“So you’re done for the day?” she asked hopefully.
He wasn’t. He had another half dozen meetings, not counting the new technology company that wanted to take him to cocktails tonight to convince him to install their waterproof televisions into Tyler Hotel showers.
He also knew that Etta would take care of re-arranging all that for him. He’d seen the way she’d looked between him and Brooke. Seen that she’d understood.
“I’m here,” he said, dodging her question slightly.
She gave a grateful smile, and he was relieved to see that it was a real smile, and even with her red eyes and pink nose and messy hair, she looked beautiful.
Seth resumed stroking her back, and Brooke rested her cheek against his chest as she draped over him, one arm wrapping around his waist as though using him as an anchor. He figured he’d have to wait awhile before she told him whatever it was that had taken away her sparkle.
But Brooke surprised him by getting right to it.
“Clay,” she said hoarsely.
He jolted. “Your ex.”
Brooke nodded. “I never really . . . I never told you what happened between us. Not really. I mean, you know the headlines, but you don’t know”—she took a deep, shuddering breath—“the full story.”
“So tell me now,” he said quietly, sensing that she needed to share. He waited patiently as she kicked off her shoes, pulling her feet up on the couch and wrapping her arms around her legs, before resting her chin against her upraised knees.
“I met Clay at a bar. Cheesy, right? I was out celebrating a girlfriend’s birthday. I showed up late, since I had a wedding beforehand, and by the time I got there, my girlfriends were a bit past buzzed. The bar didn’t have a dance floor, but the shots of tequila had motivated them to make their own, and since I wasn’t quite to the drunken dancing phase, I found myself alone at the bar sipping a cocktail.”
“Dirty Belvedere martini?” he asked, his fingers finding the ends of her hair as he listened.
She tapped her nose to indicate he’d gotten it right. “Anyway, this guy comes up on my right side, and it sounds lame, but I felt him before I saw him, you know? Like I was aware of him.”
Seth nodded in understanding even as he silently hated another man for capturing her attention in that way.
“He, however, wasn’t aware of me. He didn’t even glance at me as he waited patiently to catch the bartender’s attention, and then his drink order . . . same as mine.”
Brooke’s eyes closed as she broke off and she shook her head. “Anyway, I wasn’t drunk enough to be out swaying with my girlfriends, but I was just buzzy enough to be brave, and so when the bartender set down the guy’s martini, I sort of clinked my glass against his and said something like, ‘Cheers to dirty Belvederes,’ or something completely horrible and awkward like that.”
“I take it he noticed you then?”
She gave a sad smile. “Yeah. He looked over, gave me this small smile, and I was just, like, done, you know? Boom. It was all over for me. He had these warm brown eyes, dark blond hair, tan skin . . . totally like cliché California surfer dude, but in the hottest way possible. And well, I’ve always had a type, and Clay was it.
“We started dating,” she continued. “I’d always been sort of romantically inclined. Convinced that when I met the guy, the one I was supposed to be with forever, I’d know, and that that would be it. We’d get married and live happily ever after. And by the third date with Clay, I knew. Or at least I thought I did.”
“So was it a fast engagement?”
“No, actually,” she said. “I’m a little embarrassed to say that had he proposed earlier I would have leapt in with two feet, but we dated for a couple years. Moved in together. He got to know my family. My parents thought of him like a son.” She rubbed her forehead as though this last part hurt the worst. “Then it was ring shopping, the sunset proposal, the whole bit.”
Seth said nothing. He waited, his body tensed, knowing the story didn’t have a happy ending.
“I planned the crap out of my wedding,” Brooke said. “I mean, not all that surprising, right, given my career, but I’d like to think that I also did it for all the right reasons. Because I wanted it