"What the hell did you do? How could you be so stupid?" Bill looked up at his father and back down at the papers in front of him. "Don't just sit there, tell me what you did."

"What I needed to do," Bill roared. "You had to know I wasn't letting any of this stand."

"You're mad? Mad at me? I did what I had to do and you ruined it. They're calling you a predator, Bill. The me too movement wants your blood. You're ruining everything I wanted for you over some girl."

"I had no choice. You steamrolled my girlfriend! I was never going to let her pay for something you did." Bill thought back on the previous days's events and felt like snapping his father's neck.

Bill was knee deep in work when he heard a knock at his office door. He was about to say come in when the door opened on its own. "Dad," Bill greeted. "I'm a little busy and today just isn't a good day."

"Personal issues?"

"You could say that," Bill nodded. "This thing with Steffy is just too much."

"Yeah," Senior agreed. "I thought she was going to be good for you, but she obviously has problems. I'd rather you stayed your distance. You don't need her bad luck rubbing off on you."

"Bad luck?" Bill finally raised his eyes to meet his father's. "Someone targeted her. She has been violated in the worst way. That's not even close to being her fault. She is the victim here." Bill was becoming more enraged by the minute.

"That may be true, but I'd like it if you put some distance between you two. It's not like you're serious. You won't even admit to being in love. You will find other women. You always do."

"Other women? There are no other women. There is no one I want more than her, and I can say it. I love Steffy."

Senior looked shocked and then Bill saw something else flicker in his eyes; something he was sure he didn't like.

"I had no idea you had fallen this hard. My apologies."

"What did you do?"

"I have no idea what you mean."

Just as Bill was about to prove further Justin walked in and crossed his arms.

"What?" Bill looked at his best friend.

"You're not going to believe this, but the first source to break the story about Steffy is owned by Spencer Publications. It took a while, I had to dig deep because the company is a low subsidiary of ours, but it's one we own. How the hell would they think it was okay to break a story like this? They had to know there would be repercussions."

"We own it?" Bill stood. "They knew there would be hell and leaked it anyway? No one is that stupid without backing. Backing from the one person who could make or break their career."

Without notice, Bill grabbed his father and threw him against a nearby wall. "Why would you do this to her? Answer me!"

"For you! I did this for you. I received that video in its entirety and had the incriminating parts of you taken out. She was going down with or without my help. Someone has it out for her and I wasn't letting you go down with her. I broke it first to get ahead of all this. I was protecting my son. Let it go, son. Let her go."

"Is that what you did?"

"Excuse me?"

"When things get too tough you let it go. You let Steffy's grandmother go, me and Karen were on that list too. What were you going to do, dad, toss me and Justin out if it got out that I had sex with my girlfriend at my house and some asshole taped it to get back at us?"

"I would never do that, son. I just wanted to save you the public scandal."

"To save me you bulldozed the woman I love. I will never forget this and I will never forgive you."

"I had no idea she meant that much to you."

"It shouldn't have mattered! You sat there saying how much you loved her grandmother and then you do this to her? That is not okay."

"I loved Stephanie and she chose Eric. Your sister loved Ridge and he choose Brooke. It was only a matter of time before Steffy did the same to you."

Bill's head swirled as the realization hit him. Everything had been his father's doing. All of it. "You switched the files, didn't you?"

"Files, what files?"

"Don't play dumb. The files on Forrester. Everything led to Brooke and then Ridge gets arrested and suddenly you want me away from it. You did all this. You're trying to take Forrester down."

"They deserve it. If you hadn't fallen for that girl you wouldn't care."

"But I did fall for her. And you acted like you cared about her."

"I cared for her grandmother. I thought you would do as you've always done, bed her and tire easily. I was counting on it."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I love her and I'm going to fix this mess you started."

"Don't be rash, son."

"If you ever do anything to hurt her again, rash will be the least of your worries," Bill warned. "Get out of my office." Justin and his father left and Bill drummed his fingers against his temple before reaching out to knock everything from his desk. He had to fix this. He had to make things right for Steffy.

"I may have gone about this the wrong way, but there were ways other than announcing that you did this when we know full well you didn't," Senior advised.

"I don't give a damn. Let these vultures come after me, I can handle it. As long as they leave her alone I'm fine."

"You're not fine, son. People are camped out here, they're ready to stage protests."

"Well get them some signs and pitchforks. We under no circumstance will make any comments confirming or denying the allegations."

"This isn't smart, Bill."

"What wasn't smart was you setting all this in motion. Just stay out of this and I will handle it from here."

"I don't like this one bit. You weren't supposed to get burned by this."

"How do you figure? I was the one fucking her in that video. It was me who slid her all over that desk, knocking over everything but her laptop. There was no way in hell she was dealing with this alone."

"I understand you want to do the right thing. I thought I was doing just that."

"Ruining her—" Bill froze as it came to him. Her laptop. The angle of the video. It was the one thing he hadn't thought about. He'd combed his entire office for a camera and hadn't found a thing. It would have been the only way anyone could watch her constantly. Now he wondered what all they had seen. Had the sex between them been the only thing?

"Son," Senior prompted. "Where did you go just then?"

"Get out of my office. I have somewhere I need to be. I don't want to hear a word about Steffy from you ever again. You leave her alone."

"This was never about her, it was about protecting you."

"Yeah, okay," Bill grabbed his keys and cellphone. "I'll be out the rest of the day." Bill left his building with one thing on his mind; getting to Steffy.

"Steffy." She froze at the mention of her name and looked toward the door.

"Liam," she shrugged, laying her phone down on her desk. "What can I do for you?"

"You can come with me," he smiled. "I'm going to grab some lunch and hoped you would join me."

Steffy looked over at her phone and then nodded. She didn't really want to say yes, but then again, she wanted to keep him close. She wanted to keep them all close.

"Let me just shift some things around and I'm all yours. I just need to cancel a meeting and let Amber know—"

"Let Amber know," Liam interrupted. "I remember the days when you didn't have to answer to anyone. I loved those days. I want that for you again."

"I do too, but what can we do? I screwed up, I have to deal with the consequences."

"But you didn't screw up, you're perfect. It was that asshole that screwed up, but his loss is my gain. I miss you, baby."

Running his hand through her hair, Liam pulled her in for a kiss before she could stop him. Pushing against his chest, she tried to put space between them, but felt herself being ripped away. Seconds later she was in her chair and Bill was pounding Liam's face.

"Bill, stop!" Steffy cried out, but Bill wouldn't relent.

"You think you can do what you did and then kiss her like it's fine? Answer me?" Bill was screaming as each hit he threw rattled Liam's jaw. "Tell her!"

"What are you talking about, Bill? You shouldn't be here." Steffy knee they were still together, and he had every right to be angry at Liam, but he was ruining her carefully laid plan. What was he even doing there?

"I know what I told you, I promised to stay away, but I need you to be safe. You're not safe as long as he's around."

Bill dropped Liam and went fishing through his pockets. Once he had Liam's cellphone in hand, Bill held it in his face and barked at Liam.

"Unlock it."

"You can't make me—Steffy, call security."

"You think this is a game?" Bill laughed sarcastically. "Open it now or I'll force my fist through your face."

Steffy had never seen Bill so worked up, it was almost scary. She had to do something. Waking over, placing her hand on his arm, she attempted to calm him down.

"It's okay, Bill. Liam won't hurt me."

"He already has," Bill held on to Liam's collar. "Unlock the damn phone!"

Bill wouldn't let up on Liam and Steffy stayed close. She was afraid for all of them and did the only thing she could think of to separate them, called security.

As security rushed in and pulled the two men apart, Steffy could see the slowly forming bruises on Liam's face and realized this wasn't what she wanted for him. She had plans of revenge, but she didn't expect it to get physical.

While Bill was being pulled away, she held her hand up to stop them and saw when the phone in his hand light up. Bill snatched away from the guards and shoved it into Liam's face again.

"You did this to her. Admit it!"

Liam wouldn't take the phone, but Bill had other ideas. Grabbing Steffy's hand, he pulled her past Liam and the security officers. Her hand trembled in his and he slowed down to touch her cheek, tenderly relaxing her.

"I'm sorry," he told her, quietly. "I saw his hands on you and I lost it. I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm fine, but what's wrong, Bill? I've never seen you act like this."

"Can you show me where Liam's office is?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "But what is going on?"

Bill gripped her hand and she could feel sweat beading his palm. "I fought a mob of reporters to get here," he laughed. "I'm a predator, you know."

"Why did you do this? You're going to ruin your life."

"It was the only thing I could think of to get them off of you."

"You didn't do this, Bill. It's not your fault."

As they reached the door, he twisted and pulled her inside. He looked nervous, and for the first time since this started, she questioned what he knew. She knew he would never purposely hurt her, but what if he had inadvertently?

"Talk to me, baby. What's on your mind?" She stroked his cheek and he kissed her palm.

"I've never deserved you. It's made painfully clear with each passing day."

"Don't start that." Steffy shook her head. "I'm not going to explain all the ways I've screwed up over the years and how lucky we both are to have each other again. We've had this conversation more than I can stomach."

"My father set yours up and released the doctored footage of us."

"That's why you took the credit for all this? Why didn't you tell me?" Steffy felt tears wetting her cheeks. "Did you know he was going to do any of this? Was this what his plan was all along? Were you a part of it?"

"How could you ask me that? I love you."

"I know you do now, but maybe when we first started he wanted you to get close to me for this reason. You can tell me, I won't hold it against you."

"You listen to me," Bill grabbed her face as he spoke. "Even back then I would have never agreed to use you. I can't even imagine hurting you that way."

"They why would he do this?"

"In his sick, twisted way he thought he was doing this for me. He was trying to protect me because someone sent him the tape. He had any likeness of me edited out because he thought he was doing what was right for me. Twenty-seven years later and he finally wants to protect me."

"By ruining me and my father. Got it," Steffy nodded.

"He screwed up, but he didn't film the tape. It was delivered to him. Which is why we're here. I think I know how this happened."

"What?"

"You told me you had your laptop fixed a few months ago."

"Yeah," Steffy nodded.

"Issues connecting with the internet and Liam logged into it remotely because he was on a trip, but he fixed it for you, right?"

"Yeah, he went to New York."

"Once you give someone remote access there is no way to be sure they logged out. They can watch everything you do. That night was the only night you've had your computer near us while we were having sex, and I combed my entire office and found no other feasible way for us to have been filmed. He did this and sent it to my dad knowing full well he would doctor the tape to cut me out."

"I suspected one of the people here. I knew it was one of them."

"Put in his password. I'm sure we will find our proof."

Steffy fiddled with a few passwords before finding one that worked, her birthday of all things. While she and Bill looked through the various files, both sighed when they came up empty.

"I don't get it," Bill fussed. "I know it has to be him."

Steffy believed him, it all made sense, but of course Liam would be smart enough not to have the evidence on his work computer. He couldn't possibly be that narcissistic and cocky.

"It's not here. Let's just leave before–" Ridge walked in and Bill rolled his eyes. "Too late."

"What are you doing here, Spencer? You want to record more private videos of my daughter to splash all over the internet?"

"I didn't record it."

"Well why in the hell would you confess?"

"Because if it's a choice to save me or her I'll save her first."

Ridge looked taken aback by Bill's words, and Steffy just tried to tune them out. There had to be something she was missing.

While Ridge and Bill bickered around her, Steffy's eyes glanced at the door, seeing Liam arrive. He looked frantic, and she knew she was on to something. She just needed to find it.

"Steffy, What are you doing? I thought you knew it was him."

Having had enough of the games, Steffy threw her hand up. "Shut up! Everyone just shut up and let me think." The room went silent and Steffy nodded. "You once told me that people rarely keep secrets in plain sight," she told Liam.

"I don't have secrets, Steffy," Liam insisted. "You're letting him cloud your judgement."

"I let you cloud my judgement," Steffy argued. "For years I let you convince me that you mean well for me. I know—" With one final click of the computer mouse, Steffy unearthed a folder that was otherwise hidden on the computer. "Most people encrypt files and move them out of sight. It's how you should keep your work plans," she said mockingly.

Steffy clicked into the folder and then looked up at Liam. "Isn't that what you said when you set up my laptop?"

"Steffy, you have to know..."

"I have to know that you recorded me having sex with my boyfriend and set it up to be released all over the world. That's really all I have to know." Steffy stood from the chair. "And what you need to know is that you're fired."

"Steffy—" Liam pleaded. "Let me explain..."

"Get out," Ridge barked before Steffy could respond. Stay away from my daughter.

"Your daughter? What a laugh," Liam hissed. "Which one?"

Liam was jerked out of the office by security and Steffy found comfort in Bill's arms. She closed her eyes and melted into his embrace, but something was nagging at her. Which daughter, Liam said. Her only sister had been killed so many years ago. Hope. He meant Hope. Liam knew calling Hope Ridge's daughter always got to her. Shaking her head, Steffy leaned up to kiss her boyfriend.

"It's over, baby. Now we can get back to normal," Bill assured her.

While she wanted to believe him, the look on her father's face told a different story. Something was wrong. This was far from over.