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.