Rachel fell hard for Steve, but she was married to Russ Matthews and he was infatuated with his sister Alice. Steve's stubborness got him into many arguments with Alice, and during one such time, he succumbed to Rachel's advances. Before he and Alice could get married, Rachel split them up by revealing she was pregnant with Steve's baby. Steve refused to believe the baby was his and would have nothing to do with Rachel.
After Steve married Alice, Rachel made it a condition that if he wanted to see his son, she had to be present. Steve was forced to comply, but didn't tell Alice since it would only upset her. Rachel's father tricked Alice into catching them together and she misinterpreted their secret meetings as sexual rather than parental vists. Alice ran away and Steve was despondent.
When Alice arranged for her stuff to be moved out of the house, Steve finally
faced the truth that she was never returning to him. He turned to Rachel's waiting arms
and tried to convince himself he loved her. They married, on his part mostly for Jamie's
sake. This was an extremely happy time in Rachel's life. She and Steve told
Jamie that Steve was his father in the living room of Steve's country house.
When the truth came out about Gerald's actions, Steve arranged to reunite with Alice, not believing (or caring) that Rachel only knew about the scheme the day of her wedding. He sued her for divorce and things got ugly. Steve bribed Gerald into testifying for him and the judge granted his divorce from Rachel.
Steve supposedly died in 1975, but returned in 1981. He and Rachel slowly fell in love again. They got engaged, but on the way to the airport to be married in Key West, their car crashed and Steve was killed.