a whole other layer of subtext. She’d always thought the East Coast was made up of a bunch of straight shooters, but so far she’d only seen a whole lot of what people weren’t saying.
“Shall we get going, sweetie?” Neil said, rudely interrupting Maya’s animated description to Grant of the various venues they’d looked at today.
She glanced at him, her smile dimming. “Right. You must be starving. You sure you don’t want to tag along, Grant? Or Brooke?” she added politely.
“Definitely not,” Grant said.
Brooke shook her head with a polite smile.
“Okay, well then. I’ll see you both later?” Maya said as Neil ushered her into the car. “Bye!”
Then the car door closed, and Brooke lifted a hand in send-off. Grant, for his part, didn’t move as the town car pulled away from the curb.
Brooke sighed and dropped her wedding planner into her oversized bag, and then, even though she’d known the guy for less than five minutes, found herself turning toward Grant. “You want to talk about it?”
His eyes snapped to hers, and she watched as surprised wariness was quickly replaced by a mischievous grin. He glanced over her, although not in the lecherous, checking-her-out way, more in an “I have a plan” kind of way.
He jerked his chin toward the hotel before them. “Seth still inside?”
Brooke shrugged. “I suppose so. He said he had a phone call, and I haven’t seen him come out.”
“Huh.” His expression turned even more speculative as he scratched his chin. “Brooke Baldwin, would you like to have a drink with me?”
“Ah—”
Grant held his palms out. “No funny business. Just two people in need of a drink. I’ll buy.”
It was tempting. Very tempting. She did want that drink. But . . .
“I’d like to,” she said, giving a regretful glance over her shoulder. “But there’s something I need to take care of first.”
Grant gave a soft laugh. “If it’s giving Seth the dressing-down I’m sure the bastard deserves, can I be there to watch?”
“I thought you two were friends.”
“Oh, we are. Best friends,” he said, looping an arm casually around her shoulder and pulling her in the direction of the lobby bar. “Which is why I can’t wait to see his face when he sees us having a drink together.”
Chapter Nine
SETH LIKED TO THINK he was a man who was prepared for all things.
Hurricanes. Market crashes. Breakups.
But twice in the past month he’d found himself blindsided.
First, by his sister’s engagement announcement.
Second, by his instant and slightly insane attraction to the Malibu Barbie wedding planner.
And now, just as he was hanging up the phone with the Tyler Hotel’s Tokyo office, there was a third shock: the sight of his best friend and said wedding planner having a cozy cocktail in a hotel lobby bar as though it was no big deal.
“Oh, hell no,” he muttered, dropping his phone back into his suit pocket and charging toward them.
The hotel lobby at the Biltmore was one of Seth’s favorite places to drink in the city. The high price tag of their drinks scared off the vast majority of tourists, ensuring that the bar was generally quiet enough to have a conversation.
Something Grant and Brooke seemed to be managing quite well as they sat hip to hip on the small love seat by the fire.
“Well, this looks cozy,” Seth blurted out the second they were in hearing distance.
Brooke glanced up in surprise at the interruption. Her hands had been waving wildly as she’d been talking to Grant, but the second her eyes met Seth’s, her hands dropped to her lap, and her smile froze in place.
He wasn’t surprised at the obvious change in her demeanor, but he was a little . . . stung. Seth knew he’d never been quite as charming as Grant, not quite as smooth with the ladies, but he usually didn’t cause someone with so much light to dim the second he got near.
“Hey, man!” Grant said in a more enthusiastic greeting, taking a sip of his cocktail and seeming completely unaware of the strange tension between Brooke and Seth.
Then he glanced up and met Seth’s eyes, and Seth saw from the slight smirk that his friend wasn’t unaware at all. The asshat had planned this.
Seth sighed and sat in the leather chair across from his best friend and his sister’s wedding planner, and tried to ignore the fact that they looked like the perfect couple. He also tried to ignore how much that bothered him.
“Explain,” he said, lifting a hand to gesture between the