Cuff Me(34)

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.”