by Lauren Layne
“What are you—”
She spun around, only to find herself backed against the door by one very livid, very close cop.
Wordlessly, he pulled her keys from her hand and without moving away from her, slowly reached around and unlocked her door.
He unlocked it, pushing it open just barely.
“What the hell, Moretti? In case it wasn’t evident by the last three hours of silence, I have no interest in talking—”
“Oh, we’re talking,” he said, his voice gravelly.
His hand slowly, deliberately rested low on her throat as he pushed her backward into her house.
Followed her inside.
His brown eyes were black with anger. “We’re having this talk, and we’re having it now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vincent could feel Jill’s heartbeat against his palm as he roughly pushed her back into her apartment.
He told himself the feel of it didn’t excite him—that her excitement didn’t excite him—but he’d be lying.
And it was excitement Jill was feeling, at least for a moment. He saw it in the flash of her eyes, the catch of her breath.
But then her pointy little chin jutted out in defiance as the anger overtook her once more.
Her anger was justified.
She had every right to be downright pissed, because damned if he hadn’t been widely out of line by allowing Holly Adams to manipulate them.
But damn. The old biddy had known all the buttons to push. Buttons that had been blinking red in Vincent’s peripheral vision since Jill’d returned from Florida with that fucking rock on her finger.
And he’d just… lost it.
“You don’t get to decide when we talk,” Jill was saying. “You don’t get to just stew for months—no, years—and then snap your fingers and decide to become an open book. In front of a suspect, no less.”
“Holly Adams didn’t kill Lenora Birch, and you know it,” he growled.
“Doesn’t mean we should be talking about our personal life in front of her!”
He leaned down so their faces were inches apart. “So you admit we have a personal life.”
“Of course we do. We’re friends. Although we won’t be if you keep this up.”
Vin yanked his palm back from where it had been resting against her collarbone.
It was as though she burned him. Not by the warmth of her skin, but by the white-chill fire of her words.
Friends.
Jill thought of him as a friend.
Vincent swallowed.
When had friends stopped feeling like enough?
When had that one simple word ripped down to his very gut?
She lifted her hands as she opened her mouth, then let them fall, and the defeated slump of her shoulders was a little jab to his heart.
“What’s going on, Vin?”
What’s going on is that I can’t stand the thought that in a couple short months, you’ll be some other man’s. What’s going on is that I only have a few weeks left to convince you that…
Fuck.
Fuck!
What did he want to convince Jill of?
That he was the man for her?
Because he wasn’t.
Jill’s favorite holiday was Valentine’s Day, for Chrissake.
Vincent didn’t do hearts and flowers. Or love.
But companionship and sex? He wanted those things.
With Jill?
He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you seemed to know when you were gossiping with Holly Adams,” she said, starting to put her hands on her hips, confrontation-style, only ending up wrapping her arms around her middle. Defensive-like.
She was literally withdrawing from him, and it made Vin want to punch something.
He moved past her toward the kitchen.
Vincent was no stranger to Jill’s home. They’d had dozens—hundreds—of working dinners at her kitchen table, arguing over Chinese food.
There’d been birthday parties, and dinner parties, and random Saturday night movie marathons when neither of them had any plans.
But as he opened her fridge, it hit him that this was the first time he’d been here since she’d gotten back from Florida.
Yet another testament to how much had changed between them, and yet one more thing that had Vin wanting to hit something.
Jill followed him in, not saying a word as he rummaged around in her fridge looking for a much-needed beer.
Not finding anything, he moved to the small cabinet where she sometimes kept wine and pulled out a bottle of Chianti and wordlessly held it up to her in question.
She shrugged out of her jacket, dropped it on the back of a kitchen chair, and hesitated only briefly before nodding.
He found her corkscrew in its usual spot in the drawer to the right of the sink. Watched out of the corner of his eye as she opened the freezer and pulled out a frozen pizza.
Jill put the pizza in the oven while he poured them both hefty glasses of the under-ten-dollar Chianti.
He held out a glass to her and she reached for it, although he noticed that she seemed strangely careful not to let their fingers brush.
They hadn’t said a word since their heated exchange in the foyer, and Vincent held up a glass. “Truce?”
Jill rolled her eyes as she clinked her glass to his. “I don’t even know what we’re trucing over.”
He took a sip of wine and watched her. Get out of this, man. Take it back to safe territory. Fix it!
“How are you?” he asked.
Her glass paused halfway to her mouth, and her nose wrinkled. “How am I?”
Vincent shrugged, not really sure why he asked, and yet instinctively knowing that someone needed to ask her.
And that someone should be him.
“You spend four to five days a week with me,” Jill said with a little laugh. “You know how I am.”
“Do I?” he asked.
Do you? Vincent said the words to himself. Do you know how you are?
She blew out a breath, then took her wine to the kitchen table, where she folded one leg up beneath her and sat down, both hands cupped around her glass.
“I don’t know how I am,” she said.
He leaned back against the counter and nodded once, hoping she’d continue.
“I feel…” She glanced up. “I feel lost. I don’t know if it’s the case, or the wedding planning, or the fact that Tom and I are apart more often than we’re together.”
He withheld his flinch, barely.
Then she shook her head. “Actually, that’s not it. None of that is the problem.”
“No?” he asked.
Her eyes locked on his. “No. The problem is you.”
“Me.”
“Look, Vin, we’ve always been open with each other, so I’m going to lay it out for you. Since I’ve been back, you and me… we’ve been off. Horribly so.”
“I know,” he replied quietly.
“What the hell happened today?” Jill asked. “One minute we were interrogating a suspect, and the next we were interrogating each other, although I’m not even sure what about.”
He sipped his wine, then wordlessly turned his back, pulling two plates out of her cupboard, then two paper towels, before checking the pizza in the oven.
Vin was buying time—stalling—so that he could think, and Jill probably knew it, but she didn’t pester him.
The pizza wasn’t done for another five minutes, and he didn’t speak that entire time.
Only once he’d cut them each a hefty slice and sat across from her at the table did he finally speak.
“It’s the same thing I told you the other night. I don’t want you to go to Chicago,” he said.
Jill had just started to bite and choked, a stringy piece of cheese clinging to her chin.
She chewed as she wiped the cheese away with her paper towel. “I have to.”
“Do you?”
he countered, taking his own bite of pizza. It wasn’t great. Typical frozen-quality with the crust only a shade better than cardboard, but it had everything but the kitchen sink piled on top, which helped a little.
She reached for her wineglass. “Tom’s job is there.”
“And your job is here.”
Jill’s eyes glanced to her plate, and he knew he’d struck a nerve. Or if not a nerve, at least he was voicing something out loud that she’d put plenty of thought toward.
“Okay, I’m having déjà vu,” she said. “Didn’t we just do this two weeks ago? And we ended up hugging in your kitchen, agreeing everything was okay?”
“Well, it’s not okay, Henley. It’s all fucked up.”
She blinked a little, probably surprised at his forthrightness considering he’d been anything but direct with her all day. All month.
Vincent pushed his plate away, pizza barely touched, and he’d grabbed her hand before he realized what the hell he was doing.
The shock of her fingers in his rippled through him; the same surprise echoed on Jill’s face as she stared down at where his right hand rested on her left.
She didn’t pull away, but her features went immediately wary.
He didn’t know what he was going to say, only knew that he had to say something, had to convince her that she belonged here. In New York. With him.
That he couldn’t imagine what his days would look like without her.
That he didn’t know how to be without her.
“Jill, I—” The words got lodged in his throat.
And then they became permanently lodged there, because…
Jill’s phone rang.
They stared at each other for several long moments as the unmistakable sound of a vibrating cell phone buzzed from her purse.
For one wonderful, hopeful moment, he thought she might let it go to voice mail. That she needed to hear what he had to say as urgently as he needed to speak it.
Then her hand pulled away from his.
Jill licked her lips nervously, glancing in the direction of her purse. “I should get that. It could be—”
She broke off, but not before Vincent dropped his head in defeat as he silently finished her sentence for her.
Tom. It could be Tom.
Jill touched his shoulder as she passed, just briefly, and he all but batted her hand away. Her touch was the touch of someone who felt sorry for the other person.
Objectively, he knew it was meant to appease him. To ease his ache. Instead it made it worse.
And then she picked up her phone with a quiet “hey.”
She didn’t say Tom’s name. She was kind enough for that. But she slipped into her bedroom and quietly closed the door.
He took both their plates to the sink. Rinsed his wineglass and put it away. He could still hear Jill’s voice coming from the bedroom. Muffled as though she were intentionally keeping her voice down.
For his sake?
Maybe.
Vincent braced both hands on Jill’s kitchen counter as he stared blindly at her coffeepot for several long, torturous moments.
He breathed in, breathed out.
He waited for a minute. Two minutes. Five.
Waited for Jill to remember he was out here. Remember that they had a conversation that needed to happen.
He waited ten minutes.
Waited for Jill to choose him.
Her door stayed shut.
And then he realized… Jill wasn’t going to choose him. Not now.
Not ever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jill knew she should be happy that the Morettis and Tom were getting to know each other. Knew that in theory, it was a good thing that the two most important areas of her life were blending.
But right now?
Right now she felt just about anything but happy.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time—having a spontaneous dinner party at her place. She’d wanted Tom to get to know her friends in a casual, “let’s all hang out and eat pasta and drink wine” kind of way.
The way they did it on her favorite TV shows.
She’d set it up two weeks ago. Back before she and Vincent had had the mother of all fights. Back when they were still talking.
It had been two days since their tense talk over pizza at her kitchen table. Two days since she’d come out of her bedroom after her conversations with Tom, and found him gone—as though he’d never been there in the first place.
They’d barely exchanged a word since.
No easy task, since they were partners and all, but they’d managed.
Jill had never been so miserable.
Worst of all, people had noticed. Tom had noticed. He’d practically given her an inquisition when he’d flown in last night. Elena had noticed when she’d shown up early to help Jill set up.
And now, of all people, it was Anthony who’d cornered her in her own home.
“Talk,” he said curtly. Like Vincent, nearly everything Anthony said came out like a near-bark. His marriage to the sweet Maggie had softened Vincent’s older brother slightly, but there was nothing soft about him right now as he stood glaring down at Jill.
She glared up at him with, “Were you just standing here waiting for me to come out of the bathroom?”
Anthony crossed his arms and said nothing. Waited.
She huffed and started to move around him, but he moved with her, blocking her from walking back into the kitchen.
“Look, Anth, I respect the big brother thing you have going on, but let’s remember that you’re not my brother, hmm?” she said, trying to dodge him again.
He moved once more, blocking her way as he spoke. “Just because we’re not related by blood doesn’t mean I don’t love you like a sister.”
Jill froze. None of the Moretti siblings were overly demonstrative, but it was particularly unnerving to hear the word “love” from the mouth of the taciturn eldest.
But Jill couldn’t deny the effect it had on her. Suddenly she found herself wanting to lean into Anth’s tallness and beg for a hug. Because the sibling love went both ways.
Still, it wasn’t the time. Or the place.
Instead she crossed her arms over her middle and cupped her elbows as she glanced to the right of Anthony toward her living room. “It’s nothing.”
“Jill.”
She gave a little sigh. Then she shifted so she could look around Anthony’s other side, since the man was entirely too tall for her to see over his shoulder. “Fine. I’ll play annoying little sister to your overbearing big brother. You want to know what’s crawled up my ass? It has to do with the fact that I have a certain bad-tempered homicide detective in my living room who can’t be bothered to look up from his cell phone for—”
“He’s looked up,” Anthony interupped.
Jill gave him a look. “Not that I’ve seen.”
“That’s because he only looks up when you’re looking away.”
Jill glanced again at Vincent where he sat perched on her bar stool in a long-sleeve black shirt, jeans, and a scowl. “I don’t think—”
“He’s been looking at you,” Anthony cut in.
Jill’s eyes flew back to Anth’s gaze, which was surprisingly patient.
“He’s always looking at you,” Anth said, his voice quieter this time.
“I—”
“What are you doing, Jill?” His voice was tired.
“Excuse me?” she asked with an incredulous little laugh.
“You know what I’m asking,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’m not saying that Tom’s not a great guy. I’m not saying that you’re not allowed to marry whomever you want—”
“Damn straight I’m allowed to marry whom I want!” Jill said, temper spiking.
She’d seen Anthony get high-and-mighty with his younger siblings before, but this was the first time she’d been on the receiving end. And she could totally see why the younger Morettis were always itching to strike at Anth, in
all his control-freakish—
“Calm down,” he said, irritating her even further. “Don’t cause a scene.”
“I’m not the one who cornered someone else coming out of the bathroom.” Jill lowered her voice, but it came out as a hiss.
“Look, all I’m saying is that any idiot can see that something is going on with you and Vincent. Something’s been going on for years. If you care for him, at all, address it. And then let him go, Jill.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Me, let him go? Your fraternal observations are a bit shortsighted, Anth. I’ve been right in front of Vincent for years, and he waits until I decide to get married to start acting weird. If anyone needs to do the letting go, it’s him.”
“He’s trying,” Anthony said through gritted teeth. “What do you want from him? Any fool can see that he just wants you to be happy.”
Jill’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, he keeps saying that. But then he turns around and bites my head off about getting married.”
“It’s because you’re giving mixed signals,” Anth said, his voice quiet.
Her head snapped up. “I’m not.”
His look was sympathetic, and that made it all the worse. “You are. You know how I said that he looks at you every time you’re not paying attention? You do the same. And may I just say, you’ve been looking at Vin a hell of a lot more than you’ve been looking at Tom tonight.”
Jill felt her cheeks go hot. With anger. How dare he! With embarrassment. Oh God, was he right?
And then shame. Yes. Yes, he was absolutely right.
She closed her eyes and swayed just a little. “I don’t know what to do.”
Anth lifted his shoulders slightly in a shrug. “You’ve got to choose.”
Jill licked her lips and gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t know that it’s that simple. I mean it’s not like Vin even wants—”
She broke off, and her eyes found the quiet man sitting at her kitchen stool, looking so utterly alone.
“Take it from a brother that knows Vincent better than he realizes. He wants.”
Jill shook her head. She didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to deal with any of it.
“I’m getting married, Anth,” she said.
“Fine,” he said with a lift of his shoulders. “Just make sure that’s what you want.”
