by Ros Baxter
She flicked a tiny button on a small remote control and filled the room with music, the slow, haunting strains of the London Philharmonic. She had seen the Philharmonic in concert several times when she’d been at boarding school in England. Its music reminded her of something else she had lost. And tonight was all about memories.
When Liam strode out of the bedroom, he was carrying a large leather satchel. He stopped by the door.
“Steffy.”
She turned from where she’d been facing the balcony, looking out over the skyline again, watching the gaunt face she barely recognized in the reflection of the glass.
Liam was very serious, and still. “I didn’t mean for this to happen this way,” he said. “I didn’t come here to upset you.”
She waved a hand at him, trying to seem casual, unaffected. “It doesn’t matter. Like I said, I knew anyway. I shouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to hear.”
Liam covered the space between them in three long strides. He grasped her upper arms in his hands, shaking her gently. “But it isn’t like that, Steffy. I don’t—”
Steffy was barely holding it together, and the closeness of this body, the smell of him, like the sea and spice and their shared history, was more than she could bear. Her hands itched to touch him. She knew him so well, adored every inch of him. She would crumple, she would not get through this unless he left now.
“Please go,” she said. “I think you’ve said enough.”
Liam dropped his hands and leaned forward to press a light kiss on her cheek. As his lips connected with her skin, she felt the familiar sizzle and ache he was always able to ignite in her.
But no more. She was a different person now. And she needed to be allowed to grow and change. To be defined by something other than her wild, consuming love for Liam Spencer.
“Goodbye, Liam,” she said. The words made her throat scratchy and dry. So many goodbyes between them, but perhaps this time, for good. “I need to tell you, I’ve decided to go back. To Paris, and my father. For a year, maybe more. I need some more time. Before I can face it all here. I …” She paused, wanting him to understand how things were for her. “I’m just not ready. I should never have come home.”
Liam’s face darkened, his brows shutting down and his eyes narrowing. “Were you even going to tell me?”
She nodded. She couldn’t speak. Not with her throat closing over, and her heart burning in her chest.
“Why did you come back at all?” His face was hard, and it took all Steffy’s strength not to run to him, to try to explain. He should know. He should know this about her.
“For Phoebe,” she whispered.
“Phoebe?” His voice was soft and the dark mask finally lifted a little. “Your sister …? But why?”
As he asked the question, Steffy saw the answer dawn on him.
“Oh, Steffy,” he said, stepping towards her. He held out his arms to her and she wanted to run into them like a child, bury her face in his chest and sob. But then they would be right back where they had started. Where they always ended up.
“Goodbye, Liam,” she said.
He stood still for a moment, indecision in every line of his face and body. Then he turned and made for the door.
She walked to the trifolds leading out onto the balcony and slid them open, enjoying the feel of the early summer night air on her skin.
As she stepped out into the LA night, her heart rate began to settle. The lights and sights of this city always had the power to calm her. She touched the warm skin of her belly through the negligee, thinking about the life that had been growing inside her.
She had never considered herself the maternal type. The sight of women with sticky, screaming babies made her feel lucky that she only had herself to look out for, that she wasn’t burdened by caring for something small and helpless.
But all that had changed the moment she had discovered she was carrying a child. Suddenly, it hadn’t been an abstract idea. It hadn’t been someone else’s sticky, irritating burden. It had been her child. Hers and Liam’s growing inside her.
She stroked her belly, remembering the brief time she had known about the baby, before the miscarriage. The delicious feeling of belonging to another person, belonging to her baby. And to Liam. The baby made her want things she had never wanted before, a home, a family.
But now Liam had gone and she wondered if this time it was over for good.
A sudden breeze ruffled her hair. It was longer now than when she had left LA and she was wearing it loose and lightly curled, as was the fashion right now in Paris. She shivered as the sudden cool rush brought gooseflesh to her arms, then retreated into the warmth of the apartment.
She spotted the small red folder sitting on the desk. She picked it up and hugged it to her chest. Her tickets and itinerary. She knew now her instincts were right. She was going back to Paris, for longer this time. The things she had said to Liam were right. It had been a mistake to come home so quickly, on Liam’s urging. She just wasn’t ready. She was leaving in a few days, to be with her father, walk in the sunshine. Heal. Forget. Hopefully forget.
But could she ever forget Liam?
*
It was the same as always.
Her head was full of cotton and thick, black fear, smoky and ugly.
Steffy was trying to warn her sister. Get out of the car.
She was back there, where she had been six years ago, when she’d had the feeling. And this time, instead of ignoring that prickly itch that told her when her twin was in danger, she had listened to it. In this dream, she had called Phoebe, demanded she get out of the car.
But Phoebe could not hear her—would not hear her. She was full of fury and lashing out at Rick. Steffy could feel the confusion and anger in Phoebe’s mind, just as she had always been able to feel all her sister’s emotions.
In her dream, Steffy cried down the phone, but she could see it all happening anyway. Phoebe getting in the car, angry. Rick driving, refusing to pull over. Phoebe lashing out, pummeling him. Rick trying to stay in control of the vehicle. Phoebe kicking at the accelerator. The car, spinning and careening in those last, fatal, moments.
She saw it all as though she had been there. The screaming metal, the whirling wheels. The sick crunch of steel on road. The screams of her sister and her sister’s love.
The sight of Phoebe, her head cradled in Ridge’s lap, singing to him the song she had written for his wedding to Brooke. Her sweet angel voice. And then silence.
And then again, as she had relived it a thousand times, and always on this night every year. The feeling. The dreaded feeling that hit Steffy like a knife to the heart.
She was alone. Her twin sister was gone.
*
Steffy woke with a start, as she did every year, on the exact anniversary of the moment when her sister had left her forever. She squirmed in her lush four-poster bed, feeling starched sheets against her legs. She felt the devastation overwhelm her as though it had happened a moment ago.
There were no words for the pain of her loss. This loss of her twin, the other half of herself. The one who had been with her through it all: the desolation of losing their mother, when they thought Taylor dead; their patchy family life; moves from continent to continent, school to school. Her sister, who had been the constant of her life, until the day she had been ripped from her.
And nothing had ever been the same.
Chapter Two
It was two a.m., and Steffy knew sleep would not come back to her easily after that dream. She sat at her desk instead and looked once again at the LA skyline and the blank sketchpad in front of her.
This time, something had shifted. The magic was back.
Liam would laugh at her if she told him it felt as though Phoebe was guiding her hand, trying to show her that life could still be sweet and beautiful. That art and style still had a place in her heart.
She picked up an expensive French charcoal she had been experimenting with in Pari
s. It flew across the page, and her mind entered that state where the creation was all—that blissful hum where her brain connected with an idea, and all she needed to do was give it free rein. It was as though she were a medium, channeling beauty from another place.
In a couple of hours Steffy had completed three new designs, finally managing to capture the lightness she had seen at the spring shows in Paris, and channel it into something entirely different—a hybrid of the new and old words that was truly unique.
She smiled wryly to herself. At least something good had come from this terrible night.
Finally, at five a.m., she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, spent by her creative outpouring. And, she was sure, watched by her sister—wherever she was.
*
Steffy contemplated her reflection in the spectacular mirror that covered an entire wall of the master suite in the penthouse. She put her head to one side, wondering for a moment how someone else might see her.
She had worn black, as it seemed fitting for the occasion. A shapely black dress that ended just below the knee, sheer black stockings, black stilettos with a vicious pointed toe, and a short black jacket with a severe collar. The whole effect was serious, almost austere. The black brought out the darkness in her hair, which she had twisted into a sharp little bun at the base of her neck, and the blue of her eyes.
She could see that Liam had been right last night. She did look tired, and even more so this morning, after the night of sleeplessness giving way to the dream. Always the same dream. As she watched her reflection, she could hear her sister’s voice, telling her she was too thin, too sad. Telling her it was time to move on. That she needed to find some way to get closure.
Maybe this year, Steffy thought, grabbing a large black tote bag. Maybe this year I’ll find a way to put these demons to rest. As she reached the doorway, she took one last look back over her shoulder at her reflection. She noticed she was doing it again, unconsciously bringing a hand to her belly, as though to belatedly protect the life she had been unable to save.
A thick surge of disgust engulfed her.
Liam was right. She was not capable of being a parent.
She turned on her heel and headed for the kitchen.
Steffy had sent her housekeeper away for a few days, knowing she would need time alone over this difficult period. She would not be able to face food until after her visit to the cemetery was over, so it didn’t matter. Her stomach was churning.
But first, she had another important job to do.
She moved across to the beautiful antique desk and snatched up the three rolled sketches she had completed during the night.
Steffy unrolled one of the sketches, and looked at it again. The purple sheath was like something conjured up from a fairy—one-shouldered and triangular, but gossamer thin. It skimmed the long lines of the model like a whisper, a promise of summer. It was beautiful. Steffy smiled.
Then she noticed what she had done. The model. She had long curly blond hair, an impish grin and a certain look in her eye. Steffy gasped as she realized what she had sketched.
Phoebe.
She quickly unrolled the other sketches. Each of them was a moment of magic. The designs were truly unique, containing something stylish and wild LA had long been missing. And each of them featured her twin sister as the model.
Steffy slowly sat down on one of the elegant leather lounges that marked out the living space. She had planned to drop the sketches in to Forrester Creations before her pilgrimage to the cemetery. But could she do it now? Would others recognize her sister in the sketches?
Did it even matter?
As Steffy considered the questions, her mind spun. Her thoughts flashed from the sketches to her sister to the terrible dreams. And then, as inevitably as breathing, to her argument with Liam last night. She remembered his face, the way he tried to connect with her, reassure her. And she remembered how she had pushed him, willing him to admit what she knew was lying beneath his distance from her. The thing that lay, huge and silent, between them. And then his face as he had lost his temper, thrown the ugly words at her.
Steffy felt herself start to unravel. Spiky tears pricked at the back of her eyes and her breath came hard and fast. But she would not cry.
The thoughts taunted her. All those losses. Liam, the love of her life. Her baby. Their baby. The baby she had never known, but had loved so completely for such a short time. And Phoebe. Her twin sister. The other half of her life.
Steffy sat slowly on the couch, breathing deeply and working hard to keep it together. She had felt the tension building, like a gathering storm, in the lead up to this anniversary. And then the fight with Liam, the sleepless night, the catharsis of the early-morning sketching session. It had all pushed her that much closer to the brink.
But she would not cry.
She could cope with this. She was Steffy Forrester. She was strong and brave.
She would not cry.
Even when she had lost her baby, she had tried to stay in control. She was the one, after all, who had gotten on that motorbike, knowing she was pregnant, knowing it was dangerous.
Just like Liam said last night.
She had not allowed herself to grieve because she knew she deserved the pain and the punishment. But now it all threatened to come out.
She hugged a cushion and pushed the pain back into the little box she had kept it in for so long. She could do this, she could get through this day, and then return to Paris, and her father, and start over.
Phoebe had always believed in new beginnings, had loved the excitement of a fresh start. Whenever they had started at a new school, a new city, Phoebe had relished the challenge, while Steffy had been slower to settle in. Phoebe was the more intrepid soul. Well, from now on, Steffy would show her sister’s memory that she could change, that she could be a better, different woman. She could reinvent and recreate.
Steffy stood and went back to the bedroom for her bag. She closed her eyes, imagining her sister’s face as it had been in life, sweet and laughing.
Thank you, Phoebe.
*
Rick Forrester nodded at the young maid as he sipped his coffee, and she retreated quietly. He tried to focus on the words in the newspaper in front of him, but all he could see was the date.
Every year it was the same. As much as he tried to keep busy, plan meetings, be out of town, the date haunted him. He shook his head. He would get nothing done today.
He picked up his cell and punched a number.
His call was answered with Forrester Creations’ usual brisk efficiency.
“Cancel my afternoon meetings. I need to be somewhere.”
He could hear the surprise in Pam’s voice, but she was too professional to ask why. “Yes, sir. Will you need anything?”
“No,” Rick snapped. He knew he was being rude, and he tried to soften his voice. “Sorry, Pam, no, thank you. I can handle this one alone.”
He stabbed at the end call button, and slammed the phone back on the table, running his fingers through his blond hair, absentmindedly remembering that he needed a haircut.
But the desire to see her kept pulling at him. He pushed aside the Danish pastry he had only nibbled, and stood, taking his wallet from his pocket. He scanned the room quickly, checking that she was not around. He was in enough trouble lately—he didn’t need any more.
He sat back down, pulling the little photograph carefully from his wallet and laying it on the breakfast table in front of him.
There she was. Phoebe. Those laughing eyes, that hair that smelled like roses. Sunlight caught in a photograph. He closed his eyes and remembered.
Then the other memories came. The day it had all gone so horribly wrong. Phoebe, so angry with him, jumping in the car, screaming and flailing, hitting out at him. He had been so worried about crashing, and so freaked out by Phoebe’s state of mind.
And then the car had rolled and spun, and everything had become a blur of screaming metal and all the da
rkest fears of the human soul. He had managed to pull himself free and run for help. He would never forget the look on Ridge’s face when he had found him. How Ridge had run, desperate with fear and dread, a father terrified for his child.
And then the image that would forever be etched on Rick’s brain and his conscience. Ridge cradling Phoebe’s head. And Phoebe, using the last of her strength to sing to her father, to let him know that she loved him, accepted him, and understood his demons and his choices.
Rick had watched, knowing he was responsible for this pain, and that there was nothing he could do about it.
He opened his eyes and looked at the little photograph of Phoebe. He had never cried over her—he hadn’t allowed himself to. He had no right to it, not with all the suffering he had caused. He’d tried his best to pick up the pieces, to support her family, to be there for Steffy. To atone for his part in all of it. But never had he allowed himself to look fully into the hole that Phoebe had left in his life.
Rick stroked a finger along the graceful jawline of the woman in the photo. He wondered how Steffy was doing today, with her father in Paris. There were so few people who understood what it was like to lose someone you loved. He knew that this was one burden he and Steffy would always share.
Rick brought the photo to his lips, pressing a kiss to it before putting it back in his wallet. He patted the soft leather of the slim billfold and stood to return it to his pants. As he did, he heard the noises of Caroline coming back from her morning ride. She was humming something to herself, and greeting the staff as she made her way into the villa.
Rick couldn’t face her right now. He needed his head free and clear for the discussion he knew they had to have, the one he could feel coming. It felt like the coward’s way out, but he retreated to the gymnasium when he heard her enter.