“Josef was where the problems stemmed from.” Hope clenched her hands together tightly.
“Not all of them,” Angelica stated quietly. “He was the root cause of a lot of them, but we can’t blame everything on him.”
Hope’s stomach twisted with bile. Was Angelica really defending that man?
“You and I didn’t get along for at least half a season in the beginning, remember?”
“Yes, but we’re fine now.” Hope pressed her lips together hard. They weren’tfinebut they at least understood how to work together to keep the challenge to a minimum.
Angelica cocked her head to the side, and Hope knew she was in for it. Angelica disagreed with her statement, and she’d be hearing about that later. Oh well, she’d enjoy that conversation.At least it’d be Angelica talking to her and hopefully in the same room as her again.
“I’m under the impression that Josef liked to keep the tension high on set for the purposes of ramping up drama for each episode.” Florence’s gaze bounced between them as if she was trying to figure out what she was missing. Hope was curious just how long it’d take her, because as much as Angelica wanted to keep their relationship under wraps, she wasn’t sure that it would be possible.
“He did.” Hope bit her lip and looked directly at Angelica. “And he didn’t take kindly when we thwarted his efforts either.”
Florence hummed and nodded. “I can understand that. He has quite the reputation…”
Hope was curious about that. She honestly hadn’t heard much about Josef before filmingHotel Bombshell. All the complaints she’d heard about the show had to do with Angelica, and as was proven, those complaints had been false. While Angelica was a bit icy—or an Ice Fairy, as Hope liked to still think of her as sometimes—she wasn’t purposely mean just to get a thrill out of it.
“What reputation?” Angelica asked.
“For putting people in positions they can’t see a way out of.” Florence made direct eye contact with Angelica. “But I won’t be doing that. Everything I’ll do on set will be consensual. If we want drama, then I’ll talk to both of you first. If I want an argument, then we’ll manufacture it.”
“That sounds rather scripted,” Hope stated.
“It is.” Florence sighed a little. “But I’ve found that the more scripted something is then the more stable the show can be.”
Hope wasn’t entirely sure that she agreed with that, but she’d have to deal with it. She didn’t have a say if Florence was the showrunner or not, and while she’d usually talk to Angelica about it, she should probably instead talk to Logan if she had anissue. Angelica was right about one thing. They did need some hard boundaries when it came to work.
“Some of our more popular moments in the show are things we’ve said off the cuff.” Angelica flicked her stylus back and forth between her fingers.
“I understand that, and I’m not opposed to having those moments still be in the final edits of each episode. But I prefer to run a much tighter ship.”
Hope directly looked at Angelica. Maybe getting rid of Josef hadn’t been the best thing. Or perhaps, just replacing him with Florence hadn’t been a wise decision. Angelica hadn’t wanted the job, especially with buying Mountain View during the break and with her relationship with Hope already building, but that didn’t explain that this was the better choice of the two.
“So here’s how it’s going to work. We’ll be having a meeting every morning to discuss the ins and outs of each day. This meeting will involve you two, me, Logan when he’s around, and Rex and Cadence as the main directors on set. We’ll make a detailed plan of what’s going to be shot and how we’re going to do it. Then we’ll get to work for the day, and be done when the schedule is finished.”
Hope bit her lip and held her breath. “And if something happens after hours?”
“Something like what?” Florence blinked at Hope.
“I’m sorry to say it like this, but have you watched the show?”
“Yes.”
“And you think that there weren’t things that happened outside of normal operating and business hours?” Hope pressed her fingertips into the conference table. “Because sometimes you can’t predict when the drama will break out and you just have to go with it.”
“That’s a major part of why we stay on-site, amongst other reasons,” Angelica added in.
Florence’s lips thinned into a single lip. Hope eyed her carefully. There was something about Florence that was super familiar to her, something that put a part of her in the mood to trust, even though Florence was coming off as demanding and harsh.
“A lot of things have happened after hours,” Hope said.
“Right, like these cooking shorts that Cadence has dreamed up.” Florence dashed her tongue across her lips and pushed her hair over her shoulder. “I wanted to talk to both of you about them. They seem to be doing well for marketing purposes, but I don’t want you to be filming them while we’re in the hotels. If you want to do them here, that’s one thing, but beyond that, let’s keep it to Los Angeles.”
Hope wrinkled her nose. “I think Cadence wanted to film one in New York, but that was the last one. As a way to connect to the start of filming.”
Florence nodded.
