Excerpt of Made For Us by Samantha Chase

So many things were on the tip of Zoe’s tongue, but she kept them to herself. No need to cause an argument. In another ten minutes she’d be at her door and saying goodbye to him. Surely they could go that long without arguing. Maybe.

“Have you eaten dinner?” he asked casually. “As a matter of fact I haven’t. I had planned on grabbing some takeout and going home. You know, before the whole tire thing.”

Aidan nodded and turned in the parking lot of the local pizzeria. He parked his truck in front and climbed out, walking around to open Zoe’s door. “This place is the best Italian in town.” Once Zoe’s feet hit the ground, Aidan turned and walked toward the entrance.

Zoe stood there for a moment, a little shell-shocked. He didn’t ask if she wanted to eat with him or if she even liked pizza!

“Um…I don’t eat Italian,” she said, arms crossed.

So much for going for ten minutes without arguing.

Aidan turned and looked at her as if she had grown a second head. “What do you mean? Everyone eats Italian food.”

Zoe shrugged. “I don’t.” She tried to keep a straight face and not giggle at the indecision on Aidan’s face. He clearly didn’t know what to do with people not just immediately going along with everything he said.

Taking a step toward her, he said, “We can grab something else if you’d like.”

Ah, there it was. He was actually taking a moment to think about someone else’s feelings. She considered it for a moment, walked by him to the door to the restaurant.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I actually love Italian food. But I prefer being asked first if I’d like to have dinner someplace, or with someone.” Before he could respond, Zoe went through the door and up to the hostess, who led her to a corner booth. Aidan joined her, his expression guarded.

“So that was…what? You were teaching me a lesson?” he asked as he sat down.

Picking up the menu, Zoe simply shrugged. “It would have been nice if you actually asked me what I’d like to eat rather than just making the decision for me.”

Aidan was stumped. What was the big deal? He was hungry, she was hungry and neither of them had eaten dinner. They were passing the pizza place, end of story. Aidan wondered why he didn’t just take her home and get something to eat on his own. Trying to get this woman to soften up toward him was starting to feel like more trouble than it was worth. Not that he cared what this woman in her sexy pencil skirts thought about him. No sir.

Zoe’s face was mostly hidden by the menu, but he saw her smiling eyes peek at him briefly, and he could see her shoulders shaking.

She was laughing at him? Seriously?

“What is so damn funny?” he demanded.

“You have a lousy poker face,” she said, putting down the menu. “You looked like your head was about to explode.”

Nailed it in one. “Okay, fine. You had your fun. If you didn’t want to eat with me, you should have just said so.”

“Um…when? You pulled in the parking lot and climbed out of the truck without asking if I wanted to stop.”

Aidan looked up at the ceiling and then back at Zoe. “Do you want to eat or not?”

“That depends,” she said sweetly.

“On?”

“Are we going to share in conversation or are you going to be all bossy and dominate the whole thing?”

If Aidan didn’t know any better he’d swear that Zoe had talked to his family, or at least Darcy. Doing his best to relax, he picked up his menu to give himself something else to look at besides her distracting eyes, distracting hands, distracting everything. “We can talk about whatever you want.” His teeth were clenched so tightly that he was sure he broke a molar. He’d dealt with quite a few difficult clients in his line of work with no problem. Why did this woman make him so damn uncomfortable?

“If you weren’t grinding your teeth when you said it, I would have believed you.”

That was it. He was done. She was fired. He’d find another design firm because nothing was worth all of this aggravation. Slamming his menu down, he went to slide out of the booth when the waitress came over.