To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(21)

“Uh-huh. So the only reason you’re tagging along with wedding-planning tasks that you clearly despise is because she asked you to?”

Seth narrowed his eyes at the sweetness in her tone. “It’s like I told you before: Maya doesn’t have a mom or sister or father to do this with her.”

“But she has Neil.”

Seth couldn’t stop his grimace, and now it was Brooke’s turn to narrow her eyes. “That’s why you’re really getting all up in this business, isn’t it? You don’t trust Neil.”

Seth drummed his fingers more rapidly against the seat in irritation, suddenly far more annoyed with the traffic than he had been a few moments earlier.

This was his chance to convince Brooke to help him, to explain that he just had a feeling Neil was bad news and wanted her help in confirming that before his sister committed herself to a totally untrustworthy jerk—or worse.

He chose his words carefully. “What do you think of him?”

Brooke scrunched her nose. “Of Neil?”

He nodded.

“He seems to make Maya very happy.”

The words rolled right off her tongue, sweet and cheerful, and Seth recognized it immediately for what it was.

A line.

“Tell me something,” he said, turning more fully toward her. “Do you care even a little bit about whether the people you’re marrying off are right for each other? Or is it all about the check at the end of the day?”

It was an insulting question, and as expected, her placid smile disappeared altogether, before reappearing, this time with an edge. “Oh, come now, Mr. Tyler. It’s never only about the check. It’s also about the write-up in all the biggest bridal magazines.”

She batted her eyelashes as she said it, and though her tone was thick with disdain and sarcasm, Seth couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a bit of truth there. He’d seen the Wedding Belles’ office. Knew enough of their reputation to know that Brooke and the women she worked with weren’t in this as a hobby. It was their career.

They might like what they did, but there was ambition there, too. A pride in what they did, and did well, from the looks of it.

Normally he’d have admired it.

But since Brooke’s ambition would very likely see his sister marrying the wrong man, he wasn’t about to applaud her for having lofty career goals.

“There’s something you should know before we go any further,” he said, his eyes locked on hers.

“I can hardly wait to hear it. You sure you don’t want to wait until we’re out of the car? Maybe you can crowd me against a kitchen counter again and invade my personal space?”

Seth’s fist clenched at the memory her jab evoked—remembered just how good it had felt to lean into her, how satisfying it had been to watch her bright blue eyes go dark and stormy with want. And she did want him. She may be fighting it just as readily as he was, but there was heat between them.

A heat that was once again threatening to burn him. To burn both of them.

“I can crowd you in here, too, if you want,” he said, flicking his eyes meaningfully at the privacy screen that prevented Dex from having the slightest clue as to what was happening back here.

Brooke made a slight sniffing noise. “Do these moves usually work for you? Does threatening to manhandle women turn them on?”

His eyes locked on her lips. “Sometimes. Only when they like to be handled.”

Brooke’s expression remained unchanged, but he could have sworn he saw a slight twitch of her hand, as though she was itching to pull him toward her just as much as he wanted to haul her across his lap and lose himself in that perfect pink pout, to slip his hands under that fussy sweater to where he just knew she’d be warm and soft.

A tense moment stretched between them before she cleared her throat and lifted an eyebrow. “You were saying there’s something I should know?”

Right. Right.

“I don’t think Neil Garrett is the right man for my sister,” he said quietly.

“Well that comes as a huge surprise. It wasn’t at all obvious from the way you glower at him every chance you get.”

“I just don’t want to see her get taken advantage of and make a mistake.”

Brooke’s eyes softened slightly. “Of course you don’t. But Maya’s, what, twenty-six? Twenty-seven? Plenty old enough to be making her own decisions.”

“I realize that. I just want her to make her decisions with all of the facts.”

She shook her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I think the Neil that Maya thinks she’s in love with isn’t the real man. Or at least not all of the man. He’s hiding something, and I need to figure out what it is before he traps her into a marriage.”

For a moment something awful and real flashed across her face—as though his comment struck a raw nerve. But then she merely shook her head and let her eyes go perfectly blank as the car finally came to a stop outside the Miller Museum.

He held her eyes as he waited for Dex to come around to open the door. “Do we have an understanding, Ms. Baldwin?”

She blinked. “Seriously? No, we don’t have an understanding. On the one hand, you’re hiring me to plan a wedding—not only that, you’re actively participating in the planning. On the other hand, you’re telling me you don’t intend to let the wedding actually happen. What exactly is it I’m supposed to do with that information?”