Blindsided by Love: The Bold and the Beautiful Read online

  Wanting to what? Ridge asked himself. Was he so starved for a woman’s affection since burrowing into his lonely cave that he was ready to fall for anyone in high heels and a skirt? No. That wasn’t it. He’d always thought she was special—a knockout but whip-smart too. He’d been reminded of that when they’d seen each other at Luc’s opening in New York. He’d had the fleeting impulse to kiss her that night, when he’d fed her that amuse-bouche, and it took him completely by surprise, since she was not only too young for him but most likely still carrying a torch for Rick.

  She’s not interested in damaged goods like you, Forrester. Don’t even go there, he told himself. Keep it strictly professional. Your collaboration just started and there are sure to be bumps in the road, but there was progress today, so enjoy that and forget the rest.

  As he was shuffling through the designs, his glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose again and in an effort to push them back in place he knocked them off, onto the floor. He lowered himself off the chair and began to feel around the carpet for them.

  “Let me,” said Caroline, bending down to scoop them up. She was about to position the glasses back on his face when he snatched them away from her and adjusted them himself. He felt exposed without the sunglasses, vulnerable, and he didn’t like the feeling at all.

  “I told you, it’s not your job to pick up after me,” he said brusquely.

  “Right. Sorry.”

  There was another knock on the door and Ridge told Pam they were done with the meeting. Into the office walked Thomas. Caroline jumped up to greet him, while Ridge walked slowly to his desk.

  “Hey, Caroline. Welcome back,” said Thomas with a big, toothy grin, extending his hand for her to shake.

  She pulled him into a hug instead. “Why so formal? It’s just me, Thomas.”

  “I’m really happy you’re here. We all are,” he said, then glanced over at his father. “Work productive this afternoon, Dad?”

  “Ask her,” Ridge growled, back in curmudgeon mode. “She seems to think she’s running this show.”

  Caroline laughed. “Yes, Thomas. It was productive. Your dad’s still got it.”

  “So do you. You look great.”

  “And you look every bit the president of Forrester Creations in that gray suit. One of your designs?”

  He nodded shyly. “I try to be a good ad for the product.”

  “You’re succeeding.”

  “Would you two mind taking this chummy conversation outside so I can hear myself think?”

  Thomas smiled, offering Caroline his elbow. “I was just about to ask if you have dinner plans tonight or are you too jet-lagged?”

  “Actually, I’m having dinner with my uncle Bill,” Caroline said. “We’re going to—”

  “Was I talking to myself?” Ridge barked. “Out.”

  Chapter Five

  “So, how’s the Chosen One these days?” Bill Spencer smirked as only he could smirk. It was almost a snarl, his lips curling underneath the mustache of his neatly trimmed goatee. He hated Ridge Forrester and made no secret of it.

  “He’s hurting,” Caroline said as she sipped wine at his Malibu beach house before dinner. “I think the bravado is all a front to mask how helpless and alone he feels since the fire.”

  “Give me a break with the violins, would you please?” He was dressed in all black, as usual, his shirt open to reveal his silver sword necklace, the one that seemed to embody his warrior, often cutthroat, ethic. “Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes with the eye thing—definitely not fun—but the guy’s been full of bravado since he came out of the womb, and the joke of it is, he doesn’t have a clue what he wants or what to do with it once he gets it. He jerked Brooke around for years and she was the best thing that ever happened to him.”

  “To you too?” Caroline asked with a knowing smile. She guessed her uncle still loved Brooke Logan even if they did have a tangled history, but he managed to keep himself very busy with a procession of other women and he was never short of bed partners.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He took a healthy swig of his scotch. “Which is why you should give Rick another shot.”

  Caroline set down her wineglass, her eyebrow arched. “What? Why would you want me to? He betrayed me, Uncle Bill.”

  “He made a mistake, no argument from me there. But I respect a man who makes a mistake and says he’s sorry. He came to me weeks ago and asked me to plead his case with you—you’ll notice I stayed out of it—and I believe he’s sincere. And besides, he’s Brooke’s son. So do me a favor and give the kid another chance, huh?”

  “Just like that? I’m supposed to forgive him? Trust him? Feel about him the way I used to?”

  “Why not?” he scoffed. “You two made a good team, remember? And I need a Spencer looking out for my interests at Forrester Creations. I have a stake in that company, let’s not forget, and I can’t leave it to their current CEO to manage the place, not when he’s doing his best Stevie Wonder routine.”

  “Uncle Bill!” Bill Spencer was nothing if not tell it like it is, and his comments could be politically incorrect and crude and were frequently both. “I’m here to do a job, to help Ridge finish designing for their fashion show fundraiser, so be nice.”

  He reached out to pat her on the head. “I’ll be nice.” He smiled in that naughty way of his. He could be tender when the moment called for it and family did mean a lot to him, but if you were unlucky enough to get on his bad side, watch out. “Here’s how nice I’ll be. I’m getting up out of this comfortable chair to throw a couple of prime tenderloins on the grill, so be a good niece and set the table.”

  *

  Caroline slept deeply, so tired from the traveling and the intense first day of work that she decided to languish in bed the next morning and have her breakfast delivered. She was browsing her favorite fashion sites on her tablet when her room service tray arrived with a surprise: a single sunflower along with a note. She recognized the scrawl on the outside of the ivory envelope and felt her pulse quicken. She slid her knife under the seal and opened it.

  Dear Caroline,

  I’ve never been much of a writer—Ridge seems to be the Forrester poet laureate—so I hope you’ll forgive me if some of this sounds like the diary entry of a teenager. Well, I hope you’ll forgive me for a lot of things, but I’ll get to them later in this letter, which I’m delivering not in a text or an email but the old-fashioned way, the more romantic, timeless way (in my opinion).

  I’ve done a lot of soul-searching over the many months since you left LA and had a lot of those “Who are you, Rick Forrester, and what do you want to be when you grow up?” conversations with myself. Sad, isn’t it? I should have done all this when I was sixteen or even twenty. But some people take longer to figure things out, and I guess I’m one of them.

  I grew up with chaos, as you know. My parents split up and my sister Bridget and I were never exactly sure what happened until we were older. But our parents loved us, each in their own way, and I should have focused on that instead of on what was missing, how I felt abandoned, how I felt like the forgotten son. I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me. I was a lucky, privileged kid. I had every material advantage—the best schools, the fastest cars, the houses with more square feet than we needed, the easy access to the family business.

  But I was always trying to find my place in the scheme of things, create some stability for myself. Instead, I kept screwing up, attaching myself to the wrong people—the wrong women—and I ended up creating the same kind of chaos I grew up with because it was familiar.

  You’re probably sitting there laughing as you read this and wondering if some shrink put words in my mouth. For better or worse, I came to these conclusions all by myself.

  What I’m saying is I kept repeating the pattern of being the family screw-up, over and over—until I met you. You were the first thing in my life that made sense. You were the opposite of a screw-up, Caroline. You knew what
you wanted out of life and you went for it. You even went for me. And you stuck with me no matter how badly I treated you. How did you do that? What gave you the strength to do that? And how the hell could I have let you slip away?

  I was still in that little boy’s head, that’s how—the little boy who was always recreating the chaos he grew up with. Crazy, right?

  Here’s what I know now, in the dawn hours as I write this: I’m done with chaos, done with being the screw-up. I want another chance with you, to prove that I’m more together, more aware of my shortcomings and how to fix them. Do I deserve another chance? Only you can decide that, but I hope you’ll at least take this time while you’re in LA to let me convince you.

  We could start tonight, if you’re willing. Have dinner with me, Caroline. Hear me out. Or don’t hear me out, just share a meal with me, talk about the weather, it doesn’t matter. It’ll be a fresh start and I’ll grab it with both hands.

  All my love,

  Rick

  Caroline placed the letter on the bed beside her, sank back against her thick pile of feather pillows and let her mind replay Rick’s words. He had never taken the time to write her a letter before. He was more of a doer than a thinker, more prone to taking action than mulling things over. She’d hardly qualify him as introspective and self-exploring—that was Ridge to a T—but maybe the divorce had really shaken him, made him examine where he’d been going wrong.

  And maybe it was only fair to let him try to make things right. One dinner, not a lifetime commitment, was all he was asking for. Just one dinner.

  Oh, why not, she thought, sitting up in bed now, pulling her breakfast tray closer. What harm could it do?

  *

  “Here I am,” said Caroline as she marched into Ridge’s office.

  “Did we sleep in?” Ridge said from behind his desk. “I can’t see the time on my watch, obviously,” he said, giving his well-worn, brown leather-strapped Cartier a look anyway, “but I’m fairly sure it’s not ‘first thing in the morning,’ as we’d agreed.”

  “You’re right,” she said, placing her tote bag on his desk and then pulling over one of the visitor’s chairs and settling into it. “But I spent hours in my hotel going over my notes from yesterday and I think I’ve come up with a good working agenda to give you and the production staff.”

  “You’re at a hotel?”

  “Yes. Hope put me up at the Beverly Wilshire, which is lovely. Thank you.”

  “I thought you’d be staying at the dreaded Bill Spencer’s house,” said Ridge.

  “I saw Uncle Bill last night,” said Caroline. “He sends his best wishes.”

  “I’ll bet. What about the guesthouse with Rick? You’ve seen him since you arrived, yes?” He really couldn’t imagine what she’d been thinking, marrying that preening pretty boy, and he hoped her accepting the assignment at Forrester Creations wasn’t motivated by her desire to get back together with him. She could do so much better. If things were different, if he wasn’t as old as her uncle, if he wasn’t so detached from even the idea of a relationship, if he wasn’t impaired, unfit to romance any woman let alone shave his own face, he would act on his attraction to her without a second thought. He’d felt it in New York at Luc’s opening. There’d been a connection between them, a chemistry. But what was he supposed to do about it now? Unless his sight returned, he was better off alone, better not to be a burden to anyone. Still, he wished he could emerge from behind the sunglasses to see her clearly, her playful eyes, lush lips and porcelain skin, see how snugly her clothes clung to every curve of her body, see how her legs seemed to go on forever …

  “So,” she said, letting his queries about her ex-husband hang in the air, “I’ll run my ideas by you and you can tell me yes or no.” She fished her tablet out of the tote bag and clicked on her meeting agenda. “Here’s my proposed order for the designs. We launch the fashion show with design number four, the peach gown with the halter top. Then we bring out design number six …” She went through her entire list, careful not to omit the pair of designs they’d squabbled over—the termite tent and the dowdy dud—but rather to describe how she would simplify the former and enliven the latter. And then she suggested accessories for each dress—jewelry, shoes, hairstyles and makeup—and the right model to wear each one. She’d imagined every aspect of the fashion show right down to the music, and he could hear in her voice how much she had loved doing it.

  Her presentation lasted into the afternoon. When she finished, she exhaled. He realized she was proud of the hard work she’d put in so soon after arriving in LA. She’d hit the ground running, acutely aware that there was a ticking clock with the fundraiser looming. Of course Ridge hadn’t uttered a single word while she’d laid out her elaborate plans, not wanting to interrupt her. He hadn’t even groaned or shaken his head in disapproval. She looked at him now expectantly.

  “Nothing?” she asked.

  “You’ve rendered me speechless,” he said wryly in an effort to cover what was really going on inside his head. “Your talent and efficiency almost make me want to cry, Caroline.” He pretended to wipe a tear from beneath his glasses.

  “Oh, cut it out, Ridge. You’re wasting valuable time with that nonsense. We’ve got a show to put on.”

  “You’re right again.” He gave her a little salute. “Blame it on this ridiculous—” He pointed to his eyes. “It’s messed with my manners and I’m sorry. I was very impressed by your descriptions, and there’s not a thing in any of them that I would change.”

  It was the truth: Ridge was amazed by the scope of her presentation and by how quickly and thoroughly she’d tackled every design. But he’d been distracted while she was talking, something that happened to him all too frequently since the fire. He’d find himself concentrating on business and then descend into a flashback of that terrible day in Malibu canyon, the thick plumes of smoke making the air nearly impossible to breathe, the threatening embers licking at the roof, the urgency of getting the boys out of the house and into the car, the sudden collapse of the roof and the thunderous, apocalyptic blast of the house igniting, the excruciating pain as he stared into that orange fireball. His eyes still burned with the memory. The doctors said the sensation would pass as the retinal cells regenerated, but the waiting seemed eternal. He’d had enough of it and wanted his life back.

  “Ridge?” said Caroline. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he said, snapping back to the matter at hand. “I would have fought for the ‘termite tent’ to stay in your line-up of the designs, but I thought about it last night and you did have a point. So I’m approving the changes. Good work, Caroline. No, make that great work.”

  Caroline couldn’t contain herself. She raised her arms in the air and let out a “Woo hoo,” which made Ridge laugh.

  “Don’t get too comfortable and think the rest of it will be as easy,” he cautioned. “Fashion shows for the couture line are a tricky business.”

  “Believe me, none of what you heard today was easy,” she said with a laugh of her own. “I second-guessed myself a hundred times before coming to you today.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.” He stared at her from behind the dark glasses. “Would you mind putting your presentation into a memo to staff and Pam or Donna will circulate it so the other departments can get started?”

  “I’ve already done that, since time is such a factor. Given the memo to Donna, I mean. She won’t circulate it until she has your okay.”

  He smiled. “Sure of yourself, weren’t you?”

  “No, just hopeful.”

  She was special all right, on top of every detail, large or small. How did Forrester Creations ever manage without her? How did he ever manage without her? He was drawn to her, drawn to the light and energy she radiated whenever she bounced into a room, drawn to the sound of her melodic voice, drawn to the scent of her perfume, drawn to the way she made him laugh when nobody or nothing else could. She flat-out fascinated him and he suddenly wanted to know
her better. He’d been in Paris during most of her first go-around at Forrester Creations and had missed her star turn, designing for Hope for the Future. He’d heard from Thomas how she’d bailed out Rick when the line had taken a dive in sales, how she was the driving force behind its surge in popularity. He’d missed Rick’s courtship of her too, along with their Thanksgiving wedding at his parents’ house, thankfully. All he knew about her, other than her Spencer background, was that Brooke had lured her to LA to work with Rick and pry him away from yet another failing relationship—and that it had worked out for all concerned until Rick had failed with Caroline too. But who was she really? What made her tick? Who was this woman to whom he had entrusted his designs and his fundraiser for his mother and who, whether he liked it or not, was beginning to inch her way into his heart?

  Ridge placed his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “So, since we’ve handled our business today and I have nothing else that’s pressing at the moment, tell me about you, Caroline.”

  “About me?” she asked.

  “Tell me about yourself, your personal goals, your interests. Are there places in the world where you’d like to travel? Do you dream of having kids? Do you have a favorite movie? A favorite book? A favorite food—although I remember that it’s not gruyere gougères.”

  “Hey, I did like those little hors d’oeuvres,” she said. “I just didn’t recite poetry about them the way you did.”

  “I’ll have you getting poetic about food yet, you wait. But back to you, tell me whatever you want, Caroline Spencer. What was it like growing up in New York, which way do you lean politically, what interests you outside of fashion?” he said.

  “There must be something you enjoy outside of designing,” Ridge prodded when he noticed she was uncharacteristically quiet.