She couldn’t figure it out.
They’d been cordial at one point, for years. They’d worked together well for a few years. And then she came to work for him instead of as a contractor and that’s when everything had gone to absolute shit.
“You want to what?” Rex asked.
“I want to be left alone,” Angelica finally said. She didn’t specify about what, but she was fairly certain that Rex would be able to figure it out.
“I get it, Ange. It’s hard to be in the limelight. It’s especially hard to be in it when everything is so negative, and when you have someone who’s specifically targeting you for an attack.” Rex’s face fell. “I wish I could do something about Josef. I wish I had done something sooner about him. Then maybe it wouldn’t have escalated to this point.”
“I’m not convinced of that.” Angelica tightened again before she relaxed. “He feels some kind of possessiveness over me, I know that. But I never thought he’d take it this far. I never imagined…” Angelica blinked away tears, closing her eyes and steadying herself again. She shouldn’t be getting this emotional, and certainly not with Rex. “I’ll be fine. I just need a few minutes.”
What she really needed was a few hours or even a day. But she knew that she didn’t have the production time for that.
Rex nodded slowly, standing there in silence. He looked around them before settling back on her again. “Right, so about the script, since that’s a problem I can actually solve, throw it out the window.”
“What?” Angelica furrowed her brow and straightened her back instantly in surprise.
“Throw it out. It’s blocking you. You’re not a natural actor in any capacity, and I think Florence didn’t realize that when she wrote this up. It’s not in your nature to try and fool people. Just go in there and start training Colm like you’ve always done. Let me deal with Florence.”
Angelica narrowed her gaze at him, not entirely sure what to say or do about that. “We agreed in LA that we were going to do this scripted toprotecteveryone from the chaos?—”
“Yeah. And we can tell her that we tried it, and it’s just not working.” Rex waggled his eyebrows at her. “She’s out with Hope today, and not on-site, so it’s the perfect day to run with this. We can deal with her later instead of trying to tackle it head on while we’re filming.”
Angelica’s stomach clenched, and she stared wide-eyed at Rex. Once again, he was just trying to help her, to keep her together long enough so that they could get the work done and the episode filmed. This was the Rex that Hope had fallen in love with, Angelica was sure of it, and she could see why. He waskind, compassionate, and loving, and he was in tune with what was going on around him.
“I can’t have a relationship with another showrunner like I did with Josef.”
“Florence isn’t Josef.” Rex eyed her seriously. “And you need to stop thinking that she is.”
Angelica paused, her chest hurting from just how damn tense she was. “She might be a different person, Rex, but her mode of operation is the same. She’s here to control what we do and what we don’t do in order to make this show the best that it can be.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. Florence is here to workwithus to make this show the best that it can be. I don’t think she’s locked in on having a script for us to follow. I don’t think she’s going to force you to do it either. I think she’s trying new things out to keep the drama as minimal as possible based on what we’ve previously been through.” Rex nodded at her. “And you might know that if you’d get your head out of your ass when it came to her and actually hear what she said.”
Angelica hated being called out. But he wasn’t entirely wrong. Ever since they’d arrived in New York, Angelica had struggled with Florence. Because she automatically saw Florence asthe enemy, as the person who was to lord over all of them until they did what she wanted them to do.
“I’ll be back in there. Just give me two minutes.”
“Two minutes, Ange, and that’s it.” Rex pointed at her. “And we’re throwing the script out.”
“Fine.” She turned on her toes and walked toward the bathroom. She just needed two minutes of silence to sort everything out because this shouldn’t be as messy as it felt.
Chapter
Eleven
“Thanks for getting coffee with me.”Hope sipped from the paper cup in her hand, flicking her gaze over the small cafe table to meet Rex’s eyes.
“Sure.” He shrugged his shoulders slightly and still barely looked at her.
Filming this season had been so different. Florence had told them they’d have more time, but as the days wore on Hope felt as though she had even less time. Or perhaps it was just that every time she’d tried to sit down and have a conversation with Angelica, there hadn’t been time. So here she was, with her ex-husband sitting across from her instead of her girlfriend. And really, they all needed to talk together and get a handle on how they were going to deal with this situation.
“I wanted to make sure that you were doing okay after yesterday.” Hope worried her lower lip between her teeth, spinning the cup between her fingers. The last thing she probably needed was more caffeine to set her nerves on fire, but she had ordered it automatically.
“I’m fine,” Rex said tersely.
That meant he wasn’t. Hope sat back in the chair, looking around the small cafe. They had thirty minutes to talk before they needed to get back to the set for filming, and she didn’t exactly want to waste the first chunk of it trying to convince him to talk to her.
“I never meant for you to see it. Hell, I didn’t exactly want to see it either.” Hope folded her hands together in her lap, trying to keep them calm and steady. “I’m so sorry.”
