She shook her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I think the Neil that Maya thinks she’s in love with isn’t the real man. Or at least not all of the man. He’s hiding something, and I need to figure out what it is before he traps her into a marriage.”
For a moment something awful and real flashed across her face—as though his comment struck a raw nerve. But then she merely shook her head and let her eyes go perfectly blank as the car finally came to a stop outside the Miller Museum.
He held her eyes as he waited for Dex to come around to open the door. “Do we have an understanding, Ms. Baldwin?”
She blinked. “Seriously? No, we don’t have an understanding. On the one hand, you’re hiring me to plan a wedding—not only that, you’re actively participating in the planning. On the other hand, you’re telling me you don’t intend to let the wedding actually happen. What exactly is it I’m supposed to do with that information?”
“Stay out of my way,” he said, without hesitation. “Let me do what I do best.”
“Which is what?” she said as the door opened, the rush of winter air providing a merciful reprieve from the building heat between them. “Controlling everything around you?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Pretty much.” When I can.
She rolled her eyes and started to scoot toward the door, but he used his body to block hers, since he was closest to the curb.
“Brooke.”
She paused and looked at him, exasperated. “What?”
“Stay out of my way,” he repeated.
“Under one condition,” she said with a wide, fake smile.
He narrowed his eyes and waited.
“I’ll stay out of your way, big brother”—Brooke reached a hand up to his cheek, patted it with a condescending familiarity—“if you stay out of mine.”
Chapter Eight
AFTER SPENDING A COUPLE more hours with the happy couple and the not-so-happy brother, Brooke was more certain than ever that Seth was completely off base about his sister’s fiancé.
Sure, Neil had been just a bit pushy at their first stop about wanting a large wedding, but the second he’d realized that Maya hadn’t wanted that, he’d backed off completely. In fact, from what Brooke had seen so far, Neil Garrett might be perhaps the ideal groom. And she would know, having been in the business for a while and encountering virtually every type of groom out there. Generally speaking, they could be grouped into three main categories:
The passive-aggressive nightmares who swore up and down that they had zero opinions, that the bride could pick whatever made her happy, only to wait until after the DJ had been selected to announce they wanted a live band, or until after the red velvet cake had been selected to announce they wanted chocolate, and so on.
The guys who actually had zero opinions and had to be physically dragged to their suit fittings and rehearsal walk-throughs.
The more forward-thinking dudes who cared as much as—or more than—the brides about the flowers, who had strong feelings on crab cakes versus mini tartlets, and who had their personal tailor working on their wedding tux even before they’d bought the ring. These ones often cried.
From what Brooke could tell, Neil didn’t fit into any of these. He demonstrated that he cared, in that he provided input when explicitly asked, but he also seemed to be more concerned with what Maya wanted. He was polite and friendly, easygoing, and most important, completely smitten with Maya.
He seemed . . . decent.
If Maya did have a guy problem, it wasn’t on the romantic front.
On the sibling front, however, Maya had a serious issue to contend with. Seth alternated between silent and glaring and pissy and opinionated. If one place was too small, the other was too large. If one was too fussy, the next was deemed pedestrian. The only good news about the man being a complete ass was that he was making it very easy for Brooke to move past whatever this weird thing was between them. But she couldn’t ignore the effect he was having on her bride, whose smile was growing more strained by the minute, or her groom, whose skin had taken on a distinctly pale pallor. By the time they were on their third and final venue of the day, it had become clear that they couldn’t keep going like this.
Seth, for his part, seemed completely unfazed by the fact that he was the storm cloud on an otherwise sunny occasion, and he walked a few paces behind them, typing distractedly on his phone while Maya quietly conceded that maybe they needed to call it a day.
Brooke walked Maya and Neil through the lobby of the lavish Biltmore Hotel that had been one of the front-runners for a possible reception site, assuring the distraught bride that it was only the first day and that they would of course find the perfect venue.