Cuff Me (10 page)

H
ey, babe.”

“What’s up?” Jill asked, not looking up from where she was carefully chopping an onion. Maria Moretti had always made this look easy, but Jill had nearly taken off the tip of her middle finger.

“Are you aware that you have eight different types of pasta in here?”

“Um, you try being practically adopted by the Morettis and not come to think of it as a food group.”

Tom kissed the side of her head as he passed her from the pantry on his way to the fridge. “They’re lucky to have you.”

Jill smiled and rolled her eyes. “Biased much?”

Tom was too busy peering into her fridge, debating white wine options. “Annnnnd, every last white is Italian. Another Moretti influence?”

She gave him a quick glance, searching for any sign of irritation, but saw only amusement.

“They’re all good, I promise. Even the ones you’ve never heard of.”

He glanced at her and lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, I’ve heard of all of them.”

Jill snorted and set the knife aside. The onion was close enough to chopped. “You’re such a snob.”

“Didn’t hear you whining about my wine prowess while I was verbally dueling every sommelier in Florida,” Tom said, pulling out a bottle as he wiggled his eyebrows.

“What, do you guys draw corkscrews at dawn on your yacht?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said as he searched her cupboards for wineglasses. “We never drink before noon on my yacht.”

Jill accepted the glass he handed her, and he clinked their glasses together. “To my second time in your apartment,” he said warmly.

She smiled and tried to ignore the implication behind his teasing words.

She was going to marry a man who’d been in her apartment twice. A man who hadn’t known what cupboard she kept her wineglasses in, a man who hadn’t even been the slightest bit irritable despite the fact that his plane had sat on the tarmac for two hours, a man who…

Jill paused as she was sipping her wine. “Tom, you don’t really have a yacht, do you?”

He smiled, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

Oh God. He had a yacht. She was marrying a man with a yacht.

Tom glanced down at the massacre on her cutting board before flicking at a too-big piece of onion. He gave the barely minced garlic a skeptical look.

“Darling.”

“Mmm?” The wine was delicious as she wanted it to be.

“How deft are your cooking skills?”

“You really want me to answer that?” she asked, repeating his earlier question.

He bent his knees slightly and captured her mouth for a kiss. “Want me to take over?”

She pulled back from the kiss. “You own a yacht and you cook?”

Tom winked. “Did I mention I can best most sommeliers at wine trivia?”

Jill shook her head. “What are you doing with me? I had Captain Crunch for breakfast. Out of the box. Later I found a piece between my boobs where it had fallen into my bra.”

He hooked a finger into her shirt and pretended to take a look. “Still there?”

She batted his hand away. “My point is, you’re
so
far out of my league.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m crazy about you,” he said, ushering her aside. “Now step aside, drink your wine, and let me make you something fabulous.”

Jill did as she was told, hoisting herself onto her kitchen counter as she watched Tom chop the onion into more manageable pieces.

This was her life. This, right here, was going to be the rest of her life. Sipping wine with Tom at the end of the day while he cooked for her.

The thought was… nice.

And if somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if it shouldn’t be nicer, she ignored it.

“So how’s the case coming along?” he asked as he made easy work of the onion and moved on to the garlic.

“Ugh. Stagnant,” she said.

There was a vibrating news alert sounding from her purse, and she leaned across the counter, fishing her phone out as she took another sip of wine.

She bit her lip when she saw that the text was from Vin.

Ordered Chinese. You want?

For one horrible, terrible moment, Jill wanted nothing more than to respond and say yes.

What was
with
that?

She was sitting here in her cozy kitchen with delicious wine, as a gorgeous man cooked for her.

And she wanted to leave all that to go have mediocre takeout with a man who’d probably either want to review crime scene photos or watch a game while they ate?

No. No, she didn’t want that.

This was where she belonged. With a man who was good at conversation, and good at kissing, and good at being nice…

Still, she regretted not telling Vin that Tom was coming into town for the weekend. She’d meant to. It was just… she didn’t like talking to Vincent about Tom, any more than she liked talking to Tom about Vin.

It was like they were two parts of her life that she wanted to keep as separate as possible, and had no idea why.

Or maybe she had every idea why, which is why she couldn’t let herself think about it.

“So, my sister’s cousin is a real estate broker in
Chicago,” Tom said, oblivious to Jill’s turmoil. “She said we’re looking at the perfect time to move. There are a bunch of brand-new buildings going up near the lake. Which will be brutal in winter, of course, but that’s why we’ll have a place in Florida as a getaway.”

“I’ll still have to work in winter,” she said with a bit more bite than she intended.

He looked up. “Yeah. I know.”

Did he?

“The option to get away to a nicer climate sounds nice,” she said, softening her tone. “Maybe I can save up vacation time.”

“And if not, we’ll hunker down in Chicago and drink red wine in front of the fire,” he said. “Maybe binge on whatever show’s the next Netflix rage.”

Jill’s mind happily entered the cozy picture he described. It was everything she’d ever wanted. Someone to cuddle with on the couch, watching crappy TV with excellent wine… maybe even a foot rub. Maybe Vin would suggest ordering extra cheese on the pizza, and she’d pretend to protest because it was too fattening, and—

Jill sat up a little straighter. Wait. Whoa.

Vin?

How had her partner entered that picture?

He’d be back here in New York when she and Tom were in Chicago. Not like he’d be stopping by any longer, and there certainly wouldn’t be any cuddling since she’d be married.

Jill glanced down at her phone, where Vincent’s text sat unresponded to.

That sad text combined with her strange, out-of-place vision made her chest ache.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to reply to his message. If they had any chance of preserving their friendship after her marriage, she had to keep being open with him the way she had before Tom.

Can’t.
She wrote back.
Tom’s in town. Have an extra egg roll for me.

Jill set her phone aside and asked Tom about the most recent deal he was working on.

Her phone buzzed beside her as Tom talked, and Jill ordered herself not to look at it. Reminded herself that looking at your phone when anyone was talking was rude. And when it was your fiancé, it was downright unforgivable.

And yet, the second Tom stopped talking to peruse her spice rack, Jill tugged the phone closer to read Vin’s response.

Please don’t be mad, please don’t be mad…

K. Also, opened your fortune cookie. Says right here that you’ll die young unless you buy your partner Starbucks for the rest of the week.

She smiled as she wrote back.
What does yours say?

That I’m brilliant. Also, well-endowed.

Jill nearly choked on her sip of of wine.
Isn’t that what it said last time?

I know, weird, right. Think I should laminate this and hand it out in bars?

“Something funny?” Tom asked as he turned back with a polite smile.

“Nah, it’s nothing,” she said, putting her phone away with a little pang.

But it didn’t feel like nothing.

It felt like… something.

O
h,
that
one,” Maggie exclaimed. “That’s the one!”

Elena gave her sister-in-law an indulgent look over her glass of champagne. “You’ve said that about the last five.”

Maggie sighed and leaned back on the pink sofa of the bridal shop, and rubbed her ever-growing belly. “Don’t judge me.
You
have champagne while I only get this stupid sparkling cider. Also, it’s the hormones. They’re killing me. Yesterday I cried when I saw a pigeon eating a French fry.”

Jill was barely listening as she pivoted in slow circles in front of the enormous mirrors. “I don’t know—I don’t think I’m liking that big bow in back.”

“It dwarfs you,” Ava said in her bossiest voice. “You need something that enhances your small frame, not overwhelms it.”

“But I kind of like the poofy princess dress,” Jill said, her voice just shy of petulant.

Elena tilted her head and gave Jill a look. “Really? Because two dresses ago you insisted on no poof.”

Jill scowled at Elena in the reflection of the mirror. “I changed my mind.”

She saw the look Ava and Elena exchanged. Not that they were trying very hard to hide it.

Jill whipped around, her finger pointing at them. “What was that? What was that look?”

Elena didn’t miss a beat as she smoothly stood up and swooped Jill’s champagne flute from the side table and came to stand beside her. “You’re edgy, darling. Talk to us.”

Jill accepted the flute and stared at her best friend.

Elena looked perfectly together and gorgeous as always. She was wearing one of those pencil skirts that she seemed to own a million of, in every color, and a simple white blouse. Her black hair was pulled back in a neat chignon, her makeup flawless, her manicure un-chipped.

She made Jill feel small and frumpy.

Which wasn’t fair. At all.

It wasn’t Elena’s fault that she was gorgeous.

Nor was it Elena’s fault that Jill had been in the mother-of-all funks for the past week.

It wasn’t Elena’s fault that Tom had been busy and hardly remembered to call. Or that when he
did
call, Jill was always working on the time-consuming Lenora Birch case.

Or that said case had yet to turn up so much as a potential clue, much less an actual suspect.

Jill pressed a thumb between her eyebrows. “Ladies, what say you we abandon the dress shopping for the day?”

“Done,” Ava said, not bothering to hide her relief.

“We can go back to my place,” Elena said. “Eat junk food and bash boys?”

Jill gave her friend a look. “You’re having guy trouble?”

“It’s not for me, honey,” Elena said soothingly, petting Jill’s head. “Is everything okay with you and Tom?”

“Yes,” she said automatically. “Everything’s great.”

Elena narrowed her eyes.

“Really,” Jill said. “He’s such a good guy. You all liked him.”

“Well yeah, but it doesn’t matter that we liked him,” Ava said.

“I like him too. Obviously. I love him,” Jill said.

And she did. It was just…

Every time they’d talked on the phone lately, it had felt… well, almost sibling-like.

He asked about her day, she about his. They laughed, and there were no awkward silences. She cared about what he had to say.

But something wasn’t right. She smiled whenever she saw his name on the caller ID, but there were no tummy flips. No slightly dry-of-mouth excitement to talk to him.

And there
should
be. Their relationship was young. They should absolutely still be in the tummy-flip stage.

And yet…

Had Jill and Tom ever really been in the tummy-flip stage?

Jill threw back the rest of her champagne.

The four women strolled out of the bridal shop empty-handed and headed toward Fifth where they’d have better luck hailing a cab.

Elena and Ava walked ahead, but Jill held back with Maggie, who was entering the
waddling
stage of her pregnancy and moving a bit slower.

Maggie linked her arm with Jill as they walked side-by-side in companionable silence.

All four women were good friends—Jill had known Elena the longest, of course. And then Ava had started dating Luc, and fit in marvelously.

And then came Maggie, who was welcomed to the group enthusiastically when she’d captured Anth’s heart.

But of all of them, Maggie was perhaps the kindest.

A kindness that Jill was occasionally jealous of.

Maggie was so damn sure of who she was, and who she was was just
good
. Maggie had once been the waitress at the diner the Morettis treated like their second home, but she’d recently made a career shift over to publishing.

A pretty perfect fit considering Mags was an author in her own right; she’d recently landed a book deal for a teen love story.

Add in the fact that she was married to the love of her life and pregnant with the first Moretti grandchild…

The bitter truth was, Maggie had everything Jill wanted.

Her footsteps faltered slightly as an alarming thought hit her upside the head.

What if
that
was the reason Jill had said yes to Tom’s spontaneous proposal?

Not because she wanted to marry
Tom
, but because she wanted everything that came with it.

Maggie stopped with her, turning her warm brown eyes on Jill in concern.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jill said, tugging her ponytail. “Maybe not. I don’t know.”

Maggie glanced up ahead at the other two women. “You want to go somewhere? Talk?”

Jill smiled. “You mean without Elena interrupting every five seconds?”

Maggie smiled back. “My sister-in-law can be… opinionated.”

Jill sucked in a breath at Maggie’s statement.

There.
That
was what was bothering her. When Maggie had said
sister-in-law
, Jill felt it all the way to her bones.

The truth of what was bugging Jill hit her like a bucket of ice water. Her three best friends were all part of the Moretti clan. Officially.

Elena
was
a Moretti. Maggie was a Moretti by marriage. And Jill had no doubt that Luc and Ava had a wedding in their future.

Which meant…

It meant that Jill was the only one of the group who
wasn’t
a Moretti. Would
never
be a Moretti.

And sure, they treated her like family now, but what about when she married Tom? What about if—
when
—she moved to Chicago…?

Jill sucked in a gasping breath.

Maggie put her hand on Jill’s back in alarm. “What’s going on, honey?”

“I don’t want to move to Chicago,” Jill said. The declaration came out a little breathy.

She bent over and rested both hands on her knees. Her breathing got even shorter—the air harder to come by as though it refused to enter her lungs.

Elena and Ava had apparently realized that they’d lost two of their group and turned back, and then they were there, each of them every bit as concerned as Maggie.

“What’s going on?” Ava asked.

“No big deal,” Jill said weakly. “Just having a breakdown here on the sidewalk for all to see.”

“Talk to us, Jilly,” Elena said, her voice gentler than usual.

Jill opened her mouth, but no words came out.

“She doesn’t want to move to Chicago,” Maggie explained quietly.

“Well, of course she doesn’t,” Elena cooed, cupping Jill’s face and searching her features as though looking for open wounds. “
We’re
not in Chicago.”

Jill smiled. Weakly, but still a smile.

“Have you told Tom this?” Ava asked.

Jill shook her head.

“You have to,” Ava said firmly. Kindly. “You’re one half of the relationship. You get a say.”

“I know,” Jill said, biting her lip. “I know that. And it’s not like he made a unilateral decision. We talked about it, and I agreed, thinking that maybe a change would…”

She broke off and the other three women waited patiently for whatever breakthrough Jill wasn’t sure she had the courage to reach for.

Maggie’s hand stroked her back. “A change would what—what do you need to change?”

Jill glanced at the ground, and Elena made a knowing, understanding sound. “Vincent.”

Jill’s head snapped up. “Vin and I are fine.”

Nobody said anything for several long seconds.

Ava broke the silence. “Maybe that’s the problem, hun. Maybe you want more than fine.”

Jill would have backed away from them had they not been surrounding her so completely. Instead, she settled for shaking her head. “I’m not following.”

It was a cop-out. She knew exactly what they were getting at. But denial was the easier path. And right now, Jill
needed
easy.

Elena’s fingers gently wrapped around Jill’s arm as she tugged her forward. “Let’s finish this conversation at my place.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Jill said stubbornly. “Vincent’s my partner, and he’s happy for me. We work great together, sure, but he’s the best detective in the city. He’ll get another partner, and—”

“And what?” Ava prompted as she lifted her slim arm to hail a cab.

Vincent will find another partner.

She’d be replaced.

Granted, it’d be of her own doing. She’d be leaving
him
. But the thought of him showing up to a crime scene with someone else by his side, talking over beers about a case with someone else…

Jill’s mouth tasted distinctly bitter.

“It’s just work,” she said quietly, to nobody in particular. “We’re just partners.”

None of the other women responded as they piled into the cab, and the long silence held an uncomfortable truth:

What if
just partners
was no longer enough?