He reached across the table to take the iPad out of her hand. “I’ll take it back and get you something else-ow!” Trevor yelped, pulling his poor battered hand away from the crazed woman.
“Mine,” Zoe said, hugging the iPad to her chest as she glared at him.
“But I was just-”
“Mine,” she snarled.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. It’s yours,” Trevor said, secretly pleased that she liked his gift enough to attack him. Always a good sign when giving a woman a gift, although he couldn’t remember any of his past girlfriends, not that Zoe was his girlfriend, willing to harm him if he’d threatened to take a gift away from them. Not that he ever gave them anything more than a gift card for their birthday or Christmas, but still, he was taking it as a good sign.
“Thank you. I love it,” Zoe said, sounding close to tears again. Ah, hell, he’d rather have her attack him than cry.
“Zoe-”
“I’m fine,” she said, wiping at her eyes again. “I just need to use the bathroom,” Zoe announced, getting to her feet and reluctantly putting her gift down. “Thank you,” she said with a wobbly smile.
“You’re welcome,” Trevor said, wishing that he could take her into his arms and make her feel better. Maybe he should back off on their arrangement and let the poor woman get some rest. He really couldn’t have her crying over every little thing, especially now that he’d decided to get her that damn puppy.
Which he was naming, damn it!
She felt so stupid.
Why the hell was she crying all the time? Okay, so it wasn’t really all the time, but it was a lot more than she normally cried, which was pretty much never. Then again, she’d been pretty tired lately, but she was almost positive that had nothing to do with the reason why she was crying right now.
Trevor had given her the nicest gift she’d ever received. Growing up in foster care, she’d gotten a small gift from whatever family she’d been staying with for birthdays or Christmas. It was never anything special. Most of the time it was just something that they’d probably grabbed while they’d stood in the checkout line. The few boyfriends she’d had over the years had given her flowers or candy, basic dating fare. She couldn’t remember any of them giving her an actual gift, which probably had something to do with the fact that she usually didn’t have a boyfriend around her birthday or Christmas. She’d received a few little token gifts from friends over the years that she’d really loved, but no one had ever given her a gift like this.
The gift was so thoughtful and sweet. It was also something that she truly wanted. No one had ever taken the time to buy her something special for absolutely no reason and God help her, but she feared that she was a little more than halfway in love with the big jerk.
“That’s just what I need,” Zoe mumbled to herself as she pressed the wet paper towel to her eyes. It would just be her luck to fall in love with a man who would never see her as anything more than a convenience.
Unfortunately, knowing there was never going to be anything more didn’t stop her from doing something completely stupid like fall madly in love with him.
When this was all over, she knew that she would end up broken. Losing Trevor was going to hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced, but right now, she was pushing that depressing thought aside and focusing on the here and now. Right now, she had a great job, a great apartment, and a great guy to spend time with as long as they kept it simple.
Although it was actually starting to hurt that he wanted to keep their relationship a secret, she realized that in the end, it might be for the best. When this was over, she didn’t want anyone to look at her with pity.
Hellbent on enjoying her new gift, spending a little more time with Trevor, and hopefully getting answers to a few questions that kept her up late at night, Zoe forced all the depressing thoughts out of her head, left the bathroom, and came to an abrupt stop.
“You can’t ban us over that!” Jason said, holding Cole, who was happily devouring a cookie, on his hip as he was being herded out the door by what appeared to be a manager and several nervous employees. Granted, she’d be nervous too if she was responsible for coming between a group of Bradford males and food.
Seriously, what the hell happened?
She’d only been in the bathroom for five minutes, ten minutes tops. How exactly was that enough time to get an entire family banned?
Trevor, glaring at several young men who were obviously Bradfords, gestured for her to walk over and join them.
“Can you hold, Elizabeth?” Haley asked before Zoe could take so much as a step, startling her.
Zoe readied her arms automatically for the sleeping baby girl. She was so adorable, she thought with a smile.
“I can’t believe she managed to sleep through all of that,” Haley whispered, sounding a little freaked out. It was then that she noticed the woman was trembling.
“Haley, are you okay?” she asked, wondering what the hell just happened.
Haley forced one of her smiles, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Do you mind carrying her out for me?”
“Of course,” Zoe answered, finally noticing the horrified expressions on the rest of the customers’ faces as they watched the Bradford men being ushered out of the building by the terrified employees.
Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure that she wanted to know what happened.
