“Want my jacket?” he asked.
She glanced at him, surprised. In all the years they’d been working together, he’d never offered her his jacket. Held doors for her, put furniture together, even patiently held up artwork for her in her apartment so she could find the precise place to hang it…
But he’d never offered the jacket.
Granted, she usually had her own jacket.
But still, the offer felt personal somehow. And because of that…
“No, I’m okay,” she said.
She felt his eyes on her profile.
He stopped and she stopped with him, holding up a hand as he started to shrug out of his jacket.
“No, really, it’s okay—”
He moved closer, pulling his coat around her shoulders, and Jill’s objection scattered because the coat was warm and heavy and familiar.
She glanced up at him, but he refused to look at her, already walking away, his pace faster than before.
“If you’re going to be grumpy about it, I don’t want it!” she said, scampering after him.
He didn’t bother to look back.
She kept it on, even on the car ride back to their hotel, studying the well-worn sleeves. “Where’d you get this, anyway?” she asked. “You’ve had it as long as I’ve known you.”
“It was a gift.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay. I get it. The talkative mood is gone.”
It wasn’t until they pulled into the parking lot of their hotel that he spoke again. “My dad bought it for me. A graduation gift from college.”
She glanced at him. Vincent never talked about college. All of the Morettis had gone—a degree wasn’t necessary to join the NYPD, but Maria Moretti had insisted that all her children attend. She’d told Jill once that she wanted them to know that being a cop was a choice, not a family obligation.
The Moretti matriarch had wanted her babies to have options.
And then one by one, her sons had attended college. Graduated. And then promptly entered the police academy.
“Penn State?” she asked, searching her memory for Vin’s alma mater.
He nodded. “My family came down the weekend of graduation. My mother started squeaking about how I didn’t have anything appropriate to wear under the stupid cap and gown. My dad took me shopping with strict instructions from Mom to get a respectable suit. I saw this jacket and just… wanted it. It was badass, and man did I want to be badass.”
Jill smiled at the boyish admission.
“Your dad got it for you?”
“Not right away.” Vincent pulled into the parking spot. “It was ridiculously expensive. There was no way I was about to ask him for it, and I had exactly zero money of my own.”
He stopped the car, but neither moved. “I didn’t even realize he saw me looking at it until later that night when my parents gave me my graduation gift.”
Jill smiled at the sweetness of the memory. Tony Moretti was a gruff, but caring, man—much like Vincent. She was betting the moment was all the sweeter from the awkwardness of it.
“Well I appreciate you lending me such a beloved item,” she said as they walked into the lobby.
“Don’t be weird about it,” he muttered.
Jill smiled.
Yup. Gruff and caring all right.
The elevator ride up to their floor was quiet.
Vin paused outside his room, and Jill shrugged off the coat. She didn’t look up at him as she handed it back.
But then his fingers touched hers as he accepted it, and her eyes flicked up of their own volition.
It was a mistake.
Because whatever was written on his face made her want to lean into him—to toss that coat, beloved or not, to the side and wrap herself around…
She took a step back and swallowed.
Tom’s warning went through her head.
He wants what he can’t have.
She took another step back.
“Well, ’night.”
“’Night,” he said, his voice a little rough.
She nodded once, and started to move toward her own room next door when he caught her arm.
Jill froze, even as common sense made its first appearance of the evening and told her for the love of God, walk away.
“Jill.”
She bit her lip. She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. She only stared at his face, both begging him to let her go and begging him to say—whatever it was he needed to say.
His hand lifted slowly. His thumb brushed her cheek, just for the briefest of moments before this thumb and forefinger closed around a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail.
“I wish—” He cleared his throat. “I wish…”
Not yet, Vin. First I have to tell you I’m not engaged. I need you to know…
“Wait,” she whispered. “I don’t—”
His eyes seemed to shutter close, blocking all emotion, but not before she saw a flash of pain cross his face that felt like a vice around her heart.
But before Jill could correct him—before she could add the crucial words “not yet” to her rejection, he’d released her hair.
He turned toward his door, opening it and stepping inside before she’d had a chance to gather her thoughts.
“Vin—”
The door closed in her face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT