Three days ago.

Telling Maura she was following up on a lead, Jane declined the doctor's offer to accompany her on her excursion. It wasn't the purest form of the truth, but it also wasn't an outright lie, either. Jane was getting better at following Maura's lead in that regard.

The trek to New York was uneventful, but her nerves didn't appear with a vengeance until she was situated on the front step of an upscale apartment building with a doorman rapidly approaching her.

"May I help you?" the man in the tailored jacket asked.

Jane nodded, "I'm here to see Constance Isles."

He looked at her warily. "And do you have an appointment with her?" His eyes stared at her, almost like they knew the answer already.

"No," Jane admitted, but continued fluidly before he could formally deny her request. "But if you tell her that Jane Rizzoli is here to see her, perhaps she'd be able to find time at some point to meet with me."

He contemplated her over the rims of his glasses and stroked his beard once in indecision. "Very well, I shall see if the lady will see you." He gestured to a couple of plush armchairs as he lead her into the lobby. "Take a seat and I'll return momentarily."

She perched on the edge of one of the chairs and fought to resist the urge to fidget. Her scars were begging to be rubbed, but then the unmistakable sound of heels on stone stairs reached her ears. Her mouth was suddenly dry as she rose to her feet to greet her reluctant mother-in-law-to-be.

"Miss Rizzoli," Constance said, a question and condescension both evident in the tone.

"Mrs. Isles," Jane returned. Constance raised a groomed eyebrow.

"To what to I owe the pleasure, Detective?"

"I was hoping you'd have time to talk to me for a while," Jane admitted, refusing to look away from the other woman's steady gaze.

"About what in particular?"

"Maura."

Constance's eyes flashed briefly and her features hardened. "Is that really necessary?"

Jane blinked, "Of course it is."

Constance tilted her head slightly, scrutinising the brunette. "You see, Miss Rizzoli, I don't believe it is. You've come here because Maura asked you to, but all you really want is her money. Isn't that right?" She continued, ignoring Jane's look of pure incredulity. "So what's actually going to happen, Jane, is that I am going to write you a cheque and then you are going to leave my little girl alone so that she can have a real future with someone who deserves her."

Jane's mouth dropped open in shock before anger leaped to her rescue, "Someone like Garrett Fairfield?"

Constance half-smiled. "Well, if he wasn't in jail, yes, Garrett would be the perfect match for Maura. However, I'm willing to settle for any other Boston royalty bachelor. Any one of them would know how to treat Maura as she deserves."

Jane's stunned into silence. How can this woman so completely misunderstand her daughter?

The smirk that dominated Constance's face was purely victorious. "So, how much is it going to take? Twenty thousand?"

"Nothing," Jane bit out between grit teeth. The smirk froze. "My love for your daughter has no price. There is not a single thing that you could do to make me want to stop being with her. I know what you're capable of. I know that you could have my job, my bank account, my family's assets; everything. You could take that all away and it still wouldn't stop me from being there for Maura."

Constance paled as Jane stormed on. "There isn't a single thing in this world that means more to me than her smile or her laugh. Nothing on this Earth is more adorable than the times where she launches into a tangent about something that only she knows about because she is just so damned happy when she Googles on me like that. And then, sometimes, she gets embarrassed, which just makes it even cuter 'cause she blushes and smiles all small and shy like."

Jane's eyes drifted away from Constance and her lips quirked into a grin at the thought of her fiancée. "Have you ever heard that woman crack a joke? She's getting so much better at it and you can see how much pride she tries to hide when people genuinely laugh at one. And she has all of her little quirks that are just so ridiculously endearing, like how she doesn't guess or how she refuses to let any of her clothes be treated by less than perfect attention."

The look in Jane's eyes grew soft. "Or how she just loves to observe things. The knit in a sweater, modern art, books; all because she's amazed at what people can do. You can never mess with her shoes, unless you're Bass. God, she's so good with Bass, have you seen them?" She shook her head at her reminisces, making the question rhetorical. "Maur is like everything that's good in this world, you know? And you want to try and put a price on that." She turned to stare at Maura's mother, almost uncomprehendingly. "You can't."

Jane shrugged. "I won't deny that she could do better than me. I know I can't provide for her financially, not in the slightest," Jane looked at the floor while she admitted that. "But I can promise you that I love your daughter more than anyone else ever could and I will spend the rest of my life doing whatever it takes to make her happy. She deserves nothing less than that," Jane swore.

Silence stretched until Jane flicked her gaze back to the statuesque Isles in front of her.

"I can see why she likes you," Constance stated after a while. "Marry her, you have my blessing." Then she turned away and disappeared, back up those steps. Moments later, the butler popped up to escort her to the door.

Once outside, Jane stood there, flabbergasted by what had just occured. Then she shook herself and sped home, back to the beautiful doctor awaiting her.