"Bill, you cannot tell anyone… especially not Liam." She told him.
"What do you mean I can't tell anyone? I am not keeping such a vital piece of information from…" he began.
"No, Bill, that was not a question, ok?!" she exclaimed. "I am telling you! Do not tell anyone." She articulated every word of her last sentence.
"Steffy, you are pregnant, you…" he began.
"No! God!" she started in anger and covered her face with her hands. "What did I just say? You can't even pronounce that word!" she scolded him.
"Liam needs to know." Bill stated, striving to conserve his calm.
Steffy closed her eyes and sighed. "And he will." She asserted gesturing with her hand. "…in due time."
"And when would that be?" he inquired.
"Whenever he makes his choice." She answered.
"Steffy…" he spoke in a reasoning tone of voice.
"No." The raven-haired woman raised a hand before her. "Just promise me you won't say anything." She asked him.
"Steffy!" he insisted.
"Promise me."
He stared at her, her eyes intent on him, and he saw the determination in her expression: she wouldn't let him be until he complied. He broke the eye contact and his eyebrows had a rise and fall motion.
"Fine, I promise."
She nodded grateful, relief evident in her expression.
And that is the moment Liam chose to enter his father's office.
"Promise what?" he asked addressing his father, yet gazing at Steffy for an instant before he gave the old man attention.
The raven-haired woman cast an embarrassed glance at her so-called boyfriend before she turned to Bill in silent supplication.
The latter looked at her weighing his options, and then responded to his son: "Promise to think about granting Forrester Creations a few pages in our magazine."
Liam nodded and focused his stare and attention back on Steffy.
"Hi" he greeted her with hesitation.
"Hi" she greeted back, a smile on her face.
They just stayed like that: gazing at each other, completely forgetting about Bill's presence who felt like a bit of an intruder in the moment, until the raven-haired woman broke the eye-contact and looked down at her feet.
He kept staring at her not knowing what to do or say to get things back like they used it to be. There had always been something out of the charts between them; they had something…: an understanding. And he hated the tension that filled the place; the awkwardness that had settled between them was killing him.
"Can we please talk?" he asked her.
"Sure." Steffy responded. "I was just about to leave." She declared heading for the door.
Bill followed her with his gaze. When had things gotten so messed up? He had never witnessed Steffy so defeatist and so flying: no matter how hard things were between her and Liam, she always believed in them.
"Steffy, I was talking to you."
She stopped on her steps and slowly turned around. She met Liam's brown eyes who had also turned around to face her.
The man looked at his father, whose gaze swung between him and his moment girlfriend. Then, Bill nodded at his son.
"Suit yourselves." He said as he walked towards the door. Passing by the brunette, he gave her a rather discrete look but that said it all: she needed to tell Liam.
Bill left the room and Liam spoke.
"You look good." He complimented and she raised her eyebrows lifting her gaze. "Though, you seem tired." He added as he studied her more intently.
"I've been working a lot." She confided and he nodded.
She advanced towards him. "What about you? How have you been doing?" she questioned.
"I'm ok." He merely answered and Steffy nodded at her turn. "I'm terrible." He finally admitted in a sigh.
He stared at her, looking straight into her green eyes. "I miss you." He genuinely told her.
She unconsciously lost herself in his gaze. "I miss you too." She replied and they stared at each other for as a small as a long moment until Steffy spoke again. "You know what to do to put an end to all this want."
He lowered his head.
"You know I should probably go." Steffy declared. He raised his head and looked at her. After a few seconds, she started walking away.
"Wait." Liam retained her by grasping her right arm.
She slowly turned around and as their eyes connected, they both couldn't help each other. He cupped her face and lowered his lips over her luscious ones. As their lips met, Steffy gasped, his mouth was at the same time soft and passionate on hers; she had missed this. She brought her hands up to his forearm before she raised them to his collar holding on for dear life. Liam passed a hand through her long and silky dark hair and deepened the kiss. He took hold of her hand by her side and pressed them together. His tongue darted out and sought access to her mouth. She opened it and let him relish, enjoying the feel of their lips battling for control herself. A wave of heat ran through them at the same moment and Steffy felt as though her body was aflame.
Then, suddenly, taking a grip on herself, she released his lips panting. He leant his forehead on hers, instantly and keenly missing the sensual contact. He stroked her hair and planted a kiss up her temple. She had her eyes closed relishing in the moment. She reluctantly removed Liam's hand from her face and her hair and released them; they fell at his side. The raven-haired woman opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out so she snapped it shut. She stared at Liam for a few seconds more then, reluctantly walked away.
/
After finally managing to get her boyfriend out of her head –at least temporarily –Steffy decided to focus on her work again and asked Madison to get her a list of the most read magazines at the present time. She was looking over it and checking the ones she could potentially contact to obtain a few pages and above all the cover from. She had a photo-shoot planned at the end of the week on Friday for Intimacy and was wondering how on earth she was going to escape that. It's not the photo-shoot itself or even the re-launching of the line that was an issue; it was what was going to follow… Sure, she could do the shoot on Friday. Only, in a few months, her stomach would start to show… and she wasn't sure a pregnant woman in fine lingerie was that sexy and agreeable at the visual. But how could she let down her grandfather and Forrester Creation's staff altogether without a valid excuse which wasn't her pregnancy?
A beep on her computer coming from the groove Skype caught and retained her attention. Therefore, she dropped her pen and clicked on the groove: it was her father asking her for a video chat. She smiled widely and accepted the video call; this was just what she needed: her father, and a heart-to-heart with the latter. Ridge appeared on the screen.
'Dad!' she exclaimed.
'Hey, Steffy.' He greeted her. 'How are you?'
'I'm fine. How are you?' she asked back.
Ridge raised his brows in surprise. 'Fine? That's it?' he inquired. 'I am fine; my marriage just ended.' He declared. 'You just got back to your boyfriend; you should be on your own cloud right now.' His voice expressed his incomprehension.
'Yeah, I guess I should, shouldn't I?' simply replied the brunette inducing her father to knit his brows. Something is seriously wrong, he thought to himself.
'Steffy, what is going on?' her father questioned her.
She took a deep breath. 'Liam and I are separated.' She announced plainly; she might as well have been telling him the weather conditions.
'Separated? Really? And you announce me that like that?'
'How do you want me to announce it to you?' Steffy falsely asked. 'The tone doesn't change the news.' She declared.
'You should be wallowing on your couch with chocolate popcorn!' he told her.
She laughed. 'And what good would that do? Besides, I'm not a wallowing person and nobody died so why would I wallow? Would you want me to?' she questioned.
'No' answered Ridge. 'But that's what you should be doing.'
'Well, I have no intention to do so.' She asserted. 'I have way too much work anyway.' She declared.
'See, this is what I'm worried about: you finding a refuge in your work, you becoming a sort of… workaholic.' He confided.
'I'm not.' She promised.
'Sweetheart, what happened?' Ridge questioned concern evident in his voice and expression.
The raven-haired woman shrugged not knowing what to say and clearly not wanting to get into it.
'Sweetheart?' Ridge tried again.
She looked back up at the screen and sighed at her father's insistent look. She collapsed on her chair and let out yet another sigh.
'It's Hope, isn't it?' he inquired.
Steffy rubbed her forehead at her brow's level. She ran a hand through her silky hair. 'No. It's Liam… and his consistent inconstancy.' She confided looking up at the ceiling and he listened in intently. 'I'm done with it, I can't put up with it anymore; I've had enough.' She told him. 'That's why I decided to move out from Liam's place and move back into my apartment. He doesn't know where he's at; I am giving him some time and space to figure it out.'
And there it was, it was said. The reason Steffy was so reluctant to talk about what was going on between her and Liam is it made it all well more real. As weird as it may seem, she felt like as long as she didn't talk about it, it stayed abstract. And Steffy didn't want them to be over; the thought drove her mad to no point and made her head hurt and her heart ache, which is why she tried her best not to think about the situation. She had told Liam once that he really held her life in his hands; she meant it. And today, she could only hope he wouldn't put an end to it but take care of her heart she had so utterly given to him.
'You know… people say we marry our father.' She paused. 'I love you dad, but I really wished that didn't apply to my case.' Steffy confided.
Indeed, with the whole love triangle she had let herself get sucked in with Hope and Liam, she felt as though she was reliving her past with the love triangle between her mother, her father and that home wrecker going by the name of Brooke Logan; only now, she was playing one of the main characters.
'I'm really sorry, Steffy.' He told her.
'Thank you. But you don't need to worry about me, I'm…'
'Aahhh' she let out a cry of suffering bringing a hand to her stomach where a great pain had seized her.
She half-disappeared from Ridge's sight whom the shout had alarmed. 'Steffy?' Ridge called out for his daughter. 'Steffy! What is it?!' he insisted, anguish dripping from his voice.
She raised her head a bit. 'It's nothing, don't worry. I'll talk to you later, dad.' She asserted managing to keep a dull voice. 'I gotta go.'
'Steffy! Steffy?!'
She logged off damping his voice and closed the screen. She collapsed with difficulty and painfully, hurting. She breathed with effort and brought her two hands to her stomach. 'Ahhh. Oh my god.' She felt as though air was getting sucked out of her lungs to the point of asphyxia. Panting, she removed a hand from her stomach and reached out for her phone on her desk before falling into unconsciousness.
/
Comfortably seated on his office's armchair, Liam held a picture of Steffy and himself in his hand. If his memory served him well, they had taken it during their 'Find Katie' mission with his father and Brooke. It was one of their most beautiful and meaningful pictures, at least that's what Liam thought, which is why he had it on his desk. Steffy and Liam were merely looking at each other in that photo; no smile, no laugh, no whatever. And still, the picture was full of meaning: because the look they were giving one another said it all. Their gazes were marked with their love and their complicity so unique. It was a picture completely representative of their couple: they said it best when they said nothing at all.
He was touching Steffy's dark hair on the picture absently, his mind rewinding their hot encounter from this morning. The kiss they shared was so… completely unexpected –from both Steffy and Liam's part: the raven-haired woman definitely wasn't expecting that, and he absolutely hadn't planned the move. However, he didn't regret it one bit. It was such an intense kiss; he put his whole heart in it as if to show her that despite the actual distance between them, his love for her remained unaltered. Just remembering the feel of her hand in his and their fingers intertwined, Liam felt himself shudder. He could still feel her soft and sweet lips ravaging his own. He still had her taste at his tongue's end and it filled him with want.
He was so far away he didn't even hear the door open and someone get in.
Bill advanced in the room, looking at his son with a smirk at his lips' end. He lowered the number of Spencer Publications he was holding.
"Fantasizing?" he questioned pointing at the picture of him and Steffy Liam had in his hands.
Liam looked at his father and came back to earth. He put back the frame on the table.
He let out a sigh. "Yes, dad. What do you want?" asked Liam.
"This is my company." He reminded. "I don't need a reason to enter the offices and check my employees' work." He stated. "Speaking of which, did you get any done or were you too busy daydreaming about your soon-to-be ex-girlfriend?" he interrogated his son.
The latter huffed. He turned on his armchair and got up. "I put Hope for the Future's new promoting video on line, and I edited the report you asked me for." He declared handing to his father the said report.
Bill took it. "Thank you." He turned and headed for the door when Liam's voice stopped him.
"Wait, that's it?" he asked, his brows knit together, and his father stayed still. "You don't even try to know what Steffy and I said to each other earlier?" he questioned, surprise written all over his face.
Bill turned around so they would face. "Do you want to talk about it?" he demanded.
Liam looked down at the floor for a second, then back up at his father. "What did you mean by 'your soon-to-be ex-girlfriend'"?
"Oh finally, you wake up!" noted Bill.
Liam creased his brows, utterly confused. "I beg your pardon?"
"You are losing her, son. Every passing second, she distances herself more from you and you don't even realize it. She won't put up with your crap much longer." He told his son. "If you don't make a decision… real soon… she's going to make it for you." He declared before he moved closer to him. "And some day or another, I can assure you that you will make up in sweat hating your life, wondering how on earth you were stupid enough to let the woman of your life go."
A lump formed in his throat as his father's words sank in. He didn't want to have to live that. He didn't want to live without her; and he wasn't sure he was capable of it.
"The thought of a life without her makes me sick to my stomach." He admitted. "I don't want to lose her." He realized as the conclusion came out.
Bill made another step to him. "Then don't."
/
The raven-haired woman had just recovered her consciousness –well, sort of: she was in a daze nevertheless. Her heart beat abnormally fast and she had her both hands on her stomach trying to regularize her heartbeat. She knew she should probably call an ambulance. But how could she without the whole company and perhaps even a big part of the world finding out about her condition, thanks to the paparazzi, before she even had the time to tell Liam? After all, it wasn't like she lived under the lee of stares. Yep.
She wasn't ready for the world to know yet. For God sakes, the father himself had no idea!
As she heard footsteps and her door flew open the second after, she instantly removed her hands from where they were, that is to say from her stomach.
"Steffy, have you seen…" Katie began to question, obviously in a hurry, as she opened the door. She stopped herself at the sight before her and closed the door as quickly as she had flown it open.
Though she had removed her hands from her stomach, the raven-haired woman hadn't managed to keep the tension and the pain off her face.
"Are you okay?" Katie enquired moving closer to her.
"It is still done to knock, you know." She rightfully pointed out to her ex-mother-in-law. "Yes, I'm okay." She answered. "Who are you looking for?" she asked at her turn.
"No, you're not." She remarked.
"Ah." Steffy let out a small shout of pain, her stomach killing her, bringing her hands there.
"Steffy!" Katie screamed, and was at her side within a second. She turned her armchair towards her and bent at her level. "Oh my god, what is it?!" she interrogated, her state of panic slowly increasing.
"It's nothing, I'm fine." She responded.
"Really?" she asked rhetorically opening her handbag to look for her cellphone. "Your breathing seems to agree." She commented ironically. She found it.
"What are you doing?" asked Steffy, still struggling to breathe steadily.
"Calling the emergencies." She answered.
"No, no, don't do that." She countered.
"I have to."
It was no secret that Katie wasn't fond of her ex-daughter-in-law, and the latter surely returned the favor. But for all their disagreements, she still wasn't willing to watch her hurt in silence without doing anything.
"It's going to pass. I'm gonna be fine." She asserted.
"Surely." The old woman confirmed. "Once you will have seen a doctor." She added.
"Please." Steffy insisted. "If an ambulance shows up here and I go in it, tomorrow I'll be on the tabloids' front page, you know it." she explained herself.
Katie heaved a sigh. "Fine." She gave up. "But you let me take you to the hospital." She insisted.
"But…" Steffy started to put forward.
"We will take the back door." She calmed the raven-haired woman's fear. "Come on, let's go." She took Steffy's purse and put it on her wrist; then, she helped her get up. She tried to get her to lean on her shoulder.
"It's good, Katie. I can still walk, thank you." She declared advancing alone.
Katie followed behind her and aimed to open the door when Steffy's hand stopped her. "Seriously… thank you." The latter told her.
/
By the time they got to Los Angeles' General Hospital, Steffy's stomach had stopped slinging and she wasn't hurting anymore. However, Katie insisted that she consulted a doctor, so she had to comply.
The doctor Dupre, a very nice woman, received her and made her run some tests as well as a blood sample. She was actually waiting for the said woman to come back and reassure her as far as her and her baby's health were concerned –indeed, she had been obliged to tell her about her pregnancy. After all, as the doctor who had ran her tests, she was bound to know; besides, she was sworn to secrecy so… what was the point in retarding the inevitable? And perhaps knowing she was pregnant would make the woman speed up the tests and she would know sooner if there was something wrong going on with her pregnancy. She had a baby to think about now: she couldn't afford to joke around with her health anymore. The child she was carrying was her top priority, her sole priority. Steffy hadn't studied medicine but, she was pretty sure the pain she had felt in her stomach earlier wasn't normal. She hoped everything was okay.
All she wanted was to go back at her apartment –she couldn't say home because well… her home was someplace else –and get some sleep. Perhaps, she had been working too much indeed. She hadn't realized it until then but she felt a surge of fatigue overcome her all of a sudden. She needed nothing other than rest… and Liam…
As the door finally opened, it was not the doctor Dupre who entered the room but a much more familiar face.
"Bridget?" she said in a questioning way, her eyes widened in surprise.
"Hey, Steffy." She greeted closing the door. "I'd ask you if you're okay but I don't think you'd be here if you were." She declared advancing towards her.
She chuckled. "As a matter of fact, I'm feeling much better, thank you." She asserted and the doctor smiled. "I didn't know you were working here again." She told Bridget.
"Yeah, nobody knows, it's a… recent change."
Steffy nodded.
"The doctor Dupre had an emergency, but you can see her tomorrow." Bridget said, the thought rushing back to her mind.
"Tomorrow?" Steffy asked.
"Yes, your test results won't be ready until tomorrow." She announced. "I can call you to let you know." She offered.
"Gladly, thank you." She thanked.
"Of course." The blonde nodded.
"So can I go now?" Steffy rose from the deckchair.
"Sure." She gave her approbation nodding. "Just… one sec." she asked going round the desk to look into the drawer. She took a small box out of it and held it out to the raven-haired woman. "Here." Steffy took the box and looked at what was written on it. "Take four a day." She told her.
"Vitamins?" she made sure raising her eyebrows in surprise.
"Yes, it's for the baby."
Steffy stared at Bridget in utter shock, the blonde's words the effect of a thunderbolt; she looked like she had just been told her father was going back to Brooke. She eventually recovered her spirits and shook her head to clear her thoughts. "You know?" she asked.
"I'm sworn to secrecy, Steffy." She tried to reassure.
"It's true… and so not the point." She declared dropping her gaze to the floor. "Way too many people already know."
"Well, if somebody else happens to find out, I promise it won't be from me." Bridget stated and Steffy smiled thankfully at that.
"Thank you." She headed for the door but turned around to the blonde one last time. "I would like you to be the one to follow my pregnancy…" she asked. "… That is if you don't see any objection."
"I would be honored." She responded. "If you trust me." She set a condition putting an emphasis on the conjunction 'if'.
"I do trust you." She stated. "Four a day, huh?" she asked showing the box of vitamins.
The doctor smiled. "Let me walk you out." She said opening the door.
Once in the corridor where she had left Katie, Steffy looked around for the woman but saw her nowhere.
"Where is…" she began to ask Bridget.
"Hi" she heard Liam's voice say. She turned and saw him standing before her in the elevator.
"Liam?" she was surprised. "What are you doing here? Are you okay?" she enquired, anxiety getting the better of her.
"Okay, I'm gonna leave you two now." Bridget told the couple. "Steffy, rest! And avoid any cause for stress." She ordered.
The raven-haired woman nodded. "Thanks again." And as the doctor went away, she turned back to Liam. She gave him an interrogating look waiting for answers.
"Katie called me." He paused. "I wish you had."
"I was a bit busy." She retorted.
"Come, let me take you home." He said walking towards the elevator.
She waited a second thinking about her next move. She eventually joined him in the elevator; as it closed, he took her hand in his and intertwined their fingers.
/
Steffy and Liam were in the latter's car with him at the steering-wheel. They had hardly got in the car that he had started interrogating her about her health and pressing her to explain why exactly she had had to go to the hospital without taking the time to alert him. She told him that she was video-chatting with her father when a sharp pain seized her in the stomach and that Katie, passing by at that precise moment, had insisted on taking her to the hospital. After all, she didn't lie, she just didn't mention the passing out part and the fact that what got her so worried was that she was carrying his child in said stomach.
Liam reassured, the rest of the road went on in silence. She really was detaching herself from him, Liam realized.
After a certain roundabout, he took a wrong route.
"You missed the exit." She told him.
He glanced at her but didn't rebound on her statement.
"Liam!" she insisted.
"Relax." He told her.
"Liam, please! I am tired, I want to rest." She declared, irritated. "You said you would take me to my apartment."
He tilted his head to the side. "That's not accurate." He said and as the raven-haired woman frown in confusion, he turned his head to her direction and stared right into her eyes before he elaborated. "I said I was taking you home… what I'm doing."
"Liam…" she began.
"I want you back, Steffy." He told her, his eyes going back and forth between the road and her.
She stared at him not trusting her ears enough to believe he had actually said what she just heard, and as she saw the sincerity in his eyes and the emotion on his face, she felt her eyes get watery. The moment lasted forever. Then, she dropped his gaze and turned to her side to stare outside the window pane trying to regain control over her emotions.
"Pull over." She asked him still facing her window pane.
"What?"
"Pull over." She repeated.
He kept driving, and then a few meters later, he pulled over at a spot where it was actually authorized for cars to pull over.
"Steffy, I…"
He didn't have time to finish his sentence for she had crushed her lips on his. Though caught off guard, Liam instantly leaned into the kiss. He brought his hand inside her raven hair and deepened the kiss. He ran his tongue over her upper lip asking for further access; she opened her mouth and he slid his tongue into it meeting hers sensually. She had one hand resting on his chest and the other in his tousled hair holding his face against hers.
After a few seconds of passionate kissing , she broke away and opened her eyes staring right into his. "There's nothing I would like more than to move back in with you." She told him and his lips pulled into a small smile. "But I can't…"
His face fell at that and he frowned lightly so she elaborated. "Because it wouldn't be for the right reasons." She justified. "I can't move back in because an hour ago, you faced the fear of losing me!" she told him. "If I do move back in, it will be because you will have realized that you love me and I am the one you want to spend your life with and solely because of that." She stated.
"But I do love you." He asserted.
"I know. I know but…" she said.
"Let me finish." He asked her. "I love you and yes, when Katie called me, I had the fear of my life. But I want you to come back because I love you, Steffy." He declared. "I realized thanks to that phone call that I don't want to live without you." He paused. "I can't live without you." He confided.
Steffy stared at him, moved. She had waited so long to hear this; she had dreamed of it. "Okay, then." She nodded. "Okay, I'll move back in." She said before she put a condition forward, "...after you talk to Hope."
"I will talk to her." Liam promised.
"Yes, you will." She stated. "Before I move back in." she specified. "Call Hope, meet up with her, and if you manage to look into her eyes and tell her you want to be with me, I swear to you I'll never let you go again." She vowed.
He stared at her, silently dreading his future discussion with Hope. That should be painful. "Then, prepare your luggage." He told her.
And with that, he lit up the motor again and took off again.