Instead of jumping backward, she managed to drop her hand to her side in a way that hopefully looked natural. “Is there anything else?”

Vivian looked up as she brought the bottle to her lips. A thoughtful crease appeared between her eyebrows as she regarded Jules. After a sip, she said, “Are you growing your hair out?”

Jules touched the ends of her dark wavy hair. It was nearly past her shoulders now. “I guess so. Just haven’t made it to the salon lately.”

“Get the ends trimmed,” Vivian ordered, “but it suits you longer. You seem to be using adequate products.”

It took Jules two stunned seconds to say, “Thank you.”

Vivian wasn’t finished. “Use the assets you have, Julia. Play them up. You haven’t made a bad beginning”—the gaze she swept up and down Jules’s body was entirely clinical, but it felt like lightning—“but you’d benefit from taking more risks. Try high-waisted pants.”

Jules looked down. She’d never had enough confidence in her hips to try those. Mainly because she had hips. That was a tough sell around Du Jour. “Really?”

“Mm. There’s a Katharine Hepburn biopic in the works. It’ll have award buzz next year. Get ahead of the trend and grab her look. You can pull it off.”

Jules was five foot six with curves and a tiny waist, and she was a big fan of flowy fabric. She’d never exactly thought of herself as a Hepburn type. “Well, I’ll…”

“Am I going to get a call from Christian Siriano before I die?” Vivian glared at her. “I’m starting to wonder.”

Jules opened her mouth to say, I’ll get right on it, but Vivian had already returned to work and was back to ignoring her.

Yeah. Something was definitely going on here.

* * *

The next five days at Du Jour were frenetically busy. The Mojave shoot had to be done right away, which meant spending exorbitant sums. Meanwhile, two of the models for the LA shoot had backed out and one had been fired. Agencies were offering dozens of potential replacements that had to be screened before the glossy eight-by-tens finally made it to Vivian’s desk. Insurance might or might not come through. Mark Tavio was making even more growling sounds about costs. Jules suspected Vivian might be forced to listen to him.

She was forced to do a lot of things, most of them involving moving around a lot. Meetings, lunches, attorneys, and late nights all meant that Vivian didn’t have a single quiet moment, and therefore, neither did Jules. Vivian practically kept her in her back pocket. They often didn’t leave the Koening Building until one in the morning, only to stagger back inside at eight. And Vivian, who usually operated as well on two hours of sleep as she would on ten, looked to be on the verge of collapse.