Brooke groaned just as she was about to take a sip of her cocktail. “Oh God. Not you, too.”
“What?” Grant asked, looking at her in confusion.
Brooke jabbed a finger in Seth’s direction. “It’s bad enough that I have to deal with his unfounded anti-Neil campaign. Now you’re hating on the poor guy, too?”
“Well, he—”
“Is perfectly wonderful to Maya,” Brooke said, interrupting Grant. “And I can maybe, maybe, get how big brother here would be all spoiling for a duel, but what’s your deal?”
“I . . .” Grant glanced at Seth for help, but Seth could only shrug. If he knew how to wrangle the wedding planner, he would have done so by now. “I’m like her brother,” Grant said finally.
“Riiiight,” Brooke said skeptically as she took a sip of her martini.
Grant shrugged. “It’s true.”
Seth’s eyes narrowed at the too-casual note in his friend’s tone. He knew when Grant was faking it, and something was off there. But before he could figure it out, Brooke had directed her attention back to him. “Mr. Tyler. I’m glad you found us, because we need to talk.”
Grant grinned and rearranged himself in his seat as though settling in for a show. His arm was around the back of Brooke’s seat, and Seth gave him a warning glare, but Grant merely grinned wider.
“Can I at least get a drink first?” Seth muttered as he looked around for a server.
She nodded as though granting her subject a brief reprieve.
Seth ordered a Manhattan to match Grant’s before he shrugged out of his suit coat and set it on the chair next to him.
“All right. Let’s have it,” he said, leaning forward slightly and rolling up his sleeves to hear whatever lecture Brooke Baldwin was going to throw his way.
His eyebrows lifted when she didn’t respond right away, and he saw that her eyes were tracking the motion of his fingers, watching as he navigated around his cuff links and rolled the white dress shirt to his elbows.
“Ms. Baldwin?”
She swallowed. “Right. Okay. Here’s the thing.”
“The thing,” Grant repeated, unhelpfully.
Brooke slapped Grant’s leg in mock scolding, and Seth gritted his teeth.
“I know that you want to be involved in Maya’s wedding planning,” Brooke said. “But we both know your overinvolvement has nothing to do with you caring about how every penny is being spent and everything to do with you lurking over her and Neil because you don’t like the guy.”
Seth shrugged. “So? No secret there. I told you as much in the car today.”
“Wonderful. So here’s what I’m telling you. Back. Off. Even if Neil is the scum of the earth you two seem to think he is, Maya needs to discover that for herself. And”—she held up a finger when she saw he was about to interject—“if you’re wrong, if he is a nice guy who loves your sister and will make her blissfully happy until they’re both old and gray, then you need to know this: you are ruining what should be some of the happiest memories of her life.”
“Now hold on,” Seth said, his temper spiking. “You don’t get to—”
“No, you hold on,” Brooke shot back. “She’s planning her wedding. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in which she gets to be the princess and everything she’s ever wanted, and instead of walking on sunshine, she looks ready to crack every time you open your mouth to bark out some complaint.”
Seth winced at the picture she was painting, and he let his mind flit back to the day that had just passed, realizing rather uncomfortably that Brooke was right. He’d gone out of his way to be an ass, mostly as a means of punishing Neil, but in the meantime he’d been punishing the one person he was trying to protect.
His head dropped forward in defeat, and he could barely muster a gruff thank-you when the server returned with his cocktail.
He took a deep pull of his drink and decided to try to explain himself. “I can’t—I can’t just turn it over to her and that bast—and Neil. I know you think I’m a penny-pinching asshole, but if I’m right, the wedding would be the perfect excuse for him to spend God only knows how much on caviar and the most expensive champagne, and I don’t know, fucking doves and shit.”
“Doves really aren’t that expensive,” she murmured, and Seth gave her a look.
“Sorry,” she said, holding up her palms. “Irrelevant.”
Seth took a sip of his drink, then ran his hands through his hair, feeling suddenly tired. “I don’t know how to give up complete control and still be . . .”
“In control?” she said with a small smile that felt friendly instead of antagonistic for once.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. He returned her smile, and it was, well, not a moment, exactly, but it was something. It was something to be spending time with her and not feeling like he had to shove her away out of fear that he’d pull her close and have his way with her.
“Just pretend I’m not here,” Grant said in a stage whisper. “Oh wait, you already are.”