It bothered RJ that he didn't feel guilty. He hadn't... It wasn't sexual intercourse, but it was still sex. He had still cheated on Noah and he didn't feel bad about it. It wasn't even that he felt guilty about not feeling guilty. It just there, and it made him wonder if learning about Noah kissing Eden had broken something in him.

He stood outside the Forrester Creations building and wiped his mouth. There was nothing there, no trace of Thad Pasado, but RJ still felt it. The way he'd kissed RJ was nothing like how Noah kissed him. And when he... Thad had pulled on his hair and forced his head up and down where Noah would lovingly touch his face and let RJ work at his own pace. And RJ wasn't sure which approach he preferred: he was so confused.

"Why am I here?" RJ asked himself. Security had let him through. Rick had left his visitation privileges in place. Or Ridge hadn't had time to try to revoke them. Either way, RJ stared at the "FC" logo and wondered just what he was doing. Was he looking for another pointless fight with his dad? Did he want to see how Layla and Rick were handling things?

Nobody had seen him leave L&M, but the same security guard who had let him in also let him out. Thad had written his phone number on a piece of scrap paper. He told RJ to call him anytime. That paper was still in his pocket even though RJ had long since memorized the number. It had been the longest taxi ride of his life. At least he had grabbed his wallet before his dad stopped by the loft. It would have sucked to be in Los Angeles with no money when he didn't want anyone able to find him.

All RJ wanted was someone to talk to, someone he could confide in without judgment. Amber used to be that person, but he couldn't come to her with this. She was his best friend, probably his only friend, but he didn't want to put her in the position of lying to Noah. Maybe Katie? She might not understand, but she definitely wouldn't judge. RJ loved Brooke, but he couldn't talk to her about this. There were things a son could never say to his mother.

"RJ? Is that you?"

Not trusting his ears, RJ turned around and saw his sister storming across the parking lot to him.

"Steffy? What are you doing here?"

Her answer was slapping him across the face. The blow was so hard that his entire body jerked and he almost fell over. After he recovered, he looked at her and rubbed his cheek.

"That was for my mother, RJ. You have some damn nerve coming here after what you did." Steffy pulled her hand back to slap him again, but he backpedaled out of her reach.

RJ tested his jaw before speaking. "I see you talked to Dad."

"Why would you do that to him, RJ? What did Dad ever do to you? Caroline I could understand, but he's our father!" Steffy yelled, lowering her hand. He didn't trust her to not hit him again.

"Nothing, Steffy. He did nothing to me. Or for me. I was never a factor in his life. I wasn't one of Taylor's children, so I didn't matter. Not like you or Thomas. Hell, he cares more about Phoebe and her stupid ass is dead!"

Steffy stepped up to slap RJ again but he ducked under it and bounced even further away.

"Fuck you, RJ! Just because you didn't grow up around Phoebe doesn't mean you get to talk about her like that." Steffy was livid. "Surely even you can find a way to hate Dad without being such a little bitch about our sister."

RJ almost apologized. He knew he had gone too far. Punching Taylor was one thing: she'd had it coming for months. But just because RJ never really knew Phoebe, that didn't make it okay to trash her.

"Fine," he acquiesced. "I shouldn't have brought up our sister."

"Thank you." Steffy looked like she was calming down, so RJ let himself do the same. "RJ, this isn't you. Ruining our father, trashing Forrester, attacking my mother: the guy I lived with in Paris wouldn't do any of this. My brother is better than this."

"How would you know, Steffy? You ignored me in Paris, just like Dad did. You had a miscarriage and Liam left you and Grandmother had just died. Every person who lived in those suites was a miserable wreck. And I noticed your pain. I saw you and dad struggling but I didn't know how to help. I was a kid.

"But I was a mess, too, just on the inside. I had to keep everything together so that I could finish school. You and Dad went to work at Forrester but you two were mindless zombies."

"We were grieving, RJ. I had a child die inside of me. Dad lost his mother. You had, what, a hard time drawing your web comic? Yeah, I remember the web comic. I remember that you wanted to be a cartoonist instead of a designer. I remember you moping around dinner whenever the teachers would give you negative feedback. We paid attention, RJ."

Stunned, RJ could only blink as Steffy lectured him. He didn't even remember his comic. He'd given it up after a couple months because he couldn't keep up with the release schedule and school.

"And quit acting like your being gay has anything to do with anything. Nobody in the family has disowned you, or called you names. We supported you publicly and privately. Dad even invited you and your boyfriend to a special dinner because he wanted you to be there when he proposed to Caroline! He wanted you to be part of his life and you returned the gesture by spitting in his face.

"And I know all about that because he called me afterward crying. Caroline was a mess, too, but whatever. Nobody cares about her. Dad tries with you and all you do is hurt him because you won't grow up. Stop being a whiny brat, RJ. Dad and Caroline didn't out you. That was my mom. And guess what? Everyone already knew you were gay because we aren't as stupid as you think!

"We were waiting for you to be comfortable enough to come out. And you can barely call it being outed by my mom when you were making out with a guy in an airport, RJ. There were people everywhere! And Noah was already tabloid fodder because he fucked Brooke. Quit acting like she recorded a sex tape."

RJ began to shake. His anger was returning. "Who the hell are you to act like being outed isn't a big deal? It is one of the most personal things a person can do, coming to terms with being different from the norm and having the pride to share that with everyone else."

"Oh please, save the inspiring speeches for the GLAAD awards, RJ. My mom wasn't a factor in what you did. You just wanted to play at being a badass and ruining someone's life. If Forrester goes out of business because of this, or has to downsize, do you know how many people are going to lose their jobs? Because you decided that public shaming our father is a better way to work through your daddy issues than therapy?"

"Now you're gonna get self-righteous? Steffy, you are the last person who should be judging me right now. Or did you conveniently forget that you spent three years dedicated to making Hope's life a living hell? You harassed her for wanting to wait until marriage. It's not for me, either, but I'm not going to hate someone who chooses to wait. Not like you did."

"Hope isn't here, RJ! And she's not the paragon of virtue you think she is. Did you miss her pill popping period when you were in Paris? Or how she never actually married Liam until Italy, and she had that annulled?"

"Because you spent the wedding day seducing her groom!" RJ screamed. Steffy could say whatever she wanted about him, but he would be damned if he was going to let her talk trash about Hope. "Or do you need a reminder about the other wedding, where Liam went out partying with you the night before?"

"And she chose to walk away from him, RJ. And I welcomed him into my heart and my bed. I never took Liam away from Hope. She gave him to me each and every time because she didn't think he was worth fighting for. He wasn't worth being forgiven for momentary lapses in judgment."

RJ felt as if he had been hit again. He remembered telling Noah he forgave him, but he also remembered what had just happened with Thad. And all he felt about it was anger. He focused that anger on Steffy.

"What do you want, Steffy? Are you just here to yell and scream at me because I have better things to do than deal with your tacky ass?" RJ planted his feet on the pavement and stared his older sister down. She crossed her arms and flared her nostrils.

"What I want is for you to admit that you edited that tape together to make Dad look bad. I want you to go to the press and confess that you falsified that tape out of some sick sense of spite, and then I want you to stay as far away from Forrester Creations as humanly possible."

"And why the hell would I do any of those things? Because I didn't edit that shit together, Steffy. That was our dad telling Layla that he could smell watermelon the second she walked into the room. Because of course his mind would go straight to food." RJ rolled his eyes. "And I'm not going to stay away from Forrester unless Rick, the CEO and my brother, tells me to do so. After all he is a real Forrester."

"And what the hell is that supposed to mean, RJ? A 'real Forrester'? Because the last time I checked, you didn't want to be one anymore anyway. And since my name is on that building and yours isn't, you have absolutely no say. You can go back to L&M with the rest of the trash."

"It means you're the child of a Marone bastard, Steffy. For all the shit you've said over the years about my mom and my siblings and the Logans, we've never pretended to be something we're not. Rick and Bridget ARE Forresters. Hope and I ARE Logans. Jack is... He's something. But you? You and Dad and Thomas are just frauds wearing a name that you neither earned nor deserved. And without the Forrester name, what are you, Steffy? Just another pathetic castoff with no life outside of her work because nobody can love you."

"You have ten minutes to get off the property before I call security, RJ. I may not be a Forrester by blood, and I may be a charlatan wearing the name, but it is still my name. I'm not turning my back on my name or my company. And I will be damned if I see a spoiled child like you destroy everything Granddad and Grandmother worked for."

"I don't think I want to be here after all," RJ spat at Steffy, looking her over. "The smell of rotten tuna always did make me queasy."

Then he spun on his heel and began to walk off the grounds, ignoring whatever it was Steffy was yelling at him. Even though he had already memorized the number, RJ fished the scrap paper out of his pocket and looked it over. He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to deal with anyone else for the rest of the day. Hopefully, the gate guard would be kind enough to let RJ borrow his phone for a quick call.

B&B

"Steffy Forrester. To what do I owe the pleasure? I didn't know you were back in LA." Bill leaned back in his chair and smiled at his former would-be-lover-turned-ex-daughter-in-law.

"Don't even try to charm me, Bill. This is not the day." Steffy kicked shut the door to his office. "You and I need to talk. It seems we have some common goals and enemies."

"And what might those be?" Bill asked, amused by her anger. He put his hands behind his head and began rocking in his seat.

"For starters, there's RJ."

"What about the kid? Katie and Will adore him. He's a little flouncy for my tastes, personally, but at least he doesn't eat tofu and buy groceries at organic farmers markets."

Steffy tilted her head and spent a few seconds just blinking at Bill. Then she seemed to regain her composure. "Bill, this tape of my dad and Caroline and Layla Williamson? RJ was the one who leaked it to the press. He confessed to it. He's proud of it!"

"He what?" Bill was no longer amused. Leaning forward, he put his fists on his desk, knuckles down, and pushed himself into a standing position. "RJ Logan, your little brother, is the reason my niece is a pariah on social media?"

"And my dad," Steffy reminded Bill. He waved that away because he couldn't be bothered to even pretend to care about Ridge. "Bill, I tried talking to him, but he's beyond reason. So we need to bring him down before he can do anything else. Everyone else wants to use kid gloves with him, but I know you won't. You've always been a bare knuckle brawler."

Bill thought of the woman pretending to be Eden. He couldn't reveal that to Steffy, but he could still use it. Soon, he would sit down with her and see just what progress she had made on that plot.

"Just what do you have in mind, Steffy?"

"I haven't talked to my brother in years, not really. He's a completely different person from who he was in Paris. That means I need to find his new weakness. We need to find out what it is that will completely destroy him."

"That's an easy one, Steffy." Bill sat back down in his chair. "Why did RJ come back to Los Angeles?"

Her eyes grew wide and she smiled. "L&M. RJ came here to recruit Brooke for his new fashion company. I didn't mind it at first, because it got her out of Forrester, but it gave him the autonomy to think he can ruin Forrester without consequences. He was wrong."

"I own a portion of Forrester. I have a vested interest in making sure that company succeeds. But Logan & Moore?" Bill stroked his facial hair and chuckled darkly. "We're going to ruin them."

"But how, Bill? The Ivy scandal barely dented them. And Pam killing that Julian Crane guy did more damage to Forrester in the public eye."

Bill laughed again and opened a drawer on his desk. Even though had given Caroline a copy of the file, she didn't have the only one. He handed it to Steffy.

She opened it and her mouth dropped open. Then she laughed. "Maya? Really? That's hilarious! But that would affect Rick, not L&M. Aren't they all about the diversity thing? How would this change anything?"

"Because of the hypocrisy, Steffy. Because L&M ran around talking about celebrating diversity and people being themselves and all that other crap, and Maya Avant is the face of the company and she's lying about who and what she is."

"I don't know. Using her to get to my brother..."

"She sided with Rick and helped him steal Forrester away from your father. She broke up Rick and Caroline. Maya isn't an innocent in any of this. She is directly responsible for Caroline getting together with your father. She is the reason Rick hired that Layla woman and marginalized my niece."

"And my father," Steffy agreed. She closed the folder and held it to her chest. "You aren't wrong. Maya earned this. RJ earned this. Amber and Brooke have long since earned this."

"So what do you say?" Bill asked, holding his hand to Steffy.

She looked at it, then reached out and shook it. "I say it looks like we're going to war."

B&B

Caroline had beat Ridge home. He wasn't particularly surprised: she had spent the day hiding from the paparazzi while he dealt with work and family. From the living room, he could hear her singing off key in the shower.

Taking off his coat, Ridge walked to the fridge. He wondered if she had bought anything for him to eat. The five Big Macs on the drive home hadn't been anywhere near enough.

After closing the fridge and being thankful his fiancée thought to grab him a bucket of chicken, Ridge saw a manila folder lying on the counter. He popped the lid off the chicken and grabbed a wing, then sat the bucket down and opened the folder.

As he read the folder's contents, Ridge nearly dropped his chicken. The things he was reading, if true, would completely change the game. All the attention would be taken off of him and Caroline. People would stop talking about Forrester Creations.

Ridge looked to the bedroom door, the sounds of Caroline singing and rapping along to some Iggy Azalea song proved to him that she didn't know he was home. He closed the folder, tucked it under his arm, grabbed his bucket of chicken, and left the flat.