To Have And To Hold: The Wedding Belles Book 1 (33 page)

“Gambling addiction. The man did okay playing small tables in casinos across the country, likely starting as a hobby. Thought he could make it in the big leagues in Vegas. He started out legit. Charmed the right people, got access to the big tables at the big resorts. Lost big money fast, and tried to make it up underground.”

“And he didn’t.”

“Nope,” Franklin said.

“How long ago?”

“That he lost the money? He started to go under about eight months ago, but it escalated rapidly. He headed to New York not too long after getting roughed up by one of his bookie’s juice men.”

“Where he met my sister.”

“Right. Here’s the part you may want to take a deep breath for,” Franklin warned.

“It gets worse?”

“I was able to access some of the security video footage of some of Ms. Tyler’s favorite places from that list you sent me. Her local Starbucks, favorite wine bar, the restaurants she prefers to meet her
girlfriends for lunch. He made an appearance at all the same places she did for nearly two weeks before he first approached her in line at that Starbucks.”

“Christ.”

“Without any kind of audio coverage, I don’t have verbal confirmation, so I feel duty-bound to inform you that it could be a coincidence, but in my professional opinion . . .”

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Seth finished grimly.

“I don’t believe so, no. This man needed money in a hurry, your sister has money, and Garrett played her rather perfectly. Also, I looked into some of the more expensive gifts he bought her. The jewelry, the lavish dinners, the designer accessories . . . it appears that they were all charged to one of Ms. Tyler’s credit cards.”

“Wait, Maya paid for her own gifts?”

“I suspect she’s unaware. The card hadn’t been used for several months prior to her meeting Neil. My guess, he swiped it from her wallet, her dresser, maybe an old handbag.”

Seth dragged a hand over his face. He’d known this was coming. In his gut, he’d known. But damn, he would have been happy to be wrong.

“He’s planning to use her money to settle his debt.”

“Yes, and there is one more bit of bad news.”

Seth gave a mirthless laugh. Of course there was. “Hit me.”

“Those dates you sent me, with Garrett’s travel for work.”

“Yeah.”

“Definitely not traveling for work. He’s bought
tickets to every location he’s claimed, trying to create some credibility, but he’s bought tickets to Vegas for those exact same dates, every time. Guess which flight he got on. Every time.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly.”

There were several moments of silence as Franklin seemed to sense his client needed a chance for everything to sink in.

“Anything you’d like me to dig further into?” Franklin asked. “I haven’t seen any signs of other women, if that’s a consolation.”

“It’s not,” Seth replied flatly.

The PI snorted. “Thought as much.”

“This is good stuff,” Seth said quietly. “Not what I wanted to hear, but . . . thank you.”

“Just doing my job,” Franklin said matter-of-factly.

“I don’t suppose part of your job might include telling my sister all these bits of good news?”

Franklin gave a polite courtesy laugh. “Trust me, you’re not the first person to ask. I suspect I could make a killing delivering other people’s bad news.”

“No doubt,” Seth said, his head pounding even harder as he tried to figure out how the hell to break this kind of news to his sister.

“Ready to hear about the other job?” Franklin asked.

The other . . .?

Ah, fuck.

Seth was so busy reeling from news about Garrett—no, Alonzo—that he’d nearly forgotten that he’d also
hired Franklin to check into Clay Battaglia’s whereabouts.

“Sure,” he managed.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get as much on this one. There’s plenty on his arrest and crimes, of course, but the details of his plea bargain are locked up pretty tight, courtesy of the feds. What I could figure out was that he’s on house arrest for the next six months, which means he’s not going to be making his way out to New York anytime soon. He’s got probation a year after that. All of his phone calls are monitored, as are his texts, his tweets, and pretty much any time he takes a shit is recorded.”

“Doesn’t sound that different from prison,” Seth muttered.

“I have no way of knowing for sure whether he’ll get in touch with Ms. Baldwin,” Franklin continued, “but I’m inclined to think no.”

“Why’s that?” Seth asked, grateful that the man was passing along at least one piece of semi-good news.

“Because he’s engaged.”

Seth’s head snapped up. “Say that again?”

“A jail bunny named Julia Sharna. Visited him in jail every day. He proposed the day he was granted the plea bargain. Incredibly, the press hasn’t gotten ahold of it yet, but it’s only a matter of time. She’s got a fat rock on her finger, and she’s been seen coming and going between her apartment and his place with moving boxes.”

Seth sat back in his chair with a slump. The pulsing in his head had receded just slightly, courtesy of
the pills Etta had given him, but he had a whole other kind of pain now.

For his sister.

For Brooke.

And right on the heels of the hurt was anger at these two shitheaded men that had messed with women he lov—

Cared about, he mentally corrected. He couldn’t love Brooke.

Could he?

Right now, the semantics didn’t matter. What mattered was, instead of feeling relieved that her ex would be keeping his distance, there was no way that news of his whiplash engagement to another woman wouldn’t hurt her.

He definitely wouldn’t have minded being off base in this case. Seth said a curt good-bye to the private investigator, promising him the final payment installment and thanking him for his work.

He’d barely dropped the phone on the desk, trying to get a grip on his next move, when there was a knock at the door.

Seth propped his elbows on the desk, his head in his hands as he hollered for his assistant to come in. At least he hoped it was Etta. If it was that pipsqueak Jared . . .

“Bad time?”

Seth’s head snapped up. It was neither Etta nor Jared.

It was Brooke.

“Hey,” he said, wincing when he realized his voice sounded slightly hoarse.

“Etta
said you weren’t feeling well?” she asked, closing the door and coming into the room. She was wearing jeans today that outlined her every perfect curve, tucked into knee-high brown boots with a soft-looking blue sweater that made her eyes seem even brighter than usual.

Damn, she was beautiful.

“Just a headache,” he said, standing and going around the desk to kiss her cheek.

She placed a hand on his cheek before he could pull away, searching his features with narrowed eyes. “Seems like more than just a headache. What’s wrong?”

Everything.

Everything was wrong.

His sister was marrying an imposter with a gambling addition, and Brooke was about to find out that the man she was supposed to marry had opted to marry someone else rather than contact her with a motherfucking apology.

“Just a long day is all,” he said, looking away from her.

Brooke bit her lip, and for the first time, he registered that he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t himself. Brooke also seemed more tense than usual.

For a moment he wondered if Tommy Franklin had been wrong, and if news of Clay’s engagement to the jail bunny had already broken.

But no. She didn’t look broken so much as nervous.

“Come sit with me a sec,” she said, taking his hand and tugging him toward the couch that was strangely sort of becoming their place. For a piece of
furniture he’d barely touched since moving into this space, it was getting plenty of use these days.

Seth glanced at his watch regretfully. “I can’t. I’m supposed to be at a meeting in four minutes.”

“Etta’s rescheduling it.”

He blinked. “She’s what? Why?”

Brooke took a visibly deep breath. “Because I told her what I was here to tell you.”

The weariness that had been threatening to choke him receded as Seth’s body went on high alert. “Tell me.”

She gave a nervous smile and moved around to the couch to sit. “Let’s at least sit down.”

Seth didn’t budge. The pulsing in his temples was back full force, the medicine completely inadequate against the pure shit that was this day.

“Tell me,” he repeated.

“You’re impossible,” she muttered as she stood back up. She kept the coffee table between them, and he didn’t register that he’d crossed his arms until he watched her mimic his stance.

He had the vague sense that he was being an ass, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how to unwind. How to ease the tension, or stifle the sense of dread, or even how to wipe the wariness off her face. Seth just needed to have all the facts, needed people to stop hiding stuff from him and tiptoeing around, and fucking lying.

“Brooke, for God’s sake, just say—”

“Maya and Neil moved up the wedding.”

Seth didn’t move. “They what?”

Brooke licked her lips nervously but didn’t look away from his glare. “The wedding’s going to be in March.”

“March?”
His voice came out as a roar. “It’s the fucking end of February.”

“Yes, I’m aware of the date,” she said coolly.

“Shit,” he grumbled. “That fucking bastard is behind this. Did she flip when you told her no? She’ll calm down, just give her a bit of time. I can’t believe this.”

“I didn’t tell her no, Seth.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? You can’t pull off a wedding in a few weeks.”

“Of course I can.”

“Well, you shouldn’t! Not when it’s this wedding.”

“That’s not your call.”

“It sure as hell is. Did you forget who’s paying for this?”

“No,” she snapped. “Not for one minute, because you can barely go that long without reminding me. But as I’ve told you a million times, my first commitment is to the couple getting married, and if they want to get married in March, it’s my job to give them their happily ever after, on whatever timeline they want.”

He groaned and dropped his arms to his sides before lifting them to link behind his head, turning in a circle as he tried to rein in his spitting emotions. “Are you fucking kidding me with that? The happily ever after shit? Still?”

A little flicker of hurt passed over her face, but it was quickly masked by irritation. “Yes, that shit,
still
. I know you’re determined to think that all people are crap on the inside, but you’re wrong. People are good, and happy endings are possible.”

“Says
the woman who walked down the aisle toward a con man,” he muttered under his breath.

But not all the way under his breath, unfortunately.

Brook gasped, flinching as though he’d struck her.

“Shit. Brooke, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did,” she said, straightening her spine and resuming her defensive posture, which was now infused with a healthy dose of anger. “You did mean it. Just let it out now, Seth. Get it out of your system. You think that because I made a mistake with Clay that your sister must be making the same mistake with Neil, right? Is that how the cynic’s mind works?”

“Yes!” he exploded. “Yes, that’s exactly how the cynic’s mind works, and damn it, Brooke, this cynic was right.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not this again.”

He took a deep breath and strove for calm. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I
am
right on this one, Brooke. Neil Garrett’s real name is Ned Alonzo. He’s got a gambling addiction that has him nearly a million dollars in debt. Maya’s nothing to him but a cushy way to pay off his debts.”

Her lips parted in shock. “How can you know that? Did he confide in you?”

Seth snorted. “That’d be hard, right? Seeing as he’s been hitting the tables in Vegas while you and my sister run all over the city trying on dresses and tasting cakes.”

Her eyes narrowed in warning. “Is that really what you wanted to say to me?”

He sighed. “No. I’m sorry. I just found all this out
seconds before you walked in, and I’m still dealing with it.”

“What do you mean you found out? How?”

Well, here went nothing.

“I hired someone,” he said, refusing to let the statement come out as guilty. “I hired someone to look into Neil. Ned. Whatever.”

Brooke’s mouth fell open. “You have got to be kidding me.”

He shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Okay,” she said, seeming to take this in. “Okay, at least tell me Maya knows. That you didn’t go
behind her back
to research her fiancé.”

He stared at her silently.

“Oh my God, Seth,” Brooke breathed. “You know, for all your talk about how clueless Maya and I are, you’re clueless on a whole other level.”

He ignored this. “I did it to protect her. And it’s a damn good thing, because if I hadn’t found this out, she’d have married a man who didn’t love her, who’d have taken all her money and made her miserable.”

“And that would have been her mistake to make,” Brooke said quietly.

“But—”

“No
but
,” Brooke said, coming around the table so they were face-to-face. “You were right about Neil, apparently, and I’ll give you that. But what you did was wrong on every level. Going behind her back? You’re not God, Seth.”

“And what was the better alternative?” he snapped. “Letting her get hurt?”

“I
don’t know,” Brooke said tiredly. “Maybe? I mean, I guess now that we know, we can’t actually let her marry him without knowing the facts, but you interfered in the worst kind of way.”

“Because I love her,” he argued.

Brooke shook her head. “That’s not love.”

Seth froze. Her words were a carbon copy of what Grant had said to him a couple of weeks earlier. Two of the people he cared about most were telling him verbatim that he didn’t know how to love.

That he didn’t even know what love was.

And damn it . . . damn it, but it
hurt
. It tore at his soul like a savage beast out for blood. Because right now he didn’t feel like a man who couldn’t love.