To Have And To Hold: The Wedding Belles Book 1 (32 page)

Maya had chosen Hamilton House for her reception. They’d just put the deposit for the gorgeous space Brooke had shown Seth just a couple weeks earlier, and Brooke wasn’t sure who was more excited, her or Maya.

Even Seth seemed more or less on board. Brooke wouldn’t go so far as to say he was excited about the wedding, but he’d quieted his objections.

So far they’d even managed to compartmentalize her work from their personal life. As previously agreed, Brooke ensured he signed off on any big expenses, but beyond those weekly check-ins, they rarely talked about the wedding.

It wasn’t ideal. The woman in Brooke was more than a little curious about how he was dealing with his sister marrying a man he didn’t approve of, but the wedding planner in her knew that boundaries were important.

Her other in-progress weddings made for occasional pillow talk, but never Maya’s.

Speaking of Maya . . . Brooke checked her watch. The other woman was fifteen minutes late. Which wasn’t totally unusual. Maya was late more often than not, although she typically texted.

Still, it gave Brooke an extra few minutes alone with her favorite spot. Maya was meeting her here today to discuss layout. Brooke already knew what she’d do. A skinny stage set up along the far wall for a live band. A dance floor in front of that, big enough
to feel festive, but not so big that it was intimidating. She’d put the bar in the opposite corner, along the windows, so that when people waited for their champagne or martini, they’d have a view of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Maya and Neil had settled on an early December wedding, and though Maya was still debating on color scheme, Brooke had her fingers crossed for a gold-and-white holiday theme. Twinkle lights everywhere, flocked trees with glittery gold ornaments, delicate flutes of sparkling champagne with delicate gold wine charms with the couple’s initials, or perhaps even a little touch of edible gold glitter . . .

Brooke’s daydreams were interrupted by the slam of the door, and she turned, expecting to see Maya and Neil, and instead seeing . . . Maya and Grant?

“Hi, guys,” she said, carefully hiding her surprise.

It wasn’t the first time Grant had tagged along. Whatever tension had been between Grant and Maya at the announcement of her engagement seemed to have faded. Or at least Grant managed to put on a serious happy face, because he’d been nothing but smiles and jokes when they went cake tasting, or flower browsing, or sampling meatballs from a dozen different caterers. It seemed Maya had replaced Seth with Grant as the male voice of reason in the group, what with Neil being so absent from the planning. She kept insisting that it was worthwhile to have a male perspective along with them for input, but Brooke suspected the woman simply enjoyed Grant’s company.

So Brooke wasn’t shocked to see Grant. But Maya had specifically said
Neil
would be here today—that he’d regretted having to travel so much and wanted
to be actively involved in more of the planning. Oh well. If Brooke were totally honest, she felt more comfortable around Grant than Neil.

She smiled as she crossed the cavernous space toward the two friends, although her smile froze just a touch when she got close enough to see their expressions.

Something wasn’t right.

Maya was smiling, but it was too wide, and her eyes had a slightly wild look about them. And her ponytail looked like it had been hastily styled rather than gathered and teased into its usual classy perfection.

Grant gave Brooke a dark look before bending his long body to give her a brief peck in greeting. “Hi, Brookey,” he said quietly. It was his usual greeting, but it lacked his normally warm, jocular tone. There was no sign of the playful Grant she’d grown so accustomed to. He looked every bit as brittle as Maya.

“What’s wrong?” Brooke asked, not bothering to pretend that everything was okay when it so clearly wasn’t.

Brooke wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Maya’s smile seemed to grow even wider. Even more false. “I have news!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Brooke saw Grant’s jaw clench as though he was gritting his teeth. Whatever Maya’s news was, he didn’t like it.

“Oh yeah?” Brooke asked, using her best soothe-the-bride voice.

What she wouldn’t give for a piece of furniture right now to plop said bride onto, because Maya looked ready to snap in half.

“We
changed the wedding date!” Maya said, her voice too loud. The announcement echoed throughout the room, and though Brooke registered surprise, there was also relief—because based on their facial expressions, she’d thought it was much worse.

“Well, that’s no problem,” she said, reaching out to touch Maya’s hand. “People move dates all the time. Did you guys decide December’s just too hectic after all? Because we could just as easily transition to a late-autumn wedding, or even January if you wanted to stick with the winter theme.”

Grant’s tongue pushed out his cheek as he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Maya just continued to stare blankly at her, and Brooke’s surprise turned to panic.

“What am I missing?”

This time Maya’s eyes darted away as Grant met Brooke’s gaze. “March. They want to move the wedding up to March,” he said plainly, his voice sounding oddly flat and devoid of emotion.

“March!” Brooke burst out, before she could think better of it. “As in . . . next month?”

Maya nodded, and her horrible forced smile finally collapsed. “Neil and I . . . talked. Everything was just taking so long, and he thought—we thought—do we really want to wait that long to be married?”

Brooke’s mind was spinning. This was not good. Not that she hadn’t worked under these kinds of conditions before. Changing the date was uncommon, but not unheard of. Unplanned pregnancies and ailing parents could often change the timeline. Sometimes it was a couple deciding that they didn’t want the fuss,
or a change in financial situation calling for a simpler-than-planned wedding.

But instinct told her that something else was at work here.

Plus that meant the wedding was a month away.

That was too fast. Granted, speed could be achieved with money, and the Tylers weren’t hurting for it, but . . .

Uh-oh.

Seth was holding the purse strings. And although he’d seemed more or less resigned to the wedding, something told her he wasn’t going to deal well with this new timeline.

She itched to ask Maya if she’d told her brother, but right now wasn’t about Seth and his issues with Neil. Right now was about Maya and the fact that the woman looked moments away from tears.

“We can make a March wedding work,” Brooke said soothingly, rubbing a hand over Maya’s arm. “But, sweetie, you know I have to ask . . . are you sure this is what you want?”

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.

S
ETH
STOPPED BY
E
TTA’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.”

“All right,” Tommy said, his tone having the same businesslike clip Seth was accustomed to hearing during the workday. It somehow made the whole thing easier. Slightly.

“I’ll of course send the complete report electronically as well, complete with password-protected documents, but I find it’s sometimes easier to explain the high-level findings over the phone. And of course, if there are questions—”

“Franklin,” Seth interrupted, rubbing at his forehead that hadn’t ceased aching. “Just spit it out. I’m not a besotted husband waiting to hear if the love of his life’s been sleeping with the milkman.”

“Who do you want me to start with?” Franklin asked.

“Garrett.”

“Is actually not Garrett. Or Neil for that matter. The man’s real name is Ned Alonzo. Mother is a Katherine Alonzo, a hairdresser in Albuquerque. Father listed as a Jorge Alonzo, died in a car accident when Ned was a teen, although wasn’t in the picture even before that.”

Seth
inhaled deeply. He’d been right. Neil Garrett wasn’t who he said he was.

Of course, there were worse things than changing one’s name. Perhaps the man had just wanted a fresh start, or—

“Garrett, or Alonzo, whatever we want to call him, is nearly eight hundred thousand dollars in debt.”

Just like that, Seth ceased to be aware of the pain in his head, because his chest suddenly hurt too much. “Sorry. Eight hundred thousand? As in, nearly a million dollars in the hole?”