To Have And To Hold: The Wedding Belles Book 1 (37 page)

Wordlessly she turned toward Seth, waiting for an explanation.

He gestured with his chin toward a pile of wood in the far corner that she’d missed. “Most everything here was delivered and built for me, but I wanted to do something myself. I thought, ‘How hard can a bookshelf be?’ Hard, it turns out. Although I’m inclined to blame the directions.”

“Seth,” she said, halting his uncharacteristic babbling. “What’s going on?”

“I bought it,” he said, as though those three little words were a normal thing to say about property in downtown Manhattan.

“The building?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“Good Lord,” she said, running a hand over her hair. “You bought the building?”

“Well, I tried to buy just one floor, but this way was just . . . easier.”

She let out an incredulous laugh. “Of course it was. You’re Seth Tyler.”

He said nothing.

“There’s no bride coming by tonight, is there? You and Alexis set this up.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Well, at least he wasn’t lying to her. That was something.

Seth
blew out a breath, tapping the hammer lightly against his thigh in agitation. “There are five bedrooms. Three and a half baths. A study. You already saw the beginnings of the main living area, but I’m also planning to put a piano in. Did you know I play? And since I own the whole damn building, I’m thinking of installing some sort of doggy area on the rooftop so I don’t have to go as far to let him or her out when the weather sucks.”

“A dog?” Brooke interrupted his strange monologue. “What dog?”

“I don’t know. The one I’m going to get,” he said, his words tumbling over one another in his obvious excitement. “And I’m dividing one of the lower floors into apartment units, and I’m giving one to Dex to make it easier for both of us when I need to get uptown for work. And there’s no room service, but that’s not going to be a problem, because I’ve hired this crazy French dude to teach me some cooking basics. And I told Maya she could decorate, but only if she runs everything by me, because I want this place to be
mine
. To feel like
me
. I’m not exactly sure what that looks like yet, but I’m working on it. A little every day.”

His words were getting closer and closer together, coming out in a bit of a nervous rush, and Brooke’s eyes started to burn at the corners as she felt tears threaten.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “I die when you cry.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” she said.

“Yes you do,” he said quickly. “You know exactly
what’s going on here.” He tossed the hammer to the side, and she winced as it clattered to the gorgeous hardwood floor. He moved closer; his fingers wrapped around her stiff upper arms, drawing her forward.

“I know this is a risk,” he said quietly. “Setting this up like this, doing this all behind your back, tricking you into coming here. I know you’re thinking that I’m controlling everything, and I’ll admit that I am. I’ve controlled every single detail of this right down to this ugly T-shirt in hopes that it would help make me seem more approachable. Although, that was actually Grant’s idea.”

“Grant’s in on this?” she asked, trying to keep up.

“He likes to think so,” Seth said with a wry smile. “Anyway, I know I’m being controlling. I know that it’s a problem of mine, and it will probably always be a problem of mine, but I’m working on it. I swear that I am. If you want to walk away right now, I’ll let you, but I had to try. You see that, right? I had to try to be more, because you
make
me want to be more. More than a scared little boy who tried too desperately to direct all of the pieces and people of his life because he was terrified of losing them.”

Brooke’s eyes closed as her emotions wavered between happiness and confusion. “This is a hell of a speech, Tyler.”

“I’m sorry,” he said in a rush. “I’m so sorry about the thing with Maya, the thing with Clay. It was all badly done. So badly done, and I’d give anything to take it back, and since I can’t . . . I need to tell you why. I tried to tell you that day, but . . .”

He
took a deep breath. “I did it because I love you. And that’s not an excuse, but it is the truth. I know it’s soon, I know it’s crazy, but my feelings for you are the most real thing I’ve ever known.”

Her emotions weren’t wavering anymore. They tipped firmly in the direction of ecstatic, overjoyed, elated, and she opened her eyes.

“You decided not to live in a hotel anymore.”

His mouth drooped a little in disappointment at her words, but she had to do this her way.

“I want a place of my own,” he said. “A home.”

“And you’re, like, the richest man in New York, which means you can pick literally any place,” she said slowly.

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“But you chose
this
place.”

“Obviously, Brooke,” he said, with just the slightest edge of impatience that made her grin, because it was so wonderfully, beautifully Seth.

“You chose it because you knew I loved it.”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

Brooke lifted her eyebrows.

“I’m not asking you to move in, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, releasing her arms and shoving his hands into his back pockets. “Not today, anyway.”

“Then what
are
you asking?” she said, taking a step closer, loving the way his cool blue eyes warmed when she got near.

“Anything,” he said, his voice slightly desperate. “I’ll take whatever you’re giving. A drink. Dinner. A walk. Maybe a movie. Joint custody of the dog. Keys
to the same home—this home. A wedding. Babies. Things like that.”

Brooke laughed as she lifted her hands to his shoulders and pressed her body into his. “Easy there, big guy. I’m still trying to adjust to the fact that you’re wearing jeans and carrying a hammer around.”

His arms gingerly went around her, resting lightly against her back as though he thought she might run at any time and was prepared to let her go even though he didn’t want to. “The shirt and hammer did it for you, huh? Grant will be pleased.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely not thinking about Grant right now,” she said, her eyes dropping purposely to his mouth.

“No?”

She shook her head and slowly pulled his head down to hers, pouring her entire heart into the kiss. His arms tightened around her, no longer tentative as their mouths met again and again in the sweet elation of rediscovery.

“I’d thought you’d forgotten about me,” she said softly, pulling back slightly and running her fingers along the silken hair around his ears.

He shook his head. “Never. Not for one second. I just went underground for a bit to up my game.”

“You did good,” she said, brushing her lips against his and inviting another kiss.

Instead of taking her up on the invitation, he leaned back slightly, eyes narrowed. “Did you miss me?”

“I did,” she said slowly. “But I think it was good
to have a little distance. To figure things out and find myself in the aftermath of everything, you know?”

His eyes clouded, and she rushed to reassure him. “You know what I figured out?”

Seth said nothing.

Her hand slid down to his lips, her fingertips tracing his firm, unsmiling mouth. “I figured out that I don’t want a relationship that’s easy the way it was when I was with Clay, before it all went to hell.”

“No?” His voice was rough.

“No,” she whispered. “I want a relationship that might be hard sometimes but is worth it. And you, Seth Tyler, are most definitely worth it.”

His slow smile was just about the best thing she’d ever seen in her life, and his former wariness gave way to cocky seduction.

“Is that so?”

“I’m pretty sure,” she teased. “There are some things I’ll need to consider, first.”

“Like?”

“Like how ugly that bookshelf is if and when you ever finish it.”

“What else?” he growled, maneuvering her back toward the bed.

“Like exactly how long we’re supposed to wait before you let me move in with you.”

“Five minutes. Next?”

Brooke smiled. “Just one more thing . . . I’ll need to consider how much I love you.”

He froze in the process of sliding a hand under her shirt and searched her eyes. “Yeah? How much are you thinking?”

“All
the way, Mr. Tyler. I’m thinking I love you all the way.”

Seth pushed her back onto the bed with a wicked, happy grin. “Prove it.”

And Brooke did. She
definitely
did.

Turn
the page for an exclusive sneak peek of

BOOK TWO IN THE WEDDING BELLES SERIES

Coming soon

F
OR
AS LONG AS
Heather Fowler could remember, living in Manhattan had been The Dream.

The one she’d talked about as a precocious eight-year-old when her mom’s best friend, turned chatty by one too many glasses of the Franzia she chugged like water, asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up.

At eight, Heather hadn’t been exactly sure about the
what
in her future, but she absolutely knew the
where
.

New York City.

Manhattan, specifically.

The obsession had started with
Friends
reruns, and had only grown as she’d moved on to her mother’s
Sex and the City
DVD collection, which she’d watched covertly while her mother had worked double shifts at the diner.

People in New York were vibrant, sparkling. They were
doing
something. Important things. Fun things.

She wanted to be one of them.

By
the time Heather was in high school, The Dream was still going strong.

While the overachievers had dreams of going to Mars, and the smaller-thinking ones had aspirations of getting to the mall, for Heather it had always and
only
been NYC.

Her mother had never pretended to understand Heather’s dream. Joan Fowler had lived her entire life in Merryville, Michigan, with only two addresses: her lower-middle-class parents’ split-level and the trailer she’d rented when, at four months pregnant, her parents had kicked her out.

And while Heather had wanted something more for her mother—and something more for
herself
—than hand-me-down clothes and a two-bedroom trailer that smelled constantly like peroxide (courtesy of her mother’s hairdressing side job), Joan had always seemed content.

But to Heather’s mother’s credit, Joan had never been anything less than encouraging.

If you want New York, you do New York. Simple as that.

And so Heather had.

Though it hadn’t been simple. There had been detours. College at Michigan State. A tiny apartment in Brooklyn Heights with four roommates that, while
technically
located in New York City, wasn’t quite the urbane sophistication she’d pictured.

But Heather’s resolve had never wavered. In one of her college internships, a mentor had told Heather to dress for the job she wanted, not the one she had.

Heather
did that, but she’d also broadened the idiom:
Live the life you want, not the one you have.

In this case, that meant saving up enough to cover rent that was more expensive than she could comfortably afford.
Yet
. More than she could afford
yet
. Because Heather was close to a promotion from assistant wedding planner to actual wedding planner. She could feel it.