To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(82)

She rolled her eyes. “Not this again.”

He took a deep breath and strove for calm. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I am right on this one, Brooke. Neil Garrett’s real name is Ned Alonzo. He’s got a gambling addiction that has him nearly a million dollars in debt. Maya’s nothing to him but a cushy way to pay off his debts.”

Her lips parted in shock. “How can you know that? Did he confide in you?”

Seth snorted. “That’d be hard, right? Seeing as he’s been hitting the tables in Vegas while you and my sister run all over the city trying on dresses and tasting cakes.”

Her eyes narrowed in warning. “Is that really what you wanted to say to me?”

He sighed. “No. I’m sorry. I just found all this out seconds before you walked in, and I’m still dealing with it.”

“What do you mean you found out? How?”

Well, here went nothing.

“I hired someone,” he said, refusing to let the statement come out as guilty. “I hired someone to look into Neil. Ned. Whatever.”

Brooke’s mouth fell open. “You have got to be kidding me.”

He shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Okay,” she said, seeming to take this in. “Okay, at least tell me Maya knows. That you didn’t go behind her back to research her fiancé.”

He stared at her silently.

“Oh my God, Seth,” Brooke breathed. “You know, for all your talk about how clueless Maya and I are, you’re clueless on a whole other level.”

He ignored this. “I did it to protect her. And it’s a damn good thing, because if I hadn’t found this out, she’d have married a man who didn’t love her, who’d have taken all her money and made her miserable.”

“And that would have been her mistake to make,” Brooke said quietly.

“But—”

“No but,” Brooke said, coming around the table so they were face-to-face. “You were right about Neil, apparently, and I’ll give you that. But what you did was wrong on every level. Going behind her back? You’re not God, Seth.”

“And what was the better alternative?” he snapped. “Letting her get hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Brooke said tiredly. “Maybe? I mean, I guess now that we know, we can’t actually let her marry him without knowing the facts, but you interfered in the worst kind of way.”

“Because I love her,” he argued.

Brooke shook her head. “That’s not love.”

Seth froze. Her words were a carbon copy of what Grant had said to him a couple of weeks earlier. Two of the people he cared about most were telling him verbatim that he didn’t know how to love.

That he didn’t even know what love was.

And damn it . . . damn it, but it hurt. It tore at his soul like a savage beast out for blood. Because right now he didn’t feel like a man who couldn’t love.

He felt like a man whose every fiber was filled with love for a person who was standing there looking at him with disdain and pity.

Well, screw this. Screw her. Brooke thought he was heartless? He’d show her what stone-cold really looked like.

“And I suppose you do know what love is,” he struck out. “You’ve experienced it in all its lovey-dovey glory?”

She lifted her chin, refusing to be embarrassed or ashamed. Good for her. “Yes. I did.”

“With Clay,” he said, stepping forward.

Brook hesitated just a second too long before nodding. “Yes. He and I didn’t end well for obvious reasons, and he was . . . he was not a good person. I don’t doubt for one second that he did care about me. He did know how to love, because I felt it.”

“Yeah?” Seth asked cruelly. “Then maybe you can tell me why he’s engaged to another woman.”

Brooke didn’t move. Not even to blink. “What?” Her voice wobbled, and she cleared her throat. “What?” she asked again, more clearly this time.

For a moment, Seth panicked, wanting to take his words back more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life. To go back thirty seconds, hell, go back thirty minutes, and quit acting like an idiotic defensive animal in pain, lashing out like a moron. He was more evolved than this, surely.

But the words were out there now, and he couldn’t take them back. Wasn’t even sure he wanted to, because he’d need to confess sometime, and it might as well be now, when she was already hating his guts. Maybe if he ripped off the Band-Aid all at once, he’d still have a chance.

“How the hell would you know . . . oh my God.” Brooke was staring at him in miserable understanding. “Your private investigator. You had him look into Clay, too.”

Seth nodded.

“Unbelievable,” she spat out. “You really think you can control people the way you do your business. You really equate your power trips with affection.”

“I won’t apologize for trying to protect you,” he said woodenly.

“What about Maya? Are you going to apologize to her?”

“Yes,” he said gruffly. “And she’ll be mad for a while, but at least she won’t marry the guy.”

“So you get everything you want,” Brooke said quietly. “Everything’s exactly as you want it, all tidy and in order as it should be, according to Seth.”