.” LaRae drew in a slow breath. “Kayla pulled room service so there isn’t any anymore.”
“But she didn’t do the legwork to actually end the service.” Hope tensed. She didn’t need LaRae to explain that because she could already guess based on what she knew of this hotel and where the vast majority of their problems stemmed from.
“No.”
“How many calls a day do you get for room service?” Hope pursed her lips.
“Enough.”
“Right.” Hope nodded to no one but herself. They definitely had their work cut out for them here.
She snagged the plate of food and stepped out into the dining room, surprised to find Harold and Christian still there with Rex. Was Angelica ignoring them that much?
Hope bypassed them and walked out of the dining room and toward the conference area that she knew Angelica was likely holed up in, at least for now.
She seemed to do that for the first full day she was at a hotel while she last-minute went through the records and interviewed some of the staff.
Sure enough, Angelica was sitting at a table with her iPad and paperwork in front of her.
“I brought you some lunch,” Hope said, interrupting Angelica’s thoughts.
“Oh!” Angelica’s eyes lit up. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“I figured you needed to eat something because you probably forgot again.”
Angelica’s pink cheeks told her that she had guessed correctly.
Hope put the plate down next to Angelica and then pulled out a chair.
“I found out some interesting information, and I wanted to toss an idea to you before we put it on film. I didn’t want Josef to run away with it before I got a chance to talk to you. ”
“Good thinking.” Angelica pulled the lid off the plate and her lips curled up at the food. “What was it?”
“Kayla got rid of room service over a year ago.”
“She what?” Angelica’s fork froze over the plate with a bite of steak on it.
“I didn’t get out of LaRae why she discontinued the service, but I don’t think she told her parents.”
“The menus are still in the rooms.”
“Yes, I know.” Hope frowned. “We can deal with that in a bit.”
“You mean when Kayla decides to show up for work?” Angelica checked the time on her phone. “She’s officially four hours late.”
Hope hummed. “Sure. I was cooking your lunch, and the conversation of allergies came up. LaRae said that Lisa has fairly severe food allergies.”
“Does she?” Angelica’s voice was tense, which told Hope she’d been right about this being a sensitive topic.
“Apparently. I haven’t talked to her. But if we’re revamping things and redoing the menu, I was wondering if we should make the restaurant an allergy-friendly one. It’d give a nice unique twist which could help with marketing.”
Angelica’s lips pursed. “And you want to make an example of me?”
“No.” Hope shook her head. “No, not at all. I’d like Lisa to be the reason, because it’d be more personal then.” Why were her hands so clammy?
“But this conversation came up because you were making me lunch.” Angelica put the fork down and pushed the plate away from her. “So tell me how I’m not involved as an example of this.”
“No one knows you have allergies, Angel.”
“Except you, and my father and my brother.” Angelica crossed her arms and shook her head. “Do whatever you want, Hope. The restaurant is your territory, not mine.” Angelica turned back to her iPad and stared at it, but she didn’t return to her plate full of food.
“Angel?”
“We have work to do, Hope. I suggest you do yours.”