To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(54)

“You know what I just realized?” she said, her voice low and vibrating with anger. “You’re a lot like your hotels. Polished, attractive, efficient, and cold. Cold and soulless.”

He said nothing. It was nothing he hadn’t heard before. Nothing that wasn’t true.

“Have a good day, Mr. Tyler. I can see myself out.”

Seth didn’t move. Not until he heard his front door close.

And then his arm lashed out, swiping several of the room-service plates off the cart and sending them crashing to the floor.

As he stared blindly down at the mess, he realized that only twice in his life had he really truly lost his temper to the point of lashing out. Once the other night with the f*cking takeout in his office, and again just now with the damn room service.

Both could be owed to a certain Brooke Baldwin.

So much for not getting complicated.





Chapter Twenty-One





I HANDLED IT BADLY. Do you think I handled it badly?” Brooke asked as she nibbled on a fingernail and followed Heather around City Winery as her friend placed a gold-wrapped chocolate truffle by each name tag set around the square table. Heather reached out to adjust the silver ribbon of the centerpiece so that it curled just-so around the base of the white pillar candle.

The bride had gone for a metallic theme, which Brooke had secretly wondered might be a bit cold, but she had to admit that the combination of sparkle and monochromatic tones of silver and gold was stunning. Especially given the oncoming February storm, which promised to be just enough to provide some picturesque snowflakes without being heavy enough to cause transportation issues.

“You’re sure I can’t help?” Brooke asked as she followed Heather to the next table, watching her friend repeat the same process with the favors, the fussing with the ribbon. Heather hesitated, and Brooke had been part of the Belles just long enough to have a sense of what was going on.

“Hey,” she said, touching Heather’s arm. “It looks really good.”

“Does it?” Heather asked, glancing around. “Are you sure the little snowflake lights aren’t cheesy? They were my idea, but I’ve never seen Alexis use them, and maybe they’re tacky.”

Brooke snapped a finger in Heather’s face, waiting for the usually confident blond girl’s eyes to come back to hers. “None of that. Alexis trusts you.”

“But—”

“Nope.” Brooke held up a finger. “You’re her assistant for a reason. She trusts you to make spectacular weddings.”

Heather’s wide green eyes flitted away nervously, still scanning the breathtakingly beautiful scene before her as though looking for flaws. “I know, it’s just rare that I tackle the setup on my own.”

The experienced wedding planner in Brooke knew that the wedding Heather was carefully crafting was sheer perfection. Brooke had met the bride of this particular wedding—a graphic designer for a major advertising agency—only once, but she knew that Heather had nailed her client’s style. The reception hall was elegant and a little bit playful, classic, but with enough personality to keep it from being generic.

But the woman in Brooke had a sense of what Heather was going through. By Brooke’s estimation, Heather was absolutely ready to be promoted to full-fledged wedding planner, and she expected Alexis would agree.

But Heather needed to know it. She needed to work through the pressure of having a wedding entirely on her shoulders, with no boss to deflect to or follow. It had taken Brooke nearly a dozen weddings before she stopped feeling queasy in the hours leading up to the ceremony, and even now she still got butterflies.

Heather needed to see that she could do it, that she could weather the stress.

And Brooke was absolutely confident that Heather could.

Brooke knew that she, Alexis, and Heather all felt equally passionate about weddings, but she suspected there was something more driving Heather. Something beyond Brooke’s ambition or Alexis’s perfectionism.

Being a wedding planner wasn’t just a job goal for Heather. It was a life goal.

Brooke wound her arm around Heather’s shoulder and squeezed. “So, I know you want to puke right now, but you’re going to have to trust me on this, Fowler. This looks amazing. And this couple is going to have the best day of their life because of you. Now will you please hand over some of those gorgeously wrapped truffles and let me help you?”

Heather took a long breath before blowing it out. “There’s another box by the front door. There might even be an extra or two, because one of the guys who works at the chocolate place thinks I’m cute.”

“Because you are cute,” Brooke said, heading toward the door to grab the box in question. “Is chocolate guy going to be a thing?”

“Oh God no,” Heather said, resuming the process of placing the boxes alongside each plate. “I’m pretty sure he’s, like, twenty.”

“Because you’re so old,” Brooke said sarcastically, hoisting the box onto her hip and heading back toward Heather to begin placing the favors on a nearby table.

“Let’s just say that this kid squeezes in shifts between classes at NYU, and I—” Heather broke off, fiddling unnecessarily with a candle. “College feels like a long time ago for me.”

“You went to college near home?” Brooke asked, shamelessly fishing but doing so in what she hoped was a casual tone. “In Michigan?”