CHAPTER ONE
Surely, despite the fact that her life was a mess, she hadn't become a newspaper thief?
In only one short year, her life had become a financial nightmare. After her husband had died, she discovered his business hadn't been as successful as everyone had thought and they'd been living the high life on borrowed money. Not only was she forced to move from California to Portage, Pennsylvania, to live with her parents but her good name had gone to hell in a handbasket.
She didn't know how the gossip of her near bankruptcy and mismanaged credit had traveled nearly 3,000 miles, but it had. And now, on her very first day back in town — the day she wanted to begin rebuilding her reputation — she and her father both held a newspaper, which could only mean she had stolen the neighbor's.
"It's ours," Harold Waldorf said, chuckling. "What did you think I did, swipe Chuck's?"
"No, but I'm guessing that since you have yours," Blair said, just barely keeping the panic out of her voice, "I stole Chuck's."
"Oh, dear." Her mother grimaced as she looked at the wrinkled newspaper her daughter quickly refolded.
Blair rose from her seat. She didn't like Chuck Bass, not one bit. She liked even less the fact that he lived next door to her family home. He was just another nuisance she would have to endure until she got a job and found her own place. "It's not a big deal. I'll just put it back."
Even as she said the words, she turned toward the screen door and saw Chuck standing on the grass strip between the side-by-side driveways, searching for his paper. Though she didn't want her breath to catch, it did.
Another man would look ridiculous in the gaudy gold velour robe he wore, but not Chuck. He was spectacular. The unexpectedly bright attire intensified the hues of his dark hair and brilliant brown eyes, and the shape-molding material accented his tall, muscular build. Because his eyes narrowed as he glanced about in frustration, he resembled an angry Greek god.
Chuck had been Blair's first love. He was the boy she had dated all through high school. Unfortunately he was also the boy who had stood her up for their senior prom. And he never told her why. He skipped town, leaving her wondering what had happened.
And now a stupid, inconsequential newspaper had turned the tables in their squabble. Because she had taken his paper, she wouldn't be able to assume the high ground and ignore him, as she had planned to do while she lived here.
Seeing his growing anger, Blair knew there was no way she could walk out and hand his paper to him. Besides, she didn't really want to talk to him. She certainly didn't have anything to say to him. What girl really wanted to face her first love wearing oversize purple flannel pajamas? No woman in her right mind would look forward to encountering her Chuck Bass. Most women would refuse. Blair refused, too.
She waited until Chuck gave up hunting for his paper, then sneaked outside, and slid it between the two rhododendron bushes hiding the tank of gas for his stove. Just as she had the newspaper positioned to appear as if an overzealous paperboy had thrown it there, she heard a deep, masculine voice.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?"