is incredibly sad she fell out with former pal back in the day and she’s aiming to make the situation right, a source exclusively tells In Touch.

“Denise is really hoping that she and Heather can sit down and talk this all out,” the source spills. “Heather is in love with someone new, well someone she’s known for a very long time, but they are finally a couple and as far as everyone knows, very happy.”

The rumors of the falling out began swirling when Heather, 63, filed for divorce from in 2006. The Wild Things actress, 54, sparked a romance with the former Bon Jovi lead guitarist soon after that.

The Melrose Place actress and Richie, 65, had been married for 11 years prior to their breakup. For her part, Denise married in 2002 and filed for divorce in 2005. Their own split was finalized in 2006.

“The thing with Heather, that’s been hard,” Denise told Entertainment Tonight in 2006. “You can’t help who you fall for and that friendship, unfortunately, was done and wasn’t salvageable.”

Heather has been engaged to her high school sweetheart, , since April 2020. She reconnected with the former motocross racer, 63, in 2016.

According to the source, Denise is “counting on Heather being so happy with Chris that she is ready to let bygones be bygones with the whole Richie Sambora situation.”

“Denise has always been very clear that she and Richie were not the reason he and Heather split. Or the reason she and Charlie split,” the source clarifies. “But Heather has never cosigned that and Denise feels like the time for that peace talk may be upon her at long last.”

“She has always been sad that things end[ed] so badly between her and Heather because she did really care about her,” the source continues. “In her telling of the timeline, they had a big falling out a few months before she and Richie got together, but it’s still messy no matter how you spin it. She’d love to clear it up.”

Denise further elaborated on the timing of her relationship with Richie and the status of her friendship with Heather in a 2008 interview with Redbook.

“I was no longer friends with Heather months before Richie and I got together,” she said at the time. “I don’t want to say what caused the split, but she and I weren’t even speaking then. It wasn’t ever like we’d be shopping and go back to her house and I’d flirt with her husband.”

“Yes, I got together with Heather’s soon-to-be ex-husband, but no, I didn’t have an affair with him,” she added. “If Heather and I had been friends at that time, I would never have crossed that line. But we weren’t.”

Admitting that she did initially “question” her decision to embark on a relationship with the musician as she knew it wouldn’t “go over well” in the public eye, she reiterated that she knew she had not been the one to break up a marriage.

“In the beginning, Richie and I just talked as friends because we were dealing with similar situations,” Denise said. “We never planned for anything to happen.”

The reality star dated the “Father Time” rocker for one year before they split in 2007. The couple reportedly briefly rekindled their relationship in 2011, but called it quits again in 2012.

Denise is currently married to husband who she wed in 2018.