To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(79)

“Well, if my girlfriend were here, I’d smile,” he muttered. “But when I have a headache and eight more hours of meetings ahead of me, I scowl.”

Etta rolled her eyes and opened her desk drawer, rummaging around until she came up with three different bottles. “Tension headache, migraine, or sinus?” she said, gesturing at the options.

“Give me one of each,” he grumbled.

“Tension,” she said, reaching for the middle bottle. “Definitely a tension headache.”

She dropped two oblong pills into his outstretched palm before nudging her own water glass at him. The pounding in his head was severe enough that he accepted the water rather than fetch his own. He washed the pills down before rubbing at his neck. “Thanks, Etta.”

“So she is your girlfriend,” Etta said with a smug grin.

“What?”

“I called Brooke your girlfriend. You didn’t contradict me.”

“If I wanted to play weird word games with women, I would have stayed in high school,” he said, heading toward his office.

“Did you send her something for Valentine’s Day?” Etta called.

In response, he slammed the door behind him.

Yes, he’d bought Brooke something for Valentine’s Day a week earlier.

He’d sent flowers and chocolates to the Wedding Belles, and made dinner reservations at Eleven Madison Park.

None of that was the alarming part.

The alarming part was that he’d wanted to do it. He’d wanted to do each and every over-the-top step, and her smiles had been well worth it.

So had the rather epic sex that had followed.

There was no way to avoid the fact that he was dangerously close to being smitten with Brooke Baldwin.

Seth dropped into his chair, dropping his head back and closing his eyes, praying that the pills would do quick work so that he could tackle a couple of overdue emails.

But the damn headache was still going strong when his cell rang a few minutes later. He pulled it out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket, intending to reject the call. Until he saw who it was.

Tommy Franklin.

His private investigator.

Seth’s pulse jumped with something he hoped was nervousness but worried was fear.

“Tyler,” he said, answering the call.

“Mr. Tyler, Tommy Franklin here. Is now a good time? I know we didn’t have anything booked, but you said to call when I had something concrete.”

Seth’s heart began to hammer. He swallowed. “Yeah. Now’s fine.”

“All right,” Tommy said, his tone having the same businesslike clip Seth was accustomed to hearing during the workday. It somehow made the whole thing easier. Slightly.

“I’ll of course send the complete report electronically as well, complete with password-protected documents, but I find it’s sometimes easier to explain the high-level findings over the phone. And of course, if there are questions—”

“Franklin,” Seth interrupted, rubbing at his forehead that hadn’t ceased aching. “Just spit it out. I’m not a besotted husband waiting to hear if the love of his life’s been sleeping with the milkman.”

“Who do you want me to start with?” Franklin asked.

“Garrett.”

“Is actually not Garrett. Or Neil for that matter. The man’s real name is Ned Alonzo. Mother is a Katherine Alonzo, a hairdresser in Albuquerque. Father listed as a Jorge Alonzo, died in a car accident when Ned was a teen, although wasn’t in the picture even before that.”

Seth inhaled deeply. He’d been right. Neil Garrett wasn’t who he said he was.

Of course, there were worse things than changing one’s name. Perhaps the man had just wanted a fresh start, or—

“Garrett, or Alonzo, whatever we want to call him, is nearly eight hundred thousand dollars in debt.”

Just like that, Seth ceased to be aware of the pain in his head, because his chest suddenly hurt too much. “Sorry. Eight hundred thousand? As in, nearly a million dollars in the hole?”

“Gambling addiction. The man did okay playing small tables in casinos across the country, likely starting as a hobby. Thought he could make it in the big leagues in Vegas. He started out legit. Charmed the right people, got access to the big tables at the big resorts. Lost big money fast, and tried to make it up underground.”

“And he didn’t.”

“Nope,” Franklin said.

“How long ago?”

“That he lost the money? He started to go under about eight months ago, but it escalated rapidly. He headed to New York not too long after getting roughed up by one of his bookie’s juice men.”

“Where he met my sister.”

“Right. Here’s the part you may want to take a deep breath for,” Franklin warned.

“It gets worse?”

“I was able to access some of the security video footage of some of Ms. Tyler’s favorite places from that list you sent me. Her local Starbucks, favorite wine bar, the restaurants she prefers to meet her girlfriends for lunch. He made an appearance at all the same places she did for nearly two weeks before he first approached her in line at that Starbucks.”

“Christ.”

“Without any kind of audio coverage, I don’t have verbal confirmation, so I feel duty-bound to inform you that it could be a coincidence, but in my professional opinion . . .”