“I’ll watch him like a hawk, if you agree to take a step back,” Brooke said. “That’s the deal.”
He gave a grim smile. “With all due respect, Neil’s a good-looking guy, and he’s proven himself more than adept at convincing women that he’s legit. What makes you think that you can spot a phony?”
Brooke’s smile turned brittle as she picked up her drink and avoided eye contact.
Aha.
So he was right about those eyes holding more than just an arresting shade of blue.
Brooke Baldwin had a secret.
Chapter Ten
WHEN BROOKE FINALLY LIFTED her eyes to meet Seth’s, she knew she’d made a mistake. Even without saying a word about Clay, or her ruined wedding, he was onto the fact that she was hiding something, and was determined to figure it out.
Well, too damn bad, Mr. Tyler. I’m not going to dwell on my past failures, and I’m certainly not going to let you dwell on them.
Her past with Clay was far from a secret. She’d gone out of her way to ensure that it was out in the open, letting the wound get oxygen.
As a result, Brooke rarely felt vulnerable these days—she’d been carefully building a shield around her ever since Clay had been arrested, and most of the time it worked.
But this man . . . Seth made her feel vulnerable. She didn’t like it.
Seth’s gaze narrowed, and even as she was braced for him to eviscerate her, target her right where it hurt and prey on her most vulnerable inner secrets, Seth surprised her by nodding slowly, and then sitting back in his chair. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll go along with your plan. I’ll back out of the wedding planning if you promise to keep me apprised about everything—the planning, and the guy. Those are my terms.”
Brooke let out a little laugh. “Done. That was easier than I thought.”
He held her gaze. “I’m trying to trust you, Ms. Baldwin. Don’t make me regret it.”
“And don’t let your guard down, either,” Grant advised her. “You know Seth’s just going to Google you the second he goes to the bathroom. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t already.”
“I thought about it,” Seth said, his eyes never leaving Brooke’s. “But some mysteries are far more interesting to unravel by yourself.”
“I’m not a mystery,” she said quickly. Damn it, she sounded defensive. “And don’t pretend you’re at all interested in peeling back my layers, or whatever. You had me all summed up as a ditzy airhead within moments of meeting me.”
“Right. And I’m sure you withheld all judgment on me,” he said. “No snap assumption about who I might have been, hmm?”
She pursed her lips. He knew she’d thought he was the groom.
Fair enough.
Maybe getting it out in the open would make this whole thing feel less . . . tense.
She turned to Grant. “I thought Seth was the groom when I first met him. He’s all riled up about it since clearly he’s a classic marriage-phobe.”
Grant’s usually at-ease expression flickered, and he gave Seth a wary glance as though Brooke had her foot hovering over a land mine.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for, but instinct told her she’d jabbed a sore spot. And even though her brain was racing with curiosity, her heart knew all too well what it could be like to have someone pick at your wounds when you weren’t prepared.
Still, the thought of Seth Tyler having wounds seemed implausible, to say the least. He was so rigid, so deliberate in everything he did. It seemed impossible that anyone would get the drop on him to hurt him.
But someone had hurt him, she realized as she studied him under her lashes. It was written all over the tense lines of his mouth.
“Don’t apologize,” Seth said curtly. “My idiot friend here is apparently under the impression that I was once closer to the altar than I actually was.”
Grant opened his mouth as though he wanted to argue but snapped it shut and picked up his drink.
“I proposed to my ex,” Seth said in the same bored monotone voice someone might use if they were announcing that it was raining. “She said no. End of story.”
Brooke tried to keep her expression blank, but poker face had never really been her thing. Her heart hurt for him, but more than that, she hurt for the way he thought he had to hold it inside.
She knew all too well what it was like to put on a