Facing the camera directly, Hope talked into it like she was speaking to the audience on the other side. “I’m not sure how long this food has been rotting in here, but it’s definitely rotten.” She ripped the lid off of a plastic container and nearly puked just from the sight. “You can see the slimy film on the chicken here.” She held the container up to the light so that the camera could pan down. “That takes a while to form.”

  Putting the lid back on, Hope tossed it on the shelf. She went through shelf after shelf in the fridge, finding more and more items that were just absolutely rotten.

  “I hope they haven’t served any of this recently,” she said, glancing around the refrigerator. “There’s nothing in here that’s good to eat.”

  Hope went through the rest of the kitchen before she sighed heavily and stared around at it. “We need to shut this place down for forty-eight hours at least.”

  “What are you doing?” A woman with short hair stepped into the kitchen, a loose t-shirt that was clearly two or three sizes too big for her hanging from her body.

  “I’m going through the kitchen.” Hope furrowed her brow and stared at her. “You must be the chef?”

  “I am.” She put her hands on her hips and glowered.

  “This is uh… Dawn.” Ali raced into the kitchen as if she’d finally caught up with something.

  Hope flicked her gaze to Ali and then focused back on Dawn. “When’s the last time you served a meal out of this kitchen?”

  “Last night.”

  “Seriously?” Hope couldn’t believe it. “Do you know the proper way to store chicken?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what date this went out?” She pointed to the fresh greens on the prep station.

  “Yes.”

  “What date?”

  “Today.”

  Hope narrowed her gaze, looking between Dawn and Ali. “And how does anyone else know that? Since nothing is recorded?”

  “I’m here to tell them.”

  “You’re not here every day.”

  “I run this kitchen.” Dawn put her hands on her hips and glared. “I am this kitchen.”

  Well, here was the problem that Hope hadn’t wanted to deal with. She needed fresh air too, because the scent of rotten food was overwhelming her head. “How many staff do you have?”

  “One.”

  “You have two people working in this kitchen?” Shock rocked through Hope. That would explain a good chunk. She moved her gaze from Dawn to Ali. “You let her have only one other person? How many hours a week is she working?”

  Dawn seemed at least pleased to have that question pointed out.

  “Uh…” Ali’s cheeks reddened. “Eighty?”

  “Closer to a hundred,” Dawn mumbled.

  “All right, you and I are going to sit down about that.” She pointed to Ali. “But you and I are going to sit down about proper food storage and inspection requirements.” Hope clenched her fists hard. “In the meantime, I want you two to clean out every single morsel of food in this kitchen, rotten or not. We’re starting fresh.”

  “What?” Ali’s jaw dropped.

  “Now,” Hope confirmed with a sharp nod. “I need to talk to Ange.”

  Hope pushed her way out of the kitchen, into the dining room, and back through the small hallway, where she stopped. Her stomach was done. She walked down the back of the hallway and stepped out into the fresh air. She barely got a breath in before she doubled over and lost her breakfast all over the brick walkway. She pressed her hand against the wall to hold herself up as she retched again. Her eyes watered from the force of it, a cold sweat settling along the small of her back and goosebumps pricking up on her arms and chest.

  “Justin, stop filming,” Cadence’s voice was gentle.

  Of course they’d gotten that all on camera. And knowing Rex and Josef, they’d keep it in the final cut because it would add to the drama. Hope closed her eyes and tried to catch her bearings. Cadence’s hand against her shoulder was soothing.

  “Take your time,” Cadence said. “That was disgusting.”

  The last thing Hope wanted was to think about that kitchen. She could typically handle things like that better, but she’d been feeling off all morning, and she was fairly sure it was because of filming with Angelica again. The stress and pressure had only added up until it’d finally taken its toll on her.

  “I’ll be fine in a minute,” Hope muttered.

  “Let me get you some water.” Cadence disappeared.

  Finally alone, Hope breathed out heavily. She raised her hands to her face and wiped away the tears in her eyes. She hated puking. Though, to be fair, she was certain no one liked the experience. She slowly straightened her back, letting the breeze reach her cheeks and cool the burning in her skin. She would take as much time as she needed. Screw filming. This wasn’t about just not throwing up again, it was about making sure that she was actually ready to film season three.

  She thought she’d been ready, but seeing Angelica that morning with Cadence—she hadn’t been prepared at all.

  “Here.” Cadence handed over a bottle of water.

  Hope twisted the cap, filled her mouth, swished it around, and then spit it out. She still said nothing. She had nothing to say because if she let her tongue run wild, she’d make accusations that would get all of them in more trouble than was necessary.

  “Thanks,” Hope mumbled as she took a long sip and drank. It was exactly what she needed. “What’s Ange doing?”

  “Uh, I think she’s waiting on you to film introductions.”

  Hope nodded. “I need to talk to her.”

  Spitting out another mouthful of water, Hope headed inside to find Angelica. When she rounded the corner and made her way into the main lobby and reception area, she was glad to find Angelica standing right in front of the desk that looked like it was straight out of the seventies. She had her iPad up and was reading something on it, but no one else was talking to her.

  “Ange!” Hope called, getting her attention. “We have a problem.”

  “We have a lot of problems,” Angelica said, still not looking up from her iPad.

  “No, this one’s bad.” Hope set the water bottle down heavily on the counter. Angelica jumped from the sound. Hope looked at her curiously, but didn’t comment on the move. The only time Angelica had been jumpy like that had been when they were in Las Vegas, which had been reasonable. “I need help.”

  “You’re fully capable of handling a kitchen on your own.”

  “Ange!” Hope’s voice rose sharply.

  Angelica finally looked up and met Hope’s eyes.

  “Listen to me.” Hope leaned in closer, clasping her hand around Angelica’s wrist and pushing the iPad away from her so she couldn’t look at it. She needed Angelica to understand her, to hear her. “We weren’t prepared to come in here. Melissa and Ali kept a whole lot from us, and we’re not prepared.”

  “You’ve handled worse, Hope. I’ve seen you do it. So handle this.”

  “I. Can’t.” Hope clenched her jaw tightly. “There’s no staff. There’s no standards. They have their chef working nonstop. The poor woman probably sleeps here. I can get the kitchen running in a week, but I can’t train staff at the same time.”

  Angelica pursed her lips, looking directly at Hope. “Grow the hell up, Hope. Figure it out. You’re a boss. You’re a restaurant owner. Stop looking to other people to solve your problems.”

  Hope tightened her grasp on Angelica’s wrist, wanting to fire back at her. But she couldn’t tell if that last comment had been about the hotel they were trying to fix up, or if it was about Hope’s personal life. Either way, it was a brutal insult. Hope breathed slowly, leaning in even more so that she was nearly nose-to-nose with Angelica. “We have to work together to fix Harbour Inn” —she made sure to emphasize the name so that Angelica would know what she was talking about— “otherwise we’re never going to manage to set them straight.”

  Angelica snorted lightly. “I have my own problems to solve, Hope. I don’t have time to deal with yours.”

  Angelica stepped back, putting space between them, but Hope followed her. She wasn’t going to let this go. “No. We need to do this together.”

  “No, we don’t. We need to divide and conquer.” Angelica crossed her arms and glared fully at Hope. “I trust your abilities. I trust you know what you’re doing. Trust yourself.”

  Hope paused, canting her head to the side. She flicked her gaze over Angelica’s shoulder, cursing under her breath when she saw Sy standing there with a camera pointing in her direction, then to Justin who also had his camera pointed at them. Was this all for show? Was this all for the ratings?

  Josef wove his way through, and Hope locked her gaze on him. He moved his hands in front of him, moving them in a circle as if he was trying to get her to continue the argument. This was exactly what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Up the tension? Up the conflict? Fuck, Hope had just played right into his hands when she hadn’t wanted to.

  “It’s not that I can’t do it by myself. It’s that we’re doing this as a team. We’ve always been a team.” Hope bit the inside of her cheek, wanting Angelica to understand the subtext. But Angelica was so dense sometimes, that she wasn’t sure she was making a dent in her thick skull. “We do these things together.”

  “Not this time,” Angelica fired back, her voice far calmer than it had been before. “This time, we divide and we conquer.”

  Why did she keep saying that?

  “I need to talk to you.” Hope took Angelica by the arm and walked directly toward the small staging area that they had. She shut the door, out of the view of crew and cameras, and turned on Angelica. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “With me?” Angelica’s lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Yes! Do you want this show to continue or not? Because we need to make sure that we get renewed. We’re the ones all of this is relying on. And you’re just shutting me out!” Hope fisted her hands and put them on her hips.

  Angelica set her iPad heavily on the table and leaned against it, crossing her arms. “You want to be renewed again?”

  “Yes! This crew relies on us.” Hope frowned, not sure where Angelica was going with this.

  Cocking her head to the side, Angelica stood up slowly and took her iPad again. “I can’t do this again.”

  And she walked out of the room.

  “Can’t do what again?” Hope stood there, frozen on the spot.

  Had Angelica meant the show? A fourth season? Had she meant the relationship? The arguments? The tension? The conflict? What the hell had she been talking about? Hope’s heart raced. But she didn’t leave the room. The silence was so loud, and it rushed through her ears like a roaring wind.

  The knock on the door startled her. Cadence popped her head in and seemed relieved to find Hope still there. “You doing okay?”

  “No.” Hope sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose. This was all too much. Between Rex and Eva and Angelica, Hope didn’t stand a damn chance of surviving this season if this was how it was going to go. A hell of her own making for sure.

  “Is it always like this?”

  “Like what?” Hope bit her lip and tried to center herself, focusing on Cadence and her questions.

  “Intense.”

  Laughing, Hope nodded. “Oh yeah. You’ll learn pretty quickly that anything involving Angelica Shields is intense.”

  “Right.” Cadence glanced over her shoulder. “They want to film the introductions.”

  “Now?” Hope asked, disbelief seeping into her voice.

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine.” Hope shook out her hands and took one more steadying breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Chapter

  Seven

  “Talk to me about Dawn.” Angelica leaned against the front reception desk and stared Melissa down. She managed to get most of her information from Melissa, not Ali, which was a shift in the way she’d thought everything would go.

  “Dawn?” Melissa frowned and continued to click away at her computer. “She’s part of the family.”

  Angelica clenched her jaw tightly. She hadn’t expected that response. What she was looking for was something more material. Was she good at her job? Did she have the skills to actually run a kitchen? But every time she asked Melissa for information, she had to drag it out of her.

  “What’s her experience in kitchens?”

  Melissa flicked her gaze up to Angelica and shook her head. “She worked in a kitchen for twelve years before we hired her.”

  “Twelve years? Doing what?” Hope had implied in a late-night conversation after the kitchen had been cleaned out that Dawn hadn’t had chef experience.

  “When she was inside.”

  “Inside?” Angelica furrowed her brow, tapping her fingers on the top of the reception desk. When Melissa didn’t immediately answer, it hit Angelica exactly what she wasn’t saying. “You mean prison?”

  “Yes.”

  Angelica bit her lip. They were going to have to handle the way they talked about this very carefully. “And you hired her because of that experience?”

  “She had twelve years working in a kitchen.”

  Angelica sighed heavily. Yes, Dawn had experience working in a kitchen, but it wasn’t a high-end kitchen, and she certainly hadn’t been in charge. And, as much as Angelica hated to admit it, the standards in a kitchen in prison and one outside of prison were vastly different.

  “What kind of training has she had beyond that?”

  “None.” Melissa turned back to the computer and flicked through something on it.

  Angelica cringed. Why was this such a struggle? It was a hotel outside their normal range of income, not high-end at all, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t fix it. Angelica pressed her fingers into the top of the counter. “I’d like you to meet with the site manager who’s going to be working on the renovation of the rooms this afternoon. We’ll start with the upper floors and work our way down. And then we’ll overhaul this area.”

  “I can do the work,” Melissa shot back, a glare in her gaze.

  “I’m sure you can.” Angelica treaded carefully. “But to get it done in a week is a big job. Why not take the help when you can get it?”

  “Because I’m not stupid, and I know how to do my job.”

  Angelica’s chest constricted. “No one’s calling you stupid, Melissa. In fact, I think quite the opposite.” Melissa managed to run a construction business perfectly fine without help. It was the hotel side of things that she struggled with, which probably came down to hospitality. That wasn’t something Melissa seemed particularly adept at, and probably why she’d partnered with Ali. The problem was, Ali was nowhere to be seen. She really only showed up toward the tail end of the day to collect Melissa and head on home.

  “I don’t need to be patronized.”

  “Are you defensive about everything someone says?” Angelica squared her shoulders. “Not once have I insulted you and yet you seem to think everything I say is an insult. Melissa, I think you’ve done amazingly well with what you’ve had and the knowledge you have. But you haven’t had the training to run a hotel. It’s not a construction business. You can’t just order people around and make them work long hours. Think about it like this. A construction site has strict rules, right? You have to follow regulations, safety precautions, you have to have inspections and more, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “So does a kitchen. So does a reception area, and housekeeping. You have none of that. And not because you don’t know how to do it, but I don’t think you thought that you needed it here. The standards have to be just as high here.” Angelica shook her head in disbelief. “Do you hear what I’m saying? You’re not stupid. You’re just ill-equipped, and all I’m trying to do is give you the skills and knowledge that you need to make Harbour Inn thrive.”

  Melissa held her breath. Angelica counted to three and was just about to speak again when Melissa dropped her chin in a nod. “All right. Teach me.”

  “Good.”

  “And cut!” Rex clapped his hands loudly. “That was fantastic, Ange!”

  Angelica blew out a breath, leaning heavily on the counter to hold herself up. She had nearly forgotten that there were cameras surrounding them, that people from all over the world would be tuning in and watching what she’d just said. Because she hadn’t done it for the views. She’d done it because Melissa needed to hear it.

  Her knees were weak, and she felt like she was going to fall over. Surely it was just because of adrenaline that conversation had required from her. She straightened herself and focused on Rex, but her skin was clammy. She felt like she was going to pass out.

  “I need you to go have that chat with Hope.”

  “What?” Angelica breathed heavily, looking up and finding Josef’s dark eyes staring at her. She had to blink three times just to focus on him.

  “Talk to Hope about Dawn.”

  Angelica breathed slowly, loosening her grip on the counter as she found her feet again. She felt steady enough to let go after a few more seconds, though her knees were still jelly. “Why would I talk to Hope about Dawn?”

  “Because she’s part of the kitchens.” Josef shook his head in bewilderment. “Because it’ll add to the drama.”

  There was the Josef she’d come to know. The one always concerned about drama and ratings. Angelica pursed her lips and nodded. She really didn’t want to talk to Hope, but it was better to be in Hope’s presence than his. She still hadn’t gotten over the end of last season and the shit he’d pulled then.

  Angelica said nothing as she walked out of the main lobby area and into the small hallway that connected the hotel building to the restaurant. That awkward connection was a problem that she hadn’t quite figured out how to resolve yet. It was one she probably needed to talk to Hope about, but she hadn’t wanted to do that either.

  Hope was sitting at one of the larger tables with Dawn and the one other kitchen staff member. Angelica couldn’t for the life of her remember the man’s name. Her brain hadn’t been working well lately. They had papers strewn out in front of them, and everyone had their heads bent as if they were studying.