by Lauren Layne
His father was wrong.
Seth could have helped. He could have taken over the reins earlier. Could have flown his father to any fancy research facility in the world. He could have saved him, if only he’d known.
But this thing with Maya had been brought to his attention before permanent damage could be done. He could have enough time to stop it, to save her. He just needed the proof.
Grant cracked his knuckles, and Seth raised his eyebrows in surprise. He’d seen his friend crack his knuckles plenty back in high school—anytime Grant was agitated.
“There’s got to be another way,” Grant mused. “A way to talk some sense into Maya without completely invading her privacy.”
“Go for it,” Seth muttered. “But she never listens to you any more than she does to me. Less, possibly.” Grant and Maya had all of the closeness of blood siblings, but all of the squabbling, too. Hell, half the time Seth felt like the one breaking up their arguments, rather than the other way around.
Crack, crack. Again with the damn knuckles. “This is the time when we need a woman around.”
“Why, because Maya would listen to someone with ovaries?” Seth asked skeptically.
“More than she’d listen to us. Maybe we go through Tori. If anyone can talk sense into Maya, it’s her best friend.”
“You’ve met Tori, right?” Seth asked dryly. “You really think there’s a chance in hell she’d sabotage her chance of being maid of honor?”
“You’re right.” Crack. Crack. “Hell, this was probably her idea,” Grant said darkly.
Seth looked at Grant askance. His friend was getting even more pissed off about this than he’d anticipated. “You okay, dude?”
“Yeah. Just . . . I can’t believe she’s getting married, you know?”
Seth rolled his shoulders in a futile attempt to get rid of the tension that seemed to follow him everywhere these days. “Don’t remind me. I’m trying to get myself in there as much as possible. I’m helping with the fucking wedding planning.”
At that, Grant tilted his head back and let out a loud laugh. “God, I’d kill to see you picking out flowers. Can I tag along?”
“No,” Seth grumbled. “The damned wedding planner already thinks it’s weird enough that I’m tagging along; it’d only be worse if you were there, too.”
Grant was still smirking. “My assistant got married last summer. She carried around this pink binder thing everywhere. Want me to ask where she got it? See if they have one in blue glitter?”
Seth shot him the finger. “I think that’s what we’re paying the damned wedding planner for. So none of us have to carry the binder.”
Grant’s gaze turned speculative, before his smirk grew even more shit-eating.
“What?” Seth ground out.
“Twice now it’s been the damned wedding planner. That’s a lot of heat for someone you’ve only met—once? Twice?”
“Once.”
“And yet she’s the damned wedding planner. Either you’re taking out your frustration with Maya’s engagement on this poor woman, or . . .”
Seth held up a hand. “No. No or.”
Grant laughed. “There is so an or.”
“Shut up, man.”
“Is she hot?”
“Is who hot?”
Grant snickered and stood up, apparently abandoning the bench press. “So let me get this straight. Maya’s marrying a douche bag out for her money, and you’re trying to run interference by getting involved in the wedding planning, except this wedding planner’s got your dick in a tangle.” He flicked his towel at Seth’s head. “I’m hitting the showers, man.” He started to walk away.
Seth glared at his friend’s back. “You’re such a dick.”
Grant turned back and smirked. “Tell me I’m wrong. About any of it.”
Seth ground his teeth and tried not to think about Brooke Baldwin. About how full her mouth had been or the way he’d longed to wrap her long hair in his fist, to pull her head to him.
Or how her blue eyes held secrets.
His friend shook his head as he turned away. “Good luck with the damned wedding planner, man. From the look on your face right now, you’re gonna need it.”
But Seth wasn’t listening. His friend, without realizing, had put an idea in his head that was rapidly taking shape.
Maybe Brooke Baldwin could be more than a late-night fantasy.
Maybe she was exactly what he needed to get the inside track on Neil. And to stop his sister from potentially making the biggest mistake of her life.
Chapter Six
IF THERE WAS ONE thing a wedding planner learned to master early on in her career, it was the gape-mouthed reaction to a really fabulous venue. Nothing was a larger vote of confidence to the client than a planner who swooned openly with the bride and groom over the lavishness of a beachfront villa, a perfectly manicured garden, or an honest-to-God castle.
But whereas Brooke had become mostly immune to all of the most elite reception sites in the Los Angeles area over the years, and so at least some of her boundless enthusiasm for every site was a bit feigned, New York was still very new to her.
And so it took every bit of self-control she had not to whip out her cell phone and take a picture of the Starlight Observatory that she was currently showing to Maya, because it was exactly the type of view that belonged on Instagram.
“So what do you think?” Brooke said as she forced herself to turn away from the floor-to-ceiling windows and smile at her bride and groom. “Keep in mind that this is the first one, so there’s no obligation. This will just give us a starting point so you can start to get a sense of what sort of vibe you’re looking for.”
She watched as Maya turned in a slow circle, chewing her bottom lip as she took it all in. Maya was dressed in a pale pink sweaterdress and cream-colored knee-high suede boots that she somehow managed to make look Manhattan-chic instead of go-go-girl revival.
Brooke for her part was also feeling pretty damn fabulous. She’d dragged Heather out shopping the weekend before, demanding to be schooled in the art of looking good and staying warm. Turns out that was a bit of a unicorn in New York fashion. You could be warm or cute, not both, not truly.
Brooke had opted for cute. Naturally. But with Heather’s help, she’d at least taken a step in the right direction toward surviving the East Coast winters. The socks were key, she’d learned. She’d tripled her boot collection courtesy of Stuart Weitzman, and her socks were now all thick, ugly affairs that nobody would ever see but that did a reasonable job of warding off frostbite.
The most important upgrade was the coat. Turns out puffy down coats could be fashionable, and Brooke had happily given her credit card a workout to splurge on a white puffer coat with a gorgeous fur trim and a leopard-print belt.
Slowly but surely she was starting to feel like a real New Yorker.
“I like it,” Maya said, pursing her lips. “But I’m worried that it’s not different enough. I’ve already had two friends get married here, and it feels a little done, you know?”
Brooke nodded in understanding, fully prepared for this. She’d discovered that for most brides, there was no worse fate for a wedding than to have been done before. This was especially true the higher you went in the society food chain, and Maya was at the tippy-top.
“Absolutely,” Brooke said, making a note in her planner. “Of course, if that’s your main concern, I’m confident that we can make any site completely your own—with the right theme, the right vibe, we can make people forget that they’ve been here before.”
Maya glanced at her curiously. “What are you thinking?”
Brooke opened her mouth to launch into her pitch when Neil crossed from where he’d been inspecting the far side of the room. “It’s too small.”
Maya wrinkled her nose at him. “What do you mean too small?”
“Well this fits what, two hundred people?” Neil asked, glancing at Brooke.
She nodded in confirm
ation. “Two hundred for a seated dinner.”
He was already shaking his head as he placed a hand on Maya’s back. “We need something bigger.”
Maya let out a little laugh, but Brooke thought she saw just the slightest strain around the other woman’s smile. “Really? How many people were you thinking?”
He glanced down at her, his handsome face the picture of confusion. “I was just assuming you’d want a big wedding.”
“Two hundred is a big wedding.”
“Sure, it’s good-sized, but you’re a Tyler, sweetling. Half the city is going to want to see you get hitched. Plus, the press, and the—”
“Whoa,” Maya said, holding up a hand. “No press.”
Uh-oh. Brooke smiled politely and took a step back. “I’ll give you two a moment to discuss.”
“No, it’s okay,” Maya said. “I’d actually prefer we wait for Seth anyway. I’m sure he’ll have some thoughts on this.”
Brooke barely bit back a groan, but she kept her voice casual. “Oh, is he planning on joining us today?”
“Yeah, he should be,” Maya said, glancing at her watch. “Said he was running a bit late, but I’m sure he’ll be here any minute.”
Brooke would be hard-pressed to say who was more displeased with this news, her or Neil, who despite being a grown man seemed oddly on the edge of a tantrum.
She knew why she didn’t want Seth around, but why didn’t Neil? Although she couldn’t quite blame him, given the awful way Seth had treated him at the Belles headquarters.
Then she watched his handsome features relax, the tension seeming to disappear, and Neil gave Maya a gentle smile before kissing her temple. “Of course, let’s wait for Seth. And if you want a small wedding, then I want a small wedding. You just can’t blame a guy for wanting the whole world to see his girl in that white dress, you know?”
It was the right thing to say, Brooke thought admiringly as Maya melted against her fiancé, and then averted her eyes as the two of them locked lips in a dreamy, drawn-out kiss, partly to give them privacy and partly because, frankly, the sight of a couple in love made her stomach turn a little bit these days. Not the best thing for a professional wedding planner, but that’s just the way things were for her right now.
Unfortunately, Brooke averted her eyes in the wrong direction, and her gaze landed in the doorway of the Starlight Observatory, where an angry-looking Seth Tyler stood glowering at the scene before him.
At first Brooke thought he was irritated by his sister’s public display of affection, but the goose bumps along her spine told her that, nope, Seth’s anger seemed focused on her.
Maya and Neil were still wrapped up in their kiss and hadn’t yet noticed Seth, but Brooke was noticing him.
All week she’d been clinging to the fantasy that the strange and instant awareness between them had been a fluke—that the next time they saw each other, they’d respond to the other like normal human beings.
But from the way her stomach flipped when their eyes met, she knew the hope was a futile one. Whatever this thing was—insta-lust, insta-hate, whatever—it was very much present.
Still, just because it was there didn’t mean she had to acknowledge it.
Brooke tucked her planner under her arm and walked toward him, a polite smile firmly in place. “Mr. Tyler. Glad you could join us.”
“Ms. Baldwin. Nice to see you again.” He said this without a smile, his eyes raking over her. Somehow he managed to look both annoyed and aroused. Which was perfect, since that’s very much how she was feeling at the moment. Maybe they would cancel each other out.
Their forced pleasantries caught the attention of Maya and Neil, and Maya skipped over to give her brother a warm hug. Brooke noticed the way his harsh features softened when he hugged his sister, only to re-harden into their usual scowl when Neil extended a hand.
Seth didn’t snub the other man, but from the slight hesitation before he took his future brother-in-law’s hand, Brooke got the sense that he wanted to.
“Seth, what do you think?” Maya asked, tugging him further into the bright open space.
“About?”
“About this.” Maya spread her arms to the side and spun. “For the wedding.”
Seth’s cool blue eyes flicked over the room, taking only about five seconds to assess before turning his attention back to his sister. “If you want to get married at the top of a skyscraper, we can do it on top of one of the Tyler Hotels for free.”
Maya’s smile vanished completely, and Brooke’s palm itched with the urge to slap him upside the head. Neil didn’t respond at all other than to move closer to Maya and rub a hand soothingly over her back.
Seth seemed to realize his mistake. “It’s not that I don’t want to spend money on your wedding; I just think—”
Maya glanced away, and Seth’s shoulders slumped slightly, clearly at a loss for how to get himself out of the mini-hole he’d dug.
Brooke stepped forward, a soothing smile in place. “Well, I for one think we can do better. This place is fine, it’s lovely, but none of you are over the moon about it, which tells me it’s not exactly right.”
She looked at Maya for confirmation as she said this, knowing that if Maya were to put her foot down and say the venue had to be this one, both men would concede.
But as Brooke expected, Maya’s delicate features flashed in relief at having someone else make the decision for her.
“Agreed.” She nodded her head enthusiastically. “I want some place that I fall in love with the first minute. Not one where I have to squint my eyes and tilt my head to the side in order to see the magic, you know what I mean?”
“Not really,” Seth muttered under his breath.
Maya and Neil clearly missed his sarcasm as they pulled in for another of those dreamy, mildly nauseating kisses, but Brooke leveled Seth with a gaze that, she hoped, could not be clearer: Knock it off. Be nice. Seth quirked an eyebrow and offered up an innocent smile, which made her all the more infuriated. God, this guy was a pain.
“So what’s next?” Maya asked, pulling herself away from Neil.
Brooke opened her notebook. “I’ve got four more options today. If you didn’t love this one, I think I’ll cross one off the list. Another skyscraper on a high floor, but a bit more intimate, and if you thought this one was too small, the next one definitely is not going to work—”
“Who said it was too small?” Seth interrupted.
There was a moment of awkward silence. Maya nervously glanced between her brother and fiancé, and once again, Brooke was the one to speak up. “Neil mentioned that perhaps the guest list might be more than what this venue can handle.”
Brooke was braced for a snide comment, but Seth didn’t say anything at all, and that was somehow much worse. There was no question about it—in order for any of them to enjoy this planning process, she’d have to get rid of the brother. Still, they were stuck with him for today, so maybe if she could just keep Seth and Neil separated as much as possible, nobody would lose an eye or a limb.
“I think we’ll head uptown,” she said. “The Miller Museum can be rented out, and it’s beautiful. It could be just the thing.”
“How do you know? Didn’t you just move here?” Seth asked snidely.
“Seth!” Maya gave her brother an exasperated glance, but Brooke just ignored him altogether and turned to Maya, her wide smile feeling painted on. She would not let this grade-A jerk get to her, no matter what. “What do you think, Maya?” she asked brightly. “Shall we check that one out next?”
“Absolutely,” Maya said. “I’ve never been, but I’ve heard great things.”
“Fine,” Seth said, already moving toward the door. “Maya, you have your car?”
“Yes, of course. We all—”
“Excellent. You and Neil take that. I’ll take Ms. Baldwin in mine. There are some budget details I’d like to discuss with her.”
Brooke refused to let her footsteps falter as they stepped int
o the elevator. “You have a car?”
He glanced at her. “Yes. Why?”
Oh, nothing. Just that it’s very Mr. Big and I might swoon.
One of her favorite parts of the Sex and the City fantasy was when Carrie’s mysterious Mr. Big would arrive in that sexy town car with his personal driver. One of the ultimate status symbols in New York.
Or any city, for that matter.
Too bad the car’s owner was a super-douche who she had no desire to spend time with.
“I really should ride with Maya and Neil,” she protested as they exited the fancy lobby out into the brisk New York afternoon. “There are a few things to discuss and—”
“There definitely are,” he said smoothly before wrapping strong fingers around her bicep and pulling her gently to him. “And we can all discuss them together, once we get to the museum.”
Brooke shot a desperate look toward Maya, but the younger woman gave her a happy, oblivious wave as she preceded Neil into her waiting town car. “Text me the address!”
“This way, Ms. Baldwin,” Seth said.
Brooke jerked her arm free and glared, making it clear that she didn’t appreciate being manhandled any more than she liked being manipulated.
He lifted his eyebrows in challenge, and in answer, she lifted her chin and walked toward the sleek black car he indicated, smiling in thanks as the waiting chauffeur opened the door for them.
Then Seth slid in, his warm hip subtly brushing against hers as he got situated beside her.
The door closed.
They were alone.
Chapter Seven
SETH REALIZED HIS ERROR in judgment the second his hand had locked around Brooke’s arm to usher her toward his town car. An error that became even more prominent when he’d climbed into the car beside her, and his leg had pressed against hers.
Now his hand and his leg burned just from simple contact with the woman, through their clothes. God knew what would happen if he ever got his hands on her for real.
He’d probably combust.
As for the effect those grazing touches had had on her . . .