"Damn, I was hoping she'd bitch slap him," one of the men muttered as David stormed away and Zoe walked into the office.

"There's always tomorrow," someone else said wistfully. Trevor didn't care enough to look up from packing his lunch back up to add to the conversation. It was a moot point since he really didn't think Zoe would ever have to raise her hand. With her quick tongue she'd never have to. She'd put any guy that f**ked with her in his place and probably smile while she did it.

"Maybe she'll sit on him," Hank mused.

"Or eat him," Craig said, chuckling.

Now that had his attention. He looked up in time to see several of the guys butting fists and grinning like idiots over the pretty stupid comments.

"Real nice, guys," Trevor drawled, grabbing his empty water bottle.

"Uh oh, I think we just insulted Trevor's woman," Hank said, laughing.

"Knock it off, ass**le. You know it's not like that," Trevor ground out. For the past couple of weeks the guys had been busting his balls with this bullshit. It had gotten old real f**king fast.

"Come on, man. It's okay. We all understand that fat chicks need love too," Craig said in mock sympathy, earning more chuckles and murmurs of agreement from the rest of the guys.

"Uh huh," Trevor said, grabbing his shit and walking away. Their bullshit annoyed him, but not enough to really care.

"Hey, Trevor, hold up!" Hank said, forcing Trevor to bite back a few choice words as he reluctantly stopped.

"What?" he snapped, not really caring that he was an ass**le since he knew what was coming.

Hank stopped a few feet away from him, looking a little anxious. "I was just wondering if you were going to join the guys tomorrow night for a beer," he grumbled, but they both knew that wasn't the real reason he wanted to know.

He wanted Trevor to hang out with him so that he'd have a chance at a higher class of women. If he found out the jerk used his name one more time to pick up a woman he was going to throttle the bastard.

"I'm not sure yet," he said even though he'd already planned on going. He just didn't want to get this ass**le's hopes up and have him hounding him all night and day about it.

"You should come out," Hank said, running a hand over his over-gelled hair to smooth it down as he gave the girl working the coffee truck, who couldn't be more than seventeen years old, a leering look.

With a snort of disgust he walked off, amazed that someone hadn't beaten the shit out of the bastard yet.

"Think about it!" Hank called after him. "It will do you a world of good to be around some women that don't outweigh you!" he said, laughing and making Trevor force himself to keep moving before he did something that would land his ass in jail.

**********

"Zoe?"

"Yeah?" she said, pulling her attention away from the computer. Not that she'd been working. Nope. She'd been too busy trying not to die of embarrassment to get much of anything done.

Although it was already the first week of October it was still hot, but not hot enough to run the air conditioner so she'd foolishly opened all of the windows to let in cool air and unfortunately heard more than she wanted to.

"Zoe?" Jared said, drawing her attention. She looked up at her boss, hoping against hope that he hadn't heard.

"Yes?" she asked, hoping he wasn't going to try and comfort her. She hated pity more than anything.

"Are you going to eat that?" he asked, looking down at her salad with diced up chicken and licking his lips as if he were staring at fillet mignon.

Relieved that he hadn't heard, Zoe sighed as she looked down at her salad. She was pretty hungry, but maybe she shouldn't overdo it, she thought even as her stomach protested.

"No. Do you want it?" she asked. She'd barely finished asking when Jared reached out and snatched up her bowl. Well, at least she cut out two hundred and fifty calories off her diet, she thought with an inward sigh.

"Thanks," he said, already picking at her salad and snacking on a cucumber slice as he made his way over to the refrigerator. "I need you to run an errand," he said, grabbing a bottle of creamy French dressing from the fridge and smothering the salad in it.

She licked her lips hungrily as she imagined how good that would taste. For the past two and a half months she'd forgone any type of condiment on her food, telling herself that she didn't any extra calories. After what she'd just heard she had to agree.

"Sure. What do you need?" she asked, grabbing her purse, glad to have a distraction from what she'd heard.

"Could you run some contracts down to the animal shelter? They need us to build some new kennels and fix one of the buildings," he said around a huge bite of salad.

"No problem," she said, getting to her feet.

"After that you can take the rest of the day off," Jared said, surprising her.

"A-are you sure?" Zoe asked nervously, even though by this point she should be used to Jared's kindness and generosity. It seemed that nearly three months of kindness wasn't enough to make up for three years in hell, but she was working on it.

Jared simply chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure. Get the hell out of here and enjoy your weekend," he said as he made his way to the office to get the contracts, but not before he snatched her ice water up on the way almost as if he couldn't help himself.

As Zoe followed after him she couldn't help but wonder if there was a name for this little food obsession all the Bradford males seemed to suffer from. Although, she wasn't going to complain about it since it was helping her lose weight.

Chapter 9

"Please don't look at me like that," Zoe whispered, feeling helpless as large brown chocolate eyes looked up at her pleadingly.

"It would never work out between us," she added, wishing Tom, the animal control officer would hurry back so she could leave.

Toby simply cocked his head to the side and let out one of the most pathetic whimpers she'd ever heard, causing her to worry her bottom lip.

"I'm sure a very nice family will come along soon and take you home with them," she rushed on, hoping she'd be able to convince him to stop making her feel guilty. "I'm sure they'll have plenty of kids to play with you and sneak you yummy table scraps. I'm on a diet so anything I gave you would be gross and nasty. You wouldn't want that, now would you?" she asked, sounding hopeful.

Instead of losing interest, he wagged his tail and let out an adorable little puppy bark. She frowned. Could a forty pound dog really be considered a puppy? She didn't think so, but Tom had assured her that the German Sheppard-husky mixed dog was only a puppy. She'd have to take his word for it since she knew absolutely nothing about dogs.

"Please don't look at me like that," she whispered, feeling herself weaken. "I can't have a dog, buddy. I'm sorry," she explained, but the look of adoration on his face said that he simply didn't care. "I rent and my landlord was very specific in the lease that I can't have dogs and if I take you home I'll have to find another place to live and I really like my place so please stop looking at me like that. I'm sure you'll have a new home really, really soon, okay?" she said, having absolutely no doubt that someone would scoop up the adorable dog soon.