Alex rubbed his hands on my back as he let me sob against his chest. “Ella, shhh, calm down.”
“But, but . . .”
“Shhh.”
He kissed the top of my head as he shifted on the seat, pulling me even closer.
“We are in this together, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Whether you like it or not, we are a team, just as you mentioned to Amy this morning. I understand your worry and your concern, but I’m confident that what is being decided in that room at this very moment, will be the decision we want.”
“Megan said—”
“Megan is being a prat. She’s cynical at the best of times. She knows that even though she acts as my agent, I make the decisions concerning what I do.”
I lifted my head expecting to see her standing over us, but she was at the far side of the room, looking out of the window.
“But she’s right,” I said, trying to halt my tears. “You don’t know me all that well, we only met a few weeks ago. You’re risking too much for me.”
He lifted his hands to my face, and tilted my head so I had no choice but to meet his eyes. “I know what I feel. I know what I want. If you feel half of what I do, then you know that we will be together for a very long time. I even dreamed about marrying you last night and us having lots of children together. I’ve never dreamt that stuff before.” He chuckled at the end of his sentence. “Shit, I’ve probably scared you off now.”
My mouth dropped open.
“We were married?”
He nodded, his eyes watching mine. “Very happily married, in fact.”
“You and me?”
“Is that such a horrendous thought?”
I shook my head.
He tipped my face even more, moving his mouth to cover mine. A tender kiss met my lips.
“I hate seeing you so upset by something that has spiralled out of all control for us,” he said. “But we need to grab this moment as ours. Make it work. My world is shit at times. It’s a cut-throat industry, and we have to put up with scum like Pierce and Amy. But occasionally, there are glimmers of light that enable us to get rid of them. This, today, is one of those opportunities.” He rested his forehead against mine. “Now, dry those tears. Remember exactly who you are, Ella Summer. We are going to walk back into that room and we are going to be given the news that we want.”
I breathed in deeply. How could he be so sure? Megan certainly didn’t think the way he did. She thought that Alex would be sacked.
The door to the room clicked and Verity stepped out. “Ella? Can we have a quick chat with you?” she asked.
I slowly stood up, Alex standing with me.
We both walked toward her.
“Errr, sorry Alex. We want to talk to Ella, just Ella. You’ll have to wait outside a little longer.”
My heart beat faster, and my hands started shaking. I didn’t want to be interrogated by them.
“I think Ella would prefer it if I came in with her,” Alex said.
“We need to have a proper chat with her, by herself. I promise we’ll not hurt her, Alex.” Verity smiled at Alex and then at me. “Come on, Ella. Let Alex calm himself down whilst we get to know a bit more about you.” She placed her hand on my shoulder as she steered me into the room.
The door closed, leaving Alex, my support, outside.
“Please, take a seat,” Verity offered as she moved to where she had been sitting earlier.
As I sat down, I took a big breath. I could do this. I had to.
First to speak was Clarissa, the author of the books. “I have to say, even if I ignore the incredible sex scene that has been leaked to the public, I would have seen the connection you have with Alex just by watching you two today. It really is special, Ella. Truthfully, have you only known him a few weeks?”
I nodded. “Yes, and we didn’t hit it off straight away.”
“Why, what happened?” she asked.
“Well, he was a bit of a prat when I first met him.”
Everyone in the room smiled at my statement.
“And now?”
I paused before answering, deciding that I had nothing to lose by being honest.
“I love him.” The sentence was short, but said everything.
Amber Donovan stared at me, her eyes not quite meeting mine as she spoke up. She was looking at the ugly scratch running down my cheek.
“What are your thoughts on Amy Strickland?”
“Not a lot.” I sighed, realising I may as well be honest about her as well. “I think she’s a nutcase. Her attitude stinks. She thinks the world owes her a favour, and she’s a cruel and heartless bitch!”
Clarissa jumped to her feet and clapped her hands gleefully. “I told you!” she shrieked. “I told you all that Ella would tell it like it is. She’s seen right through her, all her scheming and lies.”
Verity nodded at Clarissa.
Amber leaned toward me across the table. “Can I ask what happened to your face? Just an accident?”
“No, it was Amy. She called around to Alex’s this morning and attacked me.”
Amber’s eyes widened. “She actually attacked you?”
“Yes. Although, I should tell you that I hit her back. I punched her.”
Amber gasped. “But she’s pregnant!”
“She got rid of the baby a few days ago. It was part of the deal she struck with Rowan Busby. It was his baby. He didn’t want it, so she told him that she’d get rid of it if he released the sex scenes to the public. She definitely got rid of it. Rowan apparently went with her to the clinic. Even he didn’t trust her to do what she said she would do.”
The room fell silent, and I wondered whether I had said too much.
Verity glanced at everyone around the table before looking back at me. “It seems we have even more to consider. Ella, do you think Alex was serious with what he said earlier?”
I nodded. “I know he will never willingly appear alongside Amy in a film ever again. I don’t think he’s too keen on Rowan either.”
The man I’d been introduced to as Thomas spoke up. “Rowan Busby is not an issue. He has already been fired for his part in all this. I doubt he’ll ever work again. His credibility is ruined.”
Despite what Alex thought, I’d hoped that Rowan would come out of this damaged, but not ruined. Maybe his career would pick up again in the future. After all, time was a great healer.
“And Alex? Was he serious?” Verity reminded me of the question I’d been asked before Rowan was mentioned.
“Alex’s issues are with Amy. She’s put him through so much over the years, and everything that has happened lately has just made him determined to not be manipulated into doing something he doesn’t want to do. To be honest, I think it’s disgusting that you made them pretend to still be together for the sake of the films, and even worse, that you made him take the blame for their break up when he had done nothing wrong.”
Verity shifted in her chair. “Well, that wasn’t a popular decision in here either. I can tell you that Alex isn’t the only one that doesn’t get on with Pierce.”
“It was Pierce who made you all go along with it? He made the decision?”
Karen nodded. “His and Bens.”
“Ben?” I was sure I hadn’t heard his name mentioned. He wasn’t here.
“He sold his shares to Alex just before they started filming Starshine.”
“But, you just said that Pierce and Ben made the decision to screw Alex. Why would Ben then sell his shares to him?”
Karen shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Alex that one.”
I made a mental note to make sure I did ask him before pushing ahead with my other question. “Just how much of a shareholding does Pierce have?”
“Forty per-cent,” Thomas said. “Verity has twenty per-cent, as does Clarissa. Alex also has twenty per-cent.”
I quickly did the maths in my head. “So basically, it’s like Alex said. If you agree to get rid of Pierce, you can vote him off the franchise.”
“Yes, but it’s not quite that simple. It’s going to cost hundreds of thousands for Alex to buy Pierce out of the company.”
“Can’t you just sack him, strip him of his shares?”
Thomas shook his head. “I wish it was that simple. But Pierce is a very powerful man outside of these doors. We can’t afford for him to sue us for any reason what-so-ever. The only way it will work is if we all have a vote of no-confidence in him. Alex will still need to buy him out, but because we have lost faith in him and his commitment to the success of the future film there is a clause in the terms of the franchise. Alex can buy the shares from Pierce at the price he originally paid for them. It’s still quite a significant amount of money though.”
“Do you think he’ll do it?” Verity asked. I could sense the excitement building in the room. They wanted rid of Pierce as much as Alex.
“I think so, but I have no idea about the financial side of things. Maybe it’ll be too much for Alex.”
Amber snorted. “Ella, have you any idea how rich Alex is?”
I shook my head. It had never been something I’d paid any attention to. His money was never of any interest to me.
“He’s loaded. He’ll be even richer by the end of the fourth film,” she said.
“Shit!” I murmured.
Four amused faces looked at me.
“Well,” Thomas said. “I think we’re ready to make a decision.” The others nodded their agreement.
“Let’s get Alex back in here, and then we can be prepared to talk to Pierce.”
The door flew open, and Pierce stormed into the room.
“Enough!” he shouted.
Verity stood up. “Pierce, we’ve not finished discussing things yet. Your presence is not needed.”
Alex appeared behind him.
“What the fuck is going on?” he said.
“This is still a closed meeting!” Verity said, her voice rising.
“Not now. I’ve spoken to my lawyers. You cannot tell me, as a majority shareholder, to leave the room.” He strolled confidently over to the chair he had been sitting in earlier, and sat down.
“If he’s staying, so are we.” Megan strolled into the room as well as Alex who slipped into the chair next to me.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, and reached for his hand. I needed contact with him, even if it was only our fingers entwined. He winked at me before glaring across the table at Pierce.
Pierce didn’t seem to notice Alex’s expression. Amid all the talking between the other people in the room, he seemed to have zoned out.
“You still with us Pierce,” Alex snarled. “Or busy planning which innocent girl you’re going to corrupt next, huh?”
Pierce snapped back to the room and what was happening. “You have nothing on me. It’s all slanderous allegations, Denton!”
Alex sneered.
“So,” Pierce said, glancing at Verity and Clarissa. “What’s the decision that you’ve all come to?”
Verity took the helm. “Firstly, we want Alex to finish the films with us. He has played Ryan in all the films, and we feel that losing him would be a massive blow to the franchise. It would cause irreparable damage.”
Pierce banged his fist on the table. I tightened my fingers around Alex’s. “He’s not the only star of the films,” Pierce shouted. “Amy is as well.”
Alex guffawed.
“We realise that,” Thomas said. “But Alex is the film’s major star. If we don’t have him, we don’t have the final film. There isn’t anyone else we can cast as Ryan—he is Ryan. Amy, unfortunately, is an average actress who gets carried in each scene by Alex. When she does scenes without him, she practically dies in front of us.”
“It’s never been as issue before,” Pierce said.
“We’ve made the decision that Amy will not be starring in the final film. We’re terminating her contract due to her less than professional attitude. And we need Alex in the final film. Our decision has been made.”
“But you can’t.” Pierce was on his feet, glaring at everyone. “I insist Amy stars in the last film. I hold the majority of shares.”
Alex spoke up. “Not against all of us. Ben sold his shares to me, remember? You hold forty per-cent. The rest of us in this room hold the other sixty.”
“You can’t do this. Amy deserves to be in the film. What has she ever done to you, huh?”
“Me!” Alex shouted, his chair flying backward, yet again.
“Alex!” Verity shouted.
“You want to know what she’s done to me? It’s all in the interview I gave to Anthony.”
Pierce snorted. “Oh yeah, Anthony, the man your sister’s fucking? There’ll be no lies printed there then, will there? No twisted view on things to make you look good?”
“I have never lied about anything,” Alex said.
“You said in that interview that she aborted your baby! Lies! It wasn’t yours.”
“It could have been. She didn’t know. I’ve struggled with that decision of hers every day of my life. You have no idea what that feels like!”
“Really?” Pierce raised his brow.
“Fuck you, Pierce! Don’t you dare preach to me about losing something so innocent and precious. You have no idea about any of it!”
“I do! It was mine. You stupid idiot!”
“What the . . .?” Alex stared at Pierce.
My mouth dropped open, but I immediately stood up and placed my hand on Alex’s shoulder. He stared at the table, and I ducked into his line of vision.
“Hey. It’s okay.” I pulled him against me and stroked his hair.
Pierce sniggered. “As if he’d be capable of fathering a child. She hardly ever slept with him. Didn’t she have her own room in your house so she could escape from your clumsy advances? And as dumb as you are, Denton, you always used protection. How the hell did you think it was yours?”
“You . . . you were the father?” Alex lifted his head from my shoulder as he asked the question.
“Yes. I paid for her abortion, just like I paid for this one.”
“But Rowan was the father this time. He had evidence.” Alex said. I rested my hand on his back, rubbing it in small circles, trying to offer him as much comfort and reassurance as I could.
“Yes, he was.”
“Alex?” I said. He slowly turned to me. My concern for him reached a record high, and my fighting instinct rose to the surface again. Not only had Amy lied all those years ago, and made him feel guilty about something that he should never have had anything to do with, but this low-life scum sitting across the table had insulted him in front of people he worked with professionally. I squeezed his hand before turning to Pierce.
“You should be disgusted with yourself. You’re old enough to be her father,” I said.
“She’s never complained.” Pierce sneered. “Perhaps, you don’t know what you’re missing. You need a real man, not a pathetic wimp like him. Someone who can show you what it’s really like.”
Alex growled, but I was more than capable of silencing Pierce. I squeezed Alex’s hand even more, knowing it would hurt, knowing that he would understand how angry I was, and how he needed to keep quiet.
“And you think you’re that man?” I said. “Do you seriously think that I could ever find your greasy hair, and your over-sized body squeezed into that horrendous shiny pinstripe suit attractive? That I would ever want to have your nicotine stained grubby, stumpy little fingers touching my body? You’re more of a fool than I would have ever thought.” I screwed my nose up. “Firstly, you got involved with a woman who clearly has no morals whatsoever, and secondly, are you so damn stupid that you think any woman would find you attractive. It’s your money, Pierce. It’s all they want. It’s all Amy wants you for. I wonder how many hand-outs you’ve given her in the past years. New dresses, new shoes, holidays, birthday presents. Oh, the list will be endless. You’re not attractive, you’re a fool. Women don’t love you, they laugh at you. You’re pathetic!”
Pierce glared at me, but I refused to drop my gaze.
“No-one wants you here, Pierce. I suggest you back down graciously for once in your life. Do the decent thing. Sell your shares to Alex, get out of here. Run to Amy. Leave all of us alone. We don’t want you anymore.”
He took in a breath as if he was about to speak, but Thomas started clapping slowly, the action quickly became louder as Verity joined in. It was mere seconds before the rest of the them also joined in.
Encouraged by their response, I raised the volume of my voice so it was heard above the sound of the clapping. “Get out, Pierce. You’re fired!”
I didn’t expect him to go. But to my surprise, he rose from his chair and headed to the door. He gave me one last lingering stare, and I stuck my middle finger up at him.
My adrenaline kicked in and I reached blindly for Alex.
“Ella” he said pulling me against him and hugging me. “You were unbelievable.”
I welcomed his hold on my shaking body, and when he kissed me, I forgot there were other people in the room and kissed him back, eagerly.
A quiet cough sounded out, but I was too lost in the sensation of kissing Alex. It was only when Alex smiled against my lips, that I remembered where I was. I slowly pulled away from him as I turned to face the many smiling faces in the room.
“Sorry,” I said quietly, embarrassed at my enthusiastic show of affection.
“Yeah, sorry,” Alex added, sounding anything but. His hands remained wrapped around me as he sat down and pulled me onto his knee.
“No need to apologise,” Clarissa said. “We need a lot more of that from both of you if Ella’s going to star in Solarflare with you.”
“What?” Alex and I asked at the same time.
Verity nodded at us. “We made the decision before we asked Ella to chat with us. We saw the way you two were with each other. It’s the sort of chemistry we need for the final film. We think that Ella will be the perfect actress to play Evelyn. We’re aware that Ella’s acting career only spans to this little clip that’s doing the rounds. And you need to be aware that we’re placing a lot of trust in both of you and a lot of responsibility. You two are going to have to make this film a success!”
Alex nodded, and I tried desperately not to go into meltdown over the whole thing.
“Is that all okay with you, Ella? You seem a bit shocked,” Amber asked.
“Yes. But do you all think I can do it? I mean like you said, I’ve only done that one scene with Alex. That is my acting career. There’s nothing else before it.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “Ella, the last film is the raunchiest of the lot. Clarissa has insisted from the very beginning that we need to put across the depth of the character’s relationship, show how completely and utterly in love they are with each other. Are you telling us you can’t do that?”
“No. I think I can do that.”
Alex tightened his arms around me as he nuzzled my neck.
“You two are just how I imagined Ryan and Evelyn,” Clarissa said, tears wetting the corner of her eyes. “I think you’ll both do wonderfully. Ella, you just need to let your emotions run true to how you feel for Alex, and Alex, well . . . you know what you need to do.”
He nodded. “I was dreading filming it with Amy, particularly after I read the script. But now, with Ella alongside me, I know it’ll be so easy to capture everything you want.”
Megan cleared her throat. “New contracts,” she said, bringing the meeting back to a business one. “Alex will need a new contract, and Ella will need one. I hope she will be getting at least what Amy was. She’s stepping in as an immediate replacement that’ll ensure that the film has no hold ups—a fact that works to your advantage.”
Verity glanced at Thomas, who nodded at her. “We’ll pay her twice what Amy was due,” she said. “We honestly think she’ll be worth it.”
I gasped. I was going to be paid what I imagined to be quite a lot of money just for acting myself around Alex.
“We’ll need a lot from Ella for this,” Verity said, leaning toward Megan. “You’ll need to look through the contracts properly. We expect to start filming in a months’ time, and we will also need Ella to be available for promoting Starshine.”
Megan nodded, but I frowned. “But I thought I was only doing Solarflare. I wasn’t in Starshine. Well, only one scene.”
“Do you honestly think that fans will want to see Amy doing the promotions with Alex after all this?” he said. “No, Ella. They’ll want you. You will increase the popularity of the film. I think you’re even more popular than Alex at the moment.”
Alex kissed my neck before rubbing his lips back and forth across the skin. Everyone in the room fell silent.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t help myself.”
Clarissa smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Like I said, the love between Ryan and Evelyn is the major part of this last film. To be honest, I was dreading you filming it with Amy. It would never have worked. But you two, well . . . it’ll be very intense—exactly what we need.”
“Can we go?” Alex asked. “Megan can sort the contracts with you. I need some fresh air, and I want to take Ella somewhere special.”
Verity nodded. “Can you both try and keep a low profile for the next month. It’ll create a lot more of a buzz if you can lay low until we start the promotional tour with Starshine.”
“Okay,” Alex agreed. “It seems we may be visiting Felix again.”
I nearly shrieked with excitement about going back to Sao Miguel with him. We’d had a glorious time there, and even though we’d only come back yesterday, I was already missing it.
Alex pushed me off his knee. “Come on gorgeous, let’s go and celebrate down by the river. I know a beautiful pub. It’s nice and quiet there. We won’t be spotted by anyone.”
He moved around the room, shaking hands with everyone. I followed, doing the same. Clarissa hugged me when I reached her. “Just believe in yourself, Ella,” she whispered as she embraced me. “You are more than capable of doing this.”
I nodded as the enormity of what I was about to do washed over me.
I was going to star alongside Alex in Solarflare.