Perfection (Neighbor from Hell 2)

"Oh, he's not my brother," Zoe said brightly as if she didn't realize the woman had just insulted her. She squished up her face adorably in thought. "At least not until he makes it legal with Jonathan," she said, her eyes flashing with amusement as she watched the woman take it all in.

Who the hell was Jonathan? he wondered as the rest of what she said set in and when it did he glared at her as he fought back the urge to pull her over his knee and spank the hell out of her ass.

"You know damn well-" he bit out tightly before she had the nerve to interrupt him with a teasing smile.

"They really are the cutest couple I've ever seen," she said dreamily, leaving him on the verge of committing murder.

"Y-your brother?" the woman next to him choked out, clearly not believing that he could be g*y. At least one person realized how foolish Zoe's claims were and-

"I should have known," the woman said, sighing as she gestured to the end of the aisle. "There's a larger bag on the top shelf," she mumbled before walking away, clearly not willing to waste another minute of her time on him.

"Thank you," Zoe said brightly, clearly fighting back a laugh as she threw him a wink and headed off, leaving him confused, pissed, stunned and admittedly impressed. Any other woman would have either freaked out over the insult or started crying, but Zoe not only ignored the woman's intended insult, but had come out on top, laughing and knocking him on his ass for shits and giggles.

Self-confidence like that was f**king hot.

It was too bad she wasn't his type, he thought as he walked past her, only pausing long enough to grab the bag out of her hand and give her luscious little ass a swat for good measure, grinning when he heard that little growl of hers that he liked so damn much.

It really was too bad that she wasn't his type.

Chapter 12

"I just took you out twenty minutes ago," Zoe complained even as she reached for the new black leash with the small baby blue teddy bear pattern that she'd bought during her second trip to the pet store and headed for the front door.

Sure she could have used the black leather leash that Trevor bought, but she liked this one. It was manly no matter what he said. The teddy bears were blue not pink, she'd pointed out when he spotted it during their last walk. That was immediately followed by a one minute glare that she found kind of cute.

She wasn't sure if he'd been pissed about the so-called "girly leash" or the fun she'd had at his expense at the pet store, but it hadn't mattered because both put a smile on her face. Several times today she found herself laughing at the memory of the little scene from the pet store. She really wasn't sure what she found more entertaining, the disappointed expression on the woman's face who thought just because Zoe looked a certain way that she was a pushover or the horrified almost comical expression on Trevor's face when her words hit home.

He really was an entertaining guy. Haley was right. Screwing over a man just for the hell of it was a lot of fun. It was also nice having someone in her life that she could joke with and just be herself. Over the past three years she'd learned to keep her mouth shut and accept all the crap life handed her as she tried to make something out of her life.

She'd never been a pushover a single day in her life, her big mouth guaranteed that, but working in that office had slowly sucked the life out of her, leaving her gritting her teeth and accepting whatever bullshit her bosses dealt her all while fighting the urge to open her mouth and land her ass in trouble. Turning into a meek little worker had been one of the hardest things for her to do, especially when she was used to speaking up for herself.

Growing up the way she had there hadn't been much of a choice in the matter since there was no one else to speak for her. Even though she'd had about a half dozen different social workers from the age of two until fifteen when she finally ran away, none of them cared about what happened to her. To them she was just a case they'd gotten stuck with and she only saw them about once a year when they had their mandatory meeting to make sure she was actually alive.

Her foster parents, all one hundred and fifty-three of them, had been a different story completely. Some had been nice, some not so nice and some had acted like she wasn't there, but in each and every home she'd been a paycheck and a charity case, nothing more. Not in one single home had she been treated or expected to act like one of the family.

There were always separate rules for her and the other foster kids in each home and different expectations. She was expected to do as she was told and keep her mouth shut when something happened that she didn't like. They learned quickly that they couldn't push her around just because no one cared about her.

She knew other kids kept their mouths shut, too afraid to upset their foster parents and be shipped off to a new home, but that wasn't her. The inconvenience of packing up her small duffle bag and going to a new home, dealing with new foster parents, and learning new rules hadn't been enough for her to keep her mouth shut. If they treated her like crap she spoke up, plain and simple. She never acted like a spoiled little brat who liked to bitch and whine about everything, but when she had foster parents who wouldn't feed her unless she worked for it or liked to hit her or some of the smaller kids, she spoke up, loudly.

Instead of coming to her aide and reassuring her that it would never happen again a few of her social workers actually told her to learn to shut her mouth, telling her it wasn't so bad and that if she wanted a roof over her head and food in her stomach that she needed to learn keep her mouth closed. Sometimes she followed that little tidbit of crappy advice and kept her mouth shut. She might have been a kid, but she hadn't been stupid. She knew no one was ever going to rescue her and love her and that she was damn lucky not to have to live on the street, but sometimes the way her foster parents treated her was too much and she couldn't keep her mouth shut no matter how much she wanted to.

It wasn't until she was fifteen and found herself living in an abandoned car that she realized that sometimes it was better to keep her big mouth shut, especially if she was going to make a life for herself. Although she did her best to curb her big mouth sometimes it still got her in trouble and she found herself in a sticky situation a time or two.

When she landed an entry level job with The N.W. Corporation a few years ago she'd forced herself to keep her mouth shut, knowing she didn't want to mess up the opportunity to make something out of her life. As difficult as it had been she learned to keep her mouth shut, mostly, until she barely recognized the person she'd become where being screwed over didn't bother her because she truly believed she'd move up in the company and all the nonsense they put her through would be worth it.