But to her surprise he studied her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“That why you spent three months on the beach getting wooed by a millionaire while I got stuck with a Goddamn detective in training?”
“Hey!” she said, stung. “I wasn’t sitting on a beach, and you know it. I was making soup for my mother and vacuuming up year-old dust bunnies and going to the pharmacy every other day for her pain meds, and—”
“I know,” he cut in gruffly. “Sorry.”
She stopped her rampage, mollified only slightly.
He started to head back down the stairs, but she stopped him. “Vin.”
He turned around, and she glanced at her shoes, feeling silly for what she was about to say but wanting to say it anyway. Needing to say it so that they could be mavens and focus on work.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Okay, so I was thinking,” she said, licking her lips. “We never talked about… you know, me getting married.”
He jolted. “You want to talk about it now?”
“Well, I mean, we don’t have to make a wedding scrapbook together, I just… thought it was weird that we haven’t really acknowledged it.”
He said nothing.
“You never even said congratulations,” she said quietly.
He stared at her blankly. “What?”
Jill licked her lips, feeling more ridiculous than ever. “I just… my engagement. Your entire family was happy for me. But you… you didn’t say one word.”
“Congratulations,” he said flatly.
Jill rolled her eyes. “The navigator on my phone’s map app has more inflection than you. I don’t want you to say it because you’re supposed to, I want you to say it because you mean it.”
“That is such a girly thing to say,” he stated gruffly.
She ignored this. She had no problems being girly.
“Everyone, see, is happy for me, but you seem… pissed,” she pressed.
It bothered her. She didn’t need Vincent’s blessing. Didn’t need him to sanction her admittedly whirlwind courtship with Tom. Didn’t need him to beg to be a bridesmaid, but she needed… something.
He held her gaze for several minutes. “Are you happy?”
“Of course,” she said automatically. Of course she was happy. A gorgeous, successful man had approached her in a bar, bought her a drink, and then proceeded to court the hell out of her for the next three months.
No man had ever done that for her. Ever.
Tom Porter was every woman’s dream. He was her dream. Or at least, a version of it.
“You sure about that?” Vincent asked, coming back toward her.
She frowned in confusion. “Sure about what?”
He moved even closer, his gaze locked on hers. “Are you sure that you’re happy?”
He was only a few inches away from her, and for some reason she felt… aware of him. Of his closeness.
She felt the strangest urge to step back from his intensity.
It was just Vincent, she reminded herself.
He was always intense, but this felt different.
“Of course I’m happy,” she said.
“Huh.” He continued to study her.
“What do you mean, huh?” she asked testily.
“Just that twice now you’ve added an ‘of course’ to your statement.”
“What?” She was thoroughly confused now. “What are you even talking about?”
He rocked back on his heels, then forward again. “I’ve asked twice if you’re happy. You’ve responded with ‘of course.’ Twice.”
“So?” she asked, throwing up her arms in exasperation.
“So,” he said, leaning forward and down so they were face-to-face. “Sounds like you’re trying to convince someone.”
He turned and walked away then, heading down the stairs, and if Jill had anything to throw at him—anything at all—she would have.
“Who would I be trying to convince?” she called after him, before jumping into motion and all but running down the stairs after him. “You?”
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, so quickly that she nearly slammed into his back. Vincent’s hands found her arms to steady her, even as she glared at him.
He slowly dropped his hands, letting his arms fall to his sides, and something unreadable passed over his expression as he took a step back.
“Who would I be trying to convince?” she asked again.
His expression was both thoughtful and pitying, and once again, Jill longed for something to hurl at him.
“Poor Henley. Your time out of the field has made your deduction skills rusty,” he said.
“Meaning?” she asked as he turned on his heel and headed toward the kitchen to question the housekeeper.
“Meaning, I don’t think you’re trying to convince me of your happiness,” he said, not turning around. “I think you’re trying to convince you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I think you’re trying to convince you.
Jill glared down at her coffee. Vincent was wrong.
He was so wrong.
Jill was happy to be marrying Tom. Super happy. She was…
“Yo, Henley, hurry up.”
Jill glanced up from where she’d been blindly stirring her white mocha for the past three minutes to find her partner scowling—always with the scowling—down at her.