“Like her brother, but not,” Brooke said, keeping her voice gentle. “But you would know better than me. Maybe I read the whole situation wrong.”
“I’d like to think that you did.” Seth dragged a hand over his face. “But . . . Grant didn’t handle it well when I told him about Maya’s engagement. I didn’t think a thing of it, because I didn’t handle it well, either. I assumed his motives were protective. Brotherly.” His eyes widened as he registered the full implication of what Brooke was insinuating. “Holy shit.”
“Maybe they were,” Brooke rushed to interject. “Look, I shouldn’t have said anything, really. It’s the dang martini, loosening my tongue. It’s why I don’t usually drink with clients.”
Seth’s smile was slow and dangerous as he leaned forward. “Don’t drink with clients, huh? And yet here you are.”
“I’m here because Grant asked me to drinks, and Grant is not my client.”
“Huh,” he said. “But you could have told Grant you wanted to grab a drink elsewhere. And yet you came right back into the hotel where you knew I’d be.”
“Because I wanted to talk to you. About the wedding, and us working something out so your sister can actually enjoy her wedding planning,” she added quickly.
“And we’ve come to a mutually satisfactory agreement,” he pointed out.
She hesitated, feeling like it was a trick statement somehow. “Yes.”
His smile was slow and confident. “Yet, you’re still here.”
She opened her mouth to retort, but . . . he was right. She was still sitting here, and even stranger, she didn’t want to leave. A part of her didn’t want this moment to end, even though she wasn’t sure if it was actually pleasant.
He gave her a knowing smile. “Rethinking your strategy?”
She finished the rest of her drink. Sure. They could go with that. “Let’s just say that willingly putting myself in your company on a regular basis brings a whole new level of meaning to ‘taking one for the team.’ ”
His smile dropped, and for a second, Brooke could have sworn he looked almost hurt. Which made no sense, because the man didn’t even pretend to like her. He might want her, yes—Brooke wasn’t stupid—but he’d made it clear he didn’t want to want her.
And yet the expression on his face right now looked suddenly, horribly, lonely, and for the life of her, Brooke couldn’t figure out how she felt about that.
Seth gave a curt nod and finished the rest of his own drink. “So we’re done here, then.”
“Mr. Tyler.”
His eyes flicked up, cold and ice-blue as always, and yet . . . maybe they weren’t cold so much as wary. And perhaps she could understand that. Just a little.
“Do you want—” Brooke licked her lips and tried again. “Do you want to have another drink with me?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Here? Now?”
She nodded.
Seth studied her in that cool, assessing way he had so perfected. Then he stood, and Brooke’s heart sank—both from the disappointment of having taken a risk that hadn’t paid off and from the strange pang she had at the thought of watching him walk away.
But he didn’t walk away.
Without so much as a hesitation, he rounded the small cocktail table to sit beside her, settling into the seat Grant had vacated just a few minutes earlier.
His distance was perfectly respectable. He didn’t crowd her, didn’t touch her, and yet somehow he seemed so much closer than Grant had been.
“This okay?” he asked quietly, suddenly looking adorably unsure of himself.
Brooke smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, this is just fine.”
Seth held her gaze until the arrival of the waitress ended the moment.
“Martini?” he asked, jerking his chin at her empty glass.
“Yes, same thing, please,” Brooke said, smiling up at the waitress. “Belvedere, slightly dirty.”
“I’ll take another Manhattan,” Seth said.
When Brooke turned back to him, he looked amused.
“What?” she asked.
“A dirty vodka martini . . . somehow that seems to be exactly the perfect drink for you.”
Brooke tilted her head. “Do you always mean for things to sound the way they do when they come out of your mouth?”
“How’s that?”
“Provocative.”
“What’s provocative about repeating your drink order?”
“The dirty part,” she muttered, looking away.
His laugh was low and sexy. “Ms. Baldwin, I assure you that I didn’t mean it inappropriately, but I’m intrigued that you took it as such.”
She ignored this, deciding that if she was going to survive this—whatever “this” was—she’d need to get the upper hand.
“So tell me about this woman,” she said, keeping her voice light. “For someone who’s so anti-wedding, it sounds like you came rather close. Grant seemed to agree.”
“Grant’s delusional. Although, I never said I was anti-wedding.”
She snorted. “You don’t have to. You wear your skepticism like a scarf.”
His expression turned considering. “I think marriages can work, absolutely. I just don’t think they work for the lovey-dovey reason you see in the movies.”
“Lovey-dovey? Really?” Brooke asked. “Also, could you be any more cliché right now?”