Forbidden Affair: The Bold and the Beautiful

by Amy Andrews

  Chapter Seven

  She didn’t see him on Monday. In fact, Steffy barely caught glances of him for the next three weeks as she worked feverishly on magazine business and her proposal. And then he was away for a week traveling to Europe and Asia and Steffy really breathed easier. Just knowing he was in the building made her nervous. Catching a glance of him was enough to destroy her concentration for hours so knowing he could drop by at any moment always had her on tenterhooks.

  But with him gone, she relaxed totally, and became completely absorbed in her work, delving into the advertising figures in her spare time to support her proposal. Steffy hoped the proposal would be finished by the time Bill was back from overseas.

  The week went quickly and Sunday arrived before Steffy knew it. It was crazy—she shouldn’t be nervous. The proposal was ready and she’d set up the appointment with Bill’s assistant for first thing Monday. Steffy had worked hard and she was proud of her proposal. What’s more, she knew it was good, knew it could work; knew it was a viable option for Eye on Fashion.

  But Bill’s opinion of her had come to mean a lot and she didn’t want to blow it. She didn’t want him to think less of her.

  She was glad it was her volunteer afternoon at Dayzee’s. She was going to be able to put her nervousness aside and lose herself in something else and for that she was grateful. Not that it stopped her from putting her proposal notes in her bag to look at again if she got a chance later.

  Steffy was a firm believer in having pitches word perfect and she wanted to be familiar with the figures and all the supporting information so she could instantly answer any question Bill might have, or at least know where to find the answer, pronto.

  It was good to be immediately immersed in a busy afternoon at Dayzee’s. Every Sunday, Dayzee opened her coffeehouse to the homeless, serving up free meals all day, and everyone at Forrester Creations took turns volunteering. Steffy did it once a month and always felt closer to her grandmother when she was there, helping a cause that had been close to Stephanie Forrester’s heart.

  Usually two volunteers from Forrester Creations worked together with the other staff but given that Hope was rostered on with her today, Steffy was pleased she hadn’t shown. Yes, she was run off her feet what with the numbers of homeless growing each week due to the terrible economy, but she preferred busy to awkward and stilted.

  Two hours in, though, Bill swaggered through the door in a pair of well-worn jeans and a snug-fitting black T-shirt and asked for an apron. Steffy, her heart racing a little at his sudden appearance, frowned. “What are you doing?”

  “Hope rang and asked me to cover her shift. Sorry I’m a bit late, I only got in from London this morning.”

  Steffy couldn’t figure out which part of Bill’s statement was more surprising: that he was volunteering, given that he’d never done so before, or that he’d just gotten in from London but was here anyway, despite jetlag.

  Steffy passed him an apron wordlessly.

  Bill took it and tied it around his waist. “There,” he said, shoving his hands on his hips, “what do you want me to do?”

  Steffy’s gaze was dragged down to his hands. The apron outlined the narrowness of his hips and barely contained his powerful, denim-clad thighs. How was it possible to look that sexy in an apron?

  Bill smiled at her. “What’s the matter, never seen a man in an apron before?”

  Steffy blinked. Not this man. Not Bill Spencer, media mogul. She’d seen him in a suit. In a tux. Hell, she’d seen him with a lot fewer clothes on altogether. But something so functional should not be so enticing.

  “Ever worn an apron before?” she said when she realized he was waiting for a response.

  Bill looked down at the article in question. “Well, it’s not haute couture.”

  “Excuse me, miss, can I have some of that pie, please?”

  Steffy dragged her gaze away from Bill with difficulty to answer the woman who had addressed her. “Sure thing.” She smiled and then said to Bill, “Stand there and dish up,” pointing to where she wanted him.

  And that was about the most they spoke to each other for the next six hours as they served the steady stream of homeless. Steffy was surprised how easily Bill took direction considering he was the one used to being in charge, but he was charming and affable and chatty with their customers showing no sign of the tiredness he had to be feeling.

  By the time Dayzee shut the doors that night, neither Bill nor Steffy had stopped.

  “Thanks, guys,” Dayzee said. “You were great.”

  “Any time,” Bill said, and it sounded remarkably genuine to Steffy.

  Dayzee glanced at her watch and groaned. “Oh no, I’m going to be late for dinner with Marcus and I still have the kitchen to do.”

  “Go,” Bill said, waving his hand at her. “Steffy and I can do that and lock up, can’t we?”

  Steffy nodded. “Absolutely. Go and have fun.”

  Dayzee hesitated. “Are you sure? There are a lot of dishes out there!”

  “Of course,” Bill said. “Now scoot.”

  Dayzee shot them a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said then went to fetch her bag from the storeroom in the kitchen before bidding them goodnight.

  The place that had been buzzing not that long ago was eerily quiet.

  “Alone at last,” Bill murmured.

  Steffy shot him a nervous look but he was smiling at her in a goofy kind of way and she relaxed a smidgeon. “Yep, you, me and a thousand pots and pans,” she said as she walked to the kitchen doorway and stood staring at the mountain of dishes awaiting them.

  “Very romantic,” Bill said.

  Steffy shook her head at him. “Come on, they’re not going to get done with us over here.”

  “I think I’m going to buy Dayzee a dishwasher,” Bill said.

  “Dishwasher’s no good for the big stuff—it’s much quicker to hand wash,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said. “You want to wash or dry?”

  “Wash,” Steffy said. With her hands in greasy, dirty water she may be less tempted to put them all over him.

  “Right.” Bill rubbed his hands together. “Let’s do this.”

  Steffy cleared the sink and stacked up the dirty dishes in order from the glassware through to the pots and then ran the hot water. Bill hunted around for something to dry them with and they were silent for the first minute or so as the clean dishes began to hit the drainer.

  “You’re thinking about your proposal, aren’t you?” Bill asked.

  Steffy, startled out of her thoughts, didn’t know what to say for a moment. No, I was thinking about you wearing that apron and nothing else, didn’t really seem appropriate. “Yes,” she lied. “Sorry, it’s on my mind.”

  Or it had been, anyway. But not since he’d walked into Dayzee’s all those hours ago. And right now, with him standing beside her, his sleeve occasionally brushing against hers, his incredible aftershave washing over her, lulling her into a sexual stupor, the proposal was so far away it might as well have been on Mars.

  “Why don’t you pitch it to me now?” he said. “We’ve got time.”

  Steffy’s hands stilled in the sudsy water. “What?”

  Bill shrugged as he looked at all the dishes they had to get through. “I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

  She shook her head. “No.” She couldn’t. Not now. Not here. Not with him dressed in an apron, for crying out loud. She needed to keep work at work. They kept blurring the boundaries and it was confusing.

  Besides, she needed the written proposal by her side. It was good. Intelligent, comprehensive and balanced. It was her crutch.

  “I think I’d rather leave it for tomorrow when my head’s in the game rather than a sink full of dishes.” She looked down at her clothes. “I’m not really dressed for it either.”

  Bill thought Steffy should wear jeans that clung everywhere and a T-shirt that barely covered her stomach every day. Sure, those pinstripe suits she wo
re were very sexy but he liked the whole girl-next-door thing she had going on.

  The suits screamed, “Hands-off!”

  The jeans said, “Touch me everywhere.”

  “Fine by me,” he said, wiping unhelpful images from his mind, grateful for the apron. He picked up a glass and dried it. “What shall we talk about then?”

  Steffy felt her heart lurch in her chest. She could hear the suggestion in his words and she fought against the desire to just turn and kiss him. Tear that stupid sexy apron off.

  “Tell me about your trip,” she said opting for the safest choice.

  So they got through the hour with impersonal business chat and Steffy was grateful to Bill for not pushing it any further. She knew he could be ruthless in going after whatever it was he wanted, so the fact he wasn’t putting any pressure on her was much appreciated.

  By the time they were done, Steffy’s hands and fingers were pale white and shriveled and Bill had been through a half-dozen towels.

  “Thank you,” Steffy said, leaning against the sink as she reached for the strings on her apron, which were wrapped around her waist twice and tied at the front.

  Bill turned so he was also propped against the sink. He loomed large and broad in front of her, the muscles in his chest displayed to perfection in the snug black T-shirt. All he was missing was SECURITY stamped in huge white letters across the front. He was certainly big, brooding and lethal-looking enough to be some kind of bodyguard or working a rope line at a fancy LA club. She wouldn’t mess with him.

  Not that she felt physically threatened by him. But he exuded a kind of raw power behind his civilized veneer that was … enticing.

  Steffy realized she was staring and she cleared her throat. “I appreciated the extra pair of hands.”

  Bill watched the play of emotions in her eyes. They’d gone from their usual blue to a smoky silver. He doubted very much she was thinking about the washing up.

  “These hands?” he asked innocently, holding his palms face up between them then bringing them slowly down onto her hips. He gave her a moment to pull away, to object, and when she didn’t, he slid his palms onto her butt and applied a little pressure to bring her hips nearer to his.

  Bill was looking at her mouth with total focus. He was going to kiss her—she knew it as sure as she knew the sun would rise in the morning. Steffy swallowed as her insides melted to a useless puddle of liquid.

  She licked her lips. Not to be provocative but because they suddenly felt hot, like they were on fire, and she desperately needed to extinguish the flames. Snuff out the desire.

  She shut her eyes, reaching for an inner fortitude she’d worked so hard to find during her time in Paris. “Bill, I—”

  A noise interrupted her and Steffy’s eyes flicked open. Then the ground jerked beneath her feet. She reached for the sink and for a few moments she had no idea what the hell was happening. Then the ground began to shake some more and the walls began to lurch violently.

  “Earthquake,” Bill said, his voice raised over the increasing volume of an angry earth and pots and pans crashing around them.

  Steffy blinked. “What?” she yelled.

  “Earthquake,” he roared.

  Steffy’s heart slammed in her chest as Bill dragged her to the kitchen doorway and pulled her to him. She buried her face in his chest as things jerked and shook and fell around them.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she chanted into Bill’s chest, covering her ears to block out the sounds of destruction, shutting her eyes tight, waiting for the moment the upstairs floor fell down too and flattened them.

  This was it. She was going to die. Here at Dayzee’s, with not even half of her life finished. Without finding someone worthy to love. Without being loved back.

  And the wild angry jerking just went on and on.

  Through it all she was conscious of the steady thump of Bill’s heart, so much less frantic than hers. She clung to its reassuring beat, trying to tune out the noise and the movement.

  She became conscious of the deep murmur of his voice, right near her ear. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

  And he did. He was like a bubble of calm in the middle of chaos. Her body was constantly jostled against him as the floor bucked and shifted relentlessly beneath her feet as though it was trying to knock them on their asses, and she leaned into him to ground herself.

  When the movement finally stopped, it took Steffy a moment or two to notice—locked as she was in the bubble where she’d shut out everything but the feel of Bill’s arms around her—the steady thump of his heart and the murmur of his voice. His words had changed: “Steffy, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s over now, Steffy. It’s over.”

  He was shifting, pulling on her arms gently, and she realized the ground had stopped rocking beneath her feet. She opened her eyes, pulled her head off his chest. Her hands shook as she pried them away from her ears. Hell, her whole body shook—there was no way she was letting him go any time soon. It was dark, really dark, and her pulse was so loud in her ears she almost thought another earthquake was hitting. “You okay?” Bill asked in the eerie silence.

  Steffy nodded automatically even though he probably couldn’t see her and she’d never felt less okay in her life. She wasn’t hurt, just really, really freaked out.

  Mild earth tremors were something LA locals lived with as a part of their everyday life. It came with living over the San Andreas Fault. But this?

  “That was big—bad—wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Bill said and the grimness of his voice frightened her more than what they’d just been through.

  Steffy sucked in a breath as the enormity of what had happened hit her. Was this the big one they’d predicted would strike one day? What about her family? Friends? Were they okay?

  But she could voice none of those fears as her nose and throat filled with thick dust and she choked on it, her lungs seizing, her trachea spasming as it fought against the invasion. She coughed and coughed, her eyes watering as she clutched at Bill’s shirt.

  “The dust should settle quickly,” Bill said. He stroked her back gently as the coughing started to dissipate.

  Steffy hoped so as she dragged in another laden breath, her throat protesting. “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Assess the situation, I guess. Work out if we can escape. Bit hard in the dark, though. And dangerous.”

  “My night vision’s kicking in,” Steffy said.

  “Yeah. But light would be nice.”

  “Dayzee keeps a couple of flashlights in a holder on the wall of the kitchen,” Steffy said. “Just near the door next to the light switches.”

  “So just—” Bill orientated himself, “—around here?” He reached around the wall from where they were standing. His hand felt for the light switch and found beside it a flashlight. “Got it,” he said, pulling it off the wall then feeling for the other one and pulling it off too, handing it to Steffy.

  They flicked them on in unison.

  Neither of them were prepared for the sight that greeted them.

  The entire coffeehouse had caved in.

  “Holy crap,” Steffy said as their twin beams of light probed the mass of rubble in front of them. The roof and second floor had collapsed on the front half of the shop. It was quickly evident there was no way out via the front or the top.

  Bill quickly spun and shone his light toward the door leading from the kitchen into the alley behind. It too had collapsed in a pile of rubble.

  “We’re trapped aren’t we?” Steffy asked.

  Bill shone the flashlight around their immediate area, inspecting what was left of Dayzee’s pride and joy.

  “Bill?”

  He placed the beam of light beyond Steffy’s head so he could see her properly. Bits of plaster and dust coated her hair but she looked unscathed. She’d obviously been freaked out during the quake—so had he—but she looked like she’d pulled herself together. She’d certainly be
en thinking calmly when she’d remembered the flashlights. Thankfully, she didn’t look like she was about to dissolve into hysterics, because that was the last thing he needed.

  “It doesn’t look good,” he admitted, confident she could take the truth. Confident that she’d rather it straight up than sugarcoated. “If we’re not found by the morning we’ll explore more, but it’s too dangerous to go traipsing around in all this rubble. There’ll be aftershocks and the narrow beam of a flashlight isn’t going to give us a big enough picture on how stable this whole mess is. No point bringing it all down on our heads by stumbling around in the dark. Or getting hurt by something we can’t see properly.”

  “You think they’ll find us before then?”

  The distant wail of a siren rent the air and Bill gave an ironic smile. “Maybe.”

  “But you don’t really think so,” Steffy pushed.

  Again Bill decided not to sugarcoat it. “I don’t know, Steffy, but I gotta tell you, I think this earthquake was huge. In which case there’ll be massive damage on who knows what scale … Sunday night about nine o’clock, everyone will have been in their homes …” Bill shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve no way of knowing how bad it is out there, and how quickly we’re found is going to very much depend on that.”

  Steffy nodded. What he was saying made perfect sense and she suppressed the girly urge to cry; Bill didn’t need a wimpy, weepy woman on his hands. She had to be strong and she was strong. She’d proven that to herself this last year or so. Time to prove it to the world.

  It was okay to be scared. It wasn’t okay to let fear take over.

  “Wait,” she said, suddenly realizing they might not be so isolated. “My cell.” She reached into her back pocket.

  Bill shook his head. “Already checked mine while you were coughing,” he said. “Cell service is dead.”

  Steffy tried hers anyway. “Dead,” she confirmed.

  “Let me just have a look around our immediate area, see what we’re left with, okay?”

  Steffy nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?”