Maya’s hand shook just a little as she lifted it to brush a wisp of hair away from her temple. “Neil said that if I loved him, it shouldn’t be about the wedding, but about the marriage.”
Brooke thought she heard Grant growl, and silently, she echoed his sentiments. While true that some couples fell prey to the trap, becoming so wrapped up in the wedding that they lost sight of the relationship, Maya was far from being a wedding-obsessed diva. She cared, yes, but she had her head on straight. She seemed to be in it for the right reason.
Because she wanted to marry Neil.
And yet it was Grant who was here.
Hmm.
“Where is Neil?” Brooke asked gently.
“Traveling,” Maya said. “I think Dallas. Or Houston. Maybe Atlanta. I can’t—he’s been busy.”
Grant moved closer, setting a hand on Maya’s back. Maya didn’t glance up, or even smile, but Brooke thought she saw some of the tension leave the other woman’s body.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Grant said softly.
Just like that, the tension was back in Maya’s shoulders, and she stepped away from Grant. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I want to.”
“Maya, you’ve been wanting your dream wedding since you were a little girl. You really want it thrown together in one month?”
“Brooke can make it nice,” Maya said, shifting her gaze to Brooke. “Can’t you?”
The pleading quality in Maya’s voice chafed at Brooke’s heart. “Of course I can.”
There would be trade-offs, of course, but now wasn’t the time to mention that.
“Can we still do it here?” Maya asked hopefully, gesturing around the space.
“I’ll definitely find out,” Brooke said, already taking out her planner and making notes. “This place is new enough that I doubt they’re booked up.”
Maya’s shoulders slumped in relief, although there was no easing of the tension around her mouth or the desolate look in her eyes.
This was bad. Really bad.
“There’s one other thing I was hoping you could help with,” Maya said.
“Anything,” Brooke said, jotting down a couple of other notes in her planner without looking up.
“Could you tell my brother for me?” Maya said, her voice a pleading whisper.
And just like that, it went from bad to worse.
Chapter Thirty
SETH STOPPED BY ETTA’S desk in between meetings, waiting impatiently for her to finish up her phone call with the office supplier.
She crossed her arms and leaned forward. “You know, with a girlfriend as cute as yours, you’d think you’d smile a bit more.”
“Well, if my girlfriend were here, I’d smile,” he muttered. “But when I have a headache and eight more hours of meetings ahead of me, I scowl.”
Etta rolled her eyes and opened her desk drawer, rummaging around until she came up with three different bottles. “Tension headache, migraine, or sinus?” she said, gesturing at the options.
“Give me one of each,” he grumbled.
“Tension,” she said, reaching for the middle bottle. “Definitely a tension headache.”
She dropped two oblong pills into his outstretched palm before nudging her own water glass at him. The pounding in his head was severe enough that he accepted the water rather than fetch his own. He washed the pills down before rubbing at his neck. “Thanks, Etta.”
“So she is your girlfriend,” Etta said with a smug grin.
“What?”
“I called Brooke your girlfriend. You didn’t contradict me.”
“If I wanted to play weird word games with women, I would have stayed in high school,” he said, heading toward his office.
“Did you send her something for Valentine’s Day?” Etta called.
In response, he slammed the door behind him.
Yes, he’d bought Brooke something for Valentine’s Day a week earlier.
He’d sent flowers and chocolates to the Wedding Belles, and made dinner reservations at Eleven Madison Park.
None of that was the alarming part.
The alarming part was that he’d wanted to do it. He’d wanted to do each and every over-the-top step, and her smiles had been well worth it.
So had the rather epic sex that had followed.
There was no way to avoid the fact that he was dangerously close to being smitten with Brooke Baldwin.
Seth dropped into his chair, dropping his head back and closing his eyes, praying that the pills would do quick work so that he could tackle a couple of overdue emails.
But the damn headache was still going strong when his cell rang a few minutes later. He pulled it out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket, intending to reject the call. Until he saw who it was.
Tommy Franklin.
His private investigator.
Seth’s pulse jumped with something he hoped was nervousness but worried was fear.
“Tyler,” he said, answering the call.
“Mr. Tyler, Tommy Franklin here. Is now a good time? I know we didn’t have anything booked, but you said to call when I had something concrete.”
Seth’s heart began to hammer. He swallowed. “Yeah. Now’s fine.”