A star of a long-running soap opera has been off the show and back on so many times — just this week — that her story is turning into a soap opera all its own.

We reported Tuesday that Susan Flannery, who plays Stephanie Forrester on CBS’s “The Bold and the Beautiful,” was leaving the daytime drama. Then on Wednesday news broke that she had decided to return to the show.

Now another report indicates that the deal she signed most recently with the show — a deal that was apparently misinterpreted to mean she was rejoining the cast — was really just an extension to enable the show to do justice to her departure.

TVLine.com reports: “Sources confirm … that despite rumblings to the contrary, Susan Flannery is, as reported earlier this week, parting ways with ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ after 25 years — and most amicably, at that. Flannery has signed a short-term extension of her current contract that will allow series boss Brad Bell to spin what we hear is an ‘amazing’ exit storyline.”

Flannery, who has four Daytime Emmys — three of them for “Bold” — will wrap up her stint sometime in December, according to the report.