To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(91)

His arms gingerly went around her, resting lightly against her back as though he thought she might run at any time and was prepared to let her go even though he didn’t want to. “The shirt and hammer did it for you, huh? Grant will be pleased.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely not thinking about Grant right now,” she said, her eyes dropping purposely to his mouth.

“No?”

She shook her head and slowly pulled his head down to hers, pouring her entire heart into the kiss. His arms tightened around her, no longer tentative as their mouths met again and again in the sweet elation of rediscovery.

“I’d thought you’d forgotten about me,” she said softly, pulling back slightly and running her fingers along the silken hair around his ears.

He shook his head. “Never. Not for one second. I just went underground for a bit to up my game.”

“You did good,” she said, brushing her lips against his and inviting another kiss.

Instead of taking her up on the invitation, he leaned back slightly, eyes narrowed. “Did you miss me?”

“I did,” she said slowly. “But I think it was good to have a little distance. To figure things out and find myself in the aftermath of everything, you know?”

His eyes clouded, and she rushed to reassure him. “You know what I figured out?”

Seth said nothing.

Her hand slid down to his lips, her fingertips tracing his firm, unsmiling mouth. “I figured out that I don’t want a relationship that’s easy the way it was when I was with Clay, before it all went to hell.”

“No?” His voice was rough.

“No,” she whispered. “I want a relationship that might be hard sometimes but is worth it. And you, Seth Tyler, are most definitely worth it.”

His slow smile was just about the best thing she’d ever seen in her life, and his former wariness gave way to cocky seduction.

“Is that so?”

“I’m pretty sure,” she teased. “There are some things I’ll need to consider, first.”

“Like?”

“Like how ugly that bookshelf is if and when you ever finish it.”

“What else?” he growled, maneuvering her back toward the bed.

“Like exactly how long we’re supposed to wait before you let me move in with you.”

“Five minutes. Next?”

Brooke smiled. “Just one more thing . . . I’ll need to consider how much I love you.”

He froze in the process of sliding a hand under her shirt and searched her eyes. “Yeah? How much are you thinking?”

“All the way, Mr. Tyler. I’m thinking I love you all the way.”

Seth pushed her back onto the bed with a wicked, happy grin. “Prove it.”

And Brooke did. She definitely did.





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BOOK TWO IN THE WEDDING BELLES SERIES



Coming soon





Chapter One





FOR AS LONG AS Heather Fowler could remember, living in Manhattan had been The Dream.

The one she’d talked about as a precocious eight-year-old when her mom’s best friend, turned chatty by one too many glasses of the Franzia she chugged like water, asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up.

At eight, Heather hadn’t been exactly sure about the what in her future, but she absolutely knew the where.

New York City.

Manhattan, specifically.

The obsession had started with Friends reruns, and had only grown as she’d moved on to her mother’s Sex and the City DVD collection, which she’d watched covertly while her mother had worked double shifts at the diner.

People in New York were vibrant, sparkling. They were doing something. Important things. Fun things.

She wanted to be one of them.

By the time Heather was in high school, The Dream was still going strong.

While the overachievers had dreams of going to Mars, and the smaller-thinking ones had aspirations of getting to the mall, for Heather it had always and only been NYC.

Her mother had never pretended to understand Heather’s dream. Joan Fowler had lived her entire life in Merryville, Michigan, with only two addresses: her lower-middle-class parents’ split-level and the trailer she’d rented when, at four months pregnant, her parents had kicked her out.

And while Heather had wanted something more for her mother—and something more for herself—than hand-me-down clothes and a two-bedroom trailer that smelled constantly like peroxide (courtesy of her mother’s hairdressing side job), Joan had always seemed content.

But to Heather’s mother’s credit, Joan had never been anything less than encouraging.

If you want New York, you do New York. Simple as that.

And so Heather had.

Though it hadn’t been simple. There had been detours. College at Michigan State. A tiny apartment in Brooklyn Heights with four roommates that, while technically located in New York City, wasn’t quite the urbane sophistication she’d pictured.

But Heather’s resolve had never wavered. In one of her college internships, a mentor had told Heather to dress for the job she wanted, not the one she had.

Heather did that, but she’d also broadened the idiom: Live the life you want, not the one you have.