To Have And To Hold: The Wedding Belles Book 1

by Lauren Layne

  But that wasn’t what this moment was about.

  It was about him needing her. Needing to learn how to love her the right way, because he did love her. Fiercely.

  “Hey there,” she said with a little laugh as she patted his back. “Okay?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, clearing his throat and forcing himself to release her. “Okay.”

  She gave him a knowing look. “You don’t look okay. You look terrible.”

  “Stop. I’m blushing,” he said sarcastically, returning to his desk chair.

  “I’m serious. I don’t know what you did that made Brooke dump you, but you need to undo it. You’re miserable. She’s miserable.”

  His head shot up. “You’ve seen her?”

  “Well, no,” she admitted.

  “Talked to her? Have you talked to her?”

  She gave him a little smile. “Oh man. You are adorable right now.”

  “Maya.”

  His voice was close to pleading, and her smile slipped. “No, sorry, big bro. I haven’t talked to her.”

  He slumped back. It was no less than he’d expected, but it picked at the not-yet-healed wound all the same.

  “Much as I’m dying to interrogate you about your love life,” Maya said as she sat across from him and crossed her legs, “I’m actually here to talk about mine.”

  Seth forced his face to remain impassive. To let her lead the conversation where she wanted it to go, not where his control-freak tendencies thought it should. “Sure. What’s up?”

  Maya waited until he met her eyes before she spoke again. “I’m in love with Grant.”

  Seth opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He was suddenly very grateful he was already sitting. Maya gave him a little smile. “I know. Trust me, I know. You don’t have to say anything, I just . . . I wanted you to be the first to know. Well, second,” she corrected.

  “You told Grant this already?” he asked, finding his words.

  She shook her head, her eyes clouding over. “No. I told Neil.”

  Well . . .

  Hell.

  This was not how he’d expected things to play out.

  Seth cleared his throat. “Just so I’m understanding. You told the man you’re going to marry that you’re in love with another man?”

  Maya held up a hand. “Small correction. I told the man I was going to marry that I’m in love with another man.”

  Seth felt a stab of relief so intense it nearly blinded him for a moment. “You’re not marrying Neil?”

  Maya shook her head. “No. And actually, his name isn’t Neil.”

  Seth froze.

  “It’s Ned Alonzo,” Maya said with a little sigh. “He’s not an entrepreneur; he’s a two-bit poker player and sports bettor, and I don’t even know what else.”

  In all of his troubleshooting mental exercises in trying to figure out how to deal with this mess of a situation, this had not been one of Seth’s scenarios.

  He cleared his throat. “Oh?”

  She gave him a look. “Please. Don’t pretend you haven’t been awkwardly sitting on this information for weeks trying to figure out how to break it to me. I know you, Seth. I knew when I hired my own private investigator that you were likely doing the same thing.”

  Well, knock him over with a feather. “Maya, I—”

  She shook her head and stood. “I know you love me, Seth. I know it’s why you did that. I know that. I’m not going to say I’m not a tiny bit pissed, but honestly . . .” Her eyes filled just for a second. “I want to say thank you. For caring, even if you do so in a horribly invasive way.”

  Damn. Now his eyes felt suspiciously close to spilling over with . . . something.

  “I want to talk more about this, but there’s someone else I need to talk to first,” she said quietly. “And that conversation’s going to be a hell of a lot more difficult than this one.”

  “Grant?” Seth asked.

  Maya nodded, and for the first time since she walked into his office, she looked less than 100 percent self-assured. Maybe a tiny bit scared.

  Seth opened his mouth to tell her that maybe the conversation wouldn’t be as hard as she thought. That maybe Grant felt the same way.

  But then he remembered what Brooke had said. That Maya needed to live her own life, make her own choices . . . and her own mistakes. Although he didn’t think this thing with Grant and Maya, whatever one might call it, was a mistake, still, he kept his mouth shut and decided to go a different route.

  Maya shook her head in disbelief as he rounded the desk and wrapped his arms around her once more, although briefer this time.

  “Two hugs in one day?” she said when she pulled back. “I don’t know what the heck Brooke Baldwin did to you, but I think I like it.”

  Seth’s good mood faded slightly at the mention of Brooke, knowing that he wasn’t likely to get the second chance with her that he had apparently gotten with Maya. He and Maya were blood, with close to three decades of history behind them. Brooke had known him for all of two months and had no reason to give him a second chance. Hell, he wasn’t entirely sure he deserved one.

  Maya went on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I love you. You know that, yeah?”

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  “And Brooke. You love her, too?”

  Seth waited for the familiar stab of panic at the thought—at the uncomfortable sense of unpredictability that came from losing one’s heart to someone spontaneously, without knowing whether they loved you back. Of the wild, terrifying abandon of caring about someone so deeply that they could turn you inside out.

  He felt none of that. There was only sureness. Rightness.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “I love her.”

  Maya’s smile was wide and beaming. “You know how you’re always throwing out advice at me, even when I don’t ask for it?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

  She patted his chest playfully. “Well, here’s some unsolicited advice for you. If you want to win her back, go big. Throw your whole heart into it. Because I think she’s worth it.”

  Seth watched his sister stroll out of his office, all sassy confidence as she went to get her man.

  Just like Seth was about to get his woman.

  Because unlike Maya, Seth didn’t think Brooke was worth it.

  He knew she was.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  JUST THINK, MAN, BY this time tomorrow night you could be getting laid,” Grant said, picking up an ugly vase off Seth’s bookshelf as though he intended to pack it and instead going to the fridge to help himself to a beer.

  Such had been the entire afternoon.

  His best friend’s idea of “helping him pack” seemed to be limited to the refrigerator and pantry, and instead of anything making it into the boxes, it all went directly into Grant’s stomach.

  Seth ignored his friend as he picked up an ugly metal figurine, studying it for a half second, realizing he’d never even noticed it before, and chucking it in the Goodwill pile that was considerably larger than his keep pile.

  Goal number one of new life, get shit I actually like.

  Actually, no, that wasn’t the first goal.

  First he was going to win back Brooke.

  Then he’d figure out how to hire a designer that didn’t have a strange fascination with humanoid figures crafted from various types of metal.

  “I’m just saying, you’d be a lot less grumpy if you got laid,” Grant said, pointing the beer bottle at him.

  “Great. I’ll be sure to call you in the aftermath so that you can reap the benefits of my postcoital glow,” Seth replied.

  Grant winced. “Dude. Don’t.”

  “You don’t get to don’t me. You’re sleeping with my sister.”

  “Hell yes, I am,” Grant said with a cocky smile. “And it’s—”

  “No,” Seth said. “No fucking way. Don’t finish that sentence. For Chrissake, get me a beer. No, never mind, I need whisky.”
r />   It had been six weeks since Maya had called off her wedding and told Grant how she felt about him. Seth wasn’t exactly sure how everything had played out, and wasn’t at all sure he wanted the details, but they were both the happiest he’d ever seen them, and that was enough for him.

  He and Grant had mended things, too, in the way that men not entirely comfortable with emotion tended to do. Seth had shown up at Grant’s door with a bottle of Pappy and invited himself inside. Grant had nodded, stepped aside to let him in.

  And just like that, they were back to normal.

  Simple. Basic. Easy.

  Fixing things with Brooke? Not nearly so easy.

  Even the reappearance of Grant in Seth’s life wasn’t helping his nerves right about now. For close to two months he’d been working tirelessly on what Etta had started calling The Project, and although he’d never felt so solid about something in his life, he couldn’t deny that the undercurrent of the unknown was starting to eat at him.

  “What do you think she’ll do?” he asked, pouring a liberal amount of bourbon into his tumbler.

  Grant’s expression turned considering as he studied his beer bottle. “Honestly, man? I don’t know. If I’ve learned anything in the past couple months, it’s that I’m not nearly as good at reading women as I thought I was. And if that’s true of me, the certified chick whisperer, then there’s really no hope for you, my friend.”

  “Helpful.” Seth lifted his glass. “Thanks.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do, man, stop by the wedding shop with pinot grigio and marshmallows and see if she’s been doodling your name in that planner she always carries around with her?”

  “I don’t know why she uses the paper planner,” Seth said, mostly to himself. “It’d be far more efficient to use an iPad or an electronic alternative.”

  Grant barked out a laugh before letting his head fall forward in defeat. “Do me a favor and keep that bit to yourself tomorrow, ’kay? Say the good stuff.”

  “That’s the plan,” Seth said, taking a last sip of his drink before setting it aside and forcing himself to pack at least one more box before the pizza and baseball game he’d promised Grant. Pretty lame way to be spending your last night in a place you’d spent the better part of a year, but then this hotel suite had never really felt much like home in the first place. He figured a nice cheesy slice of pepperoni and the Yankees were a good enough send-off for a place where he was just now noticing the pictures on the wall.

  “You’re sure she’s going to show up tomorrow?” Grant asked, halfheartedly opening a kitchen cupboard and dropping a salt container into the open box of pantry items that would be transiting over to the new place.

  Seth gave him an exaggerated glance. “Not helpful.”

  “I’m a details guy,” Grant said.

  “No you’re not,” Seth said. “I am. You’re the big-picture, no-clue-on-execution guy.”

  “Fine,” his friend said with an easy shrug. “Looking at the big picture . . . do you think she’s going to show up tomorrow?”

  “Jesus,” Seth muttered, giving up on the boxes and lowering himself slowly to the uncomfortable metal bar stool. If the place wasn’t packed by tomorrow, it was no big deal. He owned the fucking hotel—he could move out next month or next year if he wanted.

  “So that’s a no,” Grant said. “We’re not sure?”

  No. He wasn’t even a tiny bit sure that all of his efforts over the past few weeks were going to do shit to win her back, but he felt good about the plan.

  Sort of.

  “Alexis said everything was going according to plan,” Seth replied. “And if anyone can make a plan come to fruition, it’s that woman.”

  “True,” Grant said. “I only met her once, but she’s sort of like a hot robot, no?”

  Seth gave a rueful smile. “I always thought Alexis was a bit like a female version of me.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said,” Grant replied. “A robot. But you’re not as hot.”

  Seth gave his friend the finger before reaching out and idly twisting his glass on the counter. “Do you think she’ll come?”

  “You mean, does my big-picture genius think the love of your life is going to fall into your arms and maybe swoon a little at your grand gesture?” Grant asked with a sly grin, leaning back against the fridge and crossing his feet at the ankles.

  Seth’s heart soared a little at the picture his friend painted. To have Brooke within arm’s reach again, much less in his arms . . .

  Grant’s expression turned sympathetic. “Yeah, man. I think she’s going to be there. And if not, she’s an idiot. Okay?”

  Seth nodded, appreciating his friend’s vote of confidence.

  And yet he really, really hoped she’d be there.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  BROOKE WAS JUST COMING out of a bridal shop down in Tribeca when she got a text from Alexis.

  You still downtown? Any chance I can ask a huge favor?

  Absolutely, Brooke typed back. What’s up?

  Larabee Bride is having second thoughts about the Plaza. Looking for something a bit less high profile, more amenable to customization. Any chance you could show her the Hamilton House? I’m all the way uptown, and it’ll take me forever at this time of day.

  Brooke swallowed, wishing the favor was anything but that.

  She hadn’t been inside the Hamilton since planning Maya’s wedding.

  Well, Maya’s almost wedding.

  Alexis had had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to back out of a wedding that had already been put on a rush schedule, but even with all the hassle the non-wedding had caused the Belles, Brooke was glad for it. Glad that Maya wouldn’t be marrying Neil who wasn’t really Neil.

  Still, she tensed in dread at the thought of going to that space again. Not because it reminded her of Maya. Maya and she were actually on good terms, even having grabbed lunch a couple of times recently so Maya could fill her in on what had happened with Neil and about finally getting together with Grant. Brooke was thrilled that those two had finally owned up to how they felt about each other.

  But she didn’t want to go to the Hamilton House.

  It reminded her of Seth.

  Seth, from whom she hadn’t heard in nearly two months. Seth, whose name everyone seemed to be reluctant to mention around her, as though she might break.

  She wouldn’t break.

  Not because she was avoiding what happened. She’d learned her lesson after holding in her feelings about Clay and nearly letting it destroy her.

  This she’d faced head-on in the form of twice-weekly therapy. Not to talk about Seth specifically, although he was certainly a frequent topic of conversation. But after the train wreck of the past months, Brooke had had the epiphany that a happy life didn’t come from constantly shoving anger and pain to the side and pretending they didn’t exist.

  They did exist.

  Anger and pain were real, and some people were just lame (see: Clay and Neil/Ned), and the world wasn’t always going to be sunshine and rainbows.

  She knew that now. And interestingly, the more she let in the not-so-great things, the greater the good things became.

  Almost as though she was becoming happier by allowing herself to be unhappy sometimes.

  Crazy, but true.

  It was this realization that made her decide what she needed to do. She needed to go to Hamilton House. Needed to face all of the memories, both good and bad, that would come with it.

  It would be one step closer to being able to think of Seth with just a little bit of pain, instead of the ripping, gut-clenching pain that still kept her awake at night sometimes.

  No problem, Brooke texted. Now?

  Bride’s on her way, Alexis texted back. Maybe ten minutes or so?

  On it.

  Brooke hailed a taxi and made it in twelve minutes flat.

  She hesitated only briefly before entering the building, faltering when she saw a middle-aged man in a basi
c black suit standing behind the previously deserted reception desk.

  Somehow she hadn’t thought about the building being populated, but of course it would be. The lower office floors would have started to fill up by now, and they’d need some sort of security.

  “Hi there,” she said, approaching with a smile. “I’m Brooke Baldwin, here to meet a Ms. Larabee to tour the top floor for a possible event.”

  “Of course,” the man said with a formal nod. “Ms. Morgan said you’d be needing these.”

  He held out a modern key fob. An upgrade from the old-fashioned key she remembered.

  “Ms. Larabee’s not here yet?”

  “Not yet, miss. I can send her up when she arrives?”

  “Sure, that’d be great,” Brooke said, suddenly anxious to have the space to herself again, just for a few minutes.

  Maybe if the Larabee bride did choose the space, Alexis would be open to tag-teaming on the reception. The wedding planner in her was still simmering a little that she hadn’t had a chance to work her magic in that space to realize its full potential.

  Brooke let herself into the elevator, juggling the plastic fob lightly in her palm as she ascended. When the doors opened, she stepped out onto the wood floor and promptly skidded to a stop, taking a step backward.

  Whoops. Wrong floor.

  But a glance back at the floor number engraved on the elevator door showed her she was on the right floor.

  And yet, it was different. Everything was different.

  It was still bright and open, but someone was clearly in the process of dividing the space into separate rooms. And doing a fine job of it, too, Brooke realized, as she took a step forward, her heels echoing with that lovely clicking sound she remembered.

  Everything was exactly as she would have done. The new drywall running along the center of the space ensured that the main living area still had plenty of daylight, with two separate sitting areas, one centered around the fireplace with what appeared to be the early stages of a small built-in bar. There was no physical separation between that and the next area, which had a circular sectional couch centered around a television that begged for cozy movie nights or curling up with a good book.