“Sure. Be right there.” She disconnected before Chat had time to ramble on about things he was going to tell her once she got to his room anyway, and pushed from the table. “The master has summoned.”
“Whatever.” Brook covered the food with the foil it had come in, her grumpy face on. “Don’t forget about your Twitter drop at one thirty. I already posted it, so you can’t back out. I’ll lay out your clothes and be here at one to do your hair and makeup and make sure you’ve eaten more of this before we leave.”
Giselle smiled, picked up room keys off a side table, then turned to hug Brook. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Brook pulled back and smiled. “Good thing you’ll never have to find out.”
Giselle was feeling a little lighter as she wandered to the next suite and used the extra key to enter.
“Hey,” she called, stepping in and closing the door behind her. “What’s—oh.”
She stopped short at the sight of a second man in the room, sitting with Chad on the sofa—Jeff Michel.
Shit.
“I’m sorry.” Her gaze jumped to Chad, and she wondered how much the director had told him. “I thought you wanted to talk now. I’ll just come back—”
“No, no. I do want to talk to you now, but I would have told you to jump into something pretty if you hadn’t hung up on me.” He gestured to the director sitting beside him. He was in his fifties, wearing a tweed blazer over jeans and cowboy boots. “You remember Jeff Michel.”
Suddenly self-conscious in her sweats, her hair up in a knot, no makeup on, she crossed her arms but approached him with a smile and held out her hand. “Of course. I’m so sorry about my appearance—”
“Not at all. My daughter lives in nothing but sweats.”
He stood and shook her hand, his smile wide, his manner easy. That should have relaxed her, but it didn’t. She felt like a gazelle waiting for a lion to leap out of the tall grass.
“Sophie, right?” Giselle grinned and slipped on her professional veneer. One she used so often, it fit like a calfskin glove. “I think I signed a picture for her.”
“Right, and she loved it, thank you. I think my ears are still popping from the squeal she let out when I gave it to her.”
Giselle laughed. “How old is she?”
“Sixteen going on twenty-eight.”
“Have a seat, Giselle,” Chad said. “Jeff’s brought us a very interesting offer.”
“An offer. That’s a surprise.” She perked up as her mind started connecting dots. Offer plus movie director could equal the possibility of writing music for another film. Or, even better, writing and singing music for an animated production. As a girl, she’d fallen asleep every night for years fantasizing she was Ariel, Snow White, or Cinderella, and as she’d gotten older, dreamed of singing for a Disney or Pixar film.
She took a chair across from the sofa and curled her bare feet underneath her.
“Go ahead, Jeff,” Chad said. “I think you’ll explain the project better than I can.”
He nodded, then focused on Giselle, growing intent and serious. “It seems we have a relationship—or two—in common.”
Oh shit.
Her balloon of excitement popped, and she physically fought to keep her smile on.
“I’ve been good friends with Matt Sullivan for years. We worked on countless projects together before he bailed on movie production and started working on music videos. We had lunch yesterday, and I mentioned the mixer where I met you. He told me he was producing your music video and couldn’t stop talking about how professional and talented you are in front of a camera.”
The bubbles in her mind holding Arial, Snow White, and Cinderella popped, one by one.
“That’s great to hear.” Giselle kept a smile on her face, but her shoulders tightened with every new connection within this very small world of entertainment.
“And it got me thinking about the other relationship we have in common—Troy Jacobs.”
Oh my God.
Alarm tingled through her belly.