Steve leaned his arms on the table. ‘Okay, to start with I’d need to do a comprehensive location survey. Not just for inspiration but to develop the concept and narrative as I see it, along with the brief you gave me. And that will determine my budget and crew and so on.’

‘Of course,’ Grace said, putting down her coffee mug. She felt a frisson of hope shoot through her – did this mean he was interested? ‘Who do you think you’d need in your team? This has the potential to be a major job so you could need a large crew.’

‘I’d initially allocate a drone operator and some tech people, and take it from there. We’d need to liaise on all this when there’s a clearer script direction.’ He spread his arms, giving a disarming grin. ‘I’m very collaborative. It’s just that my name sits out there in front of it all, so I like my projects to live up to expectations. I’ll give you my latest show reel for your next round with them. I assume the hotel management group are footing our bill, not your agency?’

Grace nodded. Allison had told her the initial launch budget would be generous and covered by MGI, but she merely answered, ‘I do need your reel, I’m sure it’s impressive, plus your fee estimate for the concept development, survey costs, travel, accommodation, per diem.’ She knew that the survey was necessary to develop their creative approach and to help them gauge accurate production costs. ‘Once that’s calculated I’ll do a presentation to the management of the hotel group. Then we’ll need to wait for their decision to know whether it will all be approved.’

She smiled, knowing she had moved the chess game forward.

Steve tapped his fingers on the tabletop, thinking. ‘I like it,’ he said finally, and Grace, while careful to keep her expression composed, felt a flush of exhilaration. ‘From what I read in your emails, this sounds like a challenge. I like the idea of turning a hard-nosed commercial business into something that’s also beautiful, evocative and cutting edge, yet still meets the sales brief.’ He leaned back. ‘And it’s in Bali! I have a soft spot for the place, I admit. Could you fill me in on some more background on the family?’

‘I don’t know much more about them, I’m afraid. When I arrived at the hotel, I thought it was unusual that the land was still with one family and they are only just developing it now. There’s a story there, I suspect, other than that they’re very rich and the land has always been in their family. But I assume I’m only getting the simple version . . . that the project is family controlled, no outside investment. As you probably know, only Balinese can own the land in Bali. The family are Chinese originally, but now they’re Balinese-Chinese and they changed their family name to make it more Indonesian. There must have been a convenient marriage sometime that meant they could say they are partly Balinese, I guess.’