Page 16 of Between the Lines

“Yeah.”

“Cut.”

Ellie wasted no time taking a step back, a sheepish grin on her face as Charlotte came rushing up to us.

“Youguyyyys,” she gushed, clearly pleased with the performance—which we’d actually gone a little off-script for. “Have I told you how much I love you?”

“Only twice today,” Ellie answered with a laugh that hit me right in the chest, warming me. “We did good?”

“Phenomenal.We’re gonna call it a wrap for you today—Shaw, you and Alec have some tough scenes I want to start on so take an hour, get your head together, and we’ll get started, okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded my agreement before she moved on, going back to her directing huddle off to the side of the set. Ellie tried to sneak off without saying anything, but I quickly caught up to her before she could get too far.

She turned in response to my voice and smiled at me.

Pretty as hell.

That was actually one of thefirstthings that came to mind the first time I saw her in person, on our first set together. I’dheardso much about her, seen so many social media gossip headlines about wild behavior—often accompanied by pictures of said behavior—that I’d formed what I could admit was a premature opinion.

So when I saw her walk into the audition, all kinds of shit ran through my head.

She’s pretty as hell in real life.

That was a good thing, at least, if what I thought was about to happen wasreallyabout to happen. As far as I knew, she wasn’t an actor—she didn’t have any kind of training or experience. Based on what I’d heard, I just knew she would come on set entitled and obnoxious, and no one would say anything about it because her brother was the writerandthe director, and her aunt was one of the studio heads.

Shit.

I’d been excited about this role as soon as my agent put it in front of me, and now I had to worry aboutthis?While Pierre had debated with his little team about whether or not she could actually audition—since he didn’t seem to be expecting her—I was already formulating the text I’d send to my agent as soon as I got a chance, to see if I could get out of this.

But then they told us to run through the lines.

Ellie met my gaze, gave me this little smile, and then…proceeded to blow her audition out of the water.

Like…nobody else was even close.

Hell, I had to tamp down my ego enough to admit her audition washonestlybetter than mine—and I toldherthat too a few weeks later, once we’d been around each other enough to start developing a friendship.

And then…more.

She was bad as fuck in the photos and viral clips online, sure.

Then I met her.

And she was pretty as hell—gorgeous, actually, done zero justice by photos. She was somewhat quiet—not in a shy way though, it was more like…she was observing.

Absorbing.

It was just one of the things I loved about her—she defied any unfair snap judgments someone might be inclined to make based off her appearance.

Or history.

Or family reputation.

It was so much deeper than somehot girlfaçade, which…I had admittedly subscribed to her as well. Not on purpose, though.

In this industry, probably seventy percent of the people you met were only where they were because someone called somebody. I didn’t care enough to take up a banner as some kind of anti-nepotism proponent, but I noticed when there wasactually talent to go with the “luck” and when there wasn’t…which was more often the case.

Just…not with Ellie.

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