Second Chance With the Rebel: Her Royal Wedding Wish by Cara Colter Page B

pretty sure Claudia was one of the girls who used to sit on that deck painting her toenails while the “riffraff” slaved in the yard.
    “Well, you won’t be giving out any brochures this year, no, you won’t! You’ll need a permit to run your little business. And you’re not getting one. And you know what else? You can forget the yacht club for your fund-raiser.”
    “I’ve already paid my deposit,” Lucy said, clearly rattled.
    “I’ll see that it’s returned to you.”
    “But I have a hundred confirmed guests coming. The gala is only two weeks away!” There was a pleading note in her voice.
    “This is what you’ll be up against if you even try rezoning. This is a residential neighborhood. It always has been and it always will be.”
    “That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”
    “We finally no longer have to put up with the endless parade of young thugs next door to this house, and you do this?”
    He’d heard enough. He stepped across the floor.
    “Lucy, everything okay here?”
    Lucy turned and looked at him. He could see her eyes were shiny, and he hoped he was the only person in the room who knew that meant she was close to tears.
    He thought she might be angry that he had barged into her house, but instead he saw relief on her delicate features as he approached her. Despite the brave front, he could tell that for some reason she felt as if she was in over her head. Maybe because this attack was coming from someone who used to be her friend?
    “You remember Claudia,” she said.
    He would have much rather Lucy told Claudia to get the hell out of her house instead of politely making introductions.
    Claudia was staring at him meanly. Oh, boy, did he ever remember that look! The first time he’d taken Lucy out publicly, for an ice cream cone on Main Street, they had run into her, and she’d had that same look on her skinny, malicious face.
    “I know you,” she said tapping a hard, bloodred-lacquered fingernail against a lip that matched.
    He waited for her to recognize him, for the mean look to deepen.
    Instead, when recognition dawned in her eyes, her whole countenance changed. She smiled and rushed at him, blinked and put her claw on his arm, dug her talon in, just a little bit.
    “Why, Macintyre Hudson.” She beamed up at him. “Aren’t you the small-town boy who has done well for himself?”
    He told himself he should find this moment exceedingly satisfactory, especially since it had happened in front of Lucy. Instead, he felt a sensation of discomfort—which Lucy quickly dispelled.
    Because behind Claudia, Lucy crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. Then she caught his eye and pantomimed gagging.
    He didn’t want to be charmed by Lucy, but he couldn’t help but smile. Claudia actually thought it was for her. He didn’t let the impression last. He slid out from under her fingertips.
    “I seem to remember being one of the young thugs from next door. And the riffraff who had the nerve to paddle by your dock. I might even have had the audacity to eat my lunch on your beach now and again.”
    She hee-hawed with enthusiasm. “Oh, Mac, such a sense of humor! I’ve always adored you. My kids—I have two boys now—won’t wear anything but Wild Side. If it doesn’t have that little orangey kayak symbol on it, they won’t put it on.”
    He tried not to show how appalled he was that his brand was the choice of the elite little monkeys who lived around the lake.
    “What brings you home?” Claudia purred.
    Over Claudia’s bony shoulder, he saw Lucy now had her hands around her own neck, the internationally recognized symbol for choking. He tried to control the twitching of his lips.
    “Lucy’s having a party to honor my mother. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
    Considering that it had given him grave satisfaction to snub Lucy by giving the event a miss, this news came as a shock to him.
    “Oh. That. I wasn’t expecting you would come for that . There’s