Chapter 45
Chapter
Forty-Five
“You’re a hard woman to catch.” Logan stepped into Angelica’s office and shut the door behind him.
She stared up at him curiously. They didn’t have a scheduled meeting. In fact, she had no scheduled meetings for the rest of the evening because she was supposed to head straight to Hope’s, despite the late hour. And it was already after nine in the evening.
“I have a lot of work to catch up on after being out filming.” She pointed to her desk which was still littered with papers.
In the last week, she’d been struggling to find a rhythm that would still allow her some semblance of sanity.
The desire to lock herself away in a room with Hope for hours and days was just too damn strong on a good day and on a bad day utterly distracting.
“Ah.” Logan shoved his hands into his pockets and rolled up on his toes.
Angelica stood up and came around the desk. She wasn’t going to get anything else done tonight anyway. Her neck ached from being bent over, and whatever capacity her brain had to function was quickly flying out the window.
“And I’ve been trying to convince a doctor to let me out of this boot early.”
“How’s that going?” Logan had a half smile on his lips as if he already knew the answer.
“Not well,” Angelica said with a sigh. “What can I do for you?”
Logan hummed and nodded toward the chairs near the window. “Let’s sit down.”
“That means bad news.” Angelica hesitated before she followed him.
“Does it?” Logan teased.
Settling onto the chair, Angelica tried to relax as best as she could.
She’d tried to stay out of the personnel issues as much as possible.
She was too tangled with everything going on to reasonably state her opinion on the matter.
And she’d needed the rest of production to have a clear head when they made final decisions.
“First, you should know that we fired Josef.” Logan’s voice was loud and clear.
Goosebumps immediately prickled up on Angelica’s arms and legs. She eyed Logan curiously, not quite believing that they’d actually done that, that someone had taken a step that should have been handled years ago.
“What was the final straw?” Angelica asked, her voice gravely with unrealized emotion.
“There wasn’t any one thing.” Logan crossed an ankle over his knee. “That was part of the issue. It was a combination of continued problems that kept mounting until we finally had to take severe action. I’ll warn you that he’s not very pleased with you at the moment.”
“No, I didn’t expect he would be.” Angelica smoothed her hands over her thighs. She’d dealt with men like Josef before, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something wild about his behavior lately that also put her back up.
“I need to know if he continues to harass you. And I need you to take appropriate action if he does.”
“You mean legal?” Angelica slowly looked at him, blinking as if she wasn’t hearing Logan properly.
“I can’t give you that advice, you know that.” His cheeks were pale though, and he was nodding—whether he meant to or not. Legal action was exactly what he’d meant, and he didn’t mean it within the production or the network. He meant beyond that.
Angelica’s heart fluttered, her stomach twisting.
Did they honestly think that it would continue to get worse?
She would have to prepare better going forward.
Angelica nodded at him, pressing her lips together and saying nothing.
This was something she likely would have to take up on her own, without support from production.
They would eliminate as much drama as possible, which made sense.
She would do the same for any one of the hotels that she ran.
“But I do have some good news,” Logan said, smiling. “The show was renewed for three seasons.”
“Three?” Angelica’s eyebrows rose sharply.
Logan nodded, a cheeky grin on his lips. “I just got the official notice an hour ago and I needed to tell you in person.”
“That’s wonderful news.” Angelica’s stomach tightened again because he hadn’t said anything about her being a part of the upcoming seasons yet. And with everything she’d confessed to him before, she wouldn’t be surprised if he left her out of it.
“It really is.” He chuckled and slapped his knee lightly.
“I was hoping for at least one or two, but to get the go-ahead for three is amazing. And they want to expand it, so we’ll shoot more episodes per season, twice the amount for season four and if that is received well, we’ll triple it for season five. ”
“Twice the amount?” Angelica could barely register what she was hearing.
That would mean at least twice as long on the road, or they’d have to shoot everything in two parts, which might be her preference, honestly.
A nice long break in the middle would suit the entire crew well so they could spend time with family before doing another intense tour of the country.
“Yes.” Logan looked at her curiously. “I have a contract for you.”
“What?” Angelica stilled. She hadn’t been expecting that shift.
“For three seasons.”
“I…” Angelica trailed off, the words dying on her tongue.
“I want you to read it over carefully before you sign it. I’ll email it to you in the morning. Just sit with the news tonight.” Logan reached forward and touched her arm lightly before pulling back. “Production doesn’t want to lose you.”
“I didn’t think…” Angelica paused. “Three seasons?”
“Yes.” Logan smiled at her, eyes crinkling in the corners. “And I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Hope’s condition for signing a new contract was three things.”
“She made demands?” Angelica shuddered, still trying to parse through everything.
“She did. The first that Josef is no longer involved in the project, which was easy since he’d already been removed.”
Angelica’s brain spun wildly. Hope wasn’t someone who demanded. She’d do whatever most people wanted her to because she found it fun. But to negotiate?
“Second that you were her cohost. She refused to sign again if you weren’t involved in the project in the same capacity as before.”
“I’m sorry. Say that again?” Angelica blinked at him wildly. “She insisted on working with me?”
“Yes, she did.” Logan wiggled his foot, hanging off his knee. “She didn’t tell you?”
“We haven’t exactly had a moment to talk, and we’ve been avoiding talking about work and questions we couldn’t answer.” Angelica pushed her shoulders back into the chair. “She really said that?”
“Yes, her second demand, but I think that was probably one of the more important ones.”
“Dare I ask what her third contingency was?” Angelica folded her hands together in her lap, now curious as to what else Hope could have played hard to get for.
“Equal pay.” Logan looked at Angelica directly.
“Hope pointed out that you make less than she does on the show. She thought it was because her name carried weight, when in reality, I think it had more to do with initial negotiations. Regardless, you will make the same as Hope for the rest of the series.”
Angelica went slack-jawed. “Sh-she negotiated a pay raise for me?”
“She did, her signing her contract for renewal was contingent on it.” Logan leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I have to say, Ange, the two of you paired up as a team would easily be a force to be reckoned with, and I think I’m just happy to have caught you off guard in this because that’s to my advantage, not yours.
I don’t expect next time that it’ll be easy. ”
Angelica’s heart pattered. Her ears rang loudly. She hadn’t been expecting this at all. Her fingertips tingled as she stared at him, lips parted in awe.
“So, think about the contract and signing it. I’ll email it tomorrow, like I said, but I wanted to talk to you in person, so you understood where we stood.”
“I’m sorry. What, uh… what consequences will there be?”
Logan canted his head to the side in confusion. “Consequences?”
“For my relationship with Hope?”
“None.” Logan shook his head at her. “We’d like to talk with you two about how to publicly announce it and how to share the information with the rest of the crew before we begin filming—assuming you sign a contract—and put some fail-safe into place. But Ange, we’re all happy for you. That’s it.”
She couldn’t believe it. Her entire life she’d had to fight for what she wanted and deserved, doing all of that work on her own and just scraping for the future to exist, and here she was handed something with so much ease and care that it was foreign.
A family that was happy for a relationship?
She couldn’t even fathom what her parents would say to her being in a relationship with Hope.
She’d have to, because she’d no doubt get a nasty phone call as soon as they went public, but to have those around her, in her immediate vicinity, support her on something?
“Ange? You okay?” Logan asked.
She shook her head, stilling again. “I’m not sure what to say.”
“About what?”
“Any of this.” Angelica looked at him squarely. “I never expected or thought this would be the outcome.”
“Hope did say you’re fatalistic.”
Angelica pinched her face and shook her head. “No, I’m a realist. For most of my life I’ve had to go it alone, Logan. I just—”
“Don’t know what to do when someone’s there to support you?”
Angelica shook her head.
“Or to love you for who you are?”
She shook her head again, her cheeks heating from embarrassment. She was nearly sixty years old. Shouldn’t she know what that felt like? Shouldn’t she have some sort of system in place for that?
Logan drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When I watched the episodes last season with your family, I understood you a lot better than I ever did before.”
“You pitied me,” Angelica shot back.
“At first, perhaps. But when I dug deeper, I realized that you were forced from a very early age to be a silo. And that’s just not fair.” Logan took her hand again, squeezing her fingers tightly. “It’s not right.”