This is a somewhat predictable but enjoyable story about a childhood romance that never really died away. Nick and Katherine met one summer as teenagers while vacationing at the lake. Nick’s mother let Katherine know she was beneath her son when she was invited to their big estate for tea. They had servants for everything and it was all so formal that Katherine felt very out of place. Nick got on well with her parents and yet she found his mother “scary” and it was soon after this that his mother sent Nick back to the city, so there were no more daily visits to the ice cream shop where she worked and she didn’t hear from him again until years later even though they both promised to stay in contact after the summer ended. As Katherine grew up she immersed herself in school and then in work and never left any time for relationships. She becomes a world class, highly respected architect. One day years later Nick walks back into her life and asks her to design his dream home at the lake where they met. Of course by this time Nick is quite the playboy and has travelled all over the world. Because of the family wealth there was always plenty of news about his escapades in the tabloids and newspapers. All the memories of that summer came flooding back to Katherine and at first she didn’t want to get involved in designing his house, however she changes her mind after he calls her to bail him out of jail instead of calling his fiancé. The picture of her and Nick taken by the paparazzi is spread all over the front page and this causes the fiancé to burst into her office and throw a fit as she waves her huge engagement ring in the air while she’s ranting at Katherine about stealing her man.
This is a good clean read in the romance department, which you can’t say about all books out there. Instead of sex scenes this book delves into the minds and feelings of the characters. It’s a sweet story about two people who meet again as adults. Katherine is a bit disheartened in the beginning and pretty indecisive about her feelings for Nick. At first she wanted to have nothing further to do with Nick after he never stayed in touch with her after their summer romance years before. Besides he wasn’t the sort of man you could take seriously anyway – or was he?
Nick doesn’t realize she still has feelings from long ago and she’s a bit hurt at his disappearance from her life after he went back home after that summer at the lake. Nick is somewhat immature and has always followed the dreams of his family and isn’t really the person he wants to be. He was a troubled teen and is still troubled as an adult. Will he find the courage to break away from what his family expects of him?
There are characters in this book that are easy to hate as you route for Nick and Katherine to get back together like they were as teenagers. This book moved along at a slow pace and even with the couple of typing errors it was a very enjoyable read.
