Ridge rants at Eric that his mother does not deserve this .have a little tiff and he goes running to Jackie. Eric upbraids him for barging in here; Jackie is his friend. He won't be talked to like a child, but Ridge says he is acting like one. He has demeaned everything he claims he loves by coming here. Hope cancels a photo shoot and says it was too soon. Her feelings are still raw. She lost Liam, not because she stuck to her principles, but he got too close to Steffy and she overacted to what she saw. She wants to go back to work, but right now she is stuck. Thomas tells Oliver that Hope needs to know that her message is reaching more people than she ever imagined. Thomas breaks into a meeting of Brooke, Katie, Donna and Hope and shows her the really great press riding the internet. Ridge returns to his mother's and has to tell her that he found his dad at Jackie's. She's surprised when he says he thinks they might be getting involved. She convinces him to tell her if he saw something and he tells her about the kiss. But Eric will be home soon and this will never happen again. Eric does return and in the presence of Ridge tells Stephanie that he had rather been home with her, but he couldn't stay there when she did not want to be with him. When Ridge speaks up, Eric implores him to stay out of this; in fact go home! Eric tells Stephanie there is no place else he wants to be. He loves her and he loves this family.
Ridge: What the hell did I tell you? What did I say? Don't give up on mother. Be patient. Now you end up here? Mother has been through enough. She does not deserve this treatment from either of you. [SCENE_BREAK] Stephanie: (Sighs) Oh, come on, Eric. Let's talk this out. Eric: Don't wait up. [SCENE_BREAK] Hope: Hey. Brooke: Oh, back so soon? What happened to your photo shoot? Hope: Um, I couldn't go through with it. I don't know. Just the thought of being in the spotlight again and putting myself out there, I... Brooke: Honey, don't push yourself. It's gonna take a while before you find a new focus for your campaign. Hope: No. No, I'm not gonna do that. I still believe in my message. I mean, yeah, my... (sighs) my fiancé married somebody else, but that doesn't change who I am or what Hope for the Future's all about. Katie: It's gonna make it a much harder sell. Donna: Oh, somebody sounds like her husband. Katie: (Sighs) I just want you to know that I don't share Bill's opinion about who Liam should be with. Hope: Look, I... I didn't lose Liam because I stuck to my principles. I lost him because he let Steffy get too close, and I overreacted to what I saw. [SCENE_BREAK] Thomas: (Scoffs) Man. Would you look at that? It's unbelievable. [SCENE_BREAK] Hope: I overreacted, and I paid the price. Katie: Hope, none of this is your fault. You saw your fiancé in the arms of another woman. Hope: Yeah, well, she's not the other woman anymore. She's his wife. Brooke: (Sighs) [SCENE_BREAK] Thomas: Hey, Oliver, come here. Take a look at this. Oliver: What is it? Thomas: It's blogs about Hope and her line. Oliver: Well, people love it when a celebrity hits hard times. Thomas: No, they're not dissing her. They're supporting her. All the things these people are saying-- it's amazing. Of course, they're angry with Steffy and Liam and--and worried about her, but they're all also really encouraging. I mean, look at this one. Oliver: Whoa. I-I'm sure Hope will want to see this. Thomas: Yeah. Don't you think she probably already has? Oliver: Uh, I don't think so. She's been avoiding the internet. She feels bad enough about the way things worked out with Liam. She doesn't want to hear other people's opinions on it. [SCENE_BREAK] Jackie: Eric just came here to talk. Ridge: He shouldn't have come here at all. Eric: Jackie is my friend. You have no right to come barging into her house like this. Ridge: I'm not the one in the wrong here, Dad. Eric: You need to be careful how you talk to me, Ridge. I'm not one of your kids. Ridge: You're acting like one. You walk out on mother. You come running over here looking for sympathy? Come on. Let's go. Eric: Don't do that! Jackie: Okay, I am not going to tolerate a brawl. I'm gonna wait in the other room. You need to work it out. Deal with it. Eric: (Sighs) I'm not gonna stand here and listen to you pretend that Jackie is part of the problem in marriage. Ridge: Oh, don't you dare put this mother! Eric: You know very well that your mother is never blameless. The things that she does, the way she treats people, people she supposedly loves? Ridge: She does love you, Dad. Obviously, you don't even see that. Eric: She has a strange way of showing it, Ridge. Ridge: So do you. [SCENE_BREAK] Eric: I tried, Ridge. I did everything I could to make things perfect for your mother when she came home from Washington. Ridge: She was exhausted. She walked in the door, and you were all over her like an overeager teenage boy. Eric: That's not true. Ridge, she'd been gone for days. I missed her. Ridge: Oh, come on. You bailed on her, Dad. Eric: When I wanted some love and some affection from your mother, she laughed at me. She treated it like a joke, and so left. I came here. Ridge: Don't give me this garbage about how humiliated and hurt you are, how mother made you feel like a joke. Maybe she laughed. Maybe she hurt your feelings, but she didn't demean you. You did that, Dad, by coming here. You degraded everything you and mother have built together, everything you claim to care about-- family, loyalty, devotion. You're going back to mother right now. And I swear if I ever catch you with Jackie again-- Eric: Don't do that, Ridge. Don't threaten me! Ridge: Mother needed your compassion tonight. You let her down. I swear to you, I'm not gonna ever let you do that again, Dad. Never again! [SCENE_BREAK] Thomas: Now that is loyalty. Look at all these "Team Hope" web sites. Oliver: Team Hope? Thomas: Uh-huh. (Chuckles) Oliver: (Chuckles) Thomas: Yeah. It gives you a good idea how people feel about her. You know, Hope, she-- she tapped into something with her message-- taking stand, sticking to your principles, making your own choices. Oliver: Yeah, it's too bad things worked out the way they did. The big wedding tie-in? Thomas: Yeah, I thought that was gonna be a problem, too, but now, I mean, looking at this... Hope needs to know that her message is reaching more people than ever. [SCENE_BREAK] Hope: Mom, you don't have to do that. Brooke: Honey, I'm making you a plate. You have to eat. Hope: It's fine. I'll get something at home. Brooke: No, I want to see you eat. Hope: Mom, I'll be okay. I'm not falling apart. Donna: She does seem okay, Brooke Brooke: You don't hear her pacing her room all night. Katie: That's because Donna doesn't have her ear pressed against Hope's door. Hope: Okay, so I... I haven't been sleeping well yeah, my mind wanders. I keep --I keep going back to being in that gondola... (sighs) forced to watch Steffy and Liam get married, and it's weird. Even when I'm in, like, an elevator and the doors close, I-I feel trapped in there, like I can't breathe. No, I-- look, I want to go back to work. I want to promote my line, but... right now, I'm stuck. (Sighs) I just--I-I know that I need to move forward, but I don't know how. Everything's just such a mess. [SCENE_BREAK] Jackie: (Clears throat) So you didn't leave with Ridge. Eric: No. He can't drag me out of here. Jackie: But you do have to go. Eric: Yeah. [SCENE_BREAK] Stephanie: Did you find him? Ridge: He was at Jackie's. Stephanie: Why would he go there? Ridge: (Sighs) I think they might be getting involved. [SCENE_BREAK] Brooke: You are not stuck, sweetheart. Hope: (Sighs) Katie: You're healing. Donna: And that takes time. Hope: You know, I-I made such a big deal about our engagement and--and the fact that we were waiting, you know and now he's married to Steffy, and she warned me. She told me that I was asking too much and that I was setting the bar too high. Katie: Listen, you can't lower your standards to keep a man who can't meet them. Thomas: Hey, sorry. Hope, I'm glad you're still here. I think there's something you need to see. Um, I-I was searching the internet-- Brooke: Uh, Thomas, Hope is not really in the right frame of mind. Thomas: But everybody's talking about you. Hope: Yeah, I'll bet they are. [SCENE_BREAK] Eric: I'm sorry you had to hear all that. Jackie: Ridge wasn't completely wrong, you know. Eric: No, I didn't come here to have my ego stroked. Jackie: Things did go further than they should have, though. Eric: I allowed them to. I'm not gonna let him put all this on you. Jackie: (Scoffs) It didn't sound like Ridge was either. Eric: He blames me and only me. Jackie: Oh, he can be so like Massimo, can't he? I mean, there's just no gray area with the Marone men. Eric: I'm either the, uh, long-suffering hero or I'm the villain in the piece. Jackie: Except you are suffering, Eric. Eric: Not like Stephanie, though, not the way she is with her cancer. Jackie: Well, if that's the benchmark, then none of us have any right to complain about anything. Eric: Mnh-mh. I should go. I think Ridge has had sufficient time to build up Stephanie into a frenzy by now. Jackie: Do you think he's gone back to the house? Eric: Isn't that what Massimo would have done? [SCENE_BREAK] Stephanie: What do you mean, involved? Ridge: Maybe not quite yet. Stephanie: Ridge! Ridge: (Sighs) Stephanie: Did you see something? Ridge: Yesterday at Il Giardino... they kissed. Stephanie: What? Ridge: That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't. Look, he's not gonna-- he's not gonna let that happen again. He doesn't want to hurt you, Mother. He wants to be here for you, okay? And I'm personally gonna make sure that he's here. Stephanie: Did he leave Jackie's when you did? Ridge: He'll be here soon. [SCENE_BREAK] Hope: Thomas, I don't want to know what people are saying about me, okay? I can only imagine. Thomas: Okay, h-have you looked? Hope: I don't need to. Thomas: All right, well, I think you should. Hope: (Sighs) Brooke: Liam's marriage was bound to make people start talking. Thomas: (Sighs) It galvanized your supporters, all right? Hope for the Future is trending even higher than it was after you got engaged. You know, this just isn't good press. It's great press. Look. "Good for you, Hope. If Liam could turn to Steffy so fast, then he didn't deserve to be with you. You were right to stick to your guns. I didn't get it when I first heard your message. Now I do." Katie: Wow. Thomas: And then-- and then this one... Brooke: Oh, my gosh. Thomas: "When I first read you were waiting, I thought, she's engaged. She's got the ring. What is she waiting for? Now I see it's not about the ring. Guys can say they're committed, but if they haven't said 'I do,' it doesn't mean a thing." Hope: (Sighs) Brooke: Oh, they all understand. Katie: (Chuckles) Wow. Hope: They don't think I'm an idiot. Thomas: No. No, they think you dodged a bullet. These people finally understand what you're talking about and why it's important. I mean, this girl here, she was talking about going all the way with her boyfriend, and now she's changed her mind, because of you. And she-- she's not the only one. Brooke: Mm, they're teenagers. Donna: These girls could have gotten pregnant. Thomas: Hope, they think you're courageous. They want to be like you. Katie: They don't think you're foolish at all. Donna: Nope, they think that Liam's the fool. Hope: Wait, no, no. I don't want anyone to think badly of Liam. (Sighs) Look, if something positive and good can come out of this, then I think that's great. You know, I-if people are really hearing my message, I'm--I'm happy about that. And I'm thrilled that-- that girls are thinking for themselves and setting higher standards. But I didn't dodge a bullet. I lost the love of my life. [SCENE_BREAK] Jackie: (Sighs) Ridge: Mother has been through enough. She does not deserve this treatment from either of you. [SCENE_BREAK] Ridge: Do you want to talk about this? Stephanie: The only person I want to talk to is Eric. (Door opens) Eric: Ridge tell you where I was? Stephanie: I'd like to hear it from you. Eric: I was at Jackie's. Stephanie: Why? Eric: I didn't know where else to go, and I was in no mood to stay around here after my affections were turned down here tonight. Ridge: Don't put this on her, Dad. Stephanie: Did Ms. Jacqueline give you what you needed when you left here this evening? Eric: This isn't about Jackie, and you know it. Stephanie: Are you telling me that you are not involved with her? Eric: I'm telling you that I'm worried. I'm worried about you and me. That's what I'm worried about. I don't want to hurt you. I don't think that you want to hurt me. I didn't want to be at Jackie's tonight. I wanted to be here. But you made it very clear that you didn't share the same feelings and desires that I did, and so I left. (Sighs) So go ahead. Tell me how disappointed you are. Ridge: You should be disappointed in yourself, Dad. Don't come in here acting like the victim. Eric: Ridge, this is between your mother and me. You've made it very clear to me how you feel about this. Now it's her turn. Ridge: Mother, don't let him turn this all around on you. Eric: Ridge, stop it! I asked you to stay out of this! What are you doing here? This is our marriage. Go home! Stephanie: (Whispers) It's all right. Thank you for coming. (Normal voice) Look, Eric. If there is some place else that you would rather be-- Eric: No, no. No. I want to be here with you. With you. I love you, and that's the truth. I love you, and I love this family. I will never let you down again.