Forbidden Affair: The Bold and the Beautiful (11 page)

“There! There!” a voice exclaimed.

Bill grinned, turning to face Steffy. “They found us,” he said. Except Steffy was only half dressed, standing in her jeans with no top and no bra. “Mmm,” he leered, “I like. But I think you’re going to need some more clothes for when they thread the fiber-optic camera in.”

Steffy, who was inspecting the bedding for her bra, glanced at him, her belly heating from his frank appreciation. “How do you know that?” she asked. “About the camera?”

Bill shrugged. “I watch the news.”

Steffy made a frustrated little noise. “What the hell did you do with my bra?”

“I don’t know. I was a little busy at the time checking out what was inside it. I tossed it somewhere.”

“Tossed?” she said, shoving her hands on her hips. “That’s part of a two hundred-dollar French lingerie set.”

Bill was drawn to the enticing swing of Steffy’s bare breasts. She looked very Wonder Woman standing there all cranky and affronted. He grinned. “God bless the French.”

“You okay down there?” The voice was right on top of them now. “How many are you?”

“You better find it quick,” Bill said. He watched her for a second as she whirled around frantically before he turned back to the hole where the flag was. “Two of us. We’re both fine,” he assured. “We’ve had food and water and neither of us are hurt.”

Some rubble loosened up near the hole and dust fell in a fine mist down over him. “Be careful,” Bill warned sharply, stepping back a little, preparing to return to Steffy if needed. The last thing he wanted was for their rescuers to be the ones to bring the whole building down. “There’s been a lot of mini collapses,” he said. “I don’t know how stable it all is.”

“Back! Back!” someone ordered. “Careful, it could be unstable.” And then: “We’re going to get you out of there but we need to make sure we do it safely so it could be a few hours, alright?”

“Yes,” Bill said. “We understand.”

“What are your names?” the voice asked.

Bill glanced at Steffy. The authorities would figure out soon enough that Steffy Forrester and Bill Spencer were caught in a collapsed building together and then the press would get hold of it. This guy didn’t need to know all that.

“Bill,” Bill said. “And Steffy. She’s my—” He looked at a now dressed Steffy and quirked his eyebrow. He didn’t want to presume and he didn’t want to piss her off. When she shrugged he decided to be bold. “She’s my girlfriend,” he said, refusing to look away from her as he said it. Feeling encouraged when she didn’t protest.

“I’m Chris,” the voice said. “I’m part of one of the emergency urban search and rescue teams.”

Bill looked up again.
One
of the teams? “Is it bad up there?” he asked.

There was a slight hesitation before Chris answered. “It’s a mess,” he confirmed.

Bill nodded. He didn’t want to know any more details. The true horror would be revealed soon enough.

“We’re going to thread some fiber down that has an inbuilt camera,” Chris said. “We’ll be able to check you’re okay and we can look at what’s down there so we can work out the safest way to get you out, okay?”

“Okay,” Bill said. “Ready when you are.”

*

“So … I’m your girlfriend, huh?” Steffy said five hours later as both she and Bill were standing in the doorway again, well back from the area that the urban rescue guys had decided was the safest to start excavating the rubble to ensure their extraction.

They could hear the sounds of digging—hand-to-hand stuff, not with tools—but they both knew the process could still take a while as their rescuers needed to shore up the edges as they went.

There hadn’t been much chance to talk as they’d worked closely with the team up top. Now there was nothing more they could do but stay out of the way and wait for the men and women on the outside to do their thing.

“I hope so,” Bill said carefully.

“Aren’t we a little old for that?”

Bill smiled. “Don’t you mean aren’t
I
a little old for that?”

Steffy smiled too. “No, I don’t. I just meant … we’re not teenagers, you know.”

Bill nodded. “I know. What
should
we call ourselves?”

Steffy shrugged. “Lovers?”

Bill liked the sound of that word—a lot. But lovers implied simply a physical relationship and he wanted more. “I like that,” he said. “It has a nice ring. But it’s a bit unusual to introduce you in polite company as my lover.”

“Not in France it’s not.” Steffy smiled.

“Well, maybe we’ll go live there,” he teased.

Steffy thought that sounded like the best idea she’d ever heard. “Oh, yes,” she said, suddenly excited at the thought. She threw her arms around his waist, placing her head on his chest, her ear to his heart, soaking in the steady, reassuring thud of it. “Let’s do that? Can we do that?”

Bill laughed. “Hey,” he said, sliding his arms around her too. “You still worried about Liam?”

Steffy glanced up at him. “Loving you is complicated.”

Bill’s breath caught in his throat. “Loving me? Does that mean what I think it means?”

Steffy frowned. “Ah … yeah. What do you think it means?”

Bill drew in a calming breath. “You never said you loved me last night. I told you I was falling in love with you and you never said anything.”

“Oh.” Steffy thought back over their conversations. She’d thought she’d said it about a thousand times. But maybe “make love to me” and “don’t stop loving me” and “love me again,” hadn’t been specific enough.

“I’m sorry … of course I do.” She slid her arms around his neck. “I love you, Bill Spencer. I’ve been trying to pretend these feelings I’ve been having are just lust and the result of a year of abstinence, but they’re not. You’ve saved my life and I’m not just talking about in the last couple of days. You
get
me. You’ve let me be who I needed to be. You didn’t tell me I couldn’t or I shouldn’t. You helped me find myself. And you held me all night when I was so frightened down here, and you loved my proposal, and when I look at you my heart does this little giddy-up and swells so big in my chest it feels like I can’t breathe or I’m having a heart attack or something, like I could die from it.”

Relief surged like a drug through Bill’s veins and he felt giddy. “I know,” he said. “I feel that way too.”

Steffy smiled. “I just wish it wasn’t so complicated.”

Bill brushed the back of his hand along her cheekbone. “We’ll get through that, Steffy, I promise. Just promise me you’ll remember that I love you, that I’ll always love you. Promise me you’ll trust in that.”

Steffy nodded. “I promise.”

Bill lowered his head and pressed a sweet kiss on her mouth. “Then we can do anything,” he murmured.

And when they emerged into the sunshine half an hour later, they were holding hands, united in their love and ready to face their future together.

This is, without a doubt, the most challenging, exciting project I’ve worked on to date. Not only was it shrouded in secrecy but the parameters weren’t defined because nobody from the publishing house to the television producers were exactly sure what they wanted either—it was all a big new adventure to them too.

Which left us a lot of scope—or some might say a lot of rope…

But it was also a lot of fun and gave me an opportunity to try something completely different, something totally out of left field. Growing as a writer is always important and I think it’s fair to say that this project gave me wings.

Having said that, it’s very difficult to take characters that are not only someone else’s creation but also hugely popular, well-known, international mega-stars and put them into my own completely separate story whilst trying to stay faithful to the continuity of the show and the huge BB fab base. A lot of the time it felt like I was writing blind and I thanked the universe for those years at home when my children were small and shows like The Bold and Beautiful formed part of my day.

It’s fair to say it’s been one helluva ride and there were many people along the way I need to thank. To Kylie Scott who suggested to Joel Naoum that I might be good for this project. To Joel Naoum for believing her and to the whole team at Momentum whose enthusiasm was crazy infectious. Particular mention to Claire Craig, who, despite difficult personal circumstances, barely skipped a beat, and to my editor Kylie who did an absolutely magic job. To all the people at Bell—thank you. To know that my work was being read by big TV producers in the US was equal parts scary, thrilling and utterly surreal but your passion, guidance and hands off approach was so very freeing.

Lastly to Ros Baxter and Shannon Curtis, my writing partners in this crazy ride. It was fun to have good friends and great writers strapped in with me. And to Shannon in particular, a huge Bold fan, whose extensive knowledge of the show was a constant resource and whose excitement at being involved was an utter joy to be around.

Amy Andrews is an award-winning author with 30+ contemporary romance novels to her name. She’s sold over a million books worldwide as well as being translated into a dozen different languages including Manga!

She loves her kids, her husband, her dogs, men in tool belts and happily ever afters. Do not mess with the HEA! Also good books, fab food, great wine and frequent travel—preferably all four together.

She lives on acreage on the outskirts of Brisbane with a gorgeous mountain view but secretly wishes it was the hillsides of Tuscany.

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