Right. In. Front. Of. Him.

“Nothing,” she said, shooting him a frown as though he was the one that had lost his goddamn mind.

“Move,” he bit out between clenched teeth as she lazily crossed one leg over the other, leaned back and grabbed-

“Please tell me that you're fucking kidding me,” he said when the crazed woman reached back and grabbed the clipboard that had helped make his life a living hell over the last five years.

He still wasn't sure how she did it, but whenever she felt the urge to see if he was willing to do ten to life behind bars for manslaughter, she pulled out that damn clipboard. She never carried it around, but it always seemed to be within reaching distance, something that had driven him nuts until he realized that he was allowing this small, plump pain in the ass to have that much power over him. Once he’d figured it out, he'd forced himself not to care that she was able to pull that fucking torture device from thin air and ruin his whole fucking day with just a few key, “points.”

“I had to switch Jen to the morning shift, because I have an appointment this morning. But, I should be back in time for the lunch rush,” she began, trying to prolong the inevitable and bringing this whole thing to a new level of fucking pathetic.

“There's no point in you coming back,” he explained before finally adding, “you're fired.”

“Uh huh,” she mumbled absently, clearly ignoring him, which unfortunately for her was one of the things that pissed him off the most about her.

Well, to be honest he hated a lot of things about pretty much everyone. Except for his family. He tolerated them, because he had to or his mother would probably beat the shit out of him.

Then his father would, of course, feel obligated to kick his ass for upsetting his mother.

Then his brothers would try to kick his ass. That is, if he survived the ass whooping from his father, which wasn't likely. So, for self-preservation, he tolerated his family.

To a point.

He might have to acknowledge them and refrain from killing them when they annoyed the shit out of him, but he didn't have to let them in his restaurant no matter how much they bitched and God, did they bitch.

“I'll be back for the lunch rush,” the thorn in his side repeated, reminding him that he was supposed to be living out his fantasy.

There was no way in hell that he was allowing her to ruin this for him. He'd dreamed of doing this and now that he was doing it, he was going to savor every second of it.

“You're fired,” he repeated, taking perverse satisfaction in letting those two words roll off his tongue.

“I had Eric go through the refrigerator this morning and clean it out today instead of tomorrow since we’re getting the delivery in the morning,” she said with a little frown that he refused to find adorable as she absently reached down, grabbed his coffee and took a sip before he could stop her. As soon as she was done, he took the cup away from her.

“Didn't you hear what I just said?” he asked with a glare as the frustrating woman took the cup out of his and took another sip before handing it back to him, leaving him sitting there, glaring at the woman that refused to leave.

“I also had to let Jeff go this morning,” she said, grabbing his attention in a big way.

“You did what?” he snapped, taking note of the time that she'd set a new record for making him lose his fucking mind.

“I fired him,” she said with a shrug as though it was no big deal.

It was a big fucking deal!

“Who the hell do you think you are firing one of my employ-,” he started to demand only to get cut off and left speeches by the little brat as she tossed the clipboard to him, hopped off his desk and headed for the door.

“He was calling hookers from the business line and using petty cash to pay them. Well, I'll be back in a few hours!” she said cheerfully as he sat there, staring at the door long after she’d left, wondering how she’d managed to keep doing this to him.

It wouldn't happen again, he promised himself as he grabbed his own clipboard and headed for the morning meeting, determined to salvage the rest of the day. When he was done he’d come back and try this again, but this time he would succeed. After he’d finally managed to fire her, he would focus on finding a way to evict the little pain in the ass from the apartment he’d stupidly leased to her.

Chapter 2

“What happened?” Melanie, her best friend since the second grade and roommate, asked as Rebecca quietly closed the door behind her.

“He fired me again,” she admitted as she tried to go for casual while she walked through their loft-style apartment and headed towards the bathroom.

“Gonna be sick?” Melanie asked around a yawn from where she lounged on the couch with a magazine, a Coke and her reason for living, a double chocolate fudge Pop-Tart.

“No, no of course not,” she lied, barely resisting the urge to place her hand over her stomach, dive for the wastebasket by the kitchen island and finally find some relief from the damn nausea that had been plaguing her since breakfast.

“Really?” Melanie asked, cocking a brow as she continued thumbing through her magazine, pausing only long enough to push back a thick strand of her honey blond hair.

“I'm fine,” Rebecca swore, forcing herself to stop a mere twenty feet from her salvation.

“Really?” Melanie asked, not sounding as though she really believed her, which of course was a problem since Rebecca really didn't want to go to this appointment. But, unless she was able to convince Melanie that she was fine, she-

“You're not getting out of this appointment,” the bossy woman announced with a bored sigh, making Rebecca regret offering to share her juice box back in pre-school.

“I'm fine,” she bit out, outraged that her best friend refused to believe her.

“Then explain why you're pale,” Melanie demanded, still not looking up from her magazine. Then again, Melanie probably didn't need to after all these years to know when she was sick.

“Because I'm Irish,” she reminded her inconsiderate friend.

“And the trembling?”

“Leftover adrenaline surge from my meeting with Lucifer,” she explained with a small sniffle, hoping to play on her best friend’s sympathetic heart to get out of this since the last thing that she wanted to do was waste her day at another doctor’s office just so they could tell her that it was all in her head.