Her face crumpled. “I’m going to miss you.”
Something broke inside me and I threw my arms around her.Bex.“I’ll miss you more.” Miles away in a strange country, new workplace, enduring it all without her by my side. I’d truly be alone. “My visa lasts for three months, max. I won’t be gone forever.”
Bex chuckled weepily. “Never mind me, how is Lin going to manage without you for that long?”
I pulled away to look her in the face. “She’s made it very clear I must return the second I can. At any rate, RJ has a meeting with the acquisitions head at the studio in five weeks and the script needs to be done before then.”
Bex nodded. “Five weeks. Okay.”
“Five weeks to change my life,” I echoed.
Bex snorted and flopped onto the bed. “This whole thing sounds like a movie. Is there one about an endearing orphan surviving the mean streets of New York?”
I fixed her with a stare. “Seriously?”
“Kidding.” She laughed. “Even I know aboutAnnie.”
“Annie is an actual orphan, not a technical one like me,” I said as I focused on shoving more socks into my case. My mother, Emma, had been just seventeen when she gave birth to me so her mum, my dearly missed Nana Kath, had raised me when Emma subsequently decided parenting wasn’t her forte. “Anyway,” I said, “aside from the cousin invasion, how’s the wedding planning?”
Bex rolled her eyes. “I want to elope. In fact, I’d rather put off getting married completely and get into the house first, but Dan’s mum is all kinds of scandalized about that order of things.”
“You mean, you’re going to live in sin?” I gasped, clutching imaginary pearls.
“I’d like to!” she yelped. “As much as I love a good party,weddings are money pits. I’d much rather spend what we have on the perfect house. There’s this mango wood sideboard I’ve seen at Arhaus … Oh my days. Forget a fancy dress and designer heels!”
“Well, when I’m back, count me in for dress shopping or furniture shopping.” I smiled. “Either one. Or both.”
“Concentrate on this opportunity,” Bex ordered. “Not me.”
“I will,” I said. “This is RJ. He’s, like, important. And I’m a nobody. Why does he think that I of all people can get his script into shape?”
“Because he read your report and saw how amazing you are?”
“Analyzing a script is one thing,” I said. “Editing a script is something else. I’ve not done it since uni.”
“You’ll have help though, right?” Bex asked. “His assistant or something?”
“Apparently RJ wrote the script with some help from his long-time assistant, Elliot,” I said. “Seems I’ll be working with him for the most part.”
“There you go. You’ll figure it out,” Bex assured me.
“Lin has made it very clear I’ll lose my job if I don’t live up to expectations.”
“Lin Temper can get stuffed,” Bex scoffed. “You’ve had maybe one measly pay rise the entire time you’ve been her assistant? Meanwhile, you send RJ a single email and he’s flying you out to New York.” She took the T-shirt I was fiddling with and folded it neatly. “Do you know where you will be staying?”
“RJ’s production company retains a serviced apartment,” I said. “They keep it on hand for visiting execs and things. I’m being put up there.”
“So, tell me something. RJ has a production company of hisown where he makes lots of things, and he’s writing a script … Why does he need a studio to get his script made into a film?” Bex asked. “Can’t he just do it himself? He must be loaded.”
“No, I mean, he is loaded.” I’d seen RJ’s invoices for the jobs we’d secured him. More money than I’d ever dreamed of possessing. “But it’s, like, the number one rule in filmmaking, don’t self-finance.”
“Too risky?”
“Yeah,” I said. “The film he wants to make isepic.It needs a big budget and a distribution chain to get it out there. So, the script must win the studio over to get what he needs.”
“And you’re the girl to make that happen,” Bex said.
“Don’t say that.” I buried my face in my hands.
