She’d just given herself a stern lecture, calmed her shaking hands and was preparing to return out front when Ralph burst through the doors, a scowl on his face.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Kelly frowned. “I work here, remember?”

“Not anymore you don’t. You’re out of here.”

Kelly paled and stared at him as panic rolled through her chest. “You’re firing me?”

“You walked out yesterday during our busiest time. No word, no nothing. You didn’t come back. What the hell did you expect? And now you’re back here this morning and I have a diner full of pissed-off customers because you don’t have your head on right.”

She took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. “Ralph, I need this job. Yesterday… Yesterday I got sick, okay? It won’t happen again.”

“Damn right it won’t. I never should have hired you in the first place.” He curled his lip in disgust. “If I hadn’t needed a waitress so desperately, I would have never hired a pregnant woman to begin with.”

Oh God, she didn’t want to beg, but what choice did she have? The chances of her finding another job at this advanced stage of pregnancy were nil. All she needed was a few more months, just until the baby was born. By then she’d have enough money to stop working and take care of her baby. She’d have enough money to finish the rest of her classes.

“Please,” she choked out. “Give me another chance. You’ve never heard a single complaint from me. I’ve never missed work for any reason. I have to have this job.”

He pulled out an envelope from his shirt pocket and thrust it toward her. “Here’s your final check, minus the hours for yesterday’s disappearing act.”

She took it with a shaking hand and he turned and walked out of the kitchen, the door swinging wildly behind him.

Anger and frustration overwhelmed her. Ryan was still ruining her life, months later. She yanked off her apron, tossed it in the direction of the hook and then left through the back entrance, squinting when she was nearly blinded by sunlight.

As she walked back toward her apartment, she stared at the envelope in her hand. Despair weighed her down until each step felt unbearable. Her damn pride. She should have taken the check Ryan had given her. To hell with him and his nasty accusations. That check represented a way for her to finish school and provide for her child.

She had every reason to refuse it. To tear it up into little pieces and shove it under his nose. Maybe that’s why she’d held on to it for so long because a part of her wanted the satisfaction of throwing it back at him.

It had been important to her that he know she wasn’t some whore to be bought, but what had that got her? A dead-end job that sucked the life out of her on a daily basis and a shabby apartment that she never wanted to bring her child home to.