“Fine.” Angelica clenched her jaw tightly. She wasn’t even sure why she was fighting back on this one so much. She and Hope had found a much better balance of working together in the last season, and the arguments that came up were often small and easily fixed. Though usually it was Angelica pushing her weight around. But something about the way Florence was pushing this on her didn’t feel good.
“You ready, Ange?” Rex stepped inside, and flicked his gaze from Angelica to Florence.
“Are we done?” Angelica asked, focusing back on Florence.
“So long as we have an understanding.”
“We do.” Angelica pursed her lips again, and without waiting a beat, she snagged her iPad and walked toward Rex.
He put his hand on the small of her back as he guided her away from the conference room and walked toward the front reception area. “What was that about?”
“She wants Hope and me to fight less.”
Rex snorted. “That’s the complete opposite of Josef.”
“It is. But have you ever known Hope not to argue?” She looked over her shoulder at him and raised her eyebrows in his direction. “Especially if she really thinks she’s right.”
“Nope.” Rex’s lips quirked into a tight smile. “I’d say good luck to you on that one, but I feel like I should be saying it to her instead.”
Angelica chuckled lightly. “No doubt.” She breathed deeply and sighed as they positioned themselves near the reception desk. “Where are we starting today?”
“We’ll do the introductions this afternoon with you and Hope. First, I wanted to get the introductions and interviews with the owners and managers.”
Angelica nodded to herself, taking a few notes on her iPad. “Rex?”
“Yeah?” He stepped closer to her.
Looking up into Rex’s eyes, Angelica wrinkled her nose. “You smell that, right?”
“Everyone smells it. I’ve already put Lyric on trying to figure out what it is.”
“Lyric.” Angelica’s tone dropped. “Why Lyric?” The last thing she wanted was for her personal assistant—who she paid, not the production—to be tasked with extra jobs that she didn’t have to do.
“She was already working on it, I guess.” Rex shrugged slightly. “She volunteered, trust me. I didn’t seek her out.”
“Fine.” Angelica would talk to Lyric about that later. Looking around reception, she took shallow breaths to try and avoid smelling whatever it was that was bugging her. But it was next to impossible, honestly. It filled her pores and wouldn’t leave her alone. “When will Hope and I film outside of introductions?”
“Tomorrow unless something comes up. Florence has already given us a script for it.”
“She what?” Angelica furrowed her brow and stared directly at him. “When?”
“It’s in your email. She sent it out this morning.” Rex tapped her iPad screen to pull up Angelica’s email and then tapped on the one from Florence to open it. “It’s right here.”
Angelica held her breath as she opened the PDF and scrolled through it. Not only was this scripted, but it had what actions they were supposed to take and everything, for the next five days. Angelica tensed.
“She’s organized,” Rex said.
“That’s one way to put it,” Angelica murmured.
“We all have to make adjustments when a new leader comes in, you of all people should know that.” Rex put a hand on Angelica’s elbow. “She’ll expect you to memorize the script every night so that we have smooth filming from there.”
“She said it’d be more scripted than before, but she didn’t specify it’d be like this.” Angelica looked around the reception area wildly. “Are we just supposed to know what all of the problems are when we show up at each hotel?”
Rex shrugged slightly. “There will be changes to the script.”
“Rex…” Angelica sighed heavily. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can.” He smiled at her, lips turning upward, but it came off as patronizing and Angelica hated it. “It just takes some adjustment.”
