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I grin, brushing my lips down her cheek and towards her mouth. "I think I’ve got something right here," I tell her playfully, and she giggles as I pull her on top of me, letting her feel how much I want her right now. She kisses me properly, and the two of us are just getting lost to each other once more when my phone rings and throws a bucket of cold water over the two of us.
"Sorry," I murmur, with a groan. "I have to get this."
"It’s okay," she replies, slipping down onto the pillow beside me. "We have all day, anyhow..."
I smile at her, drop a kiss on her cheek, and then take the call, sitting up in bed, assuming it’s going to be my agent with the reviews from the movie last night. I am already thinking about where I want to take Ellie for breakfast – she must be hungry after everything that we got up to last night, and I want her to know that I am more than willing to do everything I can to take care of her.
"Ethan?” Tammy’s voice comes through the phone. She sounds stressed. But then, she always does.
"What’s up?" I ask my assistant.
"You need to pack your stuff and get ready to go to Europe," she tells me.
I furrow my brow. "What?”
"They’re reshooting some scenes for the new Mandolin movie," she explains. "They need you there by tomorrow."
I look over my shoulder at the woman beside me, who has already closed her eyes and started to drift off to sleep again. There is no way that I am going to just up and leave her, not when it feels like we have made such a connection.
"Tell them that I’m not doing it," I reply.
"You don’t have a choice," Tammy tells me, as though she’s been ready for me to come at her with this. "It’s in your contract. You agreed to any reshoots that they would require."
"Shit," I mutter. I don’t want to leave right now. I don’t want Ellie to think that this was just some one-night thing and that I am kicking her out as soon as I get the chance. She’s my Valentine’s date, and I’m not willing to say goodbye to her so soon.
"You have to get out to the set," Tammy tells me. "I have you booked on a flight that leaves at two this afternoon. You need to be on it."
"Fine," I mutter. "Text me the details, okay?"
"Sure," she replies, and she hangs up the phone before I can think better of anything that I have just agreed to. Am I really going to do this? It looks as though I don’t have a choice. Hopefully, it’ll just be a couple of weeks, and I’ll get back to Ellie as soon as I can.
"What’s up?" Ellie asks as she sits up in bed, noting my stressed expression.
"I have to go," I tell her. Her shoulders hunch up to her ears at once. I can’t help but think about what my sister said, when she told me to be gentle with this girl. This is the opposite of that. But it’s not as though there is a lot that I can do about it right now.
"Where?" she asks.
"Europe. I have to go do some reshoots for a movie," I tell her, and I reach for her hand – she barely even responds to me touching her. Shit. That’s not a good sign.
"Oh, okay," she replies. Her voice is hollow. I can tell that she is hurt.
"I’ll be back as soon as I can," I assure her, and she flicks her gaze up to meet mine again.
"When’s that going to be?"
I run a hand through my hair. "I don’t know exactly," I admit. "But you’ll be the first person to know as soon as I find out."
"Yeah, sure," she mutters, and she turns her back on me and climbs out of bed. She rummages around for her clothes, and I watch, gutted, as she prepares to get out of here.
"If this was just going to be a one-night thing, you could have told me that," she remarks, her back to me, her voice shaking. I want to reach out to her, to tell her that it is anything but that for me, but I know that she is not going to believe me, not now, not now that this has happened.
"It’s... it’s not what you think," I try to offer to her, but she doesn’t look around at me. I can still remember the way she smiled at me when she turned and saw me in bed next to her this morning, and I want that back, more than anything in the world right now.
"No, it really wasn’t," she agrees, and she gets to her feet and leaves the room to find her dress.
