Free A Perfectly Imperfect Match (Matchmaking Mamas) by Marie Ferrarella Page B

her violin sob quietly. What she didn’t admit to her close confidante was that she’d gone the romance route and been rather badly disappointed. That was no one’s business but her own.
    “I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten to eat,” she told Jared. “My stomach is very good about reminding me that it needs to be periodically fed.”
    So saying, she liberated a piece from the rest of the pizza and, rather than put it on her plate, she brought the pointed edge up to her lips and proceeded to take a good-size bite.
    Her eyes fluttered shut as she allowed herself to slowly savor the taste. “This is really good,” she enthused.
    Watching her, just for a moment, Jared found himself caught up in the way she was relishing her food. Most of the women he’d gone out with seemed to pick at their meal, eating little and appearing to enjoy it even less. Eating pizza, especially the way Elizabeth did, would have been viewed as something that was beneath them. Eating with their hands was simply not done. “Uncivilized barbarians ate with their hands” was the way one of his dates had put it.
    He smiled to himself now, watching Elizabeth. There was definitely something to be said for “uncivilized barbarians,” he thought.
    “I know,” he agreed. “That’s why I suggested coming here. I’d rather have a good pizza than practically anything else. I think I actually horrified my sister by casually suggesting we have pizza at my parents’ anniversary celebration. I had to reassure her that I was kidding.”
    Elizabeth scrutinized his handsome face for a moment. “But you weren’t kidding, were you?” she surmised. Before he could answer, she asked, “Do your parents like pizza?”
    “They do,” he admitted. “But I have a feeling that some of their friends will ask them if I’ve suddenly fallen on hard times if I have their thirty-fifth anniversary catered with pizza.”
    Personally, she liked that idea. Serving something simple that most people really enjoyed. She firmly believed in the “life is short” adage and felt that people should be able to do what they liked—as long as it didn’t hurt anyone else—and having pizza certainly wasn’t hurting anyone.
    Subtly, she tried to steer Jared toward rethinking his menu choice. “You know, there’re a lot of different varieties of pizza—you could go all out and have the caterer come up with, oh, twelve or so different kinds so that people could have their choice and still have pizza. Frankly, in my opinion, having all those different kinds to choose from beats having to eat a single, set meal.”
    Maybe she had something there, Jared thought, turning the idea over in his head.
    “It does, doesn’t it?” he said thoughtfully. “Still, I know how my sister’d react, and, frankly, there isn’t a meal in the world that’s worth having to endure Megan’s ire when she goes on a tirade.” He shrugged. “Going along with her choices saves a lot of wear and tear on a person’s nerves. And lately, she’s been more high-strung than usual, but then that’s to be expected, I guess.”
    He realized by the silent, befuddled look on Elizabeth’s face that he’d left out a single, rather salient detail in his narrative.
    “Oh, I think I forgot to mention that my sister’s pregnant with her first child. And right now, not the most patient of people—not that she was exactly the soul of patience before.”
    In all honesty, they couldn’t wait until the ordeal was finally over—and she still had three months to go. Just before his sister left on a cruise that her husband had booked for them as a surprise, Megan had been lamenting that she already felt so huge. Jared had tried to persuade her otherwise on numerous occasions...but there was no consoling her when she called him in hysterics from the cruise ship terminal because a fellow passenger asked if she was carrying twins! He still shuddered every time he remembered that excruciatingly awkward phone