Second Hand Waitress

"Twelve weeks," Kira whispered. "This week, her eyelids started forming properly."

"'Her'?" Tesah asked gruffly. Kira snapped out of her thoughts and focused on him again.

"The baby is a 'she' this week. Last week, it was a 'he.' Last week was exciting—the baby started making tiny fists. Can you believe that? A little life, barely the size of a prune, with tiny hands that can make fists?"

"Can you feel it doing that? Making fists and all?" he asked, sounding curious despite himself.

"No, I can’t," she admitted. "I’ve been reading this week-by-week pregnancy book. It’s really helpful."

There was another long, awkward silence. Kira was trying to think of a way to get him to leave. "I wish I had security guards too," she muttered, mostly to herself.

Tesah frowned. "So you could kick me out?" He sounded more amused than offended.

"I want you to leave," she said honestly. "I don’t like having you here."

"I came to tell you that I agree to your terms. I’ve signed the papers. If the baby is mine, I’ll provide financial support."

"You won’t try to take her from me?" she asked softly, voicing her biggest fear.

"No. Your baby doesn’t concern me. You don’t concern me. I just want this over with as soon as possible."

Kira had expected this response, but it still hurt. Not for her sake, but for the baby. She had always known where she stood with Tesah Clover, but her child deserved better. A father who cared. But Tesah was cold and distant—he would have been a terrible father anyway. Kira had grown up without a dad, and even though life had been tough, she had survived. Lexington barely remembered their father; the man had stuck around for five years before leaving their mother less than a month after Kira was born. Their mother had never been stable, and after struggling for a few years, she had left them with their grandparents and disappeared to Asia. They never heard from her again. After their grandparents passed away, Lexington had received word that their mother had died. He had flown to Nepal to handle her funeral, returning with only a few boxes of her things. And that was it—a lonely, sad ending to a lonely, sad life.

"Why didn’t you just send your lawyer?" Kira asked Tesah. "You didn’t have to come yourself."

"I wanted to make it very clear—this is all there will ever be between us. Just financial support for the child, if it’s mine."

"Understood," she murmured. As if she needed him to spell that out for her.

"And I wanted to say... maybe I acted too quickly in firing you."

"Too quickly?" she repeated. "Try unfairly. And harshly. You treated me like a criminal. Do you have any idea how humiliating it was to be thrown out by security? I didn’t even get to say goodbye to anyone. People think I was fired for stealing!"

Tesah shifted uncomfortably, his broad shoulders tensing.

"That wasn’t my intention," he said.

His words made her even angrier. She hadn't realized just how much the whole situation had affected her until now.

"Is that supposed to be an apology?" she challenged. "Because if it is, you need to do better."

"Look, arguing won’t solve anything," he deflected. "I want to offer you another job."

"In HR?" she asked, deciding to let the topic go for now.

"No, that would raise too many questions. I want to transfer you to the Medina office."

Oh, so he wanted to move her far away. A different city, far from her cousin, Becky, and her friends. Wouldn’t that just make his life easier? Not that Kira wanted to stay close to Tesah, but she didn’t want to feel like she was being pushed away either. She just wanted to move on and forget she ever met him.

"I can’t move to Johannesburg," she said firmly.

"Be reasonable. You’ll need a job. You can’t raise a baby with just the support money I’m offering."

"You be reasonable," she shot back. "Sure, a salary would help, but I also need emotional support. I need my cousin, Becky, and my friends. I need to be somewhere familiar. This is my first pregnancy, and I’m doing it alone. The last thing I need is to move to a strange city."

He was silent for a long moment, then finally nodded slightly.

"Fine. I’ll see if I can arrange something else," he conceded.

"I don’t need any favors from you, Mr. Clover," she replied. He almost looked embarrassed at the title he had once insisted she use. "Just child support. You don’t have to take responsibility for any other part of my life."

"Still, I’m the reason you lost your job. I acted rashly, and I want to make up for that."

"A good reference will do just fine," she said.

Something in the back of her mind warned her not to trust him, the same instinct that had tried to stop her in Medina. But, just like before, she ignored it. She had her pride. Depending on him for child support was bad enough—she wasn’t about to depend on him for a job, too. Not after the way h

e had fired her.

And, she noted, he still hadn’t actually apologized.