Blindsided by Love: The Bold and the Beautiful Read online

  You can do this, Caroline. You’re committed to doing this. Don’t be a wuss.

  She laughed as she realized she was talking to herself again, then grabbed her leather tote containing her tablet, designs and sketchpad and went to the lobby.

  “Your car and driver are waiting, Ms Spencer,” said the concierge as he opened the hotel’s grand front door for her.

  Caroline thanked him and walked toward the same black sedan that had fetched her at the airport, only to find not the uniformed driver, but Rick, in a dapper navy-blue suit, blue-and-white pinstriped shirt, navy tie and crisp white handkerchief tucked flawlessly in his breast pocket. His eyes were piercingly blue against the LA sky and his dark blond hair shone in the brilliant sunshine. He was so handsome that he bordered on beautiful—one of those impossibly high-cheek-boned, square-jawed comic-strip heroes who speak in little balloon captions. And he was holding something: a single sunflower, the very first thing he’d given her after they’d met. He’d told her it was her signature flower because it brightened any space with its cheery yellow petals and generous heart, just like she did. She assumed it was a peace offering.

  And so it begins, she thought as she inhaled his familiar cologne, a subtle woody scent, and a wave of pleasure and sadness washed over her simultaneously. Hope was right: he wants me back. And I don’t know how to feel about it.

  She’d loved him. Nothing would ever change that, not even his betrayal. She’d fought so hard for them to be together, done everything she could to make him happy, which in turn had made her happy. But what now? What did she want? What made her happy now?

  She needed to get to the office.

  “Nice to see you again,” she said simply as he opened the limo door for her, waited for her to get comfortable in the back seat and then slid in next to her, still holding the sunflower. She hadn’t reached for it. She felt a lump in her throat at the sight of it, at the sight of him, her emotions so close to the surface, she had to use every ounce of strength to push them down, into a place from which she could summon them back up at some future time and examine them.

  “I’m really glad you’re here,” said Rick. “You look lovely. No surprise there.”

  “Thanks for coming to pick me up,” said Caroline. “Forrester Creations thinks of everything, even sending over my own personal Forrester escort.”

  He smiled. “This wasn’t a company-sponsored idea. I just couldn’t wait to see you.”

  “So Hope told me. How’s Ridge doing?” she said, continuing to tamp down her conflicted feelings for him and steering the conversation away from their relationship. Too soon for that. If things went according to plan, she’d be in LA long enough for Rick to make his case and for her to respond accordingly. Meanwhile, she was focused on the task at hand: designing for the fashion show and helping the fundraiser go off without a hitch.

  “I feel sorry for the guy,” said Rick, laying the sunflower across his lap. “What he did, trying to get RJ and the other kid out of that house, was amazing, but if you think he didn’t like me before, you should see how he treats me now.”

  “It isn’t really about you, is it?” said Caroline. “He’s the one who lost his eyesight.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re sticking up for him?”

  “I asked how he was doing,” she clarified. “I’ll be working with him, so I have more than a passing interest.”

  “Yeah, well, good luck with that,” said Rick. “I mean it, Caroline. We all need this collaboration between you to succeed. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Rick spent the rest of the drive filling her in on the state of affairs at Forrester Creations. Ridge, he explained, kept to himself in his dimly lit office. Pam and Donna helped him navigate important files and documents requiring his attention or signature, but bright computer screens and tablets were off limits and he wore dark glasses at all times. Occasionally, he’d call a meeting, but mostly he worked on design sketches that never made it into production because they weren’t developed enough to translate into concepts anybody could decipher. “He sees partial images, which is better than nothing,” said Rick. “But his drawings look like Sudoku puzzles to me.”

  “Sounds grim,” said Caroline. “I can’t imagine what he’s going through.”

  “The doctors say his vision will come back,” said Rick. “Hell, it should have come back already. Maybe he and I should trade places. I’m stuck in the basement in Thorne’s old office, with as much light as a cave.”

  Caroline nodded, trying to look sympathetic. And she did sympathize; Rick had been president of Forrester Creations until Ridge banished him. Not easy for any man, especially a man like Rick, who’d competed with Ridge for their father’s approval for too many years to count.

  As they pulled up to the entrance of Forrester Creations, Rick took Caroline’s hand and looked her in the eyes. “Maya is not in the picture anymore,” he said softly. “She won’t be at the office, won’t be at the guesthouse, isn’t even in LA, so you don’t need to worry about running into her, okay?”

  “I wasn’t worried about running into her,” Caroline said, removing his hand from hers. “I was worried about running into you.”

  He smiled. “Wasn’t that bad, was it?”

  “No,” she admitted. The surprise of his appearance at the hotel had given her a jolt, no question, but now she was relieved he’d come. Their drive to the office had broken the ice, gotten their first meeting over with, and she’d survived.

  *

  Ridge was pacing. Well, as much as you can pace when you have to be vigilant about not bumping into furniture or tripping over your own two feet. All he’d tried to do was walk over to the coffee table to eat a roast beef sandwich and he’d nearly broken a toe maneuvering around his desk, which was not exactly a high-wire act.

  He stroked the coarse, straggly bush on his chin as he fumed. He’d grown the beard, along with his hair, which now dipped to the tops of his shoulder blades, because he’d given up trying to deal with a razor—the last time he’d made an attempt he’d ended up with more cuts and scrapes than a kid after a few rounds with a schoolyard bully—and he’d refused to allow that joker Monsieur Keith to come to the house and administer a shave and a haircut. Eric said he looked like a hippy and Brooke said he looked like a backwoodsman, but RJ said he looked like a “badass” and Ridge was fine with that. He was sure they all thought he was crazy, but his life had changed dramatically and he was struggling to adapt.

  Who cares what everyone thinks? he reminded himself. Sit the hell down and get to work. He sank into his desk chair, and his sunglasses slipped down his nose as they often did when he so much as moved a muscle—another annoyance. He couldn’t wait to get rid of the things, couldn’t wait to turn on the lights, open the drapes, feel the sunshine on his face, all of it. He didn’t regret having gone to Malibu and gotten RJ and Kyle out of that house, not for a second, and he’d do it all again in a heartbeat. It was just that the frustration of not being able to see normally kept building and building, and though he knew he had to be patient—all the doctors said so—he kept feeling like a patient, a victim, and it wasn’t who he was; he was chairman and CEO of Forrester Creations with an important fundraiser coming up, and he needed his models to strut down the runway wearing an exclusive preview of his spring collection, couture dresses that the coiffed and bejeweled women in attendance at the fundraiser would pay anything to buy.

  Of course, it would help if he weren’t blocked creatively too.

  A knock on the door interrupted his stream of extremely unproductive thinking. “What is it now?” he snapped and was immediately remorseful. It wasn’t like him to be short with Pam or Donna. They were only trying to make things easier for him. Not fair to bite their heads off for it. “Come in, come in. Please.”

  “Ridge!” said the woman who practically sprinted into his office after closing the door behind her.

  The voice didn’
t belong to either Pam or Donna. It was younger, perkier, more melodic. He squinted through his glasses, hoping to get a clearer idea of his visitor’s identity before he had to suffer the indignity of asking. He couldn’t quite make out her facial features—he could see only shadows with jagged lines and red spots running through them, thanks to his damaged retinas—but he couldn’t miss the woman’s trim body, her wavy, shoulder-length hair, the bounce in her step: Caroline. Of course. He’d forgotten she was supposed to show up.

  “We meet again!” she said louder than was necessary, moving briskly toward his desk and waving her hands in the air at him like a sailor stranded in the middle of the ocean. “It’s Caroline! Caroline Spencer. I came straight from my hotel after the jet landed!”

  “My hearing’s fine, so there’s no need to shout,” he growled, “or run like you have a train to catch; I’m not going anywhere. And my sight loss didn’t cause memory loss. I think I can still remember your last name without any prompting, Caroline.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry. Well, I’m here. Ready to roll up my sleeves and get busy. Should I pull up a chair next to yours or would you rather we sit over at the conference table? And before I forget, I’m very excited about working on the couture line. I mean, wow. Just wow. Designing with you for the fashion show? Awesome opportunity, plus it will be fun and productive. We’ll meet the company’s deadline, no worries, and I personally cannot wait to see the reaction at the fundraiser when everybody gets a look at what we’ve accomplished. It’ll be a seriously spectacular event, don’t you think?”

  “My God.” He sat back in his chair and shook his shaggy head. “Do you always talk so much?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She paused. “I say we work at the conference table,” she said, plunging back into the task at hand. “We’ll have more room to spread out and compare sketches. Here, why don’t you stand up and let me help you across the room.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she inched around his massive desk until she was close enough to take his elbow—but he jerked his arm away.

  “Caroline,” he said, standing up tall, adjusting his glasses. “I have limited sight in both eyes, so I can’t see the bewildered expression on your face, but here’s the deal. I am not an invalid. I do not need a nurse or a caretaker or a seeing-eye human. I can manage to get around my office on my own. Thank you.”

  He reached for his sketchpad, stepped tentatively around his desk and promptly crashed into the brass desk lamp, knocking it to the carpet with a thud.

  Without missing a beat, she kneeled down to pick it up. “No harm done. Nothing broken.”

  “Leave it,” Ridge instructed. “Not your job to clean up after me either.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “And please stop apologizing. There’s been enough of that from the others.”

  Ridge could feel Caroline trailing behind him as he continued to the conference table.

  “There,” she said when they were each settled into chairs adjacent to each other. “Why don’t I have a look at the sketches you’ve been playing with and you can explain your vision for each of them.”

  “I’m not playing with my sketches,” he said. “I’m not five years old and they’re not a bunch of Legos.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  He slapped his sketchpad onto the table and turned toward her with a genuine scowl. “Did you not hear me at all? Are you lacking in auditory capability or are you just obtuse, as in dense, thick-headed, simple-minded?”

  He watched her shadowy form rise from her chair, hands on her hips, and he assumed she was glaring down at him. “I’d really like to slap you right now, Ridge.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, I’d really like to slap you, but I’m not the slapping sort of person.”

  “Well, isn’t that a relief.”

  “This whole … tantrum thing of yours? I’m done with it already and I’ve only been here for like six minutes,” she said. “I got up at dawn so I could fly across the country to help Forrester Creations and, by extension, you, with the fundraiser. Hope told me you’d agreed that I should pitch in, Ridge. You signed off on it. Why you did, I can’t begin to understand, since all you’ve done since I walked in the door is berate me for my unsatisfactory vocabulary. I’ve never been in your situation—your sight loss, I mean—but I’ve spent many hours with men, women and children with cancer, some surviving it, some not.” She paused to draw breath. Ridge shifted in his chair. “I don’t sit in my crib sucking my thumb, is what I’m saying. So this will be the last time I apologize to you or watch my words around you or coddle you, and in turn I’d appreciate it if you’d kill the diva act. Do I make myself clear?”

  Ridge sat silently, awed by Caroline’s monologue. Then he raised his hands and began to slowly clap. “Quite a speech, Caroline Spencer, quite a speech.” He stroked his beard and nodded approvingly at her. “I always did like your spirit, your fearlessness, and you’ve just reminded me why. I remember when I came back from Paris and told Rick I was taking his job away from him, and you called me out for it—vociferously. I still don’t get what you saw in him, by the way. And I can’t fathom how you could come from the same gene pool as your uncle Bill, one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met, but here you are. As soon as your little hissy fit’s over, perhaps we could get to work.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

  “Yes. We have a lot to do, so sit down. Please.”

  “Fine.” She sat back down next to him and drew her chair closer.

  She’s not like anybody else, Ridge thought as he inhaled the sweet scent of her vanilla-infused fragrance, her lecture echoing in his mind. She’d been straight with him and she was right—he deserved her tongue-lashing. And she was very beautiful, whether he could make out the finer points of her face at this moment or not. If he could hold onto the last unadulterated image he had of her at Luc’s in New York, of her wearing one of his designs, the black one with the sheer lace bodice, of her personality so light and bubbly, of her ease in social settings so classy and sophisticated yet with a touch of screwball, this arrangement of theirs just might not be so hard to take after all.

  *

  Caroline’s task was to sort through Ridge’s designs, figure out which were worth saving and make them happen. He had numbered each of the designs he’d sketched before the fire, and then there were the un-numbered sketches he’d struggled through after the fire.

  “I envision this gown as the true harbinger of spring,” Ridge said, pointing to a very rough sketch of a flowing, full-length dress cinched at the waist with a thin belt. There had been two dozen other drawings under discussion over their long, draining session, and while Caroline would have her work cut out for her to redraw, refine and reinterpret them for the seamstresses, they were trademark Forrester Creations designs even in their most rudimentary state. She and Ridge had only disagreed on a couple of his sketches, and their bickering had grown so heated he’d thought it had nearly sent her fleeing his office.

  “It’ll look like a toga,” she’d said of one design, which featured an excess of silk to be draped around the model’s back in pleated layers. “No, forget the toga. It’ll look like a very expensive bed sheet.”

  “You’re too young and too inexperienced to appreciate a concept like this,” Ridge had sniffed. “No historical perspective.”

  “I’m not too young to know a woman likes to show off her curves, not bury them in fabric,” she’d retorted.

  “A woman who’s comfortable with herself doesn’t need to flaunt her curves.”

  “Please. Putting this dress on a woman would be like tenting her for termites.”

  “What did you just say to me?”

  “The dress would look like it was designed to exterminate bugs, Ridge.”

  “You’re embarrassing yourself, Caroline. You’re really showing your unfamiliarity with couture.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet,” she said in her most sa
ccharine voice meant to blunt his criticism. “But I think you meant to say, ‘Thank you, Caroline, for giving me your honest assessment.’”

  Ridge had backed down—temporarily. They’d moved on to the next drawing, a design that called for a sheer, gauzy, beaded silk with long sleeves and a high neck accentuated with a crystal brooch. Caroline had dubbed it matronly. Ridge had countered that it was vintage inspired. Caroline had come back with: “Inspired by Grandma’s closet.” He’d told her she probably took her fashion cues from Miley Cyrus. She’d answered that she was surprised he knew who Miley Cyrus was, given his advancing years. At one point, their voices must have been raised loud and long enough that Pam knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right. They’d both yelled, “Fine!” and went back at it.

  If this is what day one is like, we’ll murder each other by the time the fashion show rolls around, he’d thought.

  Thank goodness the subsequent designs created no such tension, and their exchanges were far less contentious, even complimentary.

  “Yes, in this one, maybe the woman is taking a trip to the tropics to kick off the spring season,” said Ridge of the belted design, “which is why I’m seeing lily pads or a jungle print or even a floral pattern straight out of an Impressionist painting.”

  Caroline nodded. “Exactly—the perfect contrast to the designs that were more monochromatic. I loved their pale palette of teals, peach and white, so airy and uncomplicated. But with this one and its splashes of color, we’re talking about the showstopper. It could be that good, Ridge—arresting visually but with a sense of grace, elegance and ease. I like it for the finale. A lot.”

  “Well, what do you know? I guess I should be doing cartwheels or something,” Ridge said wryly, sitting back in his chair. “Caroline Spencer, the arbiter of fashion, has given it her blessing.” He was sarcastic, but secretly he was pleased. No one else at the company had understood what he’d done, let alone liked it. She was a worthy adversary who didn’t “yes” him to death and he appreciated that. He appreciated her and her brutal candor. He liked being around her, liked the way she pushed him to be better. Even when she poked and prodded and mocked him, he’d felt more alive than he had since the fire, his emotions veering from wanting to strangle her to wanting to …