Cuff Me(19)

“I must be out of practice,” Jill said with a tired sigh. “Because for the life of me, I don’t know where we start tomorrow with this case.”

“Me either,” he admitted.

She lifted an eyebrow. “I wondered why I wasn’t getting your smug, I-know-it-was-you vibe all day. I thought I was rusty on my Vincent-reading skills too.”

You are, he wanted to say.

But that wasn’t fair. Not really.

He couldn’t expect her to read him, when he didn’t have a read on himself.

He didn’t know what he wanted her to look at him and see. He only knew that something was very, very wrong. Starting with the fact that she was going to marry another man in…

“When’s the wedding?” he asked.

Jill’s beer glass froze halfway to her mouth, and she lowered it without taking a sip. “So I guess we’re not talking about the case then.”

He popped a handful of nuts in his mouth. “We’re off the clock.”

“That hasn’t stopped us from talking about work before.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you avoiding the question?”

Jill puffed out her cheeks and then slowly blew out a breath the way she always did when she was annoyed. He took a sip of his own beer and studied her.

Interesting.

Interesting that she should be annoyed about a topic that should send her over the moon.

And she’d been plenty happy to talk about wedding stuff with the women of his family last night, so it was obviously just with him that she didn’t want to discuss it.

He leaned forward. “Come on. If you can’t give me a date, at least promise me I’ll get to be a bridesmaid.”

She smiled, and he was relieved to see that it reached her eyes. “You’re going to look so pretty in pink.”

He winced. “Don’t tell Nonna that. She’ll make it her life’s mission to get me into a pink bow tie. Seriously though, when’s the big day?”

“We don’t know yet.” She fiddled with her glass. “It’s all been happening so fast.”

“You think?”

She glanced up. “If you don’t approve, you can just say so.”

“Who said I didn’t approve?”

She gave him a look. “Your scowls. Your grunts. Your silences.”

He shrugged. “I’m always like that. Even when I’m happy.”

This time it was Jill who leaned forward. “So you are happy?”

“You are so damn annoying,” he muttered.

She sat back in her seat and studied him, then leaned forward again, her face all kinds of animated. “Okay, two things. First, that is such a pathetic non-answer. I’m disappointed in you. Second, it doesn’t even make sense considering earlier today you accused me of not being happy.”

He leaned even closer. “Speaking of non-answers, you didn’t exactly rush to reassure me that you’re over the moon about your fiancé.”

He drew out the last word, and it came out just slightly mocking.

She didn’t look away, but he had the sense that she wanted to. “I answered.”

“So you are happy?” he asked, turning her own game around on her.

Someone who didn’t know her as well might not have noticed the half-second pause. But he noticed.

“I’m happy,” she said.

“Uh-huh. So just to be clear, you’re one hundred percent happy to be marrying this Tom guy, whom you’ve known for all of three months?”

“Absolutely. Very happy.”

He studied her face for several seconds, then shrugged. “Then it’s like I said. I’m happy if you’re happy.”

That was mostly true.

“You don’t mean it.”

“Well, you’ll have to excuse me if the news of you marrying some tassel-shoed millionaire isn’t the impetus I need to turn into Mr. Smiley.”

“What is the impetus you’d need then?” Jill snapped back. “Because I’ve known you for years, and I’ve yet to see a damn thing that makes you feel anything other than irritable.”

Vincent took a sip of his beer, annoyed to realize that this was the second time in one evening that he’d felt an uncomfortable sting at her words. Vin had no illusions about the type of man that he was. He knew he was prickly and guarded and too intense.

But for some reason, he’d always thought that Jill saw past all that—beyond it. He’d always thought that Jill got him. Liked him for who he was.

But now—now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe she didn’t know him.

Because he sure as hell wasn’t sure that he knew her anymore.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked quietly.

“Like what?”

“With so much… dislike.”

“I’m not.”

Jill threw her hands up in frustration. “I’m so glad you asked me to drinks so that you could alternate between telling me how unhappy I am about my engagement and then not talking to me at all.”

“I’ve never been particularly talkative,” he said slowly. “Never seemed to bother you before.”

“Well, it bothers me now,” she said, mostly to herself.