To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(40)

“Don’t remind me,” he grumbled, setting his glass on the table and shrugging out of his suit jacket and loosening his tie.

Brooke tried to keep her eyes trained on his face and failed. His upper body, nicely accentuated by his crisp dress shirt, was, well, spectacular. “We don’t have to do this tonight. Talk about the wedding, I mean. We can reschedule for next week.”

His eyes met hers. “I’ll get there. Give me a minute.”

“Sure,” she said warily. “What do you want to talk about in the meantime?”

Seth’s gaze drifted hotly over her at the word talk, and she felt an answering surge of lust at the things they could do other than talk.

Brooke hadn’t had a casual hookup since college. She was more of a third-date kind of girl, preferring to make sure she actually liked a man before getting naked with him.

She wasn’t at all sure she liked Seth Tyler.

She also wasn’t at all sure she wanted to get naked with him.

Liar.

Okay, so she definitely wanted to get naked with him. But there were some people you just didn’t sleep with, and a client was absolutely on the list.

Seth seemed to read her mind, and the heat dimmed from his gaze as he lowered to the chair beside her. “You asked what I wanted to talk about.”

She nodded, grateful to be back on conversational rather than horizontal terms with the man.

He was studying her gaze. “What I’m about to ask might be construed as prying, so you can absolutely tell me to go to the devil.”

“Who I’m pretty sure is a friend of yours,” she joked gently.

Seth didn’t rise to the taunt.

“I’d like to talk about you,” he said quietly. “I’d like you to tell me about Clay.”





Chapter Fifteen





BROOKE STARED AT HIM for several seconds. She was surprised, although she didn’t know why. A two-second Google search of her name brought up no fewer than a dozen articles about Clay’s spectacular arrest.

For a brief moment, Brooke gave into the surge of resentment. She let herself acknowledge that it was unfair that she’d worked damn hard to build her wedding-planning career only to have it all erased by one man’s misdeeds.

As far as the general public was concerned, she was no longer Brooke Baldwin, Wedding Planner Extraordinaire. She was that poor clueless girl whose criminal mastermind fiancé got arrested at the altar.

Most of the time, Brooke accepted this. What was the point in dwelling, after all?

But sometimes . . . sometimes the unfairness of it all clawed at her throat.

Right now was one of those moments. She didn’t want Seth Tyler to look at her as Clay’s ex. She wanted to be . . .

What did she want to be in the eyes of Seth?

A competent wedding planner, certainly. The man was gearing up to fork over no small amount of money for his sister’s wedding. But she wanted to be seen as a woman, too. And not the kind that had dated a man for two years without knowing who he really was.

But . . .

She was that woman. Much as she’d like to rewrite history, she couldn’t. She couldn’t change what happened any easier than she could change the fact that the news was out there. Hell, she even had her own meme, for God’s sake.

The best she could do was convince the world that she was over it. That Clay might have surprised her, but he hadn’t hurt her.

Brooke met his eyes and smiled slightly. “You looked me up.”

“I didn’t, actually. I’ll admit I sensed there was something amiss. But it didn’t seem my place to snoop.”

“Interesting. I had you pegged for a control freak who hated surprises.”

He gave a short laugh. “Spot-on. And true. But it was different with you.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“Hell if I know,” he said, holding her gaze.

Except he did know. They both did.

“So if you didn’t go snooping, how’d you know about Clay?”

“Grant. He thought I should know before I said something idiotic.”

She snorted. “Is that even possible?”

“Play nice, Ms. Baldwin. I’m feeding you.”

“And playing nice means spilling my guts?”

“Only if you want to.”

Brooke studied him, realizing that he meant it. He wasn’t going to badger her, wasn’t going to pry. There was simply an invitation to talk. To share.

“How much do you know?” she asked, taking a sip of her drink.

“The CNN version, I guess. I’ve never met the guy, but we moved in some of the same circles back when he was in New York. His name is familiar enough that I recognized it when I read the story.”

“You and everyone else,” Brooke muttered.

He sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I hated him before, but knowing now that it was you he screwed over royally . . . let’s just say that I wish we still lived in a time where it was acceptable to take a man like that out back and put him and the people around him out of their misery.”

Brooke’s lips parted in surprise. “That’s very . . .”

“Uncivilized.”

“I was going to say sort of gratifying,” she admitted. “I mean I don’t actually want Clay dead, obviously, but I’ll confess that the fact that he’s been turned into some sort of celebrity can be a bit grating.”