Malcolm asked Callie to move in with him, Liv accepted the end, and the divorce did happen. Callie kept putting off marriage to Malcolm because, as it turned out, she was secretly married to her mobster manager Trey. When Malcolm was beaten to a pulp by the mobsters for "messing with Trey's wife", he broke it off with Callie. Of course, Liv found out and accused Malcolm of putting little Nate in jeopardy. Then the always work-obsessive Olivia started getting symptoms she refused to recognize and ended up on her deathbed with aplastic anemia. She further alienated Malcolm when she changed her will so that Neil would raise Nate should she die. Dru returned to Genoa City with Lily in tow and donated necessary bone marrow to save Olivia's life. Olivia's near-death changed her holier-than-thou attitude, but it was short-lived. Then Olivia decided that Mal was not a fit role model for her son, refused to let them see each other, and set her sights on Neil. Malcolm sued for visitation and won. Malcolm was presumed dead from an accident on a photo shoot in Kenya, and since Neil was hitting the bottle heavily, Liv, forbade him to see her son Nate. Liv's best friend Ashley's husband Brad Carlton began playing father figure in Nate's life. Olivia's best friend, Ashley Abbott, faced the biggest crisis of her life: the discovery that she had rapidly spreading breast cancer. She has finished undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments and has lost her hair. The stress involved affected her relationship with her husband Brad Carlton (Don Diamont), and Ash drove him into Olivia's arms. Brad was wise enough to stop it at one kiss, but Liv had a hard time forgetting - especially once she uncovered Ashley's secret - that Ashley's daughter, Abby, was fathered by theft of Victor Newman's sperm. Liv and Dru coerced Ashley into telling Brad the truth - or they would. Ash did, Brad was furious and left. Only days later, he and Liv made love. Then Ashley discovered she was pregnant with Brad's child. They have now reunited, and Liv is left out in the cold. Liv turned to her sister's spurned boyfriend, Psychiatrist Wesley Carter, and they became engaged. But somewhere along the line, Wesley disappeared back to Paris, and the engagement was broken. Three years after he was declared dead, Malcolm has shown up in Genoa City, very much alive, sporting cornrows and a bad attitude.