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The truth? I have never met a situation I can’t spin. After as many years as I’ve logged as a top public relations pro in SoCal, I’ve seen them all. High-profile CEOs caught swiping from the till? Rebranded by yours truly as modern-day Robin Hoods intending to direct funds to charities. Respected members of Congress who sent partial nudes? Budding photographers whose only crime was in forgetting an artistic filter across the shot.
 
And here in Paris, the City of Light, where my client, an actress whose stellar career made her spokesperson for an iconic perfume from La Fumée, has vomited onto the custom Chanel dress she’s wearing, I’m ready to flex that impressive skill set.
 
“Madame?” the line producer of the shoot squeaks through my phone. “What should I . . . uh . . . How can we . . . um?”
 
“Yves, I’m going to need a full sentence. Try again,” I demand.
 
When I first answered his call, the line producer updated me on my client’s sour stomach. Then he shared that a production assistant was snapping pictures on his phone of my client bent over. I ordered the producer to confiscate all cell phones on-site. I tabled the instructions I was giving the costume designer in the courtyard, then began marching up a centuries-old staircase beneath a vaulted cupola dripping in Renaissance influence.
 
“Bien sur. Of course,” the line producer adds. “Well, it’s just that . . .”
 
“Quickly now.”
 
“Well—Madame, your client is drunk. I can smell the cognac wafting from her pores from here.”
 
At the entrance to a grand marble foyer, I pass between stately columns twined around by sculpted palm fronds reaching toward the heavens. “The organic shampoo infused with copper and oak samples from Indonesia?” I laugh into the speaker. “She orders that shit by the barrel.”
 
Truly, as the commanding echo of my heels announces my imminent arrival—a punishing soundtrack by which to set expectations as I reach the east wing where the shoot is in progress—today feels like just another Thursday.
 
I plant my feet in the doorway of a ballroom full of production veterans collectively rolling their eyes at my client, now retching on all fours. Only a young man and an older woman flirting in the corner seem oblivious to the scene. I tuck back a strand of black hair that’s escaped my high pony. Survey the crushed-velvet settee surrounded by oversize cotton balls meant to evoke the clouds of heaven and invite consumers to purchase a new variation of the flagship scent from this brand. I smooth down the blue satin dress I bought at top dollar. Then I turn to the nearest key grip.
 
“What is going on?” I say, not shout. Addison Stern doesn’t need to shout.
 
The line producer I spoke with over the phone, Yves, approaches with all the trepidation of Quasimodo. “Bonjour, Ms. Stern. You asked that no one leave until you got here.”
 
Obviously. “I meant, why has no one helped my client up? Someone get her sparkling water. Now. The carbon dioxide will help settle her stomach.”
 
His eyes bug out, as if debating whether to argue with me. Yves turns toward the staff lined up on chairs and seated on the floor along the mirrored walls, then bellows an order. A wise decision.
 
“Where is that PA who took photos of my client? I want that person fired,” I add. “Strip him of all responsibilities. Blacklist him from this shoot and all future shoots. I have a lot of friends in this industry, and he should know that he’ll never work with this level of talent again.”
 
In truth, professional contacts I have in spades; “friends,” less so. Unless you count the executive board at Ovid Blackwell, the PR megafirm I’ve been with for the last three years. Then, if anyone asks, I have two best friends—the president and vice president of the company—who each insist I use their personal jet when I travel domestically. A small perk in exchange for my skills.
 
Yves’s eyes dart between me and the exit to the main hallway. “You can . . . repeat, please?”
 
Seventh-grade French, don’t fail me now. “Where is the production assistant who took photos? Qui a pris des photos? Il s’appelle comment?”
 
He nods to two young men and a woman, standing wide-eyed against the mirrors. “Henri, then Antoine and Isabelle took pictures. And perhaps others.”
 
“Others?” I glower. My client moans, then voms onto the polished eighteenth-century tile where Louis XVIII choked to death on an olive pit.
 
“It all happened so fast. Everyone saw her—sees her. Anything near a phone is free game these days, yes?” Yves offers up three smartphones like he’s making a sacrifice to the publicity gods. “Do you want to delete the photos yourself?”
 
I smile, and the line producer shrinks backward. “You think I’m going to give the phones back?”
 
Lifting my head to address the room, I glide forward on my red-soled heels. “Each of you will hand over your phone now. You’ll file for unemployment tomorrow because you’re all fired.”
 
Outrage ripples across the room. Without blinking, Yves approaches each person to collect devices in a basket.
 
“You can’t fire us. The paperwork takes forever in France, and not something you can do with a snap of your entitled fingers.” The set designer, a woman with brown curls, sneers.
 
“The marketing firm running this campaign is a special collaborator of mine.” And well acquainted with the wrath of Addison Stern. “They won’t want to be associated with such amateurs and will do what it takes to relieve you of your duties.”
 
“The actress is the one hungover and unprofessional!”
 
I mime a swollen belly. “Enceinte. Did you really think I’d let you exploit this poor woman by taking pictures of her while she’s pregnant?”
 
All eyes flit to my client’s flat stomach, as she lies on her back on the floor. Faint snoring rumbles from her throat.
 
The woman smirks. “You think you can take our phones—fire us—but you can’t keep us quiet.”
 
Yves returns to me with a full bin of shiny touchscreens.
 
“Actually, that is my job. None of you will breathe a word of today’s excitement because I now hold your entire lives in my hands. For those of you dumb enough to forego a lock code, I have all the blackmail I need. For the rest of you, I have a team already digging into the background checks you submitted prior to being selected for this shoot. While I know some photos may be up in a cloud, if any images from today make it back down,
I will personally blast your browser search histories to your entire contact list.”
 
The woman gapes at me, matching each flabbergasted slackjawed face in the room. Ah, my favorite kind of reaction: stupor.
 
“What else am I missing? Oh! The icing on my mille-feuille.” I smile, baring my teeth. “The roster of this production can kiss any photo shoots relating to my client Emilia Winthrop, and any of her Hollywood colleagues, goodbye. After all, word travels fast.”
 
The director of the shoot, Annick, rushes forward. An angry little pixie. “Look, I knew that you would be upset about everyone taking photos, but this is unacceptable.”
 
“Is it? What’s unacceptable is your hand-selected crew and their embarrassing behavior around a celebrated movie star. Or maybe you’ve never worked with anyone this big before?”
 
“I’ve worked with the biggest names in French and American cinema and have never—”
 
“No problem.” I give her a hard pat on the cheek. “You won’t have to worry about that kind of pressure ever again.”
 
Annick seethes. “You have no authority to come in here and bully us. You don’t even belong to the French film union.”
 
The young man I saw earlier cuddling up to Annick in the corner delivers a coffee to a producer I met on my last visit to Paris.
 
“How clever,” I deadpan. “I may not be in the union, but I can report you to the creative authorities and my contacts in the French media for sexually harassing subordinates on the job. You should know that I have the authority to do whatever it takes to protect the image of my clients. Up to and including destroying every last voyeur here.”
 
Facing the rest of the crew, I throw them a grin. “In case anyone asks, you’ll say the shoot was rescheduled to take place with more experienced personnel. I’ll answer questions now. Anyone? No? Pas de questions?”
 
When no one raises a hand, I step to Emilia’s side—she really was exquisite in this summer’s erotic thriller—to wipe spittle from her cosmetically enhanced lips. “Let’s order pâté from your dressing room.”
 
“Addison,” she whispers, struggling. “I’m not pregnant.”
 
“Sweetie, I know. And if anyone suggests otherwise, they’ll be laughed out of the media landscape. Have you seen your abs?”
 
She throws me a weak smile as I help her to her feet. “Thank you. You are a queen, Addison Stern.”
 
As we take halting, echoing steps to the powder room of this stately French manor, a twinge of regret pinches my ribs. Although I dislike using pregnancy as an excuse, it was the best I could think of in the moment. After all, there are worse things than being hungover—or hungover and pregnant. There’s poverty. Destitution and desperation. And I will do what it takes to keep my crown at Ovid Blackwell. Addison Stern will never know those plights again.