To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(53)

Now a slim arm appeared as she stretched, then another, and then finally her head as she rolled upward to a sitting position, unfortunately having the presence of mind to tuck the sheet beneath her armpits, covering up those gorgeous bare breasts.

She blinked sleepily as she tried to get her bearings.

“Morning,” he said quietly as her gaze came to rest on him.

Brooke’s hand immediately flew to her head, only to let it drop again with a sigh. “It’s hopeless, huh?”

“Let’s just say you look thoroughly bedded,” he said, pushing away from the doorjamb.

“Translation. My hair’s a mess?”

He smiled, wisely avoiding the question, and held up one of the mugs in his hand. “I didn’t know how you like your coffee. This is black, but I’ve got sugar and some milk in the fridge.”

“A spoonful of sugar would be great. No milk.”

“I think I can handle that.”

Seth headed back into the kitchen to add sugar to her mug. When he returned, he noticed that Brooke had done some sort of feminine witchcraft on her hair, turning the previous cloud of tangles into a tidy braid hooked over one shoulder.

“Is it bad to say I liked your hair better before?” he asked, handing her the mug before sitting on the side of the bed and shifting to face her.

She snorted into her coffee. “Why, because it reminded you of all your manly prowess last night?”

He smiled. “So you admit it was prowess.”

Her eyes flicked to his. “Let’s just say, last night was good. Very good.”

Seth thought of himself as an evolved man, but he apparently wasn’t that far beyond caveman, because the urge to puff out his chest at that moment was almost too strong to ignore.

Instead he took a sip of his coffee and held her gaze. “Yes. It was.”

Brooke bit her lip as she cupped the large mug in two hands. “So, I feel like maybe we should have talked about . . . the after. And also, I didn’t mean to sleep over. It was just—I thought—”

His hand found her knee. “Hey.”

She took a deep breath.

“There was no way in hell I was letting you out of bed last night, much less out of my apartment,” he said quietly.

Brooke took a deep breath and looked like she was about to protest, but they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Her eyes widened slightly in panic. “Someone’s here?”

He reached out and flicked the edge of her braid before standing. “Room service. Stay.”

A few moments later, he’d generously tipped the delivery woman after refusing to allow her to set up the table. Instead he wheeled the crowded cart into the bedroom himself.

Brooke blinked. “Um, how many people are you planning on feeding?”

“I wasn’t sure what you liked to eat for breakfast,” he said as he began to pull the silver tops off the various plates. “I got everything from a cheese omelet to pancakes to eggs Benedict.”

Brooke bit her lip and eyed the room-service cart. “I’m normally a bowl-of-cereal kind of girl.”

“It’s just breakfast, Brooke.”

She was already climbing out of bed. “Exactly. Breakfast. We said it was about one night. Last night. We agreed. Morning shenanigans didn’t play into it.”

“How do a couple of f*cking pancakes and omelets equal shenanigans?”

“Don’t play dumb,” she said as she looked around for her clothes. “This can’t be anything. I work for you. Sort of.”

“Brooke. Stop,” he said, reaching for her. “Just because I’m offering you something to eat doesn’t mean I’m going to start ring shopping.”

She jerked away from his outstretched hand. “It starts with breakfast, but then what?”

He only stared at her.

“I don’t want this,” she said, gesturing at the breakfast cart. “Last night was great, but I don’t want anything more.”

Seth felt like he’d been poleaxed in the abdomen.

I don’t want anything more.

Brooke couldn’t have known, of course, that her softly uttered statement was an exact echo of what Nadia had said to him that night as she’d stared down at his pathetic self on bended knee.

I’ve liked spending time with you, Seth. But I don’t want anything more.

Him. She hadn’t wanted him.

And Brooke didn’t want him, either. And objectively, rationally, he knew that was okay. But some long-silenced part of him was roaring in pain of a not-quite-forgotten memory.

“Got it,” he snapped after the silence had stretched too long. “So next time, I just leave a fifty on the dresser, right?”

“Don’t be a jerk,” she said as she began pulling on her clothes.

“Yeah, I’m the * here,” he said. “You’re the one losing your shit over a few eggs.”

She brushed past him. “I can’t do this.”

He grabbed her arm, pulling her back around. “Nobody’s asking you to do anything. You’re the one who came over here last night, remember? For someone who’s so rah, rah happily ever afters, seems to me there’s only one kind of happy ending you’re after.”

Her lips parted at his crassness, and she looked like she wanted to slap him. He almost wished she would.