To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(78)

What she wouldn’t give for a piece of furniture right now to plop said bride onto, because Maya looked ready to snap in half.

“We changed the wedding date!” Maya said, her voice too loud. The announcement echoed throughout the room, and though Brooke registered surprise, there was also relief—because based on their facial expressions, she’d thought it was much worse.

“Well, that’s no problem,” she said, reaching out to touch Maya’s hand. “People move dates all the time. Did you guys decide December’s just too hectic after all? Because we could just as easily transition to a late-autumn wedding, or even January if you wanted to stick with the winter theme.”

Grant’s tongue pushed out his cheek as he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Maya just continued to stare blankly at her, and Brooke’s surprise turned to panic.

“What am I missing?”

This time Maya’s eyes darted away as Grant met Brooke’s gaze. “March. They want to move the wedding up to March,” he said plainly, his voice sounding oddly flat and devoid of emotion.

“March!” Brooke burst out, before she could think better of it. “As in . . . next month?”

Maya nodded, and her horrible forced smile finally collapsed. “Neil and I . . . talked. Everything was just taking so long, and he thought—we thought—do we really want to wait that long to be married?”

Brooke’s mind was spinning. This was not good. Not that she hadn’t worked under these kinds of conditions before. Changing the date was uncommon, but not unheard of. Unplanned pregnancies and ailing parents could often change the timeline. Sometimes it was a couple deciding that they didn’t want the fuss, or a change in financial situation calling for a simpler-than-planned wedding.

But instinct told her that something else was at work here.

Plus that meant the wedding was a month away.

That was too fast. Granted, speed could be achieved with money, and the Tylers weren’t hurting for it, but . . .

Uh-oh.

Seth was holding the purse strings. And although he’d seemed more or less resigned to the wedding, something told her he wasn’t going to deal well with this new timeline.

She itched to ask Maya if she’d told her brother, but right now wasn’t about Seth and his issues with Neil. Right now was about Maya and the fact that the woman looked moments away from tears.

“We can make a March wedding work,” Brooke said soothingly, rubbing a hand over Maya’s arm. “But, sweetie, you know I have to ask . . . are you sure this is what you want?”

Maya’s hand shook just a little as she lifted it to brush a wisp of hair away from her temple. “Neil said that if I loved him, it shouldn’t be about the wedding, but about the marriage.”

Brooke thought she heard Grant growl, and silently, she echoed his sentiments. While true that some couples fell prey to the trap, becoming so wrapped up in the wedding that they lost sight of the relationship, Maya was far from being a wedding-obsessed diva. She cared, yes, but she had her head on straight. She seemed to be in it for the right reason.

Because she wanted to marry Neil.

And yet it was Grant who was here.

Hmm.

“Where is Neil?” Brooke asked gently.

“Traveling,” Maya said. “I think Dallas. Or Houston. Maybe Atlanta. I can’t—he’s been busy.”

Grant moved closer, setting a hand on Maya’s back. Maya didn’t glance up, or even smile, but Brooke thought she saw some of the tension leave the other woman’s body.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Grant said softly.

Just like that, the tension was back in Maya’s shoulders, and she stepped away from Grant. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I want to.”

“Maya, you’ve been wanting your dream wedding since you were a little girl. You really want it thrown together in one month?”

“Brooke can make it nice,” Maya said, shifting her gaze to Brooke. “Can’t you?”

The pleading quality in Maya’s voice chafed at Brooke’s heart. “Of course I can.”

There would be trade-offs, of course, but now wasn’t the time to mention that.

“Can we still do it here?” Maya asked hopefully, gesturing around the space.

“I’ll definitely find out,” Brooke said, already taking out her planner and making notes. “This place is new enough that I doubt they’re booked up.”

Maya’s shoulders slumped in relief, although there was no easing of the tension around her mouth or the desolate look in her eyes.

This was bad. Really bad.

“There’s one other thing I was hoping you could help with,” Maya said.

“Anything,” Brooke said, jotting down a couple of other notes in her planner without looking up.

“Could you tell my brother for me?” Maya said, her voice a pleading whisper.

And just like that, it went from bad to worse.





Chapter Thirty





SETH STOPPED BY ETTA’S desk in between meetings, waiting impatiently for her to finish up her phone call with the office supplier.

She crossed her arms and leaned forward. “You know, with a girlfriend as cute as yours, you’d think you’d smile a bit more.”