In the Spotlight (Max Verstappen - Book Two)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Hi Vogue, welcome," I say to the camera for the third time and hear Max laugh once more at my awkwardness and I pull back to look behind me where he is chilling on the sofa in the living room of the hotel suite I'm staying in. Technically Max is in a different suite and although we stayed together last night, I made him put everything other than his suit back in his room so no one would know. It was now 2 pm and after a somewhat relaxed morning, I was now supposed to be getting ready. "Would you stop! We need to get this done so we can start actually getting ready," I hiss at him and he puts a hand over his mouth to cover his laugh and I close the door, giving an apologetic smile to the cameraman as we get ready to go again. "Hi Vogue, please get in here before Max distracts me and I have to do this again!" I say desperately after opening the door again and get a thumbs up from the person behind the cameraman as they do come into the room. I let out a giggle as Max sits up straight on the chair he had been lounging on moments beforehand, legs moved down from over the arm where they had been resting. He gives an awkward wave at the camera and I roll my eyes as it turns back around me. "Don't mind him, he's one of my accessories for the night!" Which causes a shocked laugh from Max.

The camera follows me in my Versace robe as I walk through to the bedroom where the bed was all made and the makeup and hair crew was set up near the window. They cut for a few moments while I got comfy in the makeup chair before setting up their various cameras around us. I watch with a gentle smile as Max walks into the room, and asks one of the camera people a question before he sits on the bed, presumably out of shot. "Alright, most of the questions will come while you're doing hair because makeup obviously is normally a bit harder for you," the woman in charge says and I just agree as the glam team I always use gets to work. We start with simple questions about how the collaboration started if I'm excited about the MET gala and what exactly. "For our viewers who maybe don't know who you are, can you give us an introduction, we can cut it to the beginning of the video?" The woman asks and I nod.

"Yeah, right, er I'm Elodie Carter, I'm a Formula One racing driver and this is my get ready with me for the MET gala," I say before Max coughs to get my attention and so I turn my head to look at him confused, seeing one of the cameras move as well.

"Red Bull Racing Driver," he says proudly, correcting me and I nodded smiling at him.

"Right, of course, I'm a racing driver in F1 for Red Bull, alongside that Dutch idiot," I say waving a hand to the camera and everyone is chuckling, especially the makeup team that has been dealing with us since 11 am when they came to prep for the day.

"What does a normal Monday look like for you?" The Vogue producer asks and I hum, moving my head to the side before my hair stylist straightens it up.

"If it's after a race weekend, depending on the result I might be slightly hungover?" I start honestly and see her smile, "erm, but I usually try and take a rest day and chill. Do media and team meetings and debriefs from the race the previous day, and see what we can learn early on before the next race while it's all still fresh. But apart from that I try and keep it chill - however, I usually travel. If it's not a race weekend, which kind of feels rare at this point, then I'll usually work out and run around the beautiful city of Monaco, have meetings with sponsors or the team virtually and in the evenings I try to have plans to be social, although sometimes I'm at an event." I tell the camera and they nod, smiling at me as I answer more questions from them until my glam is fully done with glowing eyeshadow and makeup with random navy accents, by which time Stefano and his team have arrived with my dress and Max has boosted back to his room to get ready.

"My love, you look spectacular," Stefano says as they're brought through to where I'm sitting, someone with the dress and then two bodyguards, one holding two heavy cases which I assume are the matching Cartier pieces.