But when it came to Charlotte, he refused to let Lexie have her way. “It’s true, Lex, and you know it. She didn’t have the best experience with this town. You can’t blame her for thinking of everyone else as the enemy.”
“Maybe, but I can still blame her for abandoning you.”
Lexie sounded oddly protective. Well, maybe not so odd. Somehow in the days since high school, Nate had grown close to the girl everyone viewed as the ice princess. But like Charlotte, Lexie had gotten a bad rap too. It wasn’t her fault she was the daughter of one of the super-wealthy town founders, just like it wasn’t Charlotte’s fault her mother had been a promiscuous woman and a lousy role model.
Still, Lexie didn’t need to protect him, especially since she had no idea what had really gone down between him and Charlotte. He’d never told Lexie the real reason Charlotte left. No point in alienating one of the few people who actually saw his worth and looked past his genetics.
“You don’t have to protect me, Lex. I can take care of myself.”
“Sure you can,” she mocked. “Look how well you handled the Evelyn situation. I told you from the start that the woman was up to no good.”
Bitterness crawled up his throat. He tamped it down. Fine, so maybe he hadn’t listened to Lexie’s warnings about Evelyn, but when it came to Charlotte, everyone knew that Lexie was far too biased to remain objective.
“It’s in the past,” Nate said with a sigh. “Just forget about it.”
She offered a bemused grin. “And nothing like a high school reunion to make you forget the past, huh?”
Nate grinned at the sarcastic note in her voice. “It won’t be so bad.”
“No, of course not. It’ll be fun. Like a root canal. Aren’t those fun?”
With a laugh, he tossed the rag into the sink and rounded the counter. “Let me lock up and then I’ll drive you home.”
“‘The town of Paradise cordially invites you to the Fifteen-Year Reunion of Paradise High’s graduating class of 1995. Let’s laugh, share and reunite!’”
Georgia Lewis set down the hand-printed letterpress invitation and burst out laughing. “Let’s laugh, share and reunite,” she echoed. “Jeez, who wrote this?”
Charlotte Hill reached for the invitation, tracing her index finger over the gold lettering on the expensive off-white paper. “Probably Lexie Price. I heard she runs the newspaper now.”
“Lexie…is that the snooty lawyer or the former cheerleader ice princess?”
“The ice princess. Bree Lockhart is the lawyer.”
“But we don’t like either of them, right?”
Charlotte couldn’t help but laugh. For some reason, her young assistant was fascinated by Charlotte’s past. Barely out of college, Georgia had been working with her for three years and loved hearing about her famous boss’s early days in Paradise, no matter how dark the stories tended to get. Confiding in Georgia was easy—the twenty-two-year-old was a great listener—and it was nice having someone to talk to, even if she was technically paying Georgia to be at her side. Charlotte had told the other woman countless stories about Paradise and its citizens. Lexie Price, Bree Lockhart, the other kids at school who used to ostracize her, Nate…
Charlotte quickly banished the thought of Nate Bishop from her mind.
“We’re indifferent to them,” she corrected with a wry smile.
“But they made your life a living hell. There’s nothing wrong with holding a grudge.”
She had to grin. “Remind me never to cross you.”
With a thoughtful look, Georgia gestured to the invitation. “So are you going?”
“Nope.”
That one syllable slipped out without any hesitation. Charlotte hadn’t been home in fifteen years, not even to attend her mother’s funeral, and she had no plans to ever return to her hometown. Growing up in Paradise had been pure hell. Why would she ever want to go back there?
She rose from the comfortable brown leather couch and moved toward the huge window that overlooked Manhattan. Her loft boasted endless sixteen-foot ceilings, polished hardwood floors and a view most people would kill for. The main room offered a spacious living area, a shiny black grand piano and her collection of acoustic guitars. The walls held a mixture of contemporary art from local artists and framed photos of her album covers, magazine covers and platinum records. To the left was a state-of-the-art kitchen; to the right, a spiral wrought-iron staircase that led to an enormous sleeping platform and an equally enormous bathroom.