“Like a date,” Florence said confidently.
“You want Hope and me to go on a date for filming purposes?” Angelica couldn’t even believe those were the words coming out of Florence’s mouth. “Absolutely not.”
“I told you she wouldn’t like this idea,” Logan said. “What do you suggest, then? Because we need a solution, quickly.”
Angelica paused. Because she had no other ideas. They could do interviews all they wanted but no one would actually be seeing their relationship firsthand, and that was really what would dissuade the bad press they were getting about everything.
“What’s being done about Josef’s leak of confidential reports?” Angelica asked, changing the topic immediately.
“We’re looking into where he got that information,” Logan stated.
Angelica shook her head slowly and rolled her eyes. “In corporate speak that means absolutely nothing. You’re not looking into it. You’re not going to do anything about it. You’re not here to protect me and Hope. You’re here to protect your fucking show!” Angelica slapped her hand onto the tabletop. She’d had enough of this bullshit. She was tired of running into the same roadblocks every five seconds. She was tired of being told that they were doing something about it and then doing nothing. She was just fucking tired of playing pointless games.
“Ange, you know this takes time.”
“I’m tired of waiting.” Angelica pushed herself upward.
“Don’t leave yet,” Florence said, calmly. And something in the way she spoke compelled Angelica to sit firmly back down in her seat. “We all want the same things, Ange. You know that. We want this show to succeed and to continue to be renewed for seasons to come. We want you and Hope to not run into so many problems. But we can’t deny the fact that we’re dealing with a lot of problems.”
She knew that. Of course she did. But she had so much more on her plate that she hadn’t even told them about, and all they could do was tell her this? It was unsatisfactory. And they should know that.
“I was late to filming this week because of your inquisition.” Angelica pointed directly at Logan.
“Not mine,” he corrected, putting his hands in the air. “Trust me, I pushed hard to allow the inquiry to wait because of the allegations and Hope’s miserable interview. They couldn’t put it off—or so they said.”
Angelica wanted to roll her eyes at that one. She wanted to tell Logan exactly what she thought about everything—and… hell, why was she holding back?
“No. I refuse to accept that. They panicked, and they took their panic out on me. And I’ve borne the brunt of this show’s lack of ethics for four fucking years, Logan, and I’m through with it. You can either treat me like an equal, or I’ll leave.” Angelica tensed. She hadn’t meant to take it that far, but everything she said felt exactly right. She would leave. Because it didn’t matter if she had the show or not, she’d still be happy with the life she’d spent years building. She’d just chalk it up to something she’d tried and decided it wasn’t right for her.
“You have a contract,” Florence said.
“I’ll break it.” Angelica focused on her. “No contract is ironclad. And I don’t care about the consequences.” She looked back at Logan. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said, his lips pulling into a slight smile as if he’d been hoping she’d get to this point. She’d have to figure that one out later, because right now, she just wanted to get the hell out of here.
“Good.” Angelica nodded at Florence. “I’ll be back to film in one hour.”
With a rush, Angelica walked out of the room. She didn’t have any use for their nonsense anymore. She was tired of it. All of this bullshit would lead to absolutely nowhere.
“Ange!”
She halted. Angelica held her breath as she stared down the hallway toward Eva who barreled toward her. She waited as the girl skidded to a stop in front of Angelica with the biggest grin on her face, crystalline blue eyes bright with mischief.
“Mom says we’re leaving tomorrow.”
“We are,” Angelica confirmed. And thank fuck for that. Because she wanted to get out of here. She wanted to be done with filming, for at least a little bit. She needed the break.
“I looked up some places to go check out.” Eva pulled up her tablet, the only thing that Hope and Rex would let her have, with very limited access to the internet. Angelica had asked about it at one point, surprised that they hadn’t given her something else to track her down by. “See?”
Eva shoved the tablet in front of Angelica’s face, pointing to the grubby screen. Angelica furrowed her brow, still not entirely sure what she was looking at. It seemed to be a list of stores, but none of them really made sense.
“What is this?” Angelica asked, needing more information before she could make a judgment about what was happening.
“Jewelry stores.” Eva sounded so pleased with herself.
“All right. What are you buying?” Angelica asked again, still trying to dig more information out of a conversation that she was clearly lacking information on.
“I’m not buying anything.” Eva flipped through the list. “This one is closest. We could go tomorrow before our drive.”
