Angelica jumped in. “She was going to release that one first and then shift into other forms of promotional filming while we were in production and then back to the cooking-with-Hope shorts post-production.”
“I’m aware of Cadence’s plan.” Florence shook her head slowly. “But I’m not convinced it’ll work, and I don’t want to put you two into working overtime just for marketing purposes.”
Well that was a change from Josef, who didn’t seem to care how many hours they worked or how much sleep they got the night before. He was all about putting them into situations that would get them into trouble.
“I like to have as much structure as possible,” Florence added. “That way when we get into the mess of filming, we can be flexible when necessary but we’ve already planned for the majority of what can go wrong.”
Hope liked the sound of that. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “So you’re going to limit the hours we spend filming?”
“As much as I can, yes.”
Hope looked directly at Angelica. That would make their lives so much easier if it truly was the case. It’d give her more time with Angelica off the clock, and more time to spend with Eva, which would hopefully ease the anxiety that Eva felt any time they left for filming. When she’d been in Italy, she was glad Rex had been there with her. It had taken both of them to get Eva through that filming.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Angelica said. “The number of issues we’ve been woken up for in the middle of the night or had to stay up late to resolve are large. And I don’t want you to promise Hope that she’ll be in bed by ten every night when we all know full well that she won’t be.”
“Of course not. But if she stays up late to film something, she can have a late start. That’s what I mean by adjusting.”
It all sounded particularly delicious, but Hope was with Angelica on this one. It sounded completely unrealistic at the same time. Still, she wasn’t going to put her finger on that.
“Outside of scheduling, what did you both want to keep from the first few seasons and what do you want to do away with?” Florence folded her hands and stared at both of them, as if she would sit there all day until she got an answer. Hope had seen that tactic before, from Angelica, and she was ready to applaud it.
“I want to keep the tension,” Hope said. “Not just the angry tension, but the work tension, the sexual tension. I think it plays well for our audience.”
Angelica paled at that last comment.
“While I tend to agree with you, I’m not sold on the sexual tension. This show isn’t about the two of you. It’s about fixing hotels and restaurants to make them viable.”
Angelica frowned at that, but she didn’t say anything. And Hope wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to try to jump into the conversation again either, not after being shut down like that. Florence waited for more, but both of them remained silent, as if their mutual agreement to say nothing had taken hold and neither one of them was going to back down from it.
After thirty more minutes of discussion, Florence wrapped up the conversation and excused herself. Angelica shut the office door behind her, leaving the two of them alone in the room, her eyes glued to Hope.
“Well, she’s a bag full of giggles,” Hope said, dryly.
“She’s come in with a plan, I’ll give her that.” Angelica crossed her arms and then sat on the edge of the conference table, right next to Hope. “She has a mess to clean up because of Josef. It’s important she starts before filming to make sure that people understand where she’s coming from and how she’s going to run the ship.”
“That doesn’t mean she has to be a bitch about it.”
“She’s not.” Angelica canted her head and looked directly at Hope. “Why would you think she was a bitch?”
“She’s not.” Hope rolled her eyes. “She’s just… rigid. Rules this. Rules that.” Hope frowned. “It’s never going to work.” Hope’s cheeks heated.
“Do you like her?”
“What?” Hope snapped her gaze up to meet Angelica’s eyes. “Why would you say that?”
Angelica held her gaze, not moving an inch. Hope’s heart thumped hard.
“Are you going to answer that?”
“No.” Angelica crossed her arms tightly across her chest. “When do you need to go back?”
Hope sighed heavily and glanced at the clock. “I need to leave in twenty.”
Angelica nodded and then bent down, pressing their mouths together. Hope hummed, curling her fingers around the back of Angelica’s neck and holding her even closer. Now this was something she could get on board with. It might be a long season of filming and getting used to Florence, but at least she’d be able to do this every night.
“Think we’ll survive this season?” Hope asked.
“Because of Florence?” Angelica raised her eyebrows.
