To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(63)

But happy . . .? He studied her, from her shining dark hair down to her dark red manicure all the way down to the black Louboutin pumps she favored. No. He wouldn’t have been happy.

And he was no longer interested in letting her look down on him.

He stood and pecked her cheek, feeling . . . nothing.

Not regret, or sadness, or relief. Only blankness.

She smiled her usual cool smile. It wasn’t that Nadia didn’t feel. It wasn’t that she was an ice princess. He’d seen her get wildly passionate about some of her cases. It was just that she’d never been passionate about him.

Her eyes flicked over him. “You look good.”

“You too,” he said automatically.

Nadia turned toward Brooke and extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Nadia.”

“Brooke Baldwin.”

Nadia rarely bothered with small talk with people whose names she didn’t recognize, and she turned back to Seth. “I thought you didn’t like this place.”

He frowned. “I like it.”

“You always said that it was too far downtown.”

“Doesn’t mean that I didn’t like it.”

Nadia’s brown eyes narrowed before she shrugged. “So how are you?”

“I’m good,” he said.

Only after the words were out did he realize how inadequate they were.

He was better than good. He was better than he’d been in a long time, all because he was more alive than he’d ever felt. It was like some sort of damned movie where the character didn’t even know he was half whole until he met that one person who completed him.

Or some shit like that.

“And you?” he asked politely.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw Brooke pretending to fall asleep at the dull conversation.

“Also good,” Nadia said. “My brother’s in town. He was my date for the evening, actually. Just left to catch a cab back uptown to his hotel. And Maya? She’s good?”

Seth’s eyes flicked toward Brooke long enough to see her cracking up into her cocktail glass. He couldn’t blame her. This was getting downright painful.

“She’s—great,” he said, catching himself before he could utter the word good again. “Getting married, actually.”

“Ah, so Grant finally pulled his head out of his ass, huh? Gotta give him credit—he works fast.”

Seth stared at her. “She’s not marrying Grant.”

“Oh!” Nadia’s eyes went wide in the first bit of expression she’d shown since crashing his date. “I just assumed. He’s always been so hung up on her.”

“Told you,” Brooke muttered.

Nadia glanced at Brooke, this time looking a bit closer. “You’ve met Grant? And Maya?”

“I’m Maya’s wedding planner,” Brooke explained with a smile.

“Oh. So this is a business dinner,” Nadia said in a bored tone.

“No,” Seth said, just as Brooke replied, “Yes.”

He gave her a sharp look.

“Well, it was really nice seeing you,” his ex said in the same tone he expected she gave her dentist when she told him she’d be back again in six months.

“Likewise.” He kissed her cheek once more, registering how cool it felt, noting that her perfume was familiar and yet also completely unappealing to him.

Seth resumed his spot at the table just as Brooke reached across the table and picked up his glass of wine since her own drink was now empty.

“Well, that was fun,” she said.

“Sorry about that. Shitty timing, seeing as we were just talking about Nadia, and how . . .”

Her eyebrows lifted. “How I sort of wanted to scratch her eyes out?”

Seth reached out, slowly taking the glass back from her, letting his fingers brush against hers, lingering against their softness.

“Feeling possessive, are we?” he said, his voice coming out as a low growl.

He noted the way she watched his mouth as he sipped his wine. The tip of her tongue flicked slowly across her lower lip, and he felt his cock stir. Goddamn, he wanted this woman.

“I may have changed my mind about dessert,” she said, her voice lower than usual.

“Really?” he said, enjoying the game they were playing. “Because I was just starting to warm to the idea of watching you purr while you ate that chocolate soufflé.”

She pursed her lips and leaned forward slightly, further lowering her voice. “How about you watch me purr with my lips wrapped around your cock instead?”

Seth gripped the glass so hard he was surprised it didn’t shatter. “Yeah, okay. You win, Baldwin.”

She grinned in victory, and two minutes later, they were out the door.





Chapter Twenty-Five





DEX HAD BARELY CLOSED the car door behind them before Seth reached for her. His fingers slid into her hair, his big hand palming her head as he drew her face to his.

Brooke closed her eyes, desperate for his kiss, but he paused, brushing his lips against her cheek. “I like you.”

Her eyes flew open at the simple, unexpected admission, and she pulled back slightly to meet his gaze. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

The corner of his mouth turned up, his eyes locked on the spot where his thumb and forefinger rubbed against a strand of her hair. “I wasn’t supposed to.”