by Ros Baxter
He changed quickly into some track pants and an old gray T-shirt he kept there before hoisting himself onto a set of chin-up bars. He needed to burn some energy, release some angst.
He watched himself in the state-of-the-art training mirror as he went through the motions of his usual circuit. He pushed himself to do another press-up and another, going well beyond his usual count, but it was still not enough.
He could see his face in the mirror, grim and determined. Sweat poured from him, but he barely felt the stretch and burn that he sought in his muscles. It was like he wasn’t human—nothing could touch him. It was an exorcism.
But it wasn’t enough.
Nothing was going to be enough.
Not today.
*
Caroline felt warm and alive. The ride had been with one of her favorite mares, a spirited girl called Star. They had gone right to the outer perimeter of the property, and then Caroline had taken the mare through her paces on the gymkhana circuit. Star had been hot and panting when they had finished, and Caroline had felt her own face flush and her cells sing with exhilaration.
After last night, Caroline had needed the ride.
Rick had tossed and turned in bed. She’d reached out to him at one point and he had thrust her away, babbling incoherently. But it was clear to her that some demon was chasing him.
And she had a horrible feeling it involved another woman.
Why was it she never felt as though she was enough for Rick? Despite their bond, she felt he was always holding something back from her.
As she passed through the foyer, Caroline looked at her reflection in the gold-framed mirror that dominated the space. She was still perfectly groomed, even after the punishing ride. Her soft, slick chignon twisted gracefully at the nape of her neck. Her elegant Ralph Lauren riding shirt set off the raspberry-colored lipstick she had used to highlight her pout. And the tan jodhpurs were just tight enough to tell a story, while still being elegant.
She knew it wouldn’t make a bit of difference—Rick seemed to hardly see her right now.
She moved through the living room into the breakfast space, looking for him. She could see the half-eaten Danish and the half-drunk cup of coffee on the breakfast table. She walked carefully to where he had been sitting and softly touched the cup. Still warm. She could smell him in this room, too. That sleepy scent that told her he hadn’t been up long. But there was no trace of his tell-tale cologne, so he had not yet dressed for the office. He’d disappeared halfway through his breakfast. Had he heard her coming?
She reached across and rang a little bell on the breakfast table, chewing her lip as she considered the possibilities.
A young maid, the new one, entered the room almost immediately. “Can I help you Ms Spencer?”
Caroline nodded at her. “Mr. Forrester, Rick. Have you seen him?”
The maid frowned a little. She was dark, Spanish-looking, and something about her face reminded Caroline a little of Maya. The thought made her flush. “He was here?”
The maid seemed flustered. “Yes. He was here, only a few moments ago. I’m not sure …” She put her head to the side. “Sometimes he heads down to the gymnasium after breakfast?”
The girl’s pretty uncertainty picked at the sore of Caroline’s irritation. “Thank you,” she said, in a way she knew sounded dismissive. She mentally chided herself for her rudeness. “Thank you,” she said again, quietly. “You may go.”
Caroline strode from the breakfast room toward the wide, winding staircase that led down to the gymnasium, tapping her riding crop gently against her leg as she went. She saw him before he saw her.
He was pressing weights on a long, low bench. The barbell seemed to be groaning under the weights stacked at each end of it. Caroline realized she had never seen him lift so much. He seemed to be doing it almost effortlessly, raising and lowering the bar with ease and grace. He was going so fast he looked like a man possessed. She caught sight of his face in the mirror; it was red, but calm. He was a study of intent focus and the thought took hold again.
Possession.
What had driven him mad in his dreams last night? And driven him down here? What was taking him away from her? Was it Maya? Again? She had been sure they had laid that particular demon to rest.
Caroline could not understand his continued fascination with that girl. The whole family seemed to be fooled by her. She was a nothing, an outsider, but she seemed to have something that drew people in.
It was time Caroline found out exactly what was going on inside Rick’s head. He had been quiet and distant for weeks now. They needed to talk. And she needed to find out once and for all what he was feeling. It hurt so much to be distant from him.
She wrenched open the glass door into the gym, and Rick swore at the sudden noise, dropping the barbell back into its rests with a loud clang.
“Caroline,” he barked. “You startled me.” He stood up but didn’t move toward her, mopping his face and neck with a thick white towel that had been hanging over the side bar.
“I’m sorry,” she said, surprised as ever by the effect his boyish good looks had on her. Like this, dressed only in sweatpants and a drenched T-shirt, his face flushed and his muscles taut, she well remembered what had first drawn her to him.
She wanted to go to him, put her arms around him and kiss him on the mouth, right here in the gym. Her heart rate was still elevated from her ride, and she could see the rapid rise and fall of his chest through the T-shirt. The movement emphasized the broadness of him. She pressed her fingernails into her palms to stop herself from going to him and wrapping her arms around him.
“We have to talk,” she said.
*
“What’s wrong?” Rick considered the cool, blond beauty standing before him, looking like an ad for polo and the good life. She may have been born with everything, but she was also truly lovely, and she had been so good to him.
But today all he could think about was Phoebe.
Phoebe, who had grown up with everything but managed to stay sweet and sunny and innocent, unaffected by the wealth and power all around her.
His thoughts turned to Maya. Also so different from Caroline. It had been Maya’s empathy with the poor and hurting that had drawn her to him.
Caroline was a good person, and beautiful. But he wondered now if they had ever really been the right match for each other. He struggled to understand how they had ever come together. Sure, looking at her he could appreciate the obvious things: her startling good looks; her poise and grace; her kindness; her elegant fashion sense. But there was nothing real between them any more. It was all an illusion. He knew it, because he knew that he was hurting and he didn’t want to tell her—she was the last person he would choose to talk to about this, the last person he felt would really understand.
He approached Caroline, feeling a sudden spike of guilt lance his heart. None of this was her fault. She had only loved him, and tried to do the best she knew. They were just … different.
“Caroline, I …” Rick said, wondering where to begin.
But she was one step ahead of him. “What happened last night?” Her eyes were bright and glittering and he was sure she could see the distance in his face. Just as he was sure it was hurting her. A wave of self-disgust rose in him.
“Last night?” He’d had wild dreams about the accident again. Always the accident. Dreams where he had done things differently, tried to take a different course, but it always ended up the same. Phoebe lying by the roadside. Rick running wildly, to get help, to find Ridge. And Phoebe dying in her father’s arms.
“Was it Maya?” Caroline’s mouth was a tight line and her face was closed. He could see she was steeling herself for what he might say. “Was it Maya you were dreaming about?”
“Maya?” This was so far from the truth that he couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “No, Caroline,” he said, as gently as he could, trying not to communicate his frustration. This was not Caroline’s fault. He
had no right to feel irritated with her. “This is not about Maya.”
As he watched her face relax a little, he realized he owed her an explanation.
She had tried so hard to love him, to be with him and understand him. She deserved to understand.
“It’s Phoebe.”
Caroline shook her head, mouthing the word he had just said like she was trying to make sense of it. “Phoebe … Forrester?” Her face was frozen in confusion. “Your ex-fiancée?”
Rick nodded. Hearing the name hurt. It was like all the demons in his head became real as he heard the name on Caroline’s lips.
“What about Phoebe?”
He took a breath and put a hand on Caroline’s shoulder. “Sit,” he said. He ushered her over to a small sitting area at the back of the gym. He sat in an easy chair next to her. “Today is the anniversary of her death,” he said, feeling his voice thicken at the words. “The anniversary of the day I—”
Caroline’s eyes were wide and waiting.
“The day I killed her.”
Caroline’s mouth formed a shocked line at his words.
“You’re sad,” she said finally. “You—you’re feeling guilty.”
He nodded. “Yes.” But he knew it was more than that and he knew he owed it to her to tell her. He took a breath and squared his shoulders.
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “You’re still in love with her. You’re still in love with your dead ex-girlfriend.”
Rick swore under his breath. This was not going to be easy. He knew he didn’t have a great track record when it came to the women in his life, and he really had done the wrong thing with Caroline in the past. He’d been trying hard to make it work, but he realized now that the reason he had been attracted to Maya, and become so distant from Caroline, was that Caroline simply was not for him.
Rick took Caroline’s hands. They felt small and cool in his, which were still warm from the exertions of a moment before.
“I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life, Caroline,” he said.
She looked up at him, her brown eyes narrow and wary.
“I’ve spent my life trying to prove something, who I was, what I was. That I was good enough. That I—that I was as good as Ridge, better. He seemed to have everything, even though I was Eric’s real son.”
Caroline nodded. Rick knew that she understood this about him. She had seen him battling Thomas for control of Forrester Creations, and for her heart. Rick felt his stomach churn as he wondered if she, too, had been all a part of his need to win. It was a hard thing to admit about himself, but he saw now that it could be true.
He dragged in a breath and went on. “In all of that, all that jealousy and fighting to prove myself, I hurt a lot of people. Taylor. Steffy. And, worst of all, Phoebe. I’d made such a mess of everything that she died really believing that I’d never loved her. That I had only become involved with her to hurt Ridge.”
He held Caroline’s hands firmly. Somehow it was very important that she understand what he was saying. He stood, pushing his chair back brutally and hunting down the right words. Caroline said nothing. She sat like stone and stared at a spot on the wall.
He was hurting her, he could see it. And he wanted to stop.
But he couldn’t. Stopping would be the easy thing to do. The thing he had always done before. He needed to make different choices now. And from now on.
“But that wasn’t right, Caroline. I did love Phoebe. She was so sweet and funny. And, looking back, it was as though she was always destined for sadness. There was something about her that you could never quite grab hold of.”
Caroline rose and moved to where Rick was standing, holding out her arms to him. She, of all people, would know how much it was hurting him to admit all of this. Even now, she was being kinder to him than he deserved. But Rick could not step into her arms. He could not give another woman a message he did not mean.
He would not do that any more.
“In all that time, playing with people, I never met anyone like Phoebe. And I killed her as much as if I had pointed a gun at her.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, closing his eyes and replaying the scene in his mind. “She was so worked up. I should have pulled over. I just wanted to get to the rehearsal dinner, to get away from her. But I should have known it couldn’t go on like that, that we would have an accident.”
With the words out, he was still. He finally met Caroline’s eyes. “And now, every year, on this day, I think about her. And I think about what I am. Well, that ends today. I’m going to the cemetery. I’m going to talk to her, make my peace with her. And then I’m going to go and see Taylor and Steffy as well. I’m going to ask their forgiveness for all I’ve done to them, over the years.”
Caroline shook her head. She held out her hands to him, as though pleading with an irrational child. “You don’t need to do that, Rick. No one blames you—everyone knows that Phoebe was crazy that day. You don’t need to open all of this up again—you with Steffy.”
Rick saw the fear in her face. This was what she was most concerned about. Rick and Steffy, all over again.
“I do need to, Caroline,” he said gently, walking over to her and placing a finger under her chin. He lifted her face to his. “I need you to hear what I’m saying. I know this is hard for you to understand, but I need to be a different man, starting today. That is what all these years have been building to. This is the time for me to change—change everything.”
Caroline looked hard into Rick’s eyes and he knew in that moment what she was going to ask him. “Including us?”
He wanted to say no; the old Rick would have. The old Rick would have strung her along, made it easy for himself, let her believe he was just having a moment. But he wasn’t. This was not about Caroline, and not about Maya. And yet both women, and his inability to commit, to decide between them, were symptoms of a past he had not resolved.
He knew now, after his time at the top at Forrester Creations, that he really was good enough. That he could win hearts and cut deals and do all that he needed to be the man he wanted to be. Now he just had to stop telling lies, to himself and everyone else, and face the future with dignity.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s over, Caroline. I’m so sorry.”
Caroline’s hand reached out before he registered what she was going to do. The slap had all the pent-up power of her distress driving it. Rick’s cheek stung and his eyes watered as her hand connected.
As soon as she did it, Caroline’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God, Rick,” she breathed. “I’m sorry, I can’t believe I—”
“I deserved that,” he said.
Caroline’s eyes filled with tears. “Go,” she said. “Go see your precious Phoebe, and comfort your precious Forresters.” She raised her beautiful chin defiantly, and Rick admired her for gathering herself when she was so obviously in pain. “But don’t you think for one moment that you will ever be with someone who understands you the way I do. This is the end, Rick.”
He nodded. “Yes, Caroline,” he said. “It is.” Even with his cheek stinging, the urge to wrap her in his arms and comfort her was almost overwhelming.
But he resisted.
As Caroline turned and walked gracefully from the gym, Rick knew that he should have felt sadness and the stark bite of loneliness that he always so feared about being alone, but instead he felt only a cool wave of relief wash over him.
*
Rick had one more thing to do before he left.
He pulled the small leather case out of his wardrobe, setting it on the bed.
He had changed into a formal black suit, one of his favorite Italian pieces, and a crisp white shirt. He had showered and fixed his hair. He knew, looking in the mirror, that anyone seeing him would see a study of wealth and privilege, the consummate businessman. But the angry red welt on his face would take a couple of days to heal. And it would be a longer time before he would forget the look of dignified pain on Caroline’s face a
s she had stormed out of the gym.
He sat down beside the small leather case, and reached inside for a folded piece of tissue paper. He unfolded it carefully, his fingers feeling thick and clumsy with the delicate thing. As he did, a tiny, pressed daisy chain fell out of the paper and slid onto the cover of the bed.
The sight of it made something cold and dark squeeze his heart. He remembered the day so well, a day from the beginning of his time with Phoebe. When life had been easy and sweet. They had been picnicking and she had made the daisy chain for him, settling it lightly on his hair and then kissing him on his mouth, saying, “My sweet prince.”
He had laughed and put it in her hair. It looked beautiful on her, perfect—made her seem even more like the fairy princess she had always brought to mind for him. When they had packed up later, he had grabbed the silly thing. A romantic gesture, perhaps, certainly one unlike him, but he had simply known at the time that he wanted to keep it, to keep that moment alive.
But now it was time to give it back and to say goodbye properly.
He held the little ring of dried flowers carefully in his hands. He could almost hear Phoebe’s musical laugh as he looked at it.
Then he carefully wrapped it in the paper and put it back in the leather pouch.
Chapter Three
The warm sun kissed the back of Steffy’s hair as she leaned down to consider the bouquets lining the sidewalk. The shop was a riot of color at this time of year. There were roses, of course; scarlet and vermilion and yellow and the most delicate shade of pink. There was something sad about them, their perfect faces straining to the sun, not knowing that they had only such a brief time to enjoy it, that their perfection would soon be dust and memory.
Then there were daisies, always Phoebe’s favorite. The sunny round faces peering optimistically at Steffy. Her hand reached for them, brushing one delicate petal, but then the lilies caught her eyes. White, elegant and ghostly. They transported her back to her sister’s funeral. She and Rick staring at each other over the casket, caught in a shared bubble of grief and guilt.
