To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(39)

“What do you want to be talking about?” she said, her voice a little bit lower than she was used to hearing it.

He nodded at her drink. “Another?”

She glanced down. “I better not. I haven’t eaten much today, so I should probably wait to get some food in me.”

“Is that a hint that you’re ready to get going?”

Brooke didn’t think she was misreading the regret in his voice, and she definitely wasn’t misreading what her own instincts were telling her: that she was in no hurry to leave whatever was happening here, despite the fact that every inch of her knew it was a bad, bad idea.

“Not at all,” she said softly.

He leaned forward again, his face taking on that slightly urgent look that she suspected he must get before closing a big deal.

“Would it be out of line to suggest that we eat here?” Seth asked.

“Here? In your office?”

He nodded. “We could order in. Sushi, Italian, whatever you want. Unless of course you’d prefer something less . . .”

Intimate, she silently finished.

“If you want to go out, I’ve made reservations at a few places so we had options. I wasn’t sure what your tastes in restaurants are.”

“You, or your assistant?” she said with a smile.

“Me. Etta doesn’t manage my personal life.”

She tilted her head. “But this is a business dinner, isn’t it, Mr. Tyler?”

He smiled. “Well, it certainly feels like it when you continue calling me Mr. Tyler.”

She glanced away. She couldn’t call him Seth. Not yet. It was bad enough that she was barefoot, curled up on his couch, debating eating dinner just the two of them, in his cozy office, with nobody around, no audience to ensure they kept their distance.

“I can call the car around,” he said gruffly, misunderstanding her silence.

“No!” she said, holding out a hand. “Please don’t. The thought of putting those shoes back on . . . I’m not ready. Staying in sounds great.”

They both knew the shoes were an excuse, but he didn’t call her out for it. “One of my favorite Italian places in the city knows me. They’ll be here in thirty if I ask them to.”

“I’m betting everyone in the city knows you,” she said dryly. “But Italian sounds great. I pretty much like it all, so whatever you think are their best dishes, go crazy.”

He nodded before pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialing a number as he picked up his glass and returned to the bar to fix himself another drink.

Brooke sipped the remainder of her own drink as she studied him from the back. He was broader than she’d realized. His facial features were narrow to the point of being sharp, so she’d always sort of assumed that the rest of him was, too, but seeing him now from this angle, she saw that he had the broad shoulders of someone who knew the inside of the gym, tapering down to a narrow waist and long legs.

His brown hair curled down over the edge of his shirt collar, and she smiled as she realized that Seth Tyler needed a haircut. A strange little quirk for a man who was so exacting in every other way. Brooke somehow found it endearing that he hadn’t made time for it.

It made him more . . . human, somehow.

Oh, honey, she chided herself. You have it bad if you’re getting all panty-dropping hot about his overlong hair.

She checked her email as she half listened to him order a bunch of things she didn’t recognize. His Italian accent seemed on point, at least to her untrained ear, and she wondered how many languages he spoke. For some reason she was guessing it was at least three. If the man was this controlling over his sister’s wedding, there was no way he wouldn’t want to know what was going on with his international team.

Her phone buzzed with a text from Heather. How’d the dress shopping go?

Brooke responded, As you warned me. Completely scary.

Don’t worry, it’ll get a bit easier once they know you. Wish I could have been there for your first experience at Blanche.

OMG. Is it always like that?

Always. But some of my brides eat it up. #bridezilla

Brooke snorted. Did you just hashtag via text?

Sorry. Updating our social media accounts. Can’t turn it off. So who’d Maya end up going with?

TBD. Not Blanche though. She shut those bitches DOWN.





Love it, Heather responded. So you get a free pass on dinner with Big Brother then since Maya didn’t commit?

Brooke bit her lip, wondering how to respond. She’d told Heather about her unusual arrangement with the Tyler wedding, and her friend had seemed unfazed. And it wasn’t all that uncommon in wedding planning for the planner to run interference with meddling family members in order to keep the bride and groom happy.

And yet, somehow what she was doing with Seth felt completely different from the times she’d soothed a high-maintenance mother of the groom or sweet-talked a penny-pinching father of the bride into The Dress for his little angel.

Your silence has spoken, Heather texted before Brooke could come up with a response. And I approve. Looked him up. He’s HOT.

Brooke rolled her eyes and put her phone aside as Seth hung up his call and walked back toward her.

“All right, I lied. They said forty-five minutes,” he said.

“No problem.” She patted her planner. “I really do need to get an actual budget from you. It’s all very hypothetical at this stage, but this stuff tends to happen fast.”