Wednesday, May 30, 2007, Episode #5070

Nick is glad to be home.

Nick and Taylor arrive at the Marone mansion. Nick looks around their home, expecting to find his mother and a brass band waiting. Taylor jokes that Jackie and the band are waiting on the terrace, but she then sees the somber look on Nick's face and asks why he was so quiet during the drive home. He tells her that he still can't stop thinking about Ridge confessing. Taylor says she feels the same way, since Ridge's actions hurt her, despite their long relationship. When Nick muses that they shouldn't dwell on this too much, Taylor thinks her attitude is rubbing off on him and starts to kiss him, but the lovebirds are interrupted by Phoebe's arrival. Taylor sees her daughter's glum look and guesses that Phoebe is also in shock over Ridge's confession, so she tries to paint Ridge's actions in a heroic light by focusing on how Ridge tried to help Shane. Nick chimes in that Ridge just got some bad advice, and he assures Phoebe that her dad will be OK once the courts sort this out. Phoebe thanks them both for their support, but she still seems down about something. Taylor asks if anything else is going on, so Phoebe tells her mom and Nick that she broke up with Rick over his belief that Ridge was guilty. Now she knows that Rick was right and she's tried to call him to apologize for throwing away what they had, but he won't return her calls. She wonders if maybe she never deserved Rick. Nick and Taylor assure Phoebe that Rick will come around, pointing to their own relationship as an example of of how relationships often get tested. Phoebe thanks them again; she just wishes she knew where Rick was.

Taylor and Nick get some alone time in the bedroom.

Taylor and Nick retire to the bedroom. After getting undressed, Nick enters the room and watches his lingerie clad wife sitting on the bed, doing simple things like setting the alarm. Nick climbs into bed with her and shares that he realized what he missed by watching her just now. He sees now that he missed being home, and he asserts that he never really knew what home was until he met her. The two of them start to kiss and then make passionate love. When they come up for sir, Taylor gasps that they can both make love like a couple of twenty year olds. Nick laughs that he had warned her what hard time had done to him, joking that incarceration obviously has a few upsides. But now the bad stuff is behind them, he promises. Taylor agrees that the worst is over for them, but she can't say the same about Ridge or Phoebe. Nick promises that everyone will be fine, but Taylor can't help but think about how upset Phoebe was about Rick. Nick is sure Rick will come around, but Taylor isn't as sure. She muses that Phoebe and Rick's break-up might be for the best in the end.

Ashley is surprised that it's over for Rick and Phoebe.

Meanwhile, Rick is with Ashley on the Forrester Originals jet, having left for a business trip in New York right after the verdict in Nick's trial came in. Not knowing what transpired after they left, Rick fumes at how Ridge stood there in the courtroom, looking guilty as sin, but didn't speak up. Ashley asks if he really expected Ridge to confess. Rick can't believe that she can still defend Ridge after she started to have her doubts. Ashley explains that she knows from personal experience what this kind of thing can do to a family, so she feels for Nick, Taylor and even Phoebe. In fact, she's surprised Rick even came on this trip rather than stay behind to support Phoebe. Rick explains that he's the last person Phoebe wants to see right now, telling Ashley how Phoebe broke up with him over their disagreements about her dad's guilt. He doesn't know why he's so surprised that it's over, since Ashley warned him it would happen eventually. Ashley points out that girls Phoebe's age are often impulsive. Rick reminds her that he was 18 once, too, but he lost his youth once Amber got pregnant and married him. He has to wonder if he fell for Phoebe to recapture that lost youth, only to trade one complication for another. Ashley points out that Phoebe is a lovely girl. She's a lovely 18 year old girl, Rick corrects her, but he's started to wonder if he needs real physical and intellectual intimacy that Phoebe couldn't give him with a goodnight kiss at the door, like the intimacy he and Ashley shared in Paris. Ashley reminds him that what they had in Paris was very brief, and they went back to their own lives when it ended. Rick confides that he was so devastated when she went back to Genoa City that he tried to bury himself in work to forget her.

Rick tells Ashley how he feels.

Ashley tells Rick to stop talking like this; she knows he's hurting, so she's offering him her sympathies, but that's all she can give him. Rick tells her that this isn't some rebound thing. He reminds her of the night they talked after Phoebe rejected his idea of a romantic getaway, when he asked Ashley if she ever wanted two things so badly at the same time. He recalls that she said that she did, but she also said she wound up losing both things. But he won't lose her to Ridge. Ashley asks if this is some sick competition with Ridge for him, but he assures her that it isn't. It's about what they felt in Paris, or what they felt the night they talked in her hotel room about a marketing report. Ashley reminds him that he was in love with Phoebe that night in the hotel; she didn't want any part of him then because he loved Phoebe, and she still doesn't want any part of that. Rick pulls her in to kiss her, but Ashley angrily pulls away. ""I can't do this!" she fumes, going to freshen up so they can end this conversation. When she returns to the cabin, Rick's not there. Rick returns from talking to the pilot; he tells Ashley that he thinks they should land in New York, cancel their meeting and then take the jet to some secluded romantic spot in Mexico. Ashley asks if he heard a word she said before she went to cool off. Rick said he heard, but he sees now how badly he devastated Phoebe and really thinks things are over between them. Still, he knows what he had with Phoebe was special because of the way his heart jumped out of his chest when he saw her, a feeling he only had with one other woman in his life. "It was with you," he tells Ashley as he kisses her again. This time, Ashley doesn't pull away.