How could she have been so wrong about him?
“In the end, he treated me the way everyone else did,” she said, swallowing down the pain. “He used to stand up for me, comfort me when the kids got too mean, and all of a sudden, he started singing the same tune they did. He said he hooked up with me because he figured I was easy, like my mom, but he…”
She didn’t voice the rest, that Nate hadn’t enjoyed the sex, that he’d dumped her right afterward because he’d gotten what he’d wanted and didn’t have to pretend to like her anymore.
“And he acted like an ass and broke up with you,” Georgia finished. She lifted her glass in a mock toast. “Well, you know what might help? Some good old-fashioned revenge.”
Charlotte laughed. “What should I do, hire a hit man to take him out?”
“Nope.” Georgia flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder. “What you need to do is return the favor. He slept with you and broke your heart. So now it’s your turn to sleep with him and break his heart.”
The suggestion was so ludicrous Charlotte nearly spit out the wine she’d just sipped. “That’s insane.”
“Why? It could be a ton of fun.”
Fun? Returning to Paradise and seeing Nate again? Sleeping with him again? It sounded like a nightmare.
Except… The moment she thought about looking into his smoky-gray eyes again, her thighs clenched together. Just a bit.
Shit. No way would she consider this. So what if she hadn’t been able to find a man who turned her on as much as Nate had? So what if anger continued to roil inside her, even though fifteen years had passed since he’d uttered those nasty words to her?
“Okay, best plan ever,” Georgia suddenly burst out, her cheeks rosy red from all the alcohol.
Charlotte played along. “Let’s hear it.”
“You drive into town in a stretch limo, looking all gorgeous and sexy, which shouldn’t be hard since you are gorgeous and sexy. You let everyone fawn all over you, sign some autographs. Then you head to the reunion.” Georgia’s voice became more animated. “You find Nate, talk to him, convince him that you’re totally over what happened, you know, so long ago. And then…”
She had to ask. “And then what?”
“You seduce the crap out of the man!” Georgia declared. “Seriously, you rock his world. You show him how wild and desirable you are, make him pant after you, hell, get him to fall in love with you—and then bam! You dump him.”
“Uh-huh. And what if he’s married?” The thought brought a lump of bitterness to her throat. If Nate was married, while she was still single and battling the insecurities he’d placed inside her, then she would totally freak.
“He’s not.”
Charlotte’s eyebrows rose. “How do you know that?”
“I Googled him after you told me about the Russ thing.” Georgia shrugged, but had the decency to look contrite. “Apparently his brother Austin is big in photography circles, and there were a bunch of articles about him. One article mentioned that all four Bishop brothers are single. So as of last year, your man’s single.”
“He’s not my man.” She twisted her lips in a scowl. “He never was.”
“Well, make him yours now.” Georgia beamed. “And then yank the rug out from under him.”
If a healthy dose of alcohol hadn’t been pulsing in her bloodstream, Charlotte would have never even considered Georgia’s juvenile idea. She was Charlotte Hill, for Pete’s sake. She was a rich, successful recording artist. She was about to embark on a ten-city East Coast tour. She didn’t need Nate Bishop or the town of Paradise. And she didn’t care what Nate or anyone else in that awful town thought of her.
So why was her heart pounding at the notion of seeing Nate? At the thought of showing him that everything he’d said to her, everything he’d thought about her was a load of crap?
“I need to get him out of my system once and for all,” she murmured.
Georgia grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Reaching for her glass, Charlotte took a long swallow. “And I won’t be able to move on until I get some closure.”
And ridiculous as it had sounded at first, Georgia’s plan solved both of those problems. If she slept with Nate, she could finally convince herself that the sex she still dreamed about hadn’t been all that good to begin with. She’d see that Nate Bishop was nothing special and finally get him out of her system. And this time, she’d give him her own breakup speech, put him in his place, and finally have her say when fifteen years ago she’d been too shocked and mortified to say anything at all.